Just One More Spoon

I have the flu. Add to this the most recent complication, pleurisy, on top of the usual lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, and what you have is a very sick Rhonda.

If you’ve never heard of the Spoon Theory, I strongly encourage you to follow the link I just provided and read about it. Here is the original essay by Christine Miserandino. Give it a read, too. It’s good stuff.

Right now in rescue I have the usual 20 dogs, 12 cats, goat, pig, 3 birds, and rabbit to deal with. In addition, I have a mommy dog and ten puppies who require lots of picking up after. I don’t get the luxury of sleeping all day, or lounging around to let my body heal. If I don’t get up and let the dogs out, I then have to clean the mess they make in their kennels. It’s never-ending. We feed upwards of fifteen pounds of food every day. That’s fifteen pounds of waste I have to deal with in a legal and sanitary manner. I have zero help in rescue at this time. Nobody I can call. There are many reasons for this and I won’t go into them in this post, but if you’re curious, you can read some backstory HERE.

The Spoon Theory talks about how people like me who suffer from chronic illness have to ration resources like energy and strength just to get through the day. Usually, my good days will grant me about twenty spoons, and if I use them wisely and get plenty of rest, I do just fine. But here comes the flu, automatically knocking me down to about ten spoons. My productivity has been cut by half, at least. Now pleurisy? Take away another five spoons. Now I have only five spoons to last the whole day, unless I’m able to rest a bit and recover a spoon or two at some point.

This is what my day looked like today: get up 8 a.m. with five spoons. Let the dogs out, take medicine (prescription for lupus, plus ibuprofen for pain and cup of herbal tea,) make sure everyone has water. Down to four spoons. Go back to bed until noon. Get up, five spoons again. Repeat the process, down to four spoons. Time to sit and plan a necessary trip to town to buy dog food and pig food, plus a few supplies for me. I have to keep in mind how many of my resources this will cost me, and make decisions accordingly. Such as: which store sells our usual brand of dog food (to avoid tummy upset from switching formula and thus more cleanup) and has employees who will carry the 50-pound bags of dog and pig food to my car. Carrying them myself as sick as I am would result in either not enough spoons left to drive home or a call to nine-one-one for an emergency trip to the hospital, although I usually manage to carry heavy things short distances when I’m not sick, as long as I have the opportunity to rest afterward.

In this case, our local Southern States fit the bill. So--drive to the store, make the purchases. Still hovering around four spoons. Drive to small department store and buy things for me. Six bags of grocery items, some of them heavy, like cleaning supplies. Load them in vehicle. Now I’m down to three spoons. Coughing my head off, sweating profusely. No telling what my blood pressure is at this point. Drive home. Realize that carrying all those bags across the bridge and up the steps will require all my spoons, so a compromise is necessary. Decide which grocery items will not be harmed by sitting out in the weather. Thankfully, it’s the heaviest ones. Leave three bags on the bridge and carry the rest upstairs. Down to two spoons. In tremendous pain from the pleurisy, flu, and RA, and can barely breathe. Dizzy. Still sweating.

Let the dogs out again so they can get some sunshine and not soil their kennels. Decide which ones can stay out. Check email. Drink fluids. Clean up a couple of accidents on the floor. Since I have orthostatic complications as a result of lupus, bending over to clean requires an additional spoon. I have one spoon left.

So what can I do? Dishes are piled in the sink. The floors need to be swept and mopped. Cardboard kennel liners need to be changed, although they are just shredded rather than soiled. I still haven’t brought all the groceries in. A delivery of more cardboard for kennel liners will be here in about an hour. Push through it and risk passing out (which happens sometimes,) falling down the steps, a stroke from high blood pressure, or any assortment of problems stemming from my cocktail of disorders? I like to think I’m tough, but you don’t tell someone who is allergic to bees to “just push through it” if they get stung. You don’t tell a diabetic with blood sugar levels of 30 to “just push through it.” If I “just push through it,” I could end up just as dead. Then what’s to become of these dogs and cats and pig and goat and birds?

So I lie down, and pray I get a spoon or two back before the boxes arrive. The lady who brings them will help as much as she can. She is an angel of the highest order. But she, too, suffers from rheumatoid arthritis and is herself limited. Where are the so-called animal lovers and people needing community service hours? I have no idea. We’ve spent years appealing to locals for help, and though we receive some sporadically, in the end, the realities of actually rescuing live animals proves to be too much work and inconvenience for most.

I’ve posted this from bed, as I lie here trying to get my heart rate and blood pressure down, and wait for the ibuprofen to curtail some of the inflammation. I’m terribly thirsty and at risk of dehydration, but getting up too soon will cost me another spoon. This reminds me that I haven’t eaten today, other than a pastry for breakfast. Not enough spoons in reserve to cook a meal.

I weigh the pros and cons of “pushing through it” and decide to stay where I am. With any luck, I can unload the cardboard into my blazer and not have to carry it across the bridge. If I can recover two spoons while I lie here, that will restore me to three. The boxes will cost at least one. Depending on how that goes will decide if I get dinner afterward or go back to bed. I also have to feed the dogs tonight and clean up behind the puppies again. I would give anything I possess for just one more spoon.