Time Blind But Not Unhappy

 I was looking for a blissfully honest headline title to start this post and that fits the bill. A lot has happened since Christmas. I’m not even sure where I left off but when the bad snow started, we ended up lodging an outside kitty I had befriended that I named Ziggy, and also taking in my long time scrappy kitty friend Stumpers and a lot of reassessment of my abilities and goals and trying not to age kicking and screaming.

Kitty sitch first. Ziggy was a scared skinny seemingly feral cat, one of those cats that seemed completely unable to be near humans. I had noticed him coming around every evening and then every morning. He usually disappeared in a fright when I opened the door, but like some of the other ferals, eventually ran less far away knowing the food was coming and eventually my voice and presence didn’t spook him. Then one day I sat on the steps a few feet away from where he was eating and he cocked his head to the left (a trademark I’ve come to adore) and crept towards me on his belly. I held out my hand and he suddenly got shy, ran back a few feet, head tilting and crept again. Repeating this a couple of times until his head nuzzled my hand and, guys, he just melted. A whole new cat, just endless affection and gratefulness, nuzzling and trusting, and my heart melted with it. I was bolder with him once we crossed this hurdle and he not only let me pick him up and carry him around but he started jumping on my lap and just rubbing all over my neck and face. I had a feeling then that he had either belonged to someone and been abandoned, neglected or even abused or, because he wasn’t fixed, his spraying was likely a nuisance to indoor living. It was for us at first when we brought him in but I kept him in my brother’s room and just used good enzyme cleaners until we could get him vetted. We didn’t want him around the other cats or peeing around the house, being aggressive or territorial with other cats… but I’m jumping ahead quite a bit. While he was still outside, he pretty much claimed the backyard but my Stumpy girl had taken over the front so they had an agreement. Like my other cats, they could get aggressive with each other for my attention at first but learned how to get along. Anyways, he was actually integrated into the household when Stumpers just invited herself in when my dad opened the door to feed her one day. She’s an old girl. She’s lived more than five years out there and beat the odds a lot. I accepted that her coming in might mean she was slowing down, even retiring until she retired permanently so to speak. It’s a thing I always dread but suppress lest the sadness swallow me. You cannot prepare for grief so don’t spend a moment of your life wasting time trying. She had an abscessed tooth and a stuffy nose, but she’s been eating and drinking well and oddly, the other cats have accepted her as a sort of matron and leave her at peace. Eight cats now. I never imagined it but they made their way into this family firmly and I do my best to give them each the time and attention they need. Cats can be mysteriously needy and aloof and there’s always a little friction as they understand territory and carving out time for each other and their humans. It can be a frustrating and demanding process but then one day, things click and you feel just perfect peace in that fit.

The rest? Oy, that’s long as is, I know, but weight loss is… not happening but I maintain the effort to move and function and find balance. I really want to get back on Vyvanse but damn, if doctors aren’t exasperatingly divided on their perceptions and ability to not make our life any harder than it already is by creating obstacles. Strattera sucks. I take it but I think mostly to remind myself to look into other options when I’m ready. Crafts? I poke at them but I burnout quite suddenly and then all I want to do is play video games. When I’m not cleaning or managing cat drama or minding my health in some other way. Very little comes without great effort.

I want to find remote work but I think that’s a pipe dream until I can get back on Vyvanse. My focus and function are way too chaotic to be confident I can even keep a steady job. I have been continually doing product testing and focus groups because it feels like a meaningful contribution in the meantime. It gives passive income that often goes towards health or craft goals.

I’ve still been seeing doctors but nothing is really changing. I still have a wonky digestive system, still can’t drop weight, still hope insurance can cover something that may change progress so I don’t need to get sicker to qualify. Make it make sense. But if there is a time I can appreciate a lack of focus, it’s when it comes to dwelling on what I can’t change. So I don’t. I’m always looking for the next squeeze through the crack towards that light of hope. Believe me, I find some interesting little nooks. Yet I’m still restless and dissatisfied and want something more stable. I don’t hate that I attract the unconventional. I just feel a little wistful for finding something normal, something that feels safe and connecting me to purpose and security. The rest I come by with little effort, but normal is something I press for with exhaustive effort and little return. 

Maybe it shouldn’t be this hard for all of us to find a place to fit into a life we want and need. I’m not deluded into thinking perfect happiness awaits. But I don’t think people realize what comes much easier to them eludes me far too often. I’m not bitter but certainly frustrated. I find many distractions in my day to fill it. But with introspection comes the knowledge that there’s still something missing.

So I embrace the paths I end up on. Sometimes I’m grateful to be lead along, sometimes I love the peace of anonymity and solitude, sometimes I don’t mind wandering off the obvious path and finding something truly worthwhile. Yet there’s an odd gap where what is normal for others is missing for me and it’s awkward to not have a simple answer. I’ve certainly tried as others do, but… I’m an oversharer and eventually I out myself as the weird kid. And if I don’t make you feel awkward, then I’m happy to end up entertaining you with the details. 

I’d love to get into details over the past few months but… man, it’s a lot of nothing and everything and I’m already looking for a way to bail out of this post. So I’ll leave it at this for now. 

Make a mess, make it happen and other things life throws your way…

 I guess I could go back and look at where I left off from the last post. From the title, I remember it was a good one, about how accommodations for neurodivergent quirks doesn’t have to be an effort, just a willingness to accept logic we don’t always understand. But for this one… well, I’ve had an eventful path on the lead up from Christmas craft crunching to here where I’m last minute struggling again for my sister’s birthday.

Starting with Christmas crafting, I gave myself ample time to get it all done and was way ahead of schedule. Then I started getting shooting pains through my face, jaw, teeth, neck, shoulder. I’ll skip the pages of exposition on the trips to the dentist and doctor that filled the two and a half weeks of pain before getting to the part where a week of Augmentin knocked out was a new way I discovered a severe sinus infection can terrorize a person. Needless to say, there’s a happy close to that chapter where I flip you some pics of the gifts I got done for the fam just in time for Christmas morning.

I apparently did not get a picture of the finished cat stitch blanket I made for my dad, just the first few rows, and I meant to get more of the Christmas village (the wooden house is the base that I added more to in that screenshot of a video clip…). Then there’s tacocat I made for Dameon, the bighorn bison steak zipup bag I made for Markie (from some Risk of Reign game he likes)… the little town diorama that I’m still working on (on hiatus while I finish crafts with deadlines)…

Then we got the sweater I made for my sister and our kitten Corvo blending into the crocheted Christmas stuff I’ve been making my dad for years too. Not sure if I’ve gotten to mention him yet since my dad rescued him in September and we’ve been in love with the little ball of fluff (that looks like a mini version of his new big brother Riddle) ever since.

I was a little scattered with remembering to take pictures, just happy to get it done when I got sidetracked those weeks lost in pain.

I wish I could say the mess stopped there. But no, the same night we took Corvo in to get neutered, I contracted a nasty bout of food poisoning. And since I already have moderate to severe gastritis and an inflamed cecum, it was actual hell that night puking up every little bit of what I ate that day then blasting it out in diarrhea the rest of the night. But I kept chugging Gatorade and staying hydrated and was somehow able to get in a car the next day to go pick the baby kitty up. 4 days later, I’m still recovering from the aftermath but this morning, I was able to get my ass up and drill some screws in a cabinet to secure a shelf, which if you know me by now, you know I often say fuck you to a bout of sickness with diving into some impulse project and that was it. That damn shelf slipping off the crappy plastic hinges caused me enough grief so it did feel damn good to tackle that with some new metal screws. Still got a stomach rumbling like an angry or sad Pokémon, and a bit of mucus that’s been padding out an abused throat but I can handle bending without breaking out in a cold sweat or a wave of nausea so I took advantage.

And now I’m trying to crunch in making a gift for my sister’s birthday.

Hopefully I can remember to share a picture of that and the finished little town diorama next. End of the month or the beginning of February. Barring any bastard of a sickness happening again. Atheist though I am, I’ll take your thoughts and prayers, good vibes/juju, or whatever else you think you’ve got in good with this mysterious universe. I could use a break.

