Category: I’m only human

Lupus: Destruction. New Home

Posted on by Faith

Evevn though I’m not over here actively dying of kidney disease I’m kinda flipping out about it. With Lupus the most precious organs you have are the kidneys, lungs and heart. Lupus is going to attack them!

The only thing wrong with my heart is the right branch bundle block and the left bundle block. No artery disease. No failure.

I have three times tested for difficulties with my liver which means I’ll soon see the specialist.

Things are yucky right now. Day after day of yuck. Lupus rolls through damaging whatever is in its path.

Thursday is the move! The place I’m moving to has an entire care system. They have :

  • Independent Apartment Living (me)
  • Assisted Living
  • Nursing Home

There’s a transition program in between Assisted Living and Nursing Home but I don’t remember what it is.

I llike the idea of being set up with a very nice health system on the side of town where a big part of my support system lives.

I hope things go well here. I’m looking forward to a new home.

Faith Magdalene

April 4th. Hope.

Posted on by Faith

I was able to get the new apartment but I no longer believe this is going to stop because I move. It’ll just be on a different playing field.

My new home will bring better neighbors than the horrific individuals I live by right now. It has a more home like feel to the building instead of here which looks like an institution with long, horrible hallways that get worse with each step. It’s truly Stephen King.

At the new place I’ll have to work on the legal aspect of things. I’ll start a new page of my life, where he’ll mess around and find out.

I have every intention of living quietly. I pray for peace. I pray for wisdom and the right words at the right time. I pray for prayer. Yes, that I remember to keep praying because it is my lifeline, my hope.

The scenery will change, and I need that. The neighbors will change, and I need that. But there’s nothing that says this guy is going to let me go this easily, just move out. He thinks he owns me. He harasses me daily. He has harmed me daily is all I can say. This man is either going to harass me there or I’ll never live in that apartment at all due to violence on my person before I get there.

I’ve asked for police help and got hung up on. #RafaelSanchez is someone here in the city I tried to contact, with no success. But that’s all here not at the new place. It WILL be different there. It’s not hopeless. The move is a positive step towards figuring out what on earth is going on with this person who has been openly stalking me for a year now.

I know two things

Posted on by Faith

A person trying to be helpful gave me a word to describe my situation. I thought it was legitimate and not a delusional disorder for the love of Pete! The man contacted me via social media and said it’s gangstalking. I thought he was trying to be helpful.

Here’s the two things I know for a fact!

1. My upstairs neighbor started harassing me by stomping on the floor, then his behavior escalated. I’m afraid of him and his two friends. He’s stalking and harassing me.

2. None of this is about art sales, as was suggested. Art is helping me survive it, like it has helped me survive so many other things.

Art is my go to coping skill. When stressed it’s natural for me to produce more artwork and post it right in the middle of the ongoing issue. These are my coping skills. I’m taking a Saturday crochet class. Pray for me. Lol. I’ve got to learn.

Faith Magdalene

A Little Light

Posted on by Faith

The phone rang and it was Mark. I thought, how strange but I picked up. He said, “XYZ Apartments Called. You’re at the top of the list. They said to call them.”

I was thrilled and very pleased with my God because at the very moment of the phone call I’d been packing my apartment. Yes, pulling art off the walls and packing to move. I knew in my heart I was going somewhere. I didn’t know where but I did know He wouldn’t let me down.

Ì was packing when I got the call for the interview which is next week. The move would be at the end of next month. This gives me time to buy a bed in a box and get rid of this horrific hospital bed that failed in several ways. I’m ready for one mattress on a metal box spring. Easy! I found one that’s 18 inches off the ground. The idea would be storage.

Even if this apartment slips away, my application has been approved by two other complexes. There’s light at the end of this tunnel.

My CNA will help me pack. We’re going to use moving bags, totes and only a few cardboard boxes.

Faith Magdalene

It’s Just a Foot

Posted on by Faith

I owe you an apology. Please, wake up, I owe you an apology. I said it was just a foot and not worth dying over because I didn’t understand. Tears swell in my eyes. My lips begin to trimble as I stand before headstone after headstone. Wake up! every Granny, aunt, uncle with a leg, arm, hand or foot they let get too bad until it was too late and tell them I was wrong. It’s not just a foot is it? No. Not when it happens to you. Instantly you understand your humanity.

The wind hesitates. I pretend to breathe. I owe you an apology.

I didn’t know the brain would need to rewire. I didn’t know the fear you’d live in of another amputation, or of physical therapy.

“She’s your nurse” doesn’t contain the impact a stranger has of touching every inch of your body at all times, of dangling fingernails over all your belongings leaving nothing untouched, feeding garbage food you can barely taste because life itself is stale.

