A mostly negative blog post ~ a compost pile of losses...

Come March, 2018, my pet sitting website will go dark. I'm not renewing my contract. I haven't accepted new clients in over two years. There's no point to continue spending money on a website.

I contemplated this past March whether or not to renew for 2017. I decided to stick it out one more year because I'd had surgery in August, 2016, to remove and replace my poisonous hip implant. Maybe I'd improve enough to maybe build my business again?

But, that didn't happen.

I've contemplated for at least six months whether or not to continue posting pet pics on my business social media sites. I have a business Facebook page, Twitter account, and Linked In account. Mainly I post for the pets' humans. My other reason is to spread some smiles. I get a few likes and comments here and there.

This past week I posted on Linked In and Twitter that I'll no longer be posting updates on either of those sites. But I will continue posting on Facebook.

This Christmas I only had two clients who were out of town. They own cats, so I only visited one time per day. Both clients said I could skip December 25, so I had no clients on Christmas day. It's the lightest holiday pet-sitting I've had since I started in 2011, except for last year because I was closed at Christmas while recovering from surgery.

In 2013, I had at least 185 pet-sitting clients. In late spring, 2013, Hubby and I put the business up for sale because Son was moving out in August. Son helped me run the business. Due to my illness, I couldn't run it on my own.

We had one bite, as far as a buyer. But he wanted me to continue on as part owner. I couldn't do that.

I decided instead to downsize, and give the clients I was letting go to the walkers who worked for me who I was also letting go. They were able to build their own businesses. One of them didn't continue; he preferred working for someone as opposed to owning his own business. Last I knew the other still has her business, and it's been successful.

In 2013 I started turning away new client inquiries. Every week, from then through at least the end of 2014, I turned away inquiries. Sometime in 2015 I finally updated my website that I wasn't taking new clients.

When I downsized the first time in August, 2013, Hubby agreed to help me with the clients I was keeping. I couldn't have continued without his help.

I've downsized a few times since then. I closed for 10 months when I had surgery, except for a few clients that I added back slowly beginning in December, 2016. When I reopened in June, 2017, I had to reduce my hours, which reduced again my number of clients.

So now, I have about 8 clients, which keeps me busy - sometimes too busy. Again, I couldn't do it without Hubby.

This quiet Christmas, my decision to no longer post on Twitter and Linked In, and allowing my website to go dark - well, I again feel a sense of loss. Another loss due to this incessant, god-damned, imprisoning nerve damage with all its accompaniments. (Sorry for sounding so negative. I know I don't have to apologize, but I want to apologize - so I do.)

As I type this, in my mind's eye, I see a mountain of loss - like a huge compost pile. It's a small mountain, as far as mountains go. But it's big enough. The losses at the bottom are compressed, and some have rotted.

As we age and experience life and loss (or if we are sick, regardless of our age) and the heap gets higher and our bodies get weaker and we can't turn the compost to allow air to speed along the decomposition, the pile gets bigger. Gawd, that sounds so depressing. I guess it is, maybe.

~*~

I'm one of the youngest of my umpteen cousins. My mom was next to youngest of ten siblings, and I'm her youngest. So I'm at the bottom of the totem pole, as far as age.

I've not shared my condition with my cousins, most of whom I haven't seen since Mom's funeral in 2009 which was before I developed nerve damage. One cousin who is local and who I've eaten with a couple times since 2011, which is when the nerve damage started, knows a little about my condition.

Sometime in the past coupleish years, one of my eldest cousins called me. I've always liked her. She's upbeat and has a great curiosity about life and cultures and people. She's in her mid-to-late 70s. I'm not sure why she called, but part of the reason I guess was to tell me about another cousin who had just turned 70 and had recently had back surgery. My cousin must have stated, "She just turned 70," at least five times in our 15ish-minute conversation. She suggested I call that cousin, who I haven't spoken with in 15ish years, at least. She also said, "You should come visit us sometime." She and her husband live in Atlanta.

I told her my health wasn't well and that my symptoms mimicked ALS, which they did. But I didn't expound further. I was hoping that maybe with the ALS comparison she'd get the message that I just wasn't up to travel or socializing or phone calling to check in on the sick and aged. But either I didn't convey my message well, or she just didn't get it.

I don'think that she could grasp the concept that, for example, my 80+ year old mother-in-law can move faster than I (except when I bike), and has more energy. And, to boot, my mother-in-law uses a cane. I didn't give my cousin that example.

But I got the sense that Cousin thought that since I was in my mid-50s and the younger of the cousin-brood, that I have the energy to reach out to the elderly and sick. And maybe she didn't think that, and I just felt self-imposed pressure.

This Christmas I received my cousin's newsletter that she sends every holiday. It was about her and her husband's travels and that her eldest sister (who is at least 80) put on a great birthday party for her husband's 80th birthday and cooked for 70 people. My cousin included a handwritten personal note stating she hoped all were well, especially me. And that another cousin (who is close to my age) had been in the hospital for congestive heart disease and how I should give that cousin a call.

I read the handwritten note, the newsletter, and cried. I looked at Hubby and said, "What about me?" But, the cousins don't know. At least, I haven't told them other than what I mentioned above, and that was before I knew about the metal poisoning. I have no idea if any know I had a revision surgery. And if I don't squeak, nobody knows. Maybe my condition is in the cousin grapevine via my one local cousin who does know a bit more or my sister who may sometimes talk to the cousins. I don't know.

Next year at holiday time when I receive Cousin's newsletter, I'm gonna have Hubby screen it before I decide whether or not to read it which will depend on my mindset and how I'm coping at that given moment.

~*~

If I spoke up with all my ailments - my god, it'd be depressing. My most recent new ailment, which happened the beginning of December, was back spasms that moved down my left hip and leg and produced a burning swath of waves of pain that shot to my groin. That's my hip-surgery side. I would have been scared except that I'd had x-rays a couple weeks prior that showed my hip was good. The spasms and pain and burning and extreme lameness have dissipated now. My epidural helped and maybe a few other things that I and my body did and are doing.

And then I had another recent scare - my December blood test for my yearly physical showed slightly elevated glucose levels. Diabetes is a side effect of steroids, and I've done my best to try to keep that side effect at bay. Thankfully, my A1C is normal, and the elevated glucose was probably due to my steroid epidural which I had gotten 1-1/2 days prior to my blood being drawn. I won't do that again. But I had to wait a week between learning about the elevated glucose and getting my A1C checked. So I had to manage my worry for a week.

A few other slight abnormalities showed up in my blood work. Not enough to really be worried about, but I don't want them to become something to worry about. So, I see my nutritionist this Wednesday to reassess.

~*~

So, this is my mostly negative blog post...and stating that makes me chuckle. :D

Happy 2018! :D

One of my happy pics. Feral ponkey & pony. 6/01/16. Grayson Highlands.