Healing up with Corvo and cuddling with my big ginger kitty Weez while I crochet. And ever grateful to be feeling a little better each time I get a couple more hours sleep. Take the wins wherever you can. Sometimes they gotta do some heavy lifting for the setbacks.

The 3 Spoon Problem

 Neurotypicals and neurodivergents may never fully understand each other’s ’methods of madness’ but I came across a simplistic and nearly forgettable instance of this in one of those missable daily chores.

For me, repetitive tasks need to become a ritual to focus on them and complete them and even then, they often have to be short and purposeful. 

I feed my cats every morning. Outside cats first, front door then back door, dry food. Then I feed what were originally my sister’s 3 cats one kind of food (anything but pate), then the kitten got sandwiched in between them and my older 2 girls because he also gets a metal bowl like the first three but he gets kitten pate (though he’ll eat anything) and the 2 girls get their pate on a plate. Different rituals because my sister and I did different things and cats are creatures of habit. The kitten’s managed to fit neatly by food type and feeding dish right between so it naturally fit in. 

As per the post headline, I use three spoons, one for each of them. I never started this intentionally, mind you, but it always made perfect sense to me. To my dad, it’s clearly a sort of unnecessary thing (more dishes to wash and he’s obsessive about how many dishes get used in a way I similarly don’t understand). He pointed it out and, instead of the cringy ‘it’s my ADHD, you wouldn’t understand’, I just said ‘don’t question it’ and that seems to be a satisfying code for the both of us.

The answer, for those of you who are on the side of not getting it (and even some NDs might not get it at first), this is a physical manifestation of a mental need for organization in the early morning chaos of my brain. I am not a morning person. I don’t enjoy getting up for this ritual. My brain is still a bit nonsensical and prone to mistakes first thing. For me, like stimming, this is a ritual necessity to start the day with a coping mechanism to prevent anxiety. I have lots of coping mechanisms and many of them I’m not even conscious of until they’re pointed out. I don’t always have a handy answer to pluck from the air anyway but when I do, it still doesn’t always fully make sense to the questioner. 

I like to believe that my dad is, over time, starting to understand that these oddities (for him) are the unspoken trials of my neurological disorder. Those with ADHD are not a hive mind and we don’t all understand the source of the quirks but we do come to understand that it’s why we get ‘looks’ or ‘comments’ from NTs and even without some weird therapy requirement, we do develop coping strategies that don’t compromise the self but do help us course-correct to avoid destructive crashes in our lives. I don’t try to avoid being ‘weird’ but I certainly try to avoid the impulses to spend money or have unhealthy emotional outbursts where I say things I probably don’t actually mean. I don’t try to ‘do things the normal way’ but I do try to explain it when I can (or reserve the right to politely decline explaining everything I do). I don’t bottle myself for the comfort of others but I do know how to find healthy outlets and not expect others to entertain me. And these aren’t wise adult strategies; many of them I started very young and just refined with understanding.

On that note, this is why I resent being told I need ‘cognitive behavior therapy’ to take Vyvanse. They aren’t going to tell me anything I don’t know. I research things like this exhaustively but I have severe ADHD and the only reason I have ever preferred stimulants is because they bring on a focus, efficiency and confidence that I struggle with and often fail to find without their help. I self-medicated in my youth and noticed things like coffee and cocaine made me ridiculously efficient whereas my peers were just ‘fucked up’ and messy. I can emotionally regulate, manage time and just FUNCTION normally with this drug. And even doctors don’t seem to understand how necessary this drug is for me to live in an NT dominated world. My coping mechanisms work fine. WITH the drug. Otherwise, I am always struggling through the brain clutter, paralysis and exhaustion of effort. Doctors are taught that it’s different for us and yet we’re still treated like addicts looking for a fix. Yes, it is a fix. To be functional in a world that is otherwise ridiculously hard to find a niche in. I don’t get my dopamine fix this way at all btw. That’s right; I get it from ASMR videos and watching kids play and cats purr and sometimes from the zone I go into when I can hyperfocus. Vyvanse is only an outlet, a key that makes who I am shareable and productive and motivated.

The 3 spoon problem isn’t fixed by drugs. But when I understand it better, I can help others understand why it’s necessary. Not everything is able to be masked and some things are very much about mental health maintenance. Not all of us want to feed into the superpower/quirk/etc. language that sometimes brushes off how debilitating it can be, so it may require some of that sensitivity into our coded language. My dad isn’t the most perceptive but he does pay attention. Sometimes that all we ask for. The understanding that this is doing something we need. Accommodations are not about going out of your way to cater to our differences. It’s just about communicating their existence. Communicate with me directly if it’s a problem that makes us undermine each other’s needs but remember I spent the better part of my life making my life harder to try not to rock the boat. It could be time to empathize and understand why crippling me isn’t actually helping either of us. Share in the discomfort; and remember if you have ND status, don’t retaliate by assuming you get privilege as part of the understanding. The other person may have it too so aim for compromise. No one needs to be the only sacrificing one. We should always be learning how to bring out the best in each other, ND or NT notwithstanding.

Updates are fun?

 Healthwise, there’s always something. My weight continues to hover around the same range, my liver enzymes are back to normal, I’m about to schedule for another upper GI endoscopy and a colonoscopy because I’m not getting worse but I’m not getting better so maybe we just have to look at the whole pipeline.

There’s rarely much to say or definitive answers so far so I won’t belabor it.

I finished a fourth mini house today so I can start on the diorama to set those in (I needed the exact base measurements of the completed houses to be able to set up the foundation for the grass mat; you never know how the completed piece will fit until it’s made because it can be different for everyone). Once I complete that, it will knock out one of the bigger projects I’ve left unfinished. I’m really hoping to slowly ‘finish what I’ve started’ since my health slumps set me on a long term burnout. That’s not to say there won’t be new projects here and there but I truly want to focus on the accumulation I’ve let build up.

So I’ll leave you with a quick pic of the latest mini house and get back to doing rather than talking about it!

Sometimes I Just Don’t Wanna Share…

 I do end up trying to catch up for the sake of transparency so radio silence can often lead to me sharing the many updates later. 

I’m not sure where I was with things last time but I think it was gallbladder surgery recovery and some follow-ups so I’ll try to start there and hopefully not repeat too much. I could read my last post… but I’m pretty certain I can pick it up.

The stomach flu prior to surgery landed me with elevated blood levels. I may or may not have gone into it specifically being hemoglobin and bilirubin. Didn’t occur to me than that it could be  *because* of the stomach flu but that’s likely. Did more follow up blood tests when I finally got in to see a gastroenterologist, even did some off the wall genetic marker tests, mostly looking at my liver possibilities. Did not get anything concerning back EXCEPT my kidneys are functioning at 77 and 90 is normal. However, unless there’s protein in my urine, only below 60 is a major concern. I have never had protein show up before so it could very well be temporary.

Weight loss came to a grinding halt but since GLP-1 drugs got approved for obesity (bmi over 30 or bmi over 27 and a health related problem like high blood pressure; I’m all of the above), it’s possible for me to get Zepbound covered and he asked on my last visit if I would be okay with trying it. I said absolutely; I plateaued on weight loss a couple months ago and kept up with diet and exercise. Hormones are completely blocking progress. I see him in September to discuss that again.

Monday I have the fibro scan to rule out any other possible liver issues. Keeping in mind my AST and ALT are only slightly elevated on the last blood test, it’s still possible these are residual from the gallbladder issues and still cycling out. Again, my surgeon remarked that my liver had no inflammation or signs of fibrosis or scarring from the outside. The fibroscan can look through the liver and see what everything else couldn’t so I’ll know if there’s any concern there. If so, early detection. And again, losing weight could reverse the problem. Which is why weight loss is imperative.

I did the research and Zepbound, taken properly, still takes a year and a half for someone my size to return to a normal BMI. Though because this has been an issue despite all efforts to change I might have to remain on it at maintenance doses lifelong. Celebrities don’t need it and abuse it which is why you see the freakish aging and bone visibility. You need to eat more protein to maintain muscle mass and rapid weight loss leads to the aged and loose skin. I will be taking it to lose 1-2 lbs a week *safely* as has been my goal all alone. I do not want to do this fast, I want to do it healthily. So I will NOT be taking shortcuts or overdoing it.

