Please Stop Telling Me to Take an Antidepressant for My Autoimmune Disease.

Please Stop Telling Me to Take an Antidepressant for My Autoimmune Disease.

How many doctors have told you to take an antidepressant for your chronic pain?  My number is around seven, and most of them stated it was my only option for pain management.  This was generally done in a matter-of-fact manner, not a compassionate, I-care-about-what-is-wrong-with-you approach.  But what if my pain is caused by something that needs to be treated another way?  Shouldn’t we look further into this?  My health is not something to be dismissed or treated with a one […]

What I’d Like to Say to My Medications. │ By Ava of My Meena Life.

What I’d Like to Say to My Medications.

I am so tired of medications.  I have taken hundreds of pills since my lupus diagnosis in 2017 and I’m sick of it.  The sheer number of pills overwhelms me.  They take up an entire drawer in my nightstand and fill up a good-sized box in my closet.  I take 15 pills a day as a baseline – that number easily jumps into the 20s if I have a lupus flare or a high pain day. These medications have put […]

Expat Frustration (Also Known As: Germany Makes Things Hard). Photo by Camilo via Flickr.

Expat Frustration (Also Known As: Germany Makes Things Hard).

With only 24 days to USA, we’ve been dealing with various problems that tend to accompany an international move.  However, one situation has been particularly difficult.  Let me start at the beginning. One year ago we were brand new expats, being picked up by our relocation agent to go get German drivers licenses just a few days into our first week in Germany.  I remember walking into the foreign waiting area and later being ushered into a surprisingly private office where we […]

A Typical Day in Our Schweinfurt Hotel.

A Typical Day in Our Hotel.

Have you ever lived in a hotel?  We’re seven months into our stay in one and it’s testing my sanity a little bit.  This is how a typical weekday goes. 5:30am: Mr. Stomp Stomp, our upstairs neighbor, wakes up and begins stomping back and forth in his bedroom, directly above my side of the bed.  I wonder what he is doing. 5:45am: Mr. Meena’s alarm goes off and he slowly wakes up (he is not a morning person at all).  I […]

My Love Hate Relationship with the Cleaning Ladies.

My Love Hate Relationship with the Cleaning Ladies.

Mr. Meena and I are living in an extended stay hotel for a year… and it’s a lesson in patience.  The cleaning ladies come and do a (scheduled) thorough cleaning once a week, but they often show up when I’m not expecting them.  Like when they walked in on me sleeping, woke Mr. Meena and I up last Saturday for new towels, and yesterday they walked in on me in the shower.  These are my feelings about the situation.   […]

An Expat and a Housewife: My Dilemma.

The cleaning ladies have arrived and done their job quickly and quietly.  I’m quite relieved that it wasn’t the same woman from last week because I’m still not over that embarrassment.  As I was watching them clean, which is always awkward for me, I was reflecting on how that is one less thing that I have to do.  For an entire year I don’t have to do the regular and routine cleaning for my living space.  I’ll just have to […]