One of those medical assessment posts for my glitchy memory.
Established with cardiology yesterday. I had a cardiologist a couple years before and after my radio ablation for SVT back in 2000, but insurance changes flipped me to another network, and I'm just now establishing again after the May hospitalization for uncontrollable blood pressure breakout. I am fabulous right now, so I don't have to go back until next year, but at least now I have direct call waiting and email to specialist if I need one. I think my primary is relieved.
Ramping slowly back up to 300mg 3x a day on the gabapentin per neurologist, again. This is the third time I'm trying. First time (winter 2017) went up too fast and turned into lethargic zombie. Second time (May 2018) coincided with amlodipine and got significant leg swelling, plus the amlodipine wrecked my diabetes. This time it's slow and the only med being changed. So far I'm sleeping better and getting up easier, no weight gain or fluid retention that I can tell. Being commanded to watch blood pressure after stopping amlodipine, have been able to solidly correlate pain level to blood pressure since I also ramped down the gabapentin and now ramping back up. It's one thing to say pain causes high blood pressure, it's another to actually see it on paper. Clearly I need to stay on pain management, now that I'm below the 140/90 target again. I'm still on toprol, of course, but my pain levels easily override control when I try to tough things out and power through, like I was brought up to do through my childhood. Looking back, I can see that powering through probably set me back through much of my adult life, as I gritted my teeth and held on through college and jobs and trying to be a good parent for kids in school. The band president year was pretty rough. I loved it, though, and I don't regret it. Stuff like that. But yeah, I fought hard to stay as normal as possible in between month or year long stretches of complete disability and severe immobility.
Also, the stenosis in my neck is bad enough now that even slightly turning my head either direction sends shooting pains down shoulders (so fun in traffic!), and if there is really less wiggle room in there, maybe it's time to move past chiropractor. It was a lifesaver over the last decade as I was going through core strength in physical therapy, but all that is stabilized now and I rarely need adjustments any more. I knew this would be part of Plan C, moving on to the meds.
I'll still need ASTYM maintenance or I'll freeze up solid, but you can't ASTYM a nerve trunk, lol. The thought made me giggle. There's a special kind of humor in pain lifestyle.
There is also irony, like slamming through a week long tweetfest one week before carpal tunnel surgery. 😂 I have really been enjoying #SharknadoWeek on Syfy, but barely able to hang onto anything because of it, like flipping a spoonful of yogurt on my good blouse, casually tossing my phone into a wet sink, I won't even bring up keys. Too late. But yeah, it's crucial to always close the toilet around a person like me in the house. Anything could go anywhere at any time if my hands even pretend to touch something. You'd laugh if you could see how klutzy I am trying to moderate on a game server. Just trying to type a short command under pressure is hilarious when the player has one of those long names spelled weird with caps and dashes and extra x's sprinkled around.
Let's see, what else. Allergies are so bad right now that I've tripled my zyrtec and benadryl, ears feel like I'm underwater or flying 20K feet, throat is on fire and sore to swallow. I'm mostly fine inside my house. We have 3 hepas now and I'm so stringent on laundry coming in that most of it stops at the door, but even just driving into town in a climate controlled car with air filters has me swimming in snot. I was chunking more antihistamines in traffic yesterday only 15 minutes from my house. Between all the mowing and the rains and wind now in a high humidity region, I am breathing particulate soup everywhere I go.
Is this boring? I feel boring. No one ever talks about the conspiracy scenes in Sherlock. Oh, yeah, the fan theories, but you know, like the background scenes and stuff... Here, lemme distract you from that before you actually think or something.
The Cases Are Fake: A Theory That Totally Changes Sherlock
Except that all falls apart in season four, when we find out it wasn't Mycroft...
Ok, I'll give you a nibble. Like the clock scene when Moriarty is giving the raspberry in the air sending a text off to Mycroft. The time is 10:55. Check this out, from What are police codes? What is the meaning of the police code 1055?
10–55 means “dead person” or “coroners case.” This would be the ten code used on a police radio when an officer arrives on the scene and finds something dead. Although the code is meant to describe dead people it is often used to describe other dead things like a dead car battery, a dead radio, or dead animal.
Yeah, I know that's a stretch because that's a U.S. code, but still fun to think about. I could make a whole list, though. I still say the filming was brilliant, whether it was purposeful or not.