I am attempting to get a remote job, which may mean changing insurance but it’s a job with full benefits so… worth it. It’s the perfect job for me; flexible, computer oriented, task oriented, no micromanaging, so I’m really hoping I’ll get it. Leaving it at that because I’m both focusing on hearing back (and saying why I’m perfect for the job) and not getting my hopes up unless I do get it. So if I give more details it’s because I got it. Otherwise, I’m moving on without mentioning it again.

Our AC and furnace are done for so the summer heat has limited my motivation for crafting. I’ve been focusing my energy on maintaining a clean house and happy cats. I wish I had more exciting things to share but there is not much. I’m attempting to fix an old printer, staying organized for when the weather is good for crafts again and just focused on finding a career after this monumentally tough five years of health issues and finding productivity in pattern making sales, product reviewing and freelance design jobs here and there. I crave stability and routine to anchor me again. My dad is happily productive again and I’m more than a little jealous. I want to really contribute to improving this house and my own life too. I’ve done so much, raising my nephews and helping others, that having something for myself would do so much for my mental wellness right now.

And I apologize if I’m creatively stuck and putting off some favors for others right now but I promise this is temporary. I’m still finding strength and trying to set my feet on new paths (or forge new paths; not everything has to be novel to be an adventure though).

Regardless of when I update, hoping I have more good news and forward movement. I admit I’m impatient to get things moving again but also know that things worth having take time. Whether that’s losing weight, completing a big project or applying for that perfect job. Push ahead but give grace to things that move beyond our control.

Stay strong, people. Times are crazy but purpose can be found. Don’t ignore smaller steps believing only large steps make a difference. Just take steps knowing others could follow. Good can come from simply believing in your journey. Inspire anonymously and hope indefinitely. 

I got plenty of gems in this brain of mine. Stick around and maybe we can learn from each other. 

More on Recovery

 One thing they reiterate after major surgeries is getting up to walk. After abdominal surgeries, this can be a special kind of torture because it’s impossible to not irritate that sensitive healing area even a little bit unless you happen to have one of those slow auto-standing chairs my grandma had (and if you’re not wealthy, you probably don’t). Gallbladder recovery didn’t need the months that the ovary surgery did; it’s only been a little over two weeks and I’m getting around mostly normal at this point. I stuck to forcing myself to walk and avoiding the nightmare of blood clots but the minute I heard that’s yet another surgery and DAYS in a hospital, pushing my tender abdominals seemed like the much more desirable level of torture.

All the same, with the stomach flu preceding my surgery, I feel like my stamina and cardio have suffered greatly. I wanted to get back to crafting and computer work ASAP but instead I found it physically hard to be able to do as sitting up and sitting still have proved difficult. So today, I gave up on the notion of that and… did housework. Mind you, I’m still weeks from being okay to do any heavy lifting, but I vacuumed and mopped (sorely needed without my twice weekly routine not happening for a month; that’s to do both as vacuuming was still something I could do for the past week as long as it was short). It wasn’t super thorough, as I wouldn’t be able to completely clear off the floors, but I did get to focus on high traffic areas and the moderately accessible areas I could shove around with my feet. Some hangers I ordered came (I had 8 or so shirts that sat on top of the hangers in my closet without hangers and a bunch of those cheap clothing store ones I wanted to swap out) so I did a little closet cleaning too. I was dripping sweat like I had a rain cloud following me around and I can feel the ache of the efforts but I also feel like this was a valuable step in being able to rebuild stamina. And I’m going to make it a point to focus on getting moderate to vigorous exercise a few times a week to rebuild my stamina again.

I’m also going to attempt to test my stamina with sedentary but creative and critical thinking elements that I sorely miss too. 

The weight loss slowed significantly: only down a pound in the past month, but it’s somehow relieving that my diet went a little off the tracks and I didn’t see weight gain. I also know from experience that surgical recovery is a terrible time for dieting. People assume because they aren’t that hungry or have dietary limits that that’s a good time for it but no, you NEED those nutrients because your immune system is working overtime to heal the substantial invasion and changes. Trying to keep up an ambitious weight loss plan during not only slows healing but could increase risk of complications. 

So please do your already struggling body a favor and don’t underfeed or overwork your body. This also means that even if you’re feeling great, don’t go against the doctor’s advice to wait for those weeks or months before you’re cleared for tasks and attempt to do more than recommended. If you need examples, things like hernias, fissures, painful keloid scarring, muscle strains, blockages (in arteries, ducts, etc) and infections. These are things your body might not even give you any indication they’re happening until it becomes another major issue. That could require yet another reparative surgery. Keep in mind, scarring vastly limits their ability to avoid surgical complications and some doctors even refuse to attempt anything but emergency surgery if the scarring and fusing and issues are too complex, so even a ‘simple’ repair can cause problems for surgeries you might need later.

I’ve started to get back into my dieting again, started the day with cream of wheat and had a chicken and green bean lunch. Tonight my dad is making burgers with the new indoor grill my sister got him for Father’s Day but if that’s a little carb-y (my dad’s cooking usually is) I could actually use that today with the workout that housework gave me. I’m not ready for going back to ambitious food prep; my dad does not air condition this sweltering house and trying to spend hours prepping would wipe me out, if not cause me to pass out altogether, but I did get bagged salads to last the week. Cream of Wheat, oatmeal or egg on toast for breakfast, dinners I’ll just have to be flexible but mindful with until I can structure that again. The salads can land around lunch or dinner too.

I may need a couple weeks or even a couple of months to slide back into the balance of creative and physical and get back on track but honestly, it just feels really good to be semi-normal. Stomach flus always make me wish I was dead and this one left me drained for days instead of the 24 or so hours I could heal from them when I was healthier. No idea where I even got it but my nephew got sick too so it’s super likely we both got it at his graduation. Go figure the one time I’m around people, they can’t keep their germs to themselves. All the same, I’m glad my recovery hasn’t gone south so far and that I’m on track again. I wouldn’t at all call this a square one since I didn’t gain weight, my blood pressure is actually normal again and in a few months, my primary is doing labs to make sure the liver enzymes and cholesterol have stabilized since.

Dare I hope this means I can move on and get fit and healthy again. I had been really making progress in my late 30s before it all took a turn for the worse and set me back so much worse. Still, I’ve held on to hope and believed in myself and the doctors I worked with and have found my way through quite a bit. Of course, I’m cautiously optimistic but I’m in my 40s and that can be a dirty transition for a lot of us so I’m doing what I can to prepare for more obstacles but also doing what I can to avoid them. Genetics, my friends, isn’t something you can run from. I’ve had more than one dear friend die in their 40s suddenly. One from a sudden heart attack on his return from an out of town job, one who was otherwise very healthy then died suddenly in her sleep from a pulmonary embolism. We don’t get to prevent everything but at least when I make the effort to try, I simply KNOW I did all that I could with what I knew. Guilt is not something you want to bring into an already troubling situation. I don’t think advanced old age was ever a goal for me, but I would like to hope that going forward, the time I do have might have some quality of life worth sticking around for. I have done a lot of suffering and there may be more but I will do my best to eke out every bit of enjoyment I can and never belabor myself unduly. One life, nothing else, so precious.

Maybe Not That Juicy…

 I’m one week post gallbladder removal and I absolutely still don’t have the energy to organize a really well-thought out post where the details are concerned but I will give it a go anyway because I’m really not going to be able to keep the details fresh otherwise. Pain is something our bodies are wired to forget and going through this, like having the stomach flu leading up to it, is definitely something I’m eager to put behind me.

First off, I’m super grateful to the whole of my team: my surgeon, the anesthesiologists, the nurses, all stellar. Normally I love to post names and details but I still feel protective of my life here and in no hurry for my past to ever find me. I’ve sent comments to the hospital to address those people directly so they know who they are and they know I’m thankful and that’s what truly matters. 

The pre-op process is pretty simple. Check in, getting my ID bracelet, going to the lab for tests (if you’re a female, that is, because it’s a pregnancy test which is absolutely unnecessary for me but who ever believes you?), and waiting to be called back to what will be my recovery room later. I then meet my pre-op nurse who finds out when I’ve eaten and drank last, what medications or supplements I’ve taken or quit taking, what medications they will be giving me for pain then he has me change into the gown with all the fancy ports so he can put in my IV. The IV is then hooked up for hydration and also a first round of antibiotics, which is standard in most gallbladder surgeries but may not be deemed necessary for all. In my case, they just wanted to make sure the stomach flu would be cycled out and not cause issues.

