Low Oxygen Day, Failing at Self-Care

My O2 numbers were pretty good for a few weeks, enough that I stopped wearing my pulse-ox meter.  This morning, however, I was feeling really short of breath, so I took my oxygen saturation level. It was 85%.  (Below 88% is usually “seek emergency attention” for those without home oxygen. Around 85% you start turning blue.)  So, I hooked up to oxygen, and have been hovering around 90-91% on 2LPM of supplemental O2, which isn’t grand, but isn’t a medical emergency… however if I get up and walk to the next room, my O2 starts to crater from the physical activity.  I had to skip taking a shower today because it would have been too physically taxing.  Either that or I would have had to wear O2 in the shower, but that’s a royal pain.

I was co-con with Sharon for a bit earlier, and she pointed out that we’ve eaten and slept like shit the past couple of weeks, and hey, isn’t it interesting our O2 has started to get bad again.  I admit, I wasn’t totally sold on this new diet, but if our O2 improves again once we cut out all the unhealthy stuff… I may be sold on it.  Wouldn’t it be wonderful if part of my oxygen troubles are simply diet related?!?  I can’t say I enjoy eating tofu, but hey, if it helps, sign me up!

We already have a brain that doesn’t always like to work.  It’s frustrating when the physical body does the same.  To be fair, we suck at taking care of our physical form.  I personally feel disconnected from it a lot of the time, and it just doesn’t cross my mind to do self-care.  It isn’t that I’m against it, I just forget about it.  I think we missed out on regular self-care programming growing up (brush your teeth, etc.), or at least I did.  404 Not Found. 

It also doesn’t help that in general we don’t like bathrooms and kitchens, which are pretty tied into the whole self-care thing.  I know one of the reasons that we doordash our meals a lot of the time is that we don’t like being in the kitchen, even for a few minutes.  Let’s hear it for trauma!  I know what the bathroom trauma is, I’ve yet to learn exactly what’s up with kitchens?  I just know given a choice we’ll go out to eat, or go through a drive-thru, or get take out, because being in the kitchen is almost always anxiety producing and uncomfortable.  I actually am starting to dissociate just thinking about it. 

I love that I still have triggers that I don’t understand after decades of therapy.  To be fair, we took a pretty long break from trauma therapy.  Before my current therapist, just about every time we’d gotten into our trauma in therapy, our condition deteriorated.  Our current therapist is magical.  But, I think like 50% of his practice is folks with DID.  This ain’t his first rodeo, and he knows what the heck he’s doing.   He’s managed to help things improve without totally destabilizing our system.  It would be great if our insurance covered him. 😛  We’re blessed to have the means to pay for a specialist, though. 

Wow this is a rambling blog post.  Yes, sometimes I think of topics before hand and try to actually write something planned.  And sometimes y’all get streams of consciousness like this. 😉  My apologies to my two readers, although now that my blog has moved to the dissociative.cafe, I may see my readership double to four.  😉

#did #oxygen #health #self-care #triggers