And because I free associate right off the page, I wound up here
This playing card is from the the board game 24: Countdown
which I have in my house
In 2008 I struggled with who I feel like I'm supposed to be being. I struggled with my belief system and what I inherently feel is right. I struggled to express myself against a mainstream grain that had me rigidly locked into formation to the point of self destruction. I struggled for my life, my soul, my sanity in a world full of locked rooms, rules about keeping secrets, and masks we were all supposed to be wearing. Colors suddenly seemed very important to me, and it was crucial that I find my color. I kept remembering blue, it permeated my dreams throughout my life, and I could feel it was time to migrate somehow.
Always dreaming, never sleeping, kind of seeming I'm ok,
Touching no one, having no fun, wishing to go out and play.
Hear me whisper, feel me passing, wonder what they think of me,
See me fading, I'm just shadows, tasting only what is free.
No commitment, no surrender, nothing to pretend to hide,
Live forever, slowly dying, falling out of either side.
Keep me running, flying nowhere, prancing round a misty dawn,
Racing stillness, moonlight standing, floating wreaths of breathy prawn.
Nothing matters, worldly guessing, logic hopeless reason chance,
Sculpted meaning, mindless treasure, my place is to sing and dance.
Ever since that spring I've felt like if I don't say what I'm supposed to say, what I'm here to say, I will fail. This is one of the first really honest pieces I ever wrote for public. Bluejacky (originally on xanga) is here to be honest. Going back now and rereading this after running into the Law of One is blowing me away. (That is a simplistic link for easy condensed thought, nothing else.)
(I'm struggling with the format moving this over from original since the coding went through a webkit grinder during server move years ago, and blogger won't let me preview correctly, so I'm winging this. I got it wrestled into a box on the laptop, no telling how it will look on mobile.)
Stars on a blue spectrum are moving toward us. Ever since I was born I have been fascinated by this kind of blue, blue light, blue in nature. I even wanted to be blue. Blue skin, blue hair. I sometimes dream in vivid blue.
Sometimes I feel like I have memories of something other than here as I am now. I have tried reading a few new age books and am a little disappointed at the consistent romanticism, although I long ago reached the conclusion in my childhood without anyone telling me this, that we are here to learn, and that if we fail to learn while we have the chance we get 'stuck' or something. Getting stuck is far worse suffering than any suffering we go through learning to sacrifice ourselves for love. Respect and courtesy for others in any shape or form is more important than any ideas we get in our heads that drive us apart with disdain and violence. Appreciation and contentment are more important than acquisition and pride. Truth is good, forgiveness is better. Our learning boils down to whether we pick being selfish or being selfless. Will we destroy others, or will we become wise and puzzle a way to get along?
If it is true that we travel around this universe (and others?) in all kinds of bodies while our spirits learn and grow wise, then I know I have been other places than here.
Time and distance have no meaning outside this box that contains time and distance.
As a child I looked up at the night sky and knew I came from out there. I felt this long before I ever encountered the idea. I feel like this place now, although I like it very much, is a place I am visiting. This feeling is congruent with many beliefs, including Christianity, Buddhism, and atheism.
When I first was, I was joy. I was energy- glorious, thrilling, exhilarating energy. I knew nothing else. I swam in an endless world of joyful energy, all of us bouncing and rebounding, racing, feeling nothing but joy.
That is what being alive starts out as, I am sure of it. I feel like I remember it. It's a very old memory, one I cherish, one I miss sometimes, without really knowing this or understanding it. But I want to feel that joy again. I want to feel that exhilaration and energy and swim in a sea of joy.
Was that the big bang? Was that the beginning of this universe? Will I ever know?
Over a great deal of time, I feel I became aware of a little bit going on around me. This is me, that is not me. I bump into that. That is what being alive starts teaching us. We are not alone. We interact. And over a great deal of time, we learn that we affect one another.
We start simply. Photons? Were we light? They say we come from the stars, but I'm sure that assumes our bodies are made of the elements created in the stars. What about our spirits, who we are? Is there more than this body? I feel like there is way, way more.
Over another great deal of time we learn concepts. Survive. Work to survive. Cooperate to survive. Absorb to survive. Kill to survive. Rocks don't do this. Algae, viruses, cells, organisms. Are cells self aware in some tiny way? Is that how a universe of cells in a body can communicate and cooperate so quickly? Can we become more than knee-jerk reaction, more than mindless consumption?