The OR was still in prep so I waited in my room for another half hour before they came to wheel me back. Once there, they walked me through getting up on the slim table, making sure my gown’s ports were accessible, and placing a board under my feet and securing my arm out to my side. They would be operating in a reverse trachtenberg position which basically elevates you at the head instead of the feet. They secured the oxygen mask to my face and just had me breathe that in for a few minutes. In that time, I got to appreciate how a dozen people were milling around that room like perfect clockwork when any other group of people would be colliding in chaos.

The anthesiologist then informed me they were administering anesthesia and he asked me a couple questions; where my favorite vacation spot is and what I was going to dream about soon. The second one made me laugh and, even though my ears started buzzing, making me laugh must’ve helped me not feel the awful pressure like last time and I was out like a light.

When I woke, I didn’t open my eyes, heard the nurse telling my dad they would just let me sleep and he could come back around 1 or 2 when they could run my last rounds of antibiotics. I kind of just enjoyed the peace and kept my eyes closed for a while longer but when I did open my eyes, the post-op nurse had crackers and shortbread cookies and water for me. I probably had six more little packs, a refill of water, and a popsicle before they had me get up to try to pee hours later. No problem there. My doctor came in to let me know what was up, said the only issue to watch was that a bile duct was too short so we’d need to monitor for that in the coming months, make sure there is no narrowing, blockage, etc while it heals. Again, not anything I hadn’t known could be a risk. The symptoms are pretty telling too, a lot of pain and jaundice, neither of which would be hard to miss. I was plenty sore but didn’t have too much trouble getting around on my own. They let me get dressed on my own and then discharged me and wheeled me out to dad’s car. It went about as smoothly as I could hope.

Day 1 is always comparatively easy. The nerve blocks they give last at least 24 hours and that’s pretty much all I got. After that, terrible gas pain, both digestive and abdominal. This level of pain was a mainstay for 48 hours, made bearable with Norcos, but still not fun. Sleep did not come easy but even a couple hours sleep did make me feel noticeably better every time. I finally started getting good sleep around days 4-5. Day 5 is where I could finally get up out of bed without feeling pain in my abdomen. At no time did I find it unbearable. I was still able to do light housework, make food, do dishes, but I often asked for help to finish a task or just have them run my ice pack to and from the freezer. I mostly ate Jello, pudding, chicken noodle soup, in the first few days but then I started eating more regular foods, just in small amounts. 

As far as bowel movements go, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was on the end of gastroenteritis so I still had diarrhea for the first three days. Then it stopped day four and… there was a TON of gas. lol I called it a night of endless farts and it was just HOURS of these reams of flatulence. But they didn’t actually smell much. No more BMs for 48 hours though so I started taking MiraLax because I had a bad feeling… that turned out to be true. Super painful but more solid and brown constipation that crippled me for like an hour, nausea and sweating too. But once that passed I felt SO much better. The following BMs have been in the morning each day and still not regular solid. All the same, no yellow and no more issues with having them. At no time post-op did I feel like I couldn’t make it to the toilet so there was no problem with urgency. I also knew that constipation and diarrhea both are typical adjustments to the bile changes.

I’m able to get up and get around more but I do get exhausted easily still. There is still some tenderness and I can’t bend or squat well or for very long. I am able to sit on the porch for a little while to pet the outside cat but sitting up too long still isn’t comfortable. There is bloating and gas and tenderness overall and I suspect it may be another week before I feel close to normal. I can kind of sleep on my sides but with a fatty bloated abdomen, the movement makes my incisions a little more tender and it feels weird so I end up on my back again for most of the night. I feel like I’ll sleep better once side sleeping isn’t so tender. 

I did want to go into incision and surgery details too but that’s a bit much for me at the moment. I’m getting heavy-eyed just doing this much. I may revisit that in the near future but I may be ready to just move into the next phase of life. I’m sure the next blog title will give away which route I take. Until then, more rest and plenty of contemplation! I hope this does help someone looking for more detailed experiences to make it less scary, more realistic. It’s no picnic, but this has definitely been its own challenge, not really comparable to my surgery two years ago but with some familiarities that made it less full of unknowns. But it’s always been my philosophy that doing nothing is still a choice, and often a bad choice. When you’re at a point where nothing is getting better, then the risks are often worth taking. If I thought I could handle it, I never would have brought it up to begin with. When I go to a doctor, it’s because I’ve exhausted all of my own options and truly need to consider the best and worst of what it takes to hope things will get better. It’s not about me being strong, it’s about humbling myself to accepting help. Genetics just don’t give a flying fuck how good your diet or exercise or habits are. There’s no point in blaming anything; get the help your body knows you need and accept all of the feelings and doubts and hopes. 

And I thank whatever conditions created Medicaid so I didn’t have to continue suffering. Or worse. The ovary thing still haunts me because that sucker was killing me. My long term goal is to not die young enough that people say what a shame it is I went before my time. I don’t exactly want to see super old age but I sure as hell don’t want to be ‘too young’. I sure as hell don’t want to be pitied. I’m having a damn good run, all things considered. I’ve survived shitty friends, shitty jobs, got damned good at a lot of things. But I hope I’m nowhere near done yet.

Juicy Surgery Deets to Come!

 Day of surgery went well and I plan to go into some great detail as soon as I have the strength to dedicate to it. I’ve taken notes and talked to the doctor and did a bit of research so I’ll have plenty to go through even before my post-op visit June 12th. 

For now, simple details that I’ll likely mention again in the full post. Gallbladder did. Or just have polyps but gallstones and a weird little condition called cholesterolosis or ‘strawberry bladder’. I’m literally weird inside and out and this tickles the hell out of me. A duct that was too short needed to be catheterized to be drained and he’ll be monitoring that as I go through recovery. But my liver is not only NOT fatty or scarred but back to a healthy state. And the elevated liver enzymes and cholesterol and triglycerides can all be attributed directly to the gallbladder and I’ll see marked improvement of those over the next 4-6 months. Which also means the obstacles to losing weight and possibly even the high blood pressure will also see satisfying improvements.

Sometimes you know it’s not your lifestyle choices. Sometimes it’s freak genetics. And da-yum, does it feel good to be right once again. I just unloaded a little package deal and now my devotion to cautious but persistent healing begins again. Sore but already in so many ways much better than the collection of symptoms that plagued me before. I am beyond grateful for the doctors here and the amazing staff at the hospital I’ve been getting surgeries in. I’m grateful my dad took the leap and finally moved so I could finally unlock everything behind those invisible obstacles. And I’m proud of myself for breaking through doubt and fear and advocating for myself once more. 

As I said, more to come, hopefully a bit more organized so those who need it can glean a little insight if some of their experiences align here and are looking for comfort. That’s really my driving purpose with sharing openly.

Weird Life Hacks

 Do you ever realize that you probably have one or two or ten life hacks floating around in your brain but they’re just so random that you never think to actually compile them? Okay, that’s everyone, but I do have two in particular I decided to share because I remember Googling solutions (are we still saying that?) more than once and my particular solutions are kind of absent from all of them. 

Which basically means, yes, try them yourselves at your own risk but I have done these multiple times and they do work for me at least. Take from that what you will.

First… those painful swollen taste buds. Searches always say saltwater rinse (blech), apply ice, hydrate, keep moist, etc. So when you hear my solution, you’ll wonder how the hell that landed… here goes. Stick out your tongue between your teeth and lips, wipe the saliva from the area with your fingers or just air dry and… wait. Drying the tip of your tongue feels super weird but you’ll notice the painful taste bud actually becomes less sensitive as it dries. I usually leave it out like this for as long as I can stand it (usually no more than 10-15 minutes) then I go ahead and moisten my tongue again, drink water, make sure it feels normal then repeat if it still bothers me. 

