But wordpress ate it. :-(

So here, have a song instead. One of my happy songs that I never, ever, ever get sick of, what with being a colour junkie and all. :-)

On the 13th of December, Feathercini joined our little family:

A gorgeous little baby budgie, very tame, very cheeky, with a lot of attitude and a lot of soul.

Yesterday, he died. I held him as he took his last breaths.

He brought a lot of joy for the 8 short days we got to spend with him.

There are a couple of likely causes of death (nothing we could have known about), and the people at the pet shop were very kind when I rang and will give us a new budgie when we’re ready. I don’t want a new budgie though. I want my Mr Feathers back.

I’m really upset. He was supposed to mark a new beginning – the start of better times. And now he’s gone.

Fly free, little bird… you were loved.

I guess I’ll have to go back to late last year (I can’t believe I haven’t written in here for over a year… actually, coming to think of it, after all that has happened, I can!). In late November the kids and I travelled to Switzerland to visit my parents. Both kids had already been there once when they were toddlers, but this was their first “conscious” visit that they can actually remember. We stayed there for nearly two months and even though there were some issues, as there always are when you put me and my parents in the same room/house/town/country, I was well prepared for them and a good time was had by all – mostly, anyway.

On our way back we got stuck in Singapore for 18 hours due to a technical problem causing a delayed flight out of Switzerland, which then led us to miss our connecting flight in Singapore. But it wasn’t really a big deal and we made it back safely.

The jet lag seems to get a little bit worse every time I do this trip – I guess it’s got something to with getting older. But this time I wasn’t only jetlagged – I also seemed to suffer from some strange kind of culture shock, which I had never experienced before. I generally like coming back to Australia – after all, it has been my home for 13 years now – but this time I found myself wondering what the heck I was doing here, and questioned my decision to live so far away from my family and friends. For a while there I felt completely lost and adrift, and it took me a few months to feel really settled and at home again.

Just a week after our return, the girl started school. It was hard for me – she’s my baby after all, plus I remember my own traumatic primary school years all too well, and was worried that she’d have a similarly bad experience. Fortunately she took to it all like a duck to water, and my worries were unfounded. She really loves school, she has made good friends, and she’s doing very, very well – the teacher has only ever had positive things to say about her. She’s one of the most advanced readers in her class (which scored her a Principal’s Award!) and is a hard and diligent worker. I am very proud of her. :-)

For me there followed a period of severe insomnia, where three or four hours of broken sleep counted as a good night, and I dragged myself around like a zombie. I tried several sleep meds in the process – strong ones, too! – but they did absolutely nothing. You know you’ve got a problem when 10mg of Mogadon only knock you out for 4 hours! Some time later, the anxiety started. I have suffered from anxiety before – it often goes hand in hand with my depression – but never quite like this. I was practically climbing the walls. In late April I finally went to see a GP (which was a bit of a gamble, as our local medical centre is one of those walk-in ones where you never know who/what you’re going to get), and was extremely fortunate to find my now regular GP, who is wonderful. Luckily she didn’t just send me on my merry way with yet more drugs, as a lot of other doctors surely would have done. She was thorough and ordered scores of blood tests, and I was found to have a hyperactive thyroid, which certainly explained the sudden severe anxiety. By early May, I was seen by a specialist and there was a whole lot more poking and prodding – x-rays, ultrasound, thyroid scans, a bone scan and a bone density scan (a hyperactive thyroid can make your bones brittle, hence the bone density scan). Luckily the specialist didn’t tell me until after the “all clear” that she was worried about me having cancer due to my big weight loss and the various aches and pains I had been dealing with.

So no – no cancer, thank goodness, but I was diagnosed with Graves’ Disease, which is an auto-immune disorder. When you have an AI disorder, the body basically attacks itself – in this case, the thyroid. Fortunately, the thyroid meds I was prescribed soon had me feeling better and there was no need for any more drastic action. The whole thing came out of the blue for me as I’ve never had a thyroid problem in my life.

Seeing that Graves’ Disease can damage your eyes, I also had to see an eye specialist, because my eyes did feel a bit strange at times, and a week before that appointment I also had an eye bleed in my right eye, which came out of the blue and made me look like a one-sided zombie! Fortunately my eyes got the all clear, my vision is still 19/20, and the eye bleed was just “one of those things”, nothing to worry about.

At the same time, we also dealt with a family member having some difficulties – I won’t say more for the sake of their privacy, but it was a bit scary there for a while. Luckily we got good help and things went back to normal for them fairly quickly.

For me, not so much. The pains that had flared up around the same time as my thyroid went haywire decided to stick around, and got worse. It was now suspected that I may suffer from rheumatoid arthritis, as the bone scan had shown some problem areas. I trialled a number of drugs that were supposed to help with the pain (but didn’t), and saw a rheumatologist in early July, who diagnosed me with fibromyalgia. It didn’t come as a huge surprise – I’d certainly heard of fibro and sometimes wondered whether my symptoms may point to it… but it’s still not really something I wanted to hear. I guess it’s a “better” diagnosis than rheumatoid arthritis in so far that it won’t damage your body the way RA does, nor is it progressive, or fatal. The bad thing about it is the fact that it’s unpredictable and hard to treat. I tried physio, which was a disaster, and I’ve seen an osteopath a few times, which can provide temporary relief or trigger more pain, depending on how it goes. I’m on an anti-depressant which is approved for the treatment of fibromyalgia (Cymbalta), but it hasn’t really done much to reduce the pain. And when it gets really bad, I take painkillers, but I try to keep those to a minimum. So, basically, I have had very few pain-free days since around March – April. Some days are quite OK and I feel just a bit achy, other days are awful and I feel like I’ve been run over by a truck, and even my skin hurts. My main problem areas are my hips, elbows and lower right arm, but I also get pain in my neck, shoulders, wrists, fingers, upper and lower back, legs, knees and ankles – in other words, just about everywhere. It kind of travels around and you never really know where it’s going to pop up next. Fibro also causes a great deal of fatigue, which can be just as hard to deal with as the pain. There are many days when I just HAVE to have a daytime nap to make it through.