Over another great deal of time we learn feelings and the actions they inspire. Loyalty. Protect. Help. Give. Die to insure the survival of the whole. We become a society, aware of others. Tiny birds do this. Some insects do this. Some plants do this. Basic training for everything from the least of these to higher organisms like dogs and people.
Over more time we learn emotional pain. Loss. Anguish. The absence of others. The idea that we cherished others. The need for others. To learn from. To love. To share joy with.
And over more time we learn the strength to withstand all of this, to grow into a new kind of joy that transcends time and place, and who we are. We learn to see it all, appreciate it all, and become- what?
What is next? Please tell me it's not some inert heaven or nirvana where we stop growing. I think we have that concept all wrong.
Perhaps this universe is preparing us for the next one. Or perhaps one day we'll be outside the cauldron of universe bubbles in an completely new way of being, seeing, and feeling.
I love being here. I love learning geology, cosmology, anthropology- the histories of everything I can see. I feel like I am so lucky to be living right now, in this time and place. At no other time in human history has so much information been accessible with my fingertips while I sit in a chair. At no other time has so much knowledge been amassed. We almost know the entire history of the earth, the sun, how long they'll last, the history of our galaxy, it's probable future, and we even now know how old the universe itself is, and so many of its secrets. We were blind like salamanders in a cave only a handful of years ago, and now we can see what seems like everything.
This will never come again in human history. If anything happens to this earth, all this knowledge will be lost. If anyone survives over the next several thousand, or even a few hundred years, what's left of knowledge will become myth and legend. It will be as if we never really existed.
Blue is much more than a color to me. It is something I once was, a state of being, information I don't know how to access, a strong feeling I'm not able to verbalize. Somehow it is part of who I am, and for some reason, it feels important. I realize this could just be a manifestation of my weird aspie brain. But I also wonder if my weird aspie brain is able to feel more than this box world we live in. I have a feeling many more people can feel more than they are able to understand or willing to admit.
Enjoy learning on this earth while we have time. Enjoy that we are all precious.
I've spent years living a double life, tearing my head apart in one direction while I soak up entertainment in another. I love to think. Over the years it's become almost stupidly obvious that entertainment is a brain training medium that seems designed to stultify the actual thought process. I brought up the movie Equilibrium in an old Autisable submission called Psyching Up – Becoming Liberated. I've made a lot of progress since 2011, but even back then my dichotomies were glowing like neon.
I think it’s really bothering him that I can so easily skate around morals and ethics in noncommittal ways. I have a few opinions, but I’ve already realized a long time ago that opinions can change and that having opinions doesn’t necessarily affect the reality around my life. In fact, I believe opinions are rather useless in most instances unless they directly relate to the way I behave toward other people, and we all know I tend to believe the person in front of me is more important than any opinions I might have. I think I’ve lost him somewhere in all that.
I can see now that he was holding space for me as I navigated my way through my jungle. I know now that I learned to dissociate, that I passive aggressively displaced blame, and that I didn't live what I instinctively feel inside is right. I spent many years pinging around in my head like a pinball, defending things I actually don't even believe in. I was trained to do that. All the same, it bothered me, and I felt compelled to sift down meaning before I lost myself in wasted time.
This spring and summer I've been catching up on David Wilcock's stuff. I had always liked all the people on Ancient Aliens and often picked up books some of them wrote, but I had never chased David around the webs. Until this year. Wow, I missed a lot all this time, probably the most and the best, but like all the other synchronicity I talk about, I probably wasn't ready for it yet. As I've been listening to several years of talks, I was very surprised to hear thoughts I'd previously had coming right out of his mouth. I've run into this before, where I think something and then run into it somewhere, and have written about how ideas seem to hit a lot of people all over the world around the same time, and I joke about how all I have to do is relax and wait for someone else to do all the work developing the ideas that I feel compulsed to get into, and it's amazing how many times that has happened. It's like I just think something, I'd like to know more about this or that, and pretty quick, I run into it all over the place. Weirdly, though, quite a lot more poured out of David that I've been thinking about for years and had never run into before, because I've honestly just never looked that hard. It's been exhilarating.