I’ve never had to do it more than twice but instead of days of avoiding and wincing, the swelling and sensitivity is gone in less than a day. My little theory here is that drying actually works to starve and desensitize it while also keeping the dark moist environment from irritating it. I still go easy on it and make sure I keep up with dental hygiene but usually after a nap or sleep, it’s gone. Keep in mind I also do not have chronic dry mouth issues or any condition where this could cause problems. I actually stumbled across this because I have the tendency to ‘pick’ or relentlessly agitate wounds/scabs/bruises if I don’t find a way to isolate them. Tongues are tricky because they want to constantly move about. I’ve been in states where I really need to focus so I ended up putting my tongue in ‘timeout’ and momentarily forgetting about it to where it dried out and realizing it was significantly less sensitive and distracting after doing so. So since I remember weird details like that, I just started doing it every time and there was a clear pattern. If you’re prone to swollen taste buds, you may want to see if this cuts down on the healing time like it does for me!

The second one is plantar wart removal. I had one of these suckers when I was working at Petco and nothing worked. I didn’t have health insurance at the time so seeing a doctor wasn’t going to happen so I was getting a bit desperate. I tried the usual; duct tape, clear nail polish, paring (slicing off the dead erupted skin with a sharp sterile knife), wart removal pads and freezing kits. While the freezing kits gave me the best temporary relief, this sucker was persistent. So what worked? This one isn’t entirely outside of advice but it wasn’t this specific. I used a combination of paring and opaque nail polish. To start, you’ll want to pare the erupted part to the level of the skin around it. Do NOT try to dig in. You can do some serious permanent damage and a keloid scar can be more painful than a plantar wart so go ONLY to the skin level. You may or may not see a black ‘seed’ in the wart. Don’t be tempted to fish it out. I’ll explain why as we go. Once you do get to skin level, clean the area again and make sure it’s completely dry then use an opaque or dark colored nail polish to dab and smooth a thin layer, let it dry, then apply one or two more thin layers. Don’t do it thickly thinking you’ll save time. It won’t dry right and it won’t stay put, both of which are crucial. Then just leave it alone up until the pain comes back or the nail polish comes off. You may notice that the wart’s seed is closer to the surface. This is something I noticed myself but again, don’t be tempted to dig it out. You need it to keep rising naturally as this is a sign that your body is helping to reject it. Again, pare the skin carefully only to the surface and repeat the steps of cleaning and applying new nail polish (make sure you are sterilizing the knife and the skin each time; also you really shouldn’t be using either the knife or the nail polish for any other purpose so it’s best to use an old nail polish you intend to throw out or one that you don’t love and don’t mind getting rid of). 

Though I spent months with the other treatments failing, this one slowly but completely resolved the issue noticeably in a little over a week and three parings. By the third or fourth paring, I didn’t need to apply nail polish again; the seed scraped off with the paring and the relief was almost immediate. The skin looked healthy and new and pink, like baby skin, so I cleaned it up, applied an unscented moisturizer and that was that. No scarring, no infection, no need for expensive solutions after all. But again, everything affects each of us differently so this may be a terrific solution for you or you’ll just need to try other options. This one was one where I was able to still work on my feet without pain and the return of pain was an easy indicator to give it attention again. There were 2-3 days in between needing to treat it. You can shower normally (I wouldn’t bathe because it could over moisten the skin and polish) just don’t scrub or you’ll need to wait for your skin to dry completely to repaint it. I definitely had a smoother time of paring after a shower but I wouldn’t do it while the skin is still very wet either. Paring seems to be more controllable when the skin is a little tough. 

Again, I don’t know exactly why the color nail polish worked so much better; it could be the formulation or it could be blocking the light itself that brought the virus/damage/etc closer to the surface (maybe ‘blinding’ it from thinking it was more secure than it was?). I don’t know the exact science but I do think the the adherence but temporary quality of the polish allowed me to be more sensitive to when it was time to treat it again without irritating the skin around it or letting moisture in. Duct tape is probably operating on the same theory but the padding could desensitize the needs and tape can definitely hurt the skin or trap moisture more. 

I’m adding that if you don’t want to contaminate the nail polish or do away with it, use the included brush to put some on a folded up piece of paper (so it doesn’t soak through) and then use a q-tip/cotton swab to apply it. A cotton swab actually does a really good job of making sure the application is thin each time too. 

I used a floral paring knife that was rarely used and always kept cleaning. Please look up how to pare skin properly. I did it similarly to cutting fruit where you grip the knife with your fingers, placing my thumb out of the way on the edge of the foot but pressing the fingers toward the thumb parallel to the skin. You may have to change the technique based on the location and your ability to reach it. Don’t pare it yourself or trust anyone with it if the confidence isn’t there. I’ve been lancing my own abscesses and other things other people let doctors do for years but I’ve also always done due diligence in proper procedure. Feel free to ask about the time I drained an enormous cyst on my cheek, flattened keloid scars or filed corns. Very doable if they haven’t advanced to infection. 

If you have found some off the wall or specific procedure you feel that the internet overlooked, feel free to share! It’s definitely irresponsible to pass off personal advice as something people should blindly trust but if you feel you have a hidden gem that might work for someone but are hesitant that it might end up another TikTok disaster in the wrong hands, you’re still in good company with me, and it might inspire discussion on why it works and who might be more successful with it. In other words, one of the reasons why the Internet could still be a useful space!

Share in comments or drop me a message/email. It might inspire a future post!

Holy Cholecystectomy, Batman!

 No surprise that after that HIDA scan showing 9% ejection fraction and the almost too large polyps that the gallbladder is, indeed, coming out. End of this month, in fact! I’m dealing with the blah symptoms (nausea, upper right quadrant pain especially after fatty foods, fever/chills alternating/ temperature regulation issues, water brash in throat, trapped gas— this can vary for everyone but that’s been my cocktail), counting the days.

My dad lost his best friend this past month to a long battle with cancer. RIP, Richard ‘Too Tall’ Insprucker. Like my grandpa, he stuck around more years than expected and I’m sure his daughter was grateful for every moment even though it’s never enough.

Indiana decided to pass work requirements for Medicaid like the absolute fidgety, awful at budgeting moronic Republicans that they are and I’m just hoping they actually LOOK at my medical history and see that moderate to complex label meaning if my insurance is gone, so is any ability to work. I absolutely rely on ADHD medication to focus and I’ve had a lot of digestive system complications that have been crippling. I have no intent to get on disability. It keeps people poor and helpless and I have no intent of letting them cap my income/assets at any time for any reason. The only ‘entitlement’ I want is health insurance and quite frankly, after a work history that paid little, rarely ever gave me even expensive but even mildly helpful insurance and led to a great deal of my health issues, I *muthafucking* EARNED it. Service and retail jobs sucked my very soul and no one should make less than living wage at jobs that trying. I learned a lot in college but they lied about ever placing me, which was the whole reason I went. I was already learning those programs on my own; what I needed was the network and employment. 

I don’t do ‘nothing’ either. Even laid up, I’ve made crochet patterns to sell, I do product testing with several companies, I do piecework graphic design and do surveys in spare time that I cash out for PayPal credit. No, it’s not stable but I pride myself on being resourceful and giving my life purpose even though my medical issues cause a great deal of anxiety and depression as they get worse before my doctors can figure out what’s wrong. Unfortunately with digestive issues, it requires trying medications for months at a time, running scans when symptoms worsen and waiting some more. 

Just getting to the heart of the gallbladder issue took nearly a year because I also have moderate to severe gastritis and elevated liver enzymes that show some liver damage or hepatic steatosis vs. fibrosis (that IS reversible but will still need to be scanned again next year to see if I’ve been able to do that). For those unaware, this is the crux of medical complexity. It’s one or more chronic conditions that require constant medication and specific treatment. Aside from the physical issues, I’ll remind you again… neurological= ADHD. It not only doesn’t go away, but it can be crippling when under stress. Coping mechanisms can’t always help for impulsivity or emotional regulation. 

I might panic about things that are minor to other people but I’ll be the one weirdly calm in a crisis because I’ve likely already cynically ruminated my way through it in the event it ever happened. I hesitate to call that a disability because when it comes down to it, my brain just files things a bit differently in a way that makes sense to me but can be difficult to explain the logic stack to anyone else. Nonetheless, I don’t have it mildly. I’m a stimmer to the point that others think I’m anxious, but I actually only feel anxiety if I DON’T fidget. If I’m fidgeting, I’m usually calm and thinking clearly. (I had to turn off the tapping feature on my phone that operated my flashlight because I’d turn it off and on when I didn’t realize I was tapping on it.)

