Another mostly wasted day

I woke up in a horrible mood and in terrible spirits this morning. The pain in my arms and legs dulled with a higher dosage of medication. While the doctor insists that I am on an extremely low dosage of the medicine, a neuroleptic called gabapentin, I seem to be sensitive to its side effects, more so than I ever have been before with medication.

I really just thought of the fact I have no way of knowing if it's my illness making me so tired or the medication even though now that I'm taking two 100 mg pills instead of just one, I'm finding myself more tired. Then again I also haven't been sleeping but there's nothing unusual about that for me. The medicine also seems to be making me dizzy and giving me slight headaches. All my life I have been made very easily motion sick and the combination does not work well. With arm and limb pain gone, just walking around my house makes me feel like I'm standing on a bobbing boat. I ended up with a murderous migraine this afternoon and spent four hours face down in bed.

Chris and I are really starting to feel the loss of my small income. We've never been very good budgeters and we've been lucky that that skill was not really required before. But Long Island living is far more expensive than either of us remember. Since moving down here from upstate NY, what we pay for each kilowatt/hour has doubled as has what we pay per unit of natural gas. This house is nearly double the size so not only has how much we pay gone up but also how much we're using. Our grocery bill has also nearly doubled. Our car insurance has also nearly doubled. Unexpected household problems were minor inconveniences for us and are now major concerns. And I have no real idea how to make the major expenses any less than they are. Our mortgage is what it is. Our taxes are what they are. We switch car insurance companies twice in the past year to keep the price down. I grocery shop every other week, buying minimal amounts and I try to shop the sales as much as is physically possible for me.

One month of my salary would have covered our carpenter ant problem and another the fallen tree. But unable to work, and ill on top of it, I have plenty of time on my hands but no ability to take care of things. Although neither of these things is something a homeowner can handle on their own, there are things that, with all my free time from not working, I'd be able to usually handle on my own. Simple things like cleaning or yard care and minor breaks and fixes around the house. Instead we have to shell out money to hire people to take care of these things and the medical bills are also piling up even with my husband's excellent insurance.