busybee fluffy rambles

I only just learned from eladnarra’s blog that May is ME/CFS awareness month, which I guess is fitting given that throughout all of May I’ve been getting painfully aware that I may have been developing it on top of everything else.

Basically, ever since I got COVID last June I’ve been especially prone to fatigue, vertigo, brain fog, shortness of breath, a persistent cough, and a whole bunch of other long COVID signs. The worst of it comes and goes, but this month has been particularly bad, especially on the fatigue front. And ME/CFS is a very common part of long COVID.

My pain flareup is finally subsiding today, and also I had a followup appointment with my ENT and another CT scan on my sinuses, which found that I do not currently have sinus polyps, although I do have a mild deviated septum. The ENT thinks it’s not necessary to get surgery and that I can just continue to manage the occasional sinus infections as they come up, and that my usual ongoing management strategies are the way to go (which I assume means saline rinses and Sudafed, although we didn’t actually discuss those at all).

Here’s some stuff about stuff.

The last few days I’ve been having yet another awful chronic pain flareup. So it’s been one of those time periods when I kind of wish I didn’t have a body, or at least didn’t have to exist so much.

This time I don’t even know what brought it on, it just kind of came out of the blue, after a whole week of being too fatigued to do anything substantial.

I’m trying to finish up my remaining commitments for strawberry jam although everyone waiting for music from me is understanding and not in a huge rush. There’s one piece I want to get done today because the team is trying to wrap up development today but they also waited until the last minute to give me a specification for what they wanted so I’m not feeling too bad if I can’t get anything done for them, I guess.

The reports we received had enough information to evaluate your condition.

You said you were unable to work as of 05/15/2022 because of fibromyalgia, chronic pain, arthritis of hands and knees, vertigo, hypermobility spectrum disorder, depression, panic disorder, anxiety, and ADHD.

The evidence shows you have received treatment and assessment for these conditions.

We do not have sufficient vocational information to determine whether you can perform any of your past relevant work. However, based on the evidence in file, we have determined that you can adjust to other work. Because you can still perform some type of work, you are not considered disabled. Therefore, a period of disability cannot be established.

If your condition gets worse and keeps you from working, please contact any Social Security office about filing another application.

Given how many times I had to file a vocational report (at great length, in longhand, which FUCKING HURTS) I’m guessing they just never fucking received it. And of course, I’d love to work, but nobody wants to hire me for the number of hours I can work doing what I’m able to do, and commuting is also quite difficult for me.

I’m still waiting to hear back from my disability attorney but she hasn’t responded to any of my messages over the past couple weeks. Guess I need to send her a text on Monday.

In the meantime I’ve applied for all of the state-level things I can find, and it turns out that they do not require me to be declared disabled federally to be a possibility. Washington Connection is super helpful.

Wow, lots of stuff happened today (meaning Friday).

Today I somehow managed to tweak my back, right before I was going to do some gardening. I ended up doing the gardening anyway. This was, as it turns out, not a greaet way to help my back to feel better.

I got yet another letter from Social Security today, which I was expecting to be one of:

• Outright denial
• Yet another “adult function report” to be filled out by hand at great length/pain
• Yet another “work history report” to be filled out by hand at great length/pain

Instead it was a notice of yet another “psychological function evaluation.” On the plus side, at least this one is going to be done via telehealth, which is at least an improvement over the last time. On the minus side, it means they’re still trying to deny me based on ADHD as my sole disability, an given how the last one went I’m guessing that the ADHD screening is also going to be incredibly reductive and not actually reflective of what ADHD actually is or how it interacts with my other disabilities.

My big fibromyalgia flare seems to have finally subsided, so I’m back to working on music, yay.

Right now I’m working on recording “Sunny Again” for Transitions. The Transitions version has ended up being somewhat more complicated than I was expecting, so this will take a while to get finished. But I really like the arrangement that I have, and I hope that I can pull it off.

Grab-bag of stuff going on for me, apologies for my usual unstructured rambling