pre global meltdown thoughts

click for a neat article about flavoring your coffee

My hand is very ouch. Arms and hands always were the most brutal therapy.

So here's what I've got going.

• Coffee is down to one cup a day for the last week. Slight withdrawal headache, nothing terrible.
• Started slow xanax withdraw per psychiatrist. Even on extremely low dose, my pills are being metered. We both feel the higher gabapentin dose is covering the mood swings ok.
• Nearly completely done with opioid from the surgeries. I have really drug it out, been down to a quarter pill every other day for about a week. (That actually still works.) Knee surgeon was surprised I didn't ask for a script refill, and that wasn't even counting my hand.
• I seem to have lost 6 pounds and I don't know where I put them. Pretty sure half of it was the coffee. I figured it up. My coffee creamer alone was 480 calories a day before I cut my coffee way down.
• Tomorrow is my final knee therapy.

So 6 weeks out from surgeries, hand sucks, actually doing better in some ways but the therapy is wearing it out so much that my grip is tenuous and typing is extra challenging again since starting it. My first day assessing in, my strength score for squeeze pressure was in the teens somewhere, next time in it had doubled, then last time it was 30, so I'm definitely getting that back. It's just once I do something with effort, my hand flops and says ok, taking a break now.

I had a crazy fantastic but weirdly spooky dream last night. Before we fell asleep, I was talking to @bonenado about what it must be like for people having breakthrough memories from the 20 and back work program. We're already getting snippets of disclosure from officials here and there about ETs being real, contact already made, etc, but if we get full disclosure, one of the things we'll be learning is that the 20 and back is definitely real. I mean, it's enough for me that several unconnected people have already come out with this shocking reveal, but it would be nice if it were general knowledge.

So as I was falling asleep I kind of heard a voice that said, Here, let me show you. And then I was someone else. I still felt like me, but I was experiencing someone else, like in so many other dreams I've had all my life. I was a female surgeon, and my job was detailed repairs on top ranking officials, but I never could remember exactly what I had done once it was over. It was like coming to work in the morning, getting ready for the next procedure, doing a really excellent job, cleaning up and debrief, and then once I was off work I couldn't remember what I had done. And I'd go eat supper and relax, sleep, start again the next day. I was able to see a number of days go by like this, and it started bothering me that I couldn't remember what I had been doing each day. I knew what I was trained for, and I knew I had actually done something important, but what?

I feel like I was seeing a more drastic level of mind wipe work, and I could understand the toll it took. I've been through my own memory fails and problems, anxiety and panic attacks, trying to piece timelines together from memories and paper evidence but still not being able to visualize a timeline of events in the order they happened for a period of about ten years. So when I was this other person, I could feel this familiar strain to hang on to a timeline of days, several months of work and no memory each day of what I'd done. Then without warning, a few ragged memories of doing this or that for a brief few seconds would break through, and they made no sense, and I wound up obsessing over what had I actually been doing to the point where I couldn't competently do my work any longer and had to be relieved and fully debriefed of all of it.

There are rumors that quite a large number of people have been taken into these programs and brought back and have no clue, but that when they do have breakout memories or meltdowns, they have to be re-debriefed. Some people have been through the program multiple times, which is quite a lot of experience and memories to have to deal with. Given a worldwide obsession with space in general wanting to know what's going on between NASA 'stalling out', weird stuff in the sky, and science falling flat despite all the supposed new breakthroughs and discoveries, best we can do is grumble and watch space shows on TV. Why are we obsessed with space?

Anyway, I woke up from that feeling like I had been pulled back out. There was no hazy dream state, no thought of 'me', just the first thing I remember thinking was wow, that poor woman...

This happened. It is autumn coconut meringue.

I've had a few other dreams this year that I should have written down. I know I need to go gather them all up now. I've got my dreams scattered here and yon on the webs, and it's time to put them together. They tell a story, like a dream I had when I was very young, where I was shown everything from the camels to how they could open up the sky.

I don't usually look at the download part of my stats, so I missed it a few months ago. I also didn't realize until today that this >>> the last war  <<< is the all-time top post on this blog.