But yeah. Indiana is a beautiful place with some ugly misled, authoritarian, freedom hating nosey ass people (and a ridiculous amount of people that fill their yards with rusty junk) but really, where can you go in the US that isn’t full of problems? I don’t have the financial means or the physical ability to just get up and travel. I’m one medical crisis after another and I’m really just trying to get the most out of life however I can. I take care of kitties, indoors and out, and make the best of it. 

But hot damn, are people aggravatingly dumb out there! You guys actually go out there and deal with people without ripping out your hair and howling at the moon? More power to you, because what goes on these days makes me very grateful I enjoy my own company. It’s like people don’t even try to be polite anymore. I mean, there are a few of us left but not nearly enough. It’s soothing to my soul when we meet, but I miss when people were at least fake-considerate. Grumbling about Gen Z when most of these kids are a lot more emotionally intelligent than the haters.

It’s Coming Out…

Well, today is the day I went and got the HIDA scan and while I wasn’t expecting a stellar gallbladder, I also was not at all expecting a 9% ejection fraction. And I know that most people have no clue what that means (I didn’t either), between 35-40% is passing functional, with 70% and above and 35% and below both being strong risks for removal (cholecystectomy). So 9% isn’t just borderline bad, it’s significantly low. I go next week for the next steps but I’m under no illusion about avoiding surgery here. With the abdominal and digestive distress and nausea, I was already preparing for this to be the case.

And surgical complications aside, I’m mostly looking forward to seeing some of these symptoms kick rocks. Aside from the incision site soreness, my last surgery gave me this incredible insight into listening to my body and taking the good with the bad. I do still have to follow a gastritis and liver friendly diet but with the gallbladder being gone, that’s one less trigger to content with. Life without gallbladder’s list of smaller meals, less fatty, spicy and acidic foods are already something I’ve been maintaining for months (if not years; moderation but not restriction and awareness of the risks of discomfort if I do exceed anyway). 

Still, finding something is always part anxiety part relief. Early finding means being able to get to something before it’s an emergency or cancer risk. I’ve used what I learned about paying attention to symptoms to advocate for this change and it actually feels good to know I do know my body well enough to insist something isn’t right. And to not fear the guilt of ‘wasting someone’s time’ if it’s nothing serious. We can’t know but it’s best to err on the side of caution. I haven’t been wrong yet and I’m proud of myself for pushing past old fears and rejections to insist on looking at what could be causing repeat discomfort or pain.

I told an old friend once that I’m broken. I think they might have seen it as giving up or not taking risks but I meant it quite literally. I hadn’t been diagnosed for the ovarian issue yet and that cost me more than half my life in physical and mental distress before I even knew the source. And I continue to have vision issues (I had high pressure in my left eye that went away post surgery and became astigmatism, like it deflated and deformed the shape of the eye itself) and ongoing digestive distress from where it pressed against my sigmoid colon, bladder, gallbladder, stomach and spinal nerve. I have never had a normal sex drive or interest. So when I said I was broken, I wasn’t being poetic but, as I said, quite literal. I can’t be dismissive about the pain and anxiety that left permanent marks on me. And I’m not about to be ashamed or overcompensate to please others. I didn’t say it with shame or some odd sense of pride either, just matter-of-factly. I am broken. It’s not a disability but I am very much shaped by the struggle to make my body do what I want it to do. I struggle for energy and stamina and sometimes just finding my niche. I don’t exactly fit anywhere so I need people in my life who aren’t looking for where I go. If you’re meant to be in my life, you won’t be ashamed of me or feel the need to explain why you’re my friend. It’s your self-esteem that suffers if you can’t defend your friends as their own people. Quite frankly, I’d rather be alone than treated like a shameful secret. The people that value me have never had to bring me low to raise themselves up. I don’t need to tell most of you that that is a toxic relationship. Please, do not ever stay around someone you feel is beneath you or even better than you. Healthy relationships are about equality and embracing those differences. I’ve said it countless times before but comparisons kill clarity. They’re highly subjective and stunt your growth if they’re not constructive.

You can’t really have a talk about physical health with a dive into mental health. Remember that in a state of physical illness, you really have to look for those mental vulnerabilities and take care how they affect the physical. It’s all too easy to be too hard on yourself when you’re weakened by pain and doubt. Look for support where you can. If not with others going through something similar, they by fortifying yourself to understand your mental state might need some pep talks from the self.

Losing It (Not My Mind)

 Just an update on my health issues here. Starting with weight loss, other than a bit of an upset where I gained 2 lbs instead of losing 8 like previous months, I got back on track and lost 6 lbs, so I made it to 215.6 this morning. This means I’m 1/3 of the way to the goal weight of 150, having lost almost 30 lbs since December 4th when I started.

For those who are curious, it’s mostly diet and outdoor walks when the weather allows, housework pulls a lot of duty on bad weather days though. Breakfast is typically tuna salad on whole grain bread or multigrain crackers or egg with salsa on toast. Banana bread is another variation occasionally, as is oatmeal with fruit. Lunches are typically 1/2 cup of lentils in half a can of soup, occasionally a turkey sandwich with mustard and Swiss or provolone. I also make batches of Mediterranean pasta salad (whole grain rotini, feta, Kalamata olives, grape tomatoes, cucumbers, chickpeas, and a homemade red wine vinaigrette). Dinners are typically 5 oz chicken breast, baked or pan cooked in olive oil with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Sauces for the chicken include buffalo ranch, sour cream Dijon with dill, tomato pesto, teriyaki (sometimes with Swiss, red onions, and pineapple rings), avocado (with sour cream, salsa, garlic and lime), and hoisin with sesame oil. I might add more but I loved all of these so I’m content to prep 8 dinners at once, 2 each with four different sauces. These also have a side of veggies including asparagus, cauliflower, carrots, broccoli, green beans and/or potatoes. On occasion, I’ll eat tacos or farfalle Alfredo or even pizza if I make room for them but they’re higher calorie, sodium and saturated fats so those are rare exceptions. Snacks include Greek yogurt with chia, flax and hemp hearts, raw almonds, apples with peanut butter, bitter dark chocolate but I really deviate on snacks a lot and let that be a mood. It sounds like a lot but it’s cheaper than you think to whip a lot of it up in batches. Another occasional addition is homemade sushi rolls, typically with crab, avocado, cucumber and cream cheese, but you can’t store these for too long and it’s a lot of prep so I don’t often do this, as much as I love them. I prefer the things I can freeze for a week or two and heat up as needed.

Jumping to general health, BP meds have given a very slight drop in BP. I’m experiencing a lot of nausea and abdominal distress still and I’m scheduled for a HIDA scan to see if the gallbladder polyps means it needs to come out. I’m kind of hoping the solution to getting rid of the added digestive stress is that simple to correct. It’s not a complex surgery and my sister had it done and was back to normal in a little over a week. The gastritis I’m just not sure if it will be as easy to resolve or remain chronic and be a cancer risk. I hate these tentative ones but I’ll remain focused on weight loss which can do a lot for symptoms. After so many setbacks, I’m just so relieved I can lose weight at all because I had so many obstacles in the attempts. I had thought the ten pounds I lost after ovary surgery was a good start but complications elsewhere were always possible and I had to summon a lot of strength to keep advocating for my health.

Creatively, I’m not a force right now but I’m not dried up either. I’ve been building the mini houses and have slowly acquired the stuff to make a proper diorama for them. Since the nausea hit a couple weeks ago, that’s been on pause. If all I can do right now is focus on diet and exercise, to fight to earn back the energy and focus for my creative pursuits, I am embracing that and keeping my cognitive function as flexible as possible. Mostly doing logic puzzle type games on my phone, as much as I can without nausea interrupting.

Aging is fucking scary. Aging with grace is a privilege not everyone has. None of us like to be here but it’s inevitable. I just aim to do as much as I can with this life while I can. I don’t need some grand return. I just strive for peace and kindness and contributing to that for others as much as possible. Just with as little socialization as possible because people… y'all wear me out. I really can only take so much before I just want to be alone and interpret my experiences.

