Today was another reflective day for me. I have been struggling with myself. I sort of feel like I've hit a wall temporarily. I've been going full speed ahead and I almost need to just sit back and be okay with slowing way down and spending time evaluating myself. Going through these life changes are very difficult. I'd like to be able to go from room to room without having to think so hard about how to do it. So tiring!!! The only break I get is when I'm sleeping. I already spent a lot of brain power interpreting what I hear...now I have to interpret what I don't see. Could we not have a worse combination of disabilities!!! I had one of my counseling session and we discussed something I thought was very insightful. If I could just take it one day at a time I would probably find things to be less stressful. I've always been a planner and it's stressing me out. I can only see the big picture and it looks so daunting and overwhelming. I can not see how I will survive...but I know I will. I just have to look at it one day at a time. We also discussed how people with significant trauma in their lives tend to be overwhelmed by uncertainty. Someone in a major car accident may wake up at times after recovery unable to go without being terrified of what is going to happen to them on a given day. Fear is a key word. Well in my case this disease has so much uncertainty with it and I seem to be stuck in this giant land of limbo. I am too blind to do such activities as drive or walk casually and uneventfully through a store without the need of a cane. Yet I am not yet totally blind so I don't quite fit in there as well. It's a very disturbing sense to feel like I don't quite fit and I'm not sure what I can do about it. I'm also terrified that I don't know what my future holds. I'm trying to prepare the best I can but I don't know how to plan for it. Will I be total next year, or in 10. Will I be able to do graduate school? Can I be a mom? Is my hearing going to drop too? I have a hard enough time with the hearing I have and being unable to read lips anymore. I can't lose what I have. I am really afraid of what I may have to face in that department. It seems like I am living like I have been traumatized by this...and in a way I have. It's such a drastic alteration to life as I knew it. It's frightening and I have no control of it.
OK enough reflecting. So far I am now in grade 2 braille. Grade one includes the alphabet, and all punctuation. Grade 2 is when contractions come along. Fun but so much to learn. For example the letter c by itself means can. There are symbols for parts of words, like: ed, ing, ch, and others. There are symbols for words like and, of, with, and others. It shortens how much you have to read and makes everything fit better onto pages, but it's a lot to learn. I don't know how I am going to remember all of them. I have also been learning how to read and track the lines. They feel so close together that moving from line to line often ends with me missing lines, returning to previous lines, or completely lost somehow. Wheew...lots of stuff to know.
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