I know a lot of people are being careful on the medias, and that's fine. But I 'came out' as a real person, and my flagship is the Lexx, the most powerful weapon of destruction in the two universes, stolen by ordinary people escaping from horrific slavery and genocide. I'm all over anyone who will stop the rape of humanity and our planet. This is our last chance, guys. There's the Q plan, there's the anons ready to launch full out cyber war, and there's us. If there really are ETs, if the SSP is real, if the Cabal doing this is real, if the world pedo trafficking is real... #wakeup! I'm not even Catholic and I can barely watch you guys eating up the entertainment like it's all a big sick joke. Well, Lexx fans know what the Cleansing is...

Anyway, someone liked this enough to swipe it.

holiday brain in 3, 2...

~started yesterday~

Finally. Got assessed into hand therapy today. Came home with a light splint, a  squeezy gel egg, and a couple of instructions. My right hand is officially only half as strong as my left hand right now. Today was the first time anyone said it's ok to use heat for the pain, which was bliss. I'm five weeks out from the surgery and everyone else is still saying use ice. Now that I'm back home in slight shock at the amount of pain increase over such a tiny amount of focused therapy baselines, I'm running into a spike in wrist pain, and now I'm seeing there is a wrist tendonitis dynamic with carpal tunnel and a whole page about the art of icing... 😕

~this is today~

My resolve to cut coffee down is happening, just in time for National Coffee Day, lol. I'm down to one cup a day now, and *bing* suddenly much more awake. Not a clue if that means I'm finally past the surgery exhaustion or it's really my system breaking a little more free from chemicals, since I'm also finally off the daily opioids now. Or it could be the cold front that moved in and is messing with me, who knows. Whatever is going on, I dropped another pound, so huzzah.

all my pix click out 🎃

Today is my last follow up with knee surgeon, possibly, unless there is a 3-month or something down the road. I have 3 more physical therapy appointments for knee and a sparkly new grueling occupational hand schedule that goes up through November 1st, which is also my last follow up with the hand surgeon. Somewhere in the middle of October I have primary care checkup and likely a flu shot. All the driving so far has flared impinged shoulder nerve on 'good' side, which lately is spiking up my neck into headaches (driving is bad, mkay), because it's been hurting to drive with my surgery hand, so you can imagine I will be thrilled when all this driving into town slows down in November.


Got my bank and calendar super synced this week. I'm already missing sending a couple of birthday cards (not cool when your dad makes it to 89!), so it's crucial I get all my ducks in a row before my brain collapses into an alt dimensional state of mush during the holiday slide. I usually have all my stuff lined out as far ahead of Thanksgiving as possible because by the time that gets here, I'm just done the rest of the year while Christmas blurs by and I stumble back out of my daze later in the winter.

Stuff I need to work on (super facepalm fail this month, I'm soooo sorry, guys) are getting back with Mike and Myke and Emily on stuffs we're working on, wrapping my brain around plugins so my tech-moderator tag is more than just a pretty badge, and writing. I have so many things I want / need to write / get written. There is always too much going on, and when there's not, there's depression, so swimming in syrup is just a lifestyle. That reminds me, I also had a great talk with psychiatrist about my super low dose xanax being a psychological crutch, and goal over the next six months is get it shaved down to half of what I'm taking now (very laughable in the medical world, not funny at all in the addict world), and from there get ready to leap off again. The gabapentin is my fallback for that safety net feeling, thank goodness it's good on anxiety along with the nerve pain.

click to get lost in pinterest

I know I get too blabby repeating some of this stuff, but sometimes I look back a few years at how hard it used to be just rounding up my brain to type a few sentences out, and I can see how easy this has become, and that it really has helped me stay on track and not slide into the decay of weight gain, self incrimination, hiding, justifying, and more depression. Eat your salads, kids.

no one ever screams that, be real

So. I ran off and stopped blogging, much. For all you guys know, I could have won the lottery and disappeared onto a yacht somewhere.