The Obesity Question

 I went through a lot of introspection over the years about body image, like many women are forced to do throughout life. And this is coming from someone who has always marched to their own beat, no matter how much I tried to blend in. (Masking can work temporarily but always comes with a cost.) I came with a large frame, broad shoulders and with an early puberty, broad hips, and a big ole booty. And all of this when I was a normal weight for the better part of my life. So even then, I got comments about being big if not outright fat when I was just fit.

I’ve written extensively throughout my blog about my body struggles. I started gaining a ridiculous amount of weight in my late 20s due to antipsychotic mood stabilizers that I never needed. ADHD misdiagnosed as bipolar. 80 lbs in app. 8 months kind of fast. Dealt with depression over that for a few years before wrenching my ankle stepping off of a curb humiliated me enough to diligently diet and exercise. It took a year and a half to lose 63 lbs and the plateau stuck there despite still being overweight. Six months of no more loss turned into major burnout. After a year, the weight crept on.

I got to about 215 lbs before my sister and I resolved to lose weight together. She did, I just kept gaining. I was working twice as hard trying to catch up. This is when I learned I was fighting hormonal hell and an ovarian fibroma looking to kill me. Again, talked about extensively in former posts. I was about 235-240 prior to surgery. After surgery, I dropped 10 lbs but ended up at 246. Doctors found fatty liver, gallbladder polyps and gastritis this time.

But instead of being discouraged, I saw hope in this. Why? Because those are things that diet can actually reliably help. So I made grocery lists diligently and started prepping. I got this. I’ve done this before and knew exactly what foods to focus on. Over the next few months, I have consistently lost two lbs a week, exactly what I was aiming for, no more no less. As I said before, without hormonal chaos blocking my efforts, I already had the discipline. Last week’s weigh in put me at 221.5 lbs. I don’t weigh daily or even weekly. I weigh at the end of the month and hope it’s about 8 pounds less than before. It works. I’m not prone to fixation on the obsession of that number every time so I can spend more time focusing on calorie burn and exercise and alleviating stress. So I’ve already lost 10% of my starting weight but the end goal is nearly 40% of loss from that number. Again, 150 is firmly in the normal zone for my body type and I don’t care to go beyond that. I could only get to 167 before the time bomb inside of me started working against me.

And this is the driving point behind starting a post about weight loss again. Obesity is not a discipline problem. Many times it’s a very complex problem. I started with looking at it like a discipline problem because that’s always the first assumption. And yes, I had a food insecurity issue. I used to ask my dad to buy specific foods but if I didn’t eat them right away, he would and I would deal with the crushing disappointment of the loss of that comfort food. So I’d often binge a lot of comfort foods after seeing them, knowing they weren’t guaranteed to be there if I waited. Yet that problem being removed didn’t fix it. Even once I maintained a healthy and strict discipline, I dealt with the disappointment of calories in calories out letting me down. I had doctors check my blood but tests were always normal. No metabolic or thyroid or issues so it was always insinuated that I was just lying about diet and exercise. Not that my neglected reproductive system was killing me slowly. I still firmly advocate for women to get screenings outside of what is routine only for pregnant women. Child free/less women should be screened regardless, especially when family history, pressure or pain in the abdomen, etc. exists.

Please don’t fall into the trap of thinking you aren’t doing enough. Chances are you’re doing far more than most and have crept every nook and cranny of the internet and doctor advice you could possibly find and are being failed. If you’re a woman reading this, you may need to assert the importance of screening, scans and blood tests more regularly than recommended. The recommendations fail us often. Luckily, because I do press now, they found my three new abdominal issues early and diet actually can help now. Even in a household rife with pizza rolls, hostess cupcakes and high sodium frozen dinners. 

I still ‘cheat’ but I don’t consider it the crime some do. I dong deny myself the things that aggravate my conditions; in fact, causing the discomfort only reaffirms why I love a healthier normal now. I fully remember to appreciate the efforts needed to lose weight and stick with it. Diets and exercise are hard to figure out for all of us. I’m happy to share some tips that might work but you may need to learn which foods, healthy or not, you can and can’t tolerate to tailor my advice towards your own journey. All the same, I want women to start to genuinely understand that obesity is not a personal failing. Medicine can fail us, genetics can fail us; don’t let anyone gaslight your efforts or make you feel like one ‘cheat’ was the catastrophe holding you back. You can fall off the wagon with diet and exercise more than you think and still succeed IF you’re not battling an unknown diagnosis. Fight to be heard. Fight to be on this earth longer and stronger. Fight to feel good again.

New desk, who dis?

 I downsized my clutter a lot when moving to the new house and once I got all my stuff in… the room still had that echo quality that screamed emptiness. At first, the minimalist void felt like an accomplishment but then it felt like I was in someone else’s home. And it was technically someone else’s home not long before then so I wondered how to make it my own.

One of my first big purchases was my corner desk. A humble behemoth that would fill the yawning space of the corner between the two windows. My little computer desk was some ramshackle abandoned Walmart buy my friend left behind when moving in with a boyfriend but it was perfect in my attic room with sloped ceilings and limited space. It didn’t make the trip here (my dad and stepbrother managed to bang up my storage ottoman and TV stand too but those were able to survive, albeit irregularly) but it would have looked ridiculous in the gaping corner space.

It took myself, my brother and nephew to help me put it together, if only to maneuver the thick instruction booklet, someone to hold and another to assemble. Two people was enough but being able to concentrate on the instructions and guide the assembly made for a smooth job for me, with each of them assembling a wing of the desk and referring back to me for their next step. Still, it took nearly four hours to reach completion and give my trusty old 2009 iMac a home. My graphics tablet (more often relegated to a second monitor) and printer joined the tech force and I was happy to assemble a proper filing system in the file side, adding a shelf to the big tower cabinet that needed no tower so I could file the odds like my mobile graphic tablet, binders, a photo box of resumes, fancy parchment papers and so on. It didn’t take long for dolls and a spice rack I converted into a craft bit keeper to move in. When my sister got me a Cricut and a 3D printer over the next couple years, I was truly at a loss for spaciousness.

I ended up converting my humble craft table into the only surface that could accommodate the 3D printer tent that is a necessity in a house with cats and shoving all craft stuff onto the right wing of the desk. My printer is in limbo between a grey end table and a wheeled laptop desk. Storage between the 3D printer and corner desk became… am I moving again? Boxes! Too many janky junky boxes! How did I get here AGAIN?!

So my new mission became to get… another desk. Something that could hold the entirety of the monster printer tent and provide sleek storage for all the craft-toting boxes. I wanted a craft table again. I wanted my corner desk to migrate back into a proper office setup (plus the whimsy of a cat cafe diorama but I’m not trying to become bland) and instead extend the space to accommodate having TWO Cricuts (yes, that’s right; as a product tester, I accumulated a spiffy new Cricut Explore 3 to now be the Queen of Craft Machines). I also wanted a proper cabinet to sort all this eyesore clutter into so I don’t look like a hoarder. Things eventually leave as I gift quite a bit rather than make and hoard. I wanted the journey, not to get saddled with a dust collecting neglected accomplishment. I find someone who will appreciate it and it’s theirs.

In any case, laptop desk will migrate into another space, as well as the grey end table, which will find a new home in the bathroom next to the sink most likely. The printer will go back on the corner desk and the craft table will fill that spot, getting all its crafting stuff back.

But, thanks to a friend of my sister’s needing some impromptu graphic design assistance and her adding another $100 for Christmas, I’m getting the desk I’ve wishlisted and mooned over for months! Measured, planned, perfect space saving and eye-pleasing compromise for that space. A black and faux wood miracle of modern space.

 I’ll post the proper before and after once I’ve gotten everything sorted and can say for sure what I’m pleased with. It should come the Sunday before Christmas so my sister will be here and offered to help me build it. So eager to get it up and functional.

