I have a cardiology appointment this afternoon. It’s kind of a “just in case” one year follow up. I see him because I had some palpitations a few years ago and because I have a family history of people keeling over at young ages from heart attacks. It’s best just to stay in touch. This appointment will take about five minutes. He will probably tell me he doesn’t need to see me after this appointment. I don’t know. We’ll see. I did have one chest x-ray that said something strange about my heart so I want to ask him about that. Other than that, I’m good. I need to exercise and eat better. Duh ..read more

How do you unwind after a demanding day? Okay. Not super proud of this, but my big way of relaxing and trying to unwind involves my (nicotine) vape and just chilling. I gave up cigarettes a couple of years ago and transitioned to a vape thinking that would help me quit. It did get me off cigarettes, so that’s an improvement I guess, but I really want to give up the vape too. Right now however, it’s an integral part of how I chill from the stressful days of caretaking I’ve had lately. So yeah. Image from Pexels ..read more

How do you use social media? I use social media, like most of my gen x peers, to connect to friends and family and bridge the communication gap that would otherwise exist due to time constraints and/or distance. I definitely do not use it to make political points. I don’t think my stance on abortion or lgbtq+ rights or any political party or affiliation is going to sway anyone. I’m not friends with people who are easily swayed by a fb post. I’d also hate to lose a friend just because they have a different lens than mine. I’ve learned, through years of engagement, that almost everyone wants ..read more

I kind of wrote about this yesterday, but it was buried at the end of a very long post and I have therapy today so it needs to be written about. My medical team, (which includes my psych), think that my antidepressant might be the cause of my chronic relapsing pancreatitis. On one hand, this is excellent news. I mean, if it’s true and I can stop the pancreatic flares then I wouldn’t be in the hospital every month and nauseated all of the time. Quality of life. On the other hand, I’ve been stable on my current meds since I started on that antidepressant. I’ve literally tried ten or fifteen of ..read more

I normally do not write album reviews so this will not really be one of those. I just listened to part of Taylor Swift’s new album and I’m so excited. She really experimented with the “wall of sound” thing and it’s pretty amazing. I dig it. I also love how she was able to throw all of her feelings on to it. She didn’t really give interviews or show how she was feeling about her breakup. She just put it in her music. Amazing. She really is an amazing lyricist, even if there are people who don’t enjoy the style of her music. Image from Pexels ..read more

Please excuse the broken clock and the ugly 1990’s wallpaper border on the kitchen walls. No one has any energy to fix these things. Behind me is the doorway to the infamous basement stairs. Notice how it’s closed and dead bolted. Mom won’t be falling down those again soon… Meanwhile, I had to take my friend to the emergency room this morning for her headache that won’t let up. Personally, I think her neurologist is useless. He wrote her a prescription for some steroids and ordered some scans and is available in August. Really? August? I asked my friend to get a referral to the better health ..read more

I am so thankful for my friend who has been staying here and for my family. I am so sick today. My friend has a headache that will not quit. She has been in the emergency room twice for it. She talked to her neurologist today and he put her on some steroids, so I’m praying that they help. If they don’t, I’m taking her back to the emergency room if I have to do it kicking and screaming… I don’t know how she is mustering the energy to brown the hamburger for sloppy Joe’s, but honestly I feel as though I’m about to throw up despite three rounds of anti nausea medications, so I couldn’t do it. My ..read more

Describe a decision you made in the past that helped you learn or grow. I’ve had bipolar disorder for a long time. Decades. It wasn’t until the past, maybe five years, that I started working on being the boss of it instead of the victim, though. What I mean is that for most of those decades, I spent a lot of time swirling in a tornado of emotions and circumstances that I felt like I could not control. It was terrible. I talked to therapists. It never seemed to help. Finally, someone came into my life that pointed out that I wasn’t participating in evidence based therapy. I needed CBT. I nee ..read more

What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why? I thought long and hard about this one. There are places I would love to go, and places I would hesitate before going to, but probably nowhere I would never go. I am an adventurer at heart. I might want a security team or a research team or something like that depending on where I’m going, but I would probably still go. I suppose the only thing that might stop me is somewhere like North Korea where my tourism dollars would go to prop up a regime with a horrific human rights record. There’s literally nothing I could do to help the peop ..read more

I didn’t make it hard. I am in the hospital again with pancreatitis. For real. Stress and lack of sleep seem to be the culprit this time. I am not sure how to get better from that to be honest. I feel soooooooo guilty for being sick, though. My friend has been washing stuff at my house so I would have some clean clothes to change into. I know I should have been capable, but I was honestly so overwhelmed and exhausted I couldn’t get to it. She was at the emergency room yesterday at the same time I was though because her headache was not improving… It’s such a cluster ..read more