JulieAloha

It’s the morning of Christmas Eve, I’ve already checked Twitter, FaceBook, and the few Blogs to which I subscribe, played FarmVille and CastleVille, showered, washed hair and packed to visit the folks for the Holiday. It occurs to me that I haven’t done anything with my own Blog in a very long time, so here goes.

It’s been a long, hard year, 2011. Well, not all of it, but there has been a great deal of grief and stress and hardship in my life for just one calendar year. I started off badly with a major cold combined with a possessed car in the very first week – my car’s starter went insane and refused to turn off even when the key was removed until it drained all the battery’s juice and conked out in the middle of the road…at 6:00am…in a rain storm. My health continued to be touchy all winter, culminating in a diabetic breakdown in March. Several trips to the ER and several EKG’s later I was assured I was not pre-heart failure (all evidence to the contrary), but my continual illness and related rising stress had put me into a cycle of degrading health. After 10 years of controlling my diabetes with diet and exercise, my body began to give up. I started taking Metformin to control my blood sugar and began to recover …oh…so…slowly. We lost a dear friend in our office manager, Dorothy – I was devastated by her death and still feel her loss keenly. The end of the school year came (and with it an extremely fun trip to Las Vegas with my Mom) and I looked forward to the Summer Program…and there’s where everything took a dive. I have to be careful what I say, this is a public blog, but suffice it to say my relationship with my boss took a 180* turn and I found myself hounded and persecuted all summer long, as well as into the school year. I made the “mistake” of questioning my director’s hiring practice and from that point on was demeaned, spied upon, set up for failure and accused of unprofessionalism and misconduct. My friends and peers were turned against me and the stress put my health into danger. I couldn’t eat in the mornings, facing work, I threw up every morning, I gagged uncontrollably at work, and I failed miserably. Finally, on the advice of my Union Rep, who had been assisting me in attempting to rectify the job situation, I sought help from both my doctor and a Counselor. I was ordered by my doctor to cease work immediately for the remainder of the Summer Program and he had doubts about continuing in the Fall if my health didn’t drastically improve. My blood sugar approached 400 by that point, my blood pressure was high for the first time in my life and I’ve had to begin medicating for that now, I began to have serious neuropathy in my feet and legs and I’d even done some damage to my voice from vomiting so much. In spite of my sugar levels I had lost 15 pounds over the summer and my A1-C tests were lower than before summer, so it was clear that the abnormal highs were caused by stress. Once school began, things improved slightly for a time, but then I was hit again by certain coworkers who banded together against me, trying to force me to resign a Union position, basing their complaint on events from the summer which were A. Supposedly confidential, and B. frankly none of their business. They started a petition against me, which went nowhere because their complaint had nothing to do with the position they wanted me to resign. I feel almost completely isolated at work; there are only a few people I feel I can trust and I’ve lost two people I considered best friends because they were put on the spot and, when push came to shove, they abandoned me.

On the bright side, I am healing in both mind and body (that which does not kill us makes us stronger…and more introspective), continuing my med regimen, diet and exercise as well as ongoing Counseling (thank you, Lila). I have a solo tomorrow, Christmas morning, at my parents’ Church; I’m singing Gesu Bambino and very much looking forward to it and I anticipate good things in 2012. I know there will be strife and hardship to come, but I hope I can face it and overcome it with grace.

I can honestly and with a clean heart wish you all a Merry Christmas and Holiday season.

-Julie