Uprooting and Stress: Is There a Better Way?

Imagine this with explosive diarrhea

     

Nature's Pain Relief

       Dude. I don’t even know where to start. It has been such a whirlwind and at times it feels as if I am barely hanging on, fingers about to slip into the swirling vortex of stress, anxiety, and, at times, depression. Fun times, right? Let’s not forget about the physical effects of this emotional turmoil, as I live with fibromyalgia and small fiber neuropathy, which can be aggravated by stress. Good thing I am not stressed, right? Oh, and diverticulitis and IBS are also affected by stress, so we’re over here playing naked Twister, trying not to soil ourselves. Great visual, right?            

So, how did we get here? Trees and heat. Seriously. See, I am not a fan of the heat and grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, where the use of air conditioners was not something that was common, as the fog would often roll in, working as Mother Nature’s air conditioning. I currently live in the desert. Sure, there are some trees, but nothing like I lived among in the Pacific Northwest, where I was living prior to moving to Texas, then New Mexico. Fortunately, I work from home, so as long as I have an internet connection and WiFi, I’m good. Well, my boyfriend has been putting in for jobs with his company in various states, but all of which had cooler weather and either medicinal or recreational marijuana. Those were our main criteria.

Animals are friends for life. Not disposable. Not ours to eat or breed.

            Fast forward a few months and DING-DING-DING, we are bound for Durango, Colorado. Oh, and his supervisor wants him there in about two weeks. TWO WEEKS. TWO. MOTHERFUCKING. WEEKS. Not a problem. Let’s just work on finding a place, packing up all of our belongings, including our dogs, a turtle, and fish (because we are not the kind of people who put dogs up on Craigslist for “free” because they are moving to a new place that doesn’t allow pets), and move to another state in two weeks. Simple, right? Fuck.

            So, in order to ensure that we are not homeless once we arrive in Durango, we took a trip up there. Leaving a little before 5am and getting back after 10pm, it was a long day. But, we met with a realtor who showed us a place that we had been talking with the current tenant and landlord. Everything was going well until Monday morning, today, when I received an email from the current tenant, who stated that the landlord was not satisfied with our background check (namely my credit report), and as such, we would not be considered further for the house that we wanted to rent. Hopes? Dashed to smithereens. My heart sank.

Guaranteed to make you feel sexy as hell

            Perhaps my mood to hearing that we wouldn’t be able to rent the house we looked at was intensified due to an event that occurred earlier in the day. I have been having terrible post nasal drip for the past few months. It got to the point where I physically collapsed several times, hitting my head on a hard surface a few times due to becoming very lightheaded while trying to clear my throat of stuff that can only be described as having the consistency of cold molasses. I finally conceded to go to our local VA health clinic, where they gave me a shot of an anti inflammatory and prescriptions to the EXACT SAME FUCKING THING I HAD BEEN TAKING. Same dose. They then told me to come back into the clinic within the following week if I am not feeling better.

Not so Breaking News

Well, I am not feeling better, so I went back to the VA clinic this morning, prior to hearing the news about the place. Good thing too, as I would have probably been placed on a 5150 hold and unable to do the things I need to do in regards to the move, school, and work. After filling out the triage form, I took a seat and waited to be called back to be seen. That would not happen today, as a nurse (?) called me up to the window and told me that they can’t see me anymore since I had been referred out via the Choice program and had a civilian primary care provider now. Well, I saw that person once, for about five minutes, and she didn’t listen to me at all during that time. I was also told the previous week to return to the clinic location if I wasn’t feeling better. See the frustration?

Not actual house

So, we’re back to square one, looking for a place to live, while residing in a different state, seven hours away. We have expanded our search radius. I didn’t want to, as it snows there and my boyfriend will have to drive in the snow, which is why I wanted to be relatively close to his work, which is in Durango. We will be filling out more applications. One place looks like a murder house, but it’ll do for now, as the owner will be fixing it up more come the warmer months and then put it up for rent for a much higher price I presume.

You can donate by hitting the word PayPal

I am not one to ask for help lightly. I often pride myself on my ability to do things all by myself. However, I am not sure I will be able to maintain my sanity without a little help. I have been diagnosed with a number of chronic pain conditions, which are intensified by stress. I am trying to keep myself together, as the next month will be very stressful. If possible, if you feel so inclined, I have set up a link via PayPal if you would like to help me to maintain some sanity while we go through this stressful time. My boyfriend’s company isn’t providing any relocation assistance, so it’s just us, our savings, and rescues. After we get settled in the new place, wherever that may be, I will be working on my mental and physical health, finishing up my last course towards my MS degree in Clinical Psychology with a specialization in Applied Research, and hopefully able to breathe once again.

Thank you for reading and feel free to share this post with others 😀 

What's Bugging You?

Imagine this. You move into a place, thinking that it is a step up for the same price you were paying, only to find out that it’s already occupied. Not by squatters, but rather blood sucking parasites. No, not Republicans, but close. Ticks. Yes, those horrid little buggers that are the things of nightmares and associated with Lyme disease. Well, that is our story.