At around the same time as I got the fibro diagnosis, another family member went… well, let’s just say, a little bit crazy and off the rails. I can’t/won’t go into details on the www but some of you will know who I’m talking about. I battled for over a month trying to get help and sort things out with minimum bloodshed, and if you’ve ever been dealing with the “system”, being sent from pillar to post and back again, you’ll know just how frustrating that can be. It was without a doubt one of the most exhausting situations I’ve ever dealt with and I ran from appointment to appointment, trying to get legal advice (which is far harder than it sounds when you’re not loaded!), medical help, etc. Never again, PLEASE!!!

As soon as things had settled down a bit on that front, I fell into a deep depression, probably partly due to the exhaustion. It lasted for over 2 months. I’m used to being depressed – I was first diagnosed with depression at age 17 and have had many severe episodes since. But this was different in so far that I seemed to have reached the end of my tether and felt that I just couldn’t take it anymore. So, add exasperation and sheer despair to the mix. Here I was, wondering if this was always going to be my life (a psychiatrist told me as much in September – along the lines of “just get used to the fact that you’re always going to be miserable and it’ll never get better” – thanks doc! NOT!) and why the heck I just couldn’t get better and why all the usual techniques (i.e. a heck of a lot of counselling, CBT, various meds, etc.) weren’t working.

To cut a long story short, in October I was finally diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, which is an autism spectrum disorder. I know that a lot of people will think of “Rain Man” when they hear of autism, or of a non-verbal child sitting in a corner rocking without making eye contact. Those who know me IRL may find it hard to believe that I have a form of autism. What you have to keep in mind here is that it really is a spectrum – ranging from very severe, barely functional, to high-functioning, barely noticeable. I’m obviously at the high-functioning end. Asperger’s has only been a formal diagnosis since the mid nineties, even though it was discovered in the 1940s. So that’s why it wasn’t picked up when I was a child – also, females present quite differently from males, their symptoms are often less severe and they are able to adapt better, which makes it even harder to diagnose. I had long suspected that I was on the spectrum, but I finally needed a formal diagnosis for my own peace of mind.

I won’t go into lengthy explanations about Asperger’s – there’s plenty of material about it online if you are interested. But I have to say that finding out I’m an Aspie has been a blessing for me. For the first time in my life, I make sense. I finally understand myself and why I do the things I do, and why I am a bit weird and people phobic, and never really fitted in anywhere. It was like having puzzle pieces slotting into place left, right and centre, and I’ve been able to let go of a whole lot of guilt and self-loathing that was making me so miserable. Like many Aspies, I still feel like I’ve landed on the wrong planet, but at least I know why. I know why I get anxious when I have to deal with people and why I’m not really good at social interaction, and I can cut myself some slack over it. I know it’s not just in my head and there’s a name for the things I’ve struggled with for so long. The depression has eased considerably since I got my diagnosis. I’m still seeing the psychologist who diagnosed me and she’s helping me figure out some things – i.e. how to make dealing with people easier etc. I still have lots to learn but I am so much more at peace now. I don’t think I will ever think of it as a disability – just as a different way of looking at the world and processing information.

I’m currently also dealing with a loss – I am grieving. No, nobody has died, there hasn’t been a funeral… and it wasn’t a break-up either – at least not in the strict sense of the word (it’s a long, long, loooooong story I won’t go into here). But when a person you love with all your heart and soul exits your life, it feels a lot like a death. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so much (emotional) pain in my life and right now it feels like it will never get easier, but I guess I’ll get over this too… I just have to give myself time and allow myself to be sad.

On a positive note, the kids are well and the budgies are well too. :-) I’m planning on getting another one soon (a budgie, not a kid – that would require some sort of miracle!).

So that was my 2010, in a nutshell. I have learnt a lot and feel as though I’ve come a long way from who I was at the beginning of this year. I am a stronger person for it, and I have found out who my true friends are. But having said that, I am hoping for a much quieter, smoother 2011, during which I will hopefully spend a lot less time at medical appointments… they were practically a full-time job for me this year (not to mention the $$$). Fingers crossed!

Needless to say, I haven’t been able to do much knitting due to the fibro pain, and I have had a great big break from yarn dyeing too. I plan to get back to it though – I have plenty of ideas and kilos and kilos of undyed yarn just crying out to be splashed with colour! So stay tuned if you are one of my lovely customers. :-)

Anyway, I’d better stop here because this is turning into a novel. Congratulations if you’ve made it this far – thanks for reading and leave me a comment to let me know you were here (you can do so without having to register). :-)

Wishing all of you a peaceful Christmas with your loved ones, and a happy, healthy New Year. Even though I haven’t talked to any of my friends much this year, you guys are always in my thoughts. xxx