That mug was perfect. I am the only person in this household history who has received an actual 4th of July present in a gift bag. The coffee I drank late in the day in that mug cured a nasty headache. I've decided this summer is not the time to cut my coffee down that drastically no matter how gradually I do it, and I was a fool for even thinking about doing that to myself. Pretty sure Kylo doesn't know how to use caffeine properly. I don't know about the rest of the movie, but that kid is the most perfect representation I've ever seen of psychotic Dark Side. The rest are all boring compared to his seething sullen rage. Too bad he's codependent on sane people around him to do his bidding, he could never have semi-conquered alone and then lost humiliatingly in front of everyone like that. Surely half his own fleet melted in his rage. I'm disappointed if the writers didn't even think of that.

We started catching up on the Lost in Space series on Netflix this week. I nearly bailed on the super slow start but we're good now. Made it through Will coaching Robot through personality alters, which seems over the top anthropomorphic yet still believable, and now I'm waiting for sulky Judy and bootstrap Don to get a believable magical moment. I'm glad they broke Maureen out of the space mom mold. Those of you too young to know this, the original June Lockhart was the stereotypical TV mom from Lassie onward. The Netflix incarnation is believably super flawed, but I'm so ready for John to stop whining, bit of overkill on his trying to live up to her emotionally punishing ways. I used to want to be the original Penny, so of course I'm identifying a bit with her again. They should have changed the Oreo packaging a little bit, but I can let that slide. Dr. Smith is perfect in every way. Every. Way. I could easily expect a mass murder out of her without anyone suspecting a thing.

I have successfully backed down on the gabapentin so the extra is over. I did about 3 months on a little extra coming through the shoulder nerve pinge therapy, but once amlodipine was tacked onto my blood pressure treatment during that, the edema showed up and those happen to be the top 2 meds for edema side effect. Sweet. Can only control one of those meds on my own, and I'm not stupid. I have bony ankles, so the goal is to keep them bony looking. I got a good grip on that and then it kinda went off track again, so I checked on amlopidine with diabetes and *bam*! Bad one. I went on a 3-day carb binge over the holiday and felt like my heart was beating out of my chest and doing 100 bpm. Welp, that's what happens when your blood glucose goes frickin up to bottle rocket level, everything in there goes a little wonky trying to deal. I hate that feeling. So I cinched the carb belt real tight again and had a very nice day yesterday, slept great. Gotta keep it paleo so that doesn't happen again. It's hard having to research and figure things out, but I refuse to go quietly sedated while my body bloats up from stupidity.

Short version- I can't be trusted with chocolate chips ever again. I did really well while I failed to keep them stocked up. Second I brought some home, uber fail straight into mocha cheesecake and beyond.

People who wanna wrecklessly go sliding into their graves like it's a blast being a crazy old person- you're all idiots. Most of you will drag your families through various hells watching you fumble awkwardly into lengthy drawn out expensive battles with impending death that you could have at least made easier with a glucose meter and some semblance of dietary dignity, but since my mom's insistence on noncompliancy in the hopes of swift salvation from this life (that backfired into life in a nursing home) is still fresh in my mind, I just can't follow her in all good conscience when I look at my own kids struggling with their own kids. I cannot be that burden that society says it's cool and fun for me to be.

click to get lost in pinterest

When doctors take one look and ask me how I'm doing something, like oh I dunno, WALKING, and this has happened over several things through my life, then you know I'm already skidding to my grave and I'd likely already be there if I hadn't changed a few things along the way. Like I've said before, I actually know people who say they'd rather die than give up something as silly as Pepsi, and dang if they don't go and actually do it. I outlived someone who said that. Seriously.

Back to today. Been a long long year already. Last few months have felt especially grueling, and I'm going to take the day off and figure the rest of the summer out. My entire summer calendar has been rescheduled 3 times already, and I haven't checked my bank or emails in ages. Not a clue what's going on with the gangs, no idea if and when I'll ever get back to work on the webs, but at least I can say I'm caught up with laundry.

Taking the day off means deep cleaning my house. Stand way back. Don't wanna get squirted in your eyeball with something through the monitor.