We moved in on Sunday the 21st of February. The roof of our previous rental had been leaking and the management hadn’t patched the hole in the ceiling and sagging drywall in almost a year. So, we were looking for a new place, with a new roof, and possibly an extra room since I had my gym in the garage. That wouldn’t be too much of an issue, but we live in southern New Mexico, where the garage would only be inhabitable for six months out of the year, if that. We found that our current rental property manager had a different place available, for the same price. It was a three bedroom house that had a larger yard, which is important when you have dogs. Since it was the same company, we were able to transfer our security deposit to the new house, so that was an added bonus.

The actual moving part went well, no terse words were exchanged and no injuries occurred. We ordered takeout for dinner, since we were famished and everything was still in boxes. During dinner, we started to see a few bugs come in through a gap in the sliding glass door that the handyman had recently installed. We tried to identify the bugs through a Google search during dinner, but we were not really familiar with the bugs we were seeing. They kept coming in though. They were crawling on the floor, on the walls, everywhere. I sprayed them with the only thing I had available at the time, which was a bottle of 409. Note to readers, 409 does not kill ticks.

We decided to go to bed and try to get some sleep, since it was a long day of moving and whatnot. As we were in bed, with our dogs (since they are part of our family), I started feeling things crawling on me. I was flicking them off of me several times a minute. I ended up driving to our old place (which were were in the process of cleaning out and had until the 1st of the month) and tried to sleep on the floor. Bugs were still on me. I emailed our landlord to tell her about the issue and then eventually got to sleep, around 4 in the morning. I woke around 6 and saw that my landlord had emailed me back, stating that she had no idea that there was an issue and that she would try to get the exterminator out there that day.

I ended up going back to our new place, and with the help of my boyfriend, packed up our dogs and took them to our old place so that I could give them all flea and tick baths. Going on very little sleep and high emotions, this was not a fun feat. Dogs washed, I was exhausted, but there was nowhere to sit or lie down at the old place, since I felt like I still had bugs on me. I took a shower and cried hysterically (one of many such showers during the past two weeks) until the water ran cold, trying to scrub the bugs (real and imaginary) off of my skin.

The exterminator ended up coming out and sprayed inside and out. He said that we were infested with ticks. There were thousands of them. THOUSANDS! He said that we should be seeing the number decrease and that to call if they are still bad in a few days. Since that day, we have spent over $200 on pest control out of our own pocket, primarily for the dogs...flea and tick shampoo, tick spray, tick collars, perimeter spray, etc. I also vacuum several times a day, making sure that I have some Diatomaceous earth in the vacuum to torture the ticks before they die.

Our valiant efforts to slay the ticks were not sufficient nor effective, so the exterminator came out a second time. This time saturating the entire place with a substance that promised to be the end all for these creatures. We are seeing fewer of them, but I am still sweeping up 1,000+ per day outside on our patio. Yesterday our package from Amazon arrived, which contained a pest spray, pump sprayer, and tick collars for the dogs. These collars came highly recommended and were a decent price. Well, the dogs had been treated with a tick spot treatment, tick spray, and now tick collars. All of the chemicals are just killing me. In the 11 years that Peggy Sue has been in my life, she has never had a single tick or had to be treated with such chemicals. We even used to go hiking through the woods at least once a week, never getting as much as a hitchhiker from the trips. Now, she is the one that we pulled the largest tick.

Last night, the ticks were back in our bed, which led to horrible sleep and a hangover feeling that I experience when I don’t have sufficient sleep and am under stress. I work from home, so there is literally no escape. I smell like I am at a sleepaway camp, but without the fun and treats. I am covered with OFF (with DEET) and have found several ticks crawling on me today. One of our dogs which we place a collar on last night wasn’t acting herself this morning, so I took off her collar and gave her a bath.

Had we known about all of the issues, including a dishwasher that doesn’t really work, a garbage disposal that doesn’t work and smells like the bottom of a dumpster, a fridge that has a mysterious odor that comes and goes (no, it’s nothing IN the fridge, so I have no idea), and the tick infestation that has caused us to put countless chemicals on our dogs and ourselves, there is no way that we would have moved here.

This place is nearly uninhabitable. It is not good for my mental or physical health, nor is it healthy for our dogs. At least our landlord appears to be concerned and has reimbursed us for our costs associated with the tick infestation issue. It’s funny (not lol funny though) that the handyman noted that there were a lot of bugs (ticks) in the frame of the sliding glass door when he replaced it, but instead of doing anything about it, he just replaced the door and framing.

I don’t really feel like unpacking at all and have lost close to 10 pounds since we started moving (about a month). This is probably due to not wanting to be in the kitchen since there are...yup, ticks in there too, and just being too stressed. I am not against moving again, to a house that doesn’t have any ticks and all of the appliances work. It sucks that the place we moved out of had everything that I liked, including a fireplace and working appliances...oh, and NO TICKS! I just want to live in a place that is safe, clean, and habitable. Is that too much to ask?