Sweetheart wake up. Wake up. I touch another headstone. I didn’t know it would be this hard.

For the living

I’m colder than I’ve ever been. I’ve felt more pain and fear in the last 7 years than the previous years of life. Only 2% of the time do I think to myself, I should have died. Most of the time I’m happy I made it but I’m in the crowd that has to say I was wrong to pass judgment on people who couldn’t see the amputation through. It’s not just a foot. I was young. I didn’t know what I was saying. Who am I to say who does or doesn’t have the strength to endure an amputation?

Faith Magdalene

Tea and Snuggle Strength

Posted on by Faith

Joe is a guardian cat. A watching feline. A gentle whiskered friend whom I adore. It’s just that sometimes the psychosis pushes me away from him a little, away from people a little. I want to isolate.

I have to force myself to accept this new mental weirdness and fear. I wear paranoia. I’m dripping in it. I only know to fill my cup and clean my paint brushes. Art it out!

Covid-19 handed me a fever high enough to leave permanent hallucinations and damage, for which I feel shame. But my cat Joe still finds me palatable to love and be seen cuddling, openly. His love gives me a little more strength to keep going.

What goes in your cup of trials and stress to dilute it so you can do one more day ? 🙂

Tea cup art by Faith Magdalene Austin

Awake Stroke Recovery Art

Posted on by Faith

Finishing “Awake” took much effort but it is here, reworked, beaming with color and striking details.

Bellow are my comments.

I woke to a new existence somewhere unknown, they called it a stroke. Now words come like slow snails, or they are kidnapped so as not to form on my chapped lips. 

I painted the emotional roller-coaster I felt as I played tug of war with my body, emotions, speech and interpersonal relationships. Ultimately I felt lost, defeated and misunderstood. I also thought I’d never paint again.

Grueling therapy and persistence with paint brushes helped me get to the point where I can say I’m awake. I’m awake to what has happened and the I’m happy the hardest part of it is behind me. Awake is about surviving the body after stroke and making it my new home.

You will find more images and a short video on Etsy. I also accept PayPal.

Thank you for letting me talk. Thank you for visiting SUNDRIP Art for Life.

Faith Magdalene

Validation. Symptoms. Wording.

Posted on by Faith

A nurse came out to assess me for continued in home nursing. I asked about the difficulties I have with speech but not with reading. She said my speech and memory issues are related to the stroke.

For example, say I may want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I’ll get the bread and peanut butter, however I will ask the nurse to get the jelly. I can see the jar in my head but the word won’t come out for anything. But if the jar is turned around with the label facing me then I can read it and say “may I have the jelly please”. Otherwise we could be sitting there for three weeks with me trying to get the word jelly out of my mouth. I can picture the object in my head but it’s as if the word is trapped.

I’m not accustomed to being believed. It was hard to admit how often it happens.

The nurse said this is related to the stroke. I thought I was just growing stupid with age. As it turns out, it’s not stupidity at all, but a symptom of something else.

Sometimes the words used to describe myself are a bit harsh.

When in bed, only in bed, primarily on my right side, heavier at the feet and head, my body jerks really hard, like really hard. Hard enough to wake me. I have a semi electric hospital bed, noise thing. I jerked really hard, slammed on the bed frame and woke the neighbor directly above me. We have paper thin walls, but still. Not sure if the doc is going to take that seriously or if it’s going to get brushed aside like many things appear to. I know when I lie down I’m going to have to deal with the hard jerking around. It seems to have increased lately. Interesting.

Faith

Another Long Day

Posted on by Faith

I wonder if my cat hates my job every bit as much as I hated my mother’s profession? How many times have I said to Joe Schmoe, “Here I come?” but made him wait a long time in dead silence? How many times have I sworn to take a break? “Really, here I come.” Sometimes he looks lonely. I worry he feels ignored just like I did.

Instead of papers and pencils it’s paint brushes and canvas.

I enjoy brushing Joe and chatting at him. The aides adore him and take over loving on him; and I let them. When they leave it goes back to being me and him in silence.

He’s sleeping in bed with me again. He sleeps by my head, curled up, back to me, in silence. It’s always so quiet in here.

I’m at the table, back to Joe. Right now I can only hear the trickle of the waterfall in the Betta tank. Ah, but what is this? Joe has turned the tide? He came to sit beside me and break being apart in silence. He kissed my hand and lay beside me. I’ve got to go. There’s no way I can do anything but spend a few moments with him just as he is asking.

My heart is smiling. The day has been given a great gift.

Faith Magdalene