The past month has been a rough one for Carrie and all of us in her circle of friends, family and caregivers. We've been in and out of hospitals in two states, and have battled faulty equipment, conflicting medical advice, denial of medical services, infections, complications and all of the other stress and strain that comes with travelling and providing care to a disabled spouse while also raising a family, trying not to get fired or lose the house.

In the chaos of the past few weeks, I haven't had much time to get my thoughts down in any kind of format other than garbled, repetitive ranting. But February finally brought us some relief... things seem to have finally settled down to a manageable recovery period, and her latest treatment plan appears to be working.

I never fully breathe a sigh of relief anymore, but I'm sleeping again. And my brain and schedule have just enough room in them to post this update.

I also took a bit of a break to rethink things... I'm honestly a little sick of hearing myself complain. As much as my primary intent for this blog is to anonymously process and vent about topics that would be too painful, graphic or easily-misinterpreted to express otherwise, I'm also making this public as a way to work my way out of that darkness. So I want to be careful not to just publish raw bile.

For whatever reason, it's too easy for me to focus on negative thoughts in the comfort of a private journal (although journaling in any way helps)... but a public blog forces me to think a little bit harder about what I'm really trying to say, and which problems really rise to the top. I'm not sure why, but it helps me be less bleak. And hopefully it can help someone else out there in a similar situation.

With that in mind, I need to express my overwhelming feelings of gratitude and love for the friends, family, coworkers and everyone else who has been there for us through all of this... who have always been there and continue to be there, beyond all sense of duty or reason. When you have a disorder like Carrie's, you end up asking more from people than you might otherwise feel comfortable. Sometimes you ask too much, and you lose people. It always hurts, but it can be hard to prevent... her condition is complicated labyrinth of phases and complications, and is an ongoing challenge to explain to anyone in our lives. We end up being flaky and inconsistent friends, and many favors are impossible for Carrie to repay physically. Our explanations and justifications end up sounding like feeble excuses. Half the time I understand why we've lost people... I might want to ghost us too. We can be a LOT.

But to everyone who has stuck with us over the years, I am grateful beyond my ability to express in words. Suffice to say that Carrie would very literally not be alive today if you had not been there for us, time and time again.

I'll leave it there before I get too mushy. Thanks for reading - Mike