Growing Stronger...

Well, last week yielded a rather pleasant surprise. When my little Virgil passed away and we adopted Sparda, we thought that we had a male dumbo rat to go with a male fancy rat. For the weeks we had Sparda we thought we had made a great pairing and that everything would be great from that point. What we never expected in a million years was to wake up to find some pink little babies among the bedding. Sparda had 3 babies in total, but unfortunately, only one of them has survived as yet, the other 2 may have come out dead so we aren't too concerned right now. Mother and the remaining baby are doing very well and we are going to call him/her Lucky.

I think what has been getting to me most recently is that I hadn't admitted to anyone that I had been feeling a bit low. Maybe it was "pred blues" or worries about everyone else, but I had been thinking some very dark things and contemplating things that I would rather not tell people about. The way I was raised was to keep it to myself unless its too much to take, and above all, NEVER ask for help. I have finally reached out to both Jace and Becky and told them that the way I have been feeling has been causing me strange nightmares again (one of which was about standing on a ledge and being poised and ready to leap off to the concrete below). Maybe there is an element of mental exhaustion as well as the obvious physical exhaustion that I feel when I have one of these chest infections which are so stubborn that they refuse to go. Even after 2 weeks of antibiotics. It does kind of suck, but I am trying my hardest to keep positive which is sometimes difficult in the situation.

The problems with the man upstairs are still persisting but we are slowly getting through it and we are going through the proper channels to ensure that this is resolved. The council should really consider what they are doing when they move people from certain backgrounds in to communities where there are many disabled residents as well as young families. We will get somewhere with all of this, I assure you, but it will be a joint effort between everyone in the community (we have been talking with the neighbours about it and we are all coming together once again, the last time being when someone tried usurping my home from under me last year) and we are all putting in our protest to the council as the dispersant units don't work and they are only becoming a hive of criminal activity such as drugs, antisocial behavior and other not so pleasant things.

One thing I noticed 4 days ago however, I have been living at my property now for 2 years. It doesn't feel like that long since I walked out of the extortionate Redditch YMCA (rent costs almost £100 a week so I heard recently for a tiny flat with little or no facilities) and moved in to the flat here. It was strange to think that the last time I walked out of that place on that Saturday morning, I would never cross that threshold and enter that flat again. I have been happy since leaving and I have spent my time here making the home (which I now share with Becky and our adorable animals) as lovely as possible. We have a good relationship with the local community and we all come out to chat when the weather is warm (and I am also having a puppy from a neighbour as well in the next few weeks). It is a nice place to live and do love it here.

I am still fighting against the infection however (I know, its been a pretty gruelling fight going in to its 5th month (not sure how that is even possible?!) and I have stopped counting the courses of antibiotics) and we are trying yet another approach. So its 10 days of a completely different medication called Ciprofloxacin (probably one of the clumsiest names for a medication that I have ever heard of) and I am hoping that we are going to lick it this time, else things may wind up being a lot more extreme and I really can't entertain that notion right now as it would probably involve lengthy hospital stays and other things that I am really not going to want to do, but I am doing my best to stay positive about things, its all we can do right now. Apart from take the right medication when it's required.

One good thing that has come from me finally allowing myself to admit to Jace how I had been feeling is that it has brought us (if this is possible) even closer and last week, he was here and we had such a wonderful time together. We smile and laugh together, we never bother each other and he is really coming to grips with the whole illness issue. So many people would struggle to cope with it so to find someone who accepted this right off the bat was something I will always be thankful for. I finally allowed myself to cry and let out how I had been feeling instead of bottling it all up until that point where I start to fall apart. I'm learning healthier habits and better coping methods for life.

I am going to continue to keep going. I am going to grow stronger and never let anyone make me feel like I was weak or less than them.

Loves
Wendy xx