But another very surprising thing showed up in David's talks. He brought up the Cabal... I've been going deep on that for awhile now, shows up on posts going back a few years, figuring out how I fit into the world picture and why I might know more than some others, but then David connected a whole buncha dots putting logic together with spirituality in a world going down a political sinkhole, tossed in Corey Goode (so fitting that his website is down right now, everyone mentioning the Cabal is being ripped out of spacetime) and everything just lit up. The whole point to being here is on the line. Our long line of evolutionary development is right on the edge of tipping over because a few super wealthy people think they own the planet. I already knew millions have been suffering for decades (millennia) for the rich and their games, but I had no idea the portent of now.
I love Jack Bauer. I love Kiefer. I'm sad Kiefer is a tool, but I'm glad I saw his existence. In spite of fails, seeds were planted.
And this was my song when I needed it most during the hardest parts of my life.
A lot of people think stuff like that field across the road from my house looks messy. I think it looks beautiful. It's not exactly native prairie, but at least it's fairly indigenous nowadays since it's been neglected so long.
I finally wrapped my head around school shopping. I've decided that this year I need to fix up my bug out bag with a mobile med kit in one of those plastic pencil boxes (I'm always needing alcohol wipes and latex free bandaids or a nail clipper), a mobile post office (cards, stamps, address labels, birthday confetti, address book, colored pens), and possibly several other organized kits. It's silly being caught flatfooted so often. I thought about mailing out a birthday card to my sister 3 different times, and I finally sent it off today and it's going to be late. Anyway, I've also been anxiously checking for my college to show up in the back to school stuff, and there we go, today there was suddenly a whole bunch. And of course, Bunny has corrupted me, I found adult sized Shopkins sox, so I'm ready for back to school now.
I saw my neurologist today for 6 month follow up. I've been going every 6 months for several years. I've had 2 full needle workups making sure my nervous system is still working ok, and he coaches me into physical therapy and meds here and there. He's rather insisting that I try to ramp back up and hold at 300 mg of gabapentin 3x a day again. (I've tried it 3 times now, I keep coming back down to 200 3x.) The ultimate goal is to keep me moving as much as possible, particularly now that I have 'frozen shoulder' coming on, which is when the entire shoulder area gets so difficult to lift that you finally just can't, and the muscles 'freeze' up as they harden with scar tissue. Between the ancient car accident and subsequent years of fibromyalgia, and now arthritis starting to show up with the documented nerve impingement, I'm on my way to losing that arm if I don't keep using it as much as I possibly can. The last round of therapy last spring was brutal, but I am still retaining full range of motion even though the pain is pretty sharp and it's hard to keep moving through it. And by sharp I mean like someone stabbing me hard with a long needle into the nerve that runs over the top of my shoulder. I've been working on this arm since 2015. It was so bad in 2015 that I could barely use that arm at all, and I was close to losing the use of my fingers. I remember my mom's arms and hands finally just curling up until her hands were just fists. Aging doesn't have to be that horrible, but it takes a bit of effort to slow that down if you've got aggressive illnesses like diabetes and/or arthritis.
I'm already hearing stories about knee surgeries, lol. Scott's coworker said whatever I do, do NOT skip the pain med coming off the anesthesia. He said that was about the worst pain he ever went through till the med could kick in again. Personally, I've been through so much pain I kinda doubt I would think it's the worst, but I sincerely don't want to feel it, no.
Today's blood pressure in the office was 151/94, so it's going up again, and obviously both pain and diet related. Even with cutting calories, I'm still getting too much salt. I totally felt that yesterday. I ate an ounce of Cabot seriously sharp cheddar with a normal portion of bite sized Tostitos corn chips and wowzers, talk about a nasty headache. I'm getting so salt sensitive it's unbelievable. I started looking up diets for hypertension and ran into the DASH diet, which is part monitored fasting and mostly very restricted processed animal proteins and lots more fruits and veg. Since my diabetes is already well controlled through diet, now I've gotta control sodium. I obviously can't eat the amount of grains that DASH recommends (too carby), and I can't do the nuts and legumes (allergies), but I can definitely eat more veggies and substitute yogurt for cheese. I'm also going to cautiously try some fasting, but more like how you calorie restrict before a digestive system procedure and you have to empty your whole gut. They make sure you still get 500 calories of clear liquid, but if I do that I'll have to be smart about it, because it can get dangerous on a busy day. I'm not very good at powering through a headache, and I tend to get goofy and make poor decisions anyway, so I'll save that for days nothing is going on.
