Day 204 - May Have Found a Church!

Dear Friend,

We visited church in another village that meets in the gym of a private girls' school.  I was so tired from waking up early (their service starts at 9:30!) that I had difficulty staying awake, but my husband says it was the best message he's heard in a long time.  Only problem was ... jazz music again!  It was even the same song leader as at the other church.  The jazz was not as front-and-center as at the other church, possibly because it was only a piano and a drummer.  But their music during the offertory was just some jazz piece ... not a jazz take on a Christian song or anything.  I felt like I should be sitting in a fancy bar wearing a low-cut black dress withy my legs crossed seductively drinking a Cosmopolitan and whispering in my husband's ear.  Ummm ... nice little mental image, but not really the one I'm looking for during a worship service.  I told him I could handle it if he took me into the city once a month for a dose of loud, rock, Christian worship music!  So, we'll see what happens.  I like that this place has Sunday school classes, even if they are after the service.  I came home encouraged that we may have finally found a place.  The drive was an easy fifteen minutes, so that's do-able.

I went straight to bed when I got home and went to bed and to sleep for a couple of hours.  Then I made some chili for dinner which I served on baked potatoes without even a salad.  And I was still tired by the time the meal was made and really tired after cleaning up the kitchen.  I got online and looked up fatigue and dysautonomia and it turns out that it is a huge topic of concern and confusion.  Apparently part of it is that your brain is not getting enough oxygen and, in general, you are not getting the right amount of oxygen perfusion ... which I guess means all of your cells aren't getting enough oxygen.  I also did some quick checking and found that the Ehlers-Danlos is what causes the dysautonomia.

• Hereditary connective tissue diseases, especially Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome. In a study on orthostatic intolerance and EDS, it is suggested that the co-occurrence of these syndromes can be attributed to the abnormal connective tissue in dependent blood vessels of those with EDS, which permits veins to distend excessively in response to ordinary hydrostatic pressures. This in turn leads to increased venous pooling and its hemodynamic and symptomatic consequences.

Yeah ... I don't know what a lot of that means, either.  But at least I know what came first, the chicken or the egg.  Or rather, the connective tissue disorder or the neurological disorder.  

But I can tell you one thing for sure.  This exhaustion and fatigue SUCK big time!  I have got to get healthier!  

I think tomorrow will be warm, so I plan on finishing up my back yard.  I don't know if I told you that I emptied out all of the things that people through into my shed and pulled out a lot of other stuff so I could get everything put back in, organized.  It got dark, so I had to leave it for the morning.  Except a snow storm came in during the night and we got about three inches of snow and several days of frigid weather!  So, my shed is still sitting out there open with my tools and pots spread everywhere!  

Last night I picked out the light fixtures for the halls, the breakfast room, and the dressing room.  I found another chandelier that is so pretty and so well-priced, that I may have to find a room for it! But I made three decisions in one night .... A record.  Except ... I've been trying to make these decisions for more than a month now.  

Right now I'm trying to find an interior door to form an airlock between the front door and the foyer where the baby grand is.  I, once again, have a huge to-do list for tomorrow.  But at least we are eating in the cafeteria, so I won't have to cook or cleanup.  

I decided to get a saline infusion this week before I leave to go to Tennessee.  

Oh, and, by the way ... it's December, so let the panic begin!

Cheers!

Lisa

Day 205 - Really Tired Today

Dear Friend,

It wasn't a great day, but it wasn't a bad one either.  I stayed up much later than I meant to trying to finalize picking out light fixtures.  I've been working on this for weeks!  I think I'm very close to having it narrowed down now.  I set my alarm for 10 but it didn't go off.  I woke up about 10:15, though, so that's good.  I didn't get a prayer time in, I'm sorry to say.  I spent some real time figuring out my choices and organizing them for each room.  Then I cleaned the kitchen which just wore me out.  I actually had to go back to bed for a while.  My husband told me this evening he's really worried about me, that I'm functioning at 1/4 of my usual capacity.

Stress makes dysautonomia worse.  If I can ever get the house finished and unpacked, I think things will really get easier and I'll start to get better.  I've got to lower my standards in the meals I serve.  I always want everything fresh and green and colorful and extra little nice things.  I'm going to have to back off on that at least until I'm unpacked and the house is finished.  Now that I can eat bison, that makes simple things like spaghetti more palatable.  But I can't have corn pasta anymore, so that's going to be a bit more of a challenge.

Anyway, inlaid back down for a while this afternoon.  And then we went out to eat at a new taco place and forgot that I can't have corn tortillas anymore.  Had 'me anyway with fish tacos and they were really good.  If I can't have corn tortillas or flour tortillas, though ... my mainstay of