As for life, I started the diet I was successful on years ago to help me lose weight. I haven’t been ambitious with exercise yet but dropping the weight is crucial in alleviating some of the pressure on unfixable joints. Diet is still the best way to do this, with exercise being better for toning and eventually burning off the more stubborn fat later. I’ve been going almost three weeks strong now but I’m avoiding the scale for now, just focusing on reducing stress (which can trap weight loss more than anything) and keeping a clean focused diet. 

For those wondering, breakfast is typically an egg on whole grain toast or tuna salad. Lunch is a prepped variety of 1/2 cup lentils added to soup. Dinner is either one of my prepped chicken dinners (sauces ranging from creamy avocado, creamy Dijon, hoisin sesame, and teriyaki, with broccoli, spinach or pineapples as the side. Snacks are usually honey Greek yogurt with chia seeds, cottage cheese with fruit, a hard boiled egg, typically a protein to keep evening cravings in check, which is one of my weak spots. Evening anxieties tended to result in unsatisfied grazing.

I haven’t done much crafting but this can happen when I’m focusing on diet. It’s not an easy habit for me, especially one not even a month old. I’m hoping the new desk and organized space may rekindle some of that ambition but it’s okay if some things need to be shelved while I focus on wellness. I resorted to extreme fasting and overdoing exercise in my desperation before surgery just to watch the number on the scale go horrifically higher. Now I have gastritis so if I want to court ulcers or cancer, I can skip meals but the only real option is a very protein focused steady small meal plan. And that is exactly what my old diet had been when I was doing well.

So that’s that. I’d probably go into more detail but I gave cats to feed. Man, can I fill time typing though!

Spontaneous Change

 Sometimes you plan for changes in life. I’m rarely able to do that successfully so more often than not, I end up… just doing it? Honestly, the results of the US election got me so low that I decided I was done with social media. I don’t know for how long but the month so far without it hasn’t made me miss it. 

My health is still subpar but I decided after Thanksgiving that I would go back on a strict diet that worked prior to the hormone hell of the ovarian fibroma. I don’t know how much exercise I can manage just yet but diet is far more pivotal for needing to lose weight. I don’t see my new doctor until February (a nurse practitioner but the semantics are ridiculous here and NPs are the real deal) after ditching the one that caused me more stress than helped. This also means I’m doing without Vyvanse (hey, I had to cope without meds most of my life; it’s not a setback, just a bit more work). Had to get an ultrasound but my gallbladder is okay. My liver is slightly enlarged but I’m thinking taking green tea extract might’ve been the culprit. Still have to speak to the stomach doc to run it by him. Either way, I’m going to make a shift. Try to see if I can take drastic measures to reverse some damage while also being certain I’m not encouraging disordered eating or excessive muscle damage. I still have the deteriorating foot bone. I still have osteopoikilosis in my left hip. I still have degenerative arthritis in my lower back. Those things don’t get better but I can at least lighten the load.

And I’ve been crafting though that’s a bit of a slog. I’ve finished two tiny houses, I’m attempting to crochet some plushies before Christmas for gifts, I fixed some patches that didn’t glue onto a coat right the first time (make sure you remove the backing off of patches; the glue doesn’t stick to certain backings. Test prior to sticking onto a jacket with any kind of scrap cloth. If it sticks, don’t worry about peeling it off, just trim the scrap and glue it directly to the coat. If it peels off, you need to get enough of the backing off to dab the glue directly onto the patch for attaching). 

Long parentheses, but that’s what I’m good for. Those asides that get away from me!

I have a couple more of the tiny houses to make and I’ll post them to this blog altogether once I’ve finished. And think about committing some shelf space to bringing their tiny neighborhood to life. I would love to find stable work from home. I have no desire to convert my hobbies to that space. I will either to design, copywriting or data work if I take it to monetizing, but never again making my hobbies and passions subject to custom order hell. I’ve been doing decent with generating a humble passive income with selling patterns but not a livable one. It constantly eats at me that in my early 40s I’m not in a stable place. That my mind, body and emotions are in a sort of chaotic limbo that I can’t do much to break out of. I’ve had to put commitments with dear friends on hold just to try to focus my limited energies on what little basics I can. 

I really hope I can adhere to the diet. Not gonna lie, it takes weeks to establish this kind of habit and falling off the wagon can make you vulnerable to where the ‘get right back on’ doesn’t always inspire confidence you can stay on. That can take months to believe you’re capable of. But it’s really the only way I have left. Doctors have only been able to do so much and the wait between what I should do is maddening. I have this one nugget of a time where I was turning things around and I have to REALLY work twice as hard to do that again. So much has changed with surgeries and menopause and time that I know I will need more patience with the process than before and that had pushed me to the limits before already.

No time like the present for change though.

If It Ain’t Broke… j/k, It’s Broke

 I’ve said it before but I can’t say I’m surprised that surgery only fixed some of the problem… and some of the problems left are just as bad.

The foot issue hasn’t been resolved but without signs of advancing deterioration, surgical options are too soon to consider. He gave me a cortisone injection in the joint which only sort of helped. The toe still pops like it’s dislocating and it’s not a fun feeling. But I can walk okay though long walks aren’t in the cards; even short walks can trigger sharp but fast fading pains. So that issue is a work in progress. Sigh.

The latest issue is… what is looking very strongly like another hormone imbalance, this time from the thyroid. I started losing energy and sleep over the past few months and at first, just chalked it up to perimenopause. However, I have this feeling where the thyroid is located of something being stuck or just constant weak pressure, like turtleneck or choker pressing against it. It doesn’t hurt and it’s not sore, but it can affect my breathing and swallowing (just making it slightly more difficult) which in turn, can keep me awake. I’ve tried correcting my posture and lying flat, etc. but it seems like tea, deep breathing and drinking fluids seem to distract me enough until it fades enough to sleep. Mind you, none of those things actually help the problem go away, but they distract from the feeling until it eases up.

And the symptoms creeping up more and more like joint and muscle pain, lethargy, acne spots becoming scaly, puffiness in my face and hands and feet, every time I follow the symptoms, they have hypothyroidism in common. I’m not 100% of course because it takes a blood test and examination to confirm that but the signs are just pointing to it. And maybe I’m even hopeful that’s ‘all it is’ so a pill can treat it. I’m so tired of the possibility of more surgeries. I’m not getting stronger or healthier and the risks just pile up.

So I tried omeprazole at my doctor’s suggestion but it didn’t make a difference; called her back so she could order an endoscopy like discussed. I don’t know if that will find anything different so I’m not going to be overly confident about my self-diagnosis. I never suspected the ovarian fibroma. But I have learned that every issue can be connected which did lead me to thyroid issues being the possibility.

And it would figure. I’ve wanted so badly to get fit again so of course not being able to lose weight would be yet another hormone issue affecting it. The foot issue has had me discouraged but that’s exactly what I’m afraid of now. I’m afraid it will be like the ovarian fibroma and finding the cause will drag out while I’m helpless and have no quality of life, ever at the mercy of people who blame some flaw in my choices as the reason why I’m sick. I just want to be well enough to have a life again. I haven’t been able to work, I’m too weak to craft even, and I use what energy I can just making sure I’m not living in filth. Housework is ridiculously exhausting where it used to be fulfilling. 

So yeah. I want a simple fixable answer. I’m scared and vulnerable and trying to pretend I’m not. I don’t desire to nor have the energy to field concerns and even a casual ‘how are you?’ feels like a weight that ‘fine’ is too heavy a lie to drool out generically, to appease whatever awkwardness someone feels in the silence.

Until I get the answer, I live with the anxiety again. They’re the abusive partner I thought I was strong enough to leave. So my confidence and self-worth just dwindles by the moment, aching for clarity to build solutions on.

I miss the beach. I want to clear my mind in only the way the feel of my feet slipping into cool soft sand can do. But right now I battle the edges of depression, my mind telling me I’ll never get to do that again. This isn’t me, damn it. Why am I lost in this person I’m not? I remember who I was with longing and that’s how I definitely know something is wrong well before a doctor can confirm it. I just hope they’ll listen. It gets so hard to fight to be heard over and over. At a time when you’re most vulnerable and less yourself, trying to plead a case for being worthy of healing is just not a strength you have easy access to. You have to dig with energy you don’t have enough of. You have to hope they’ll meet you halfway and help you pull through.

I so didn’t want to be here again. It’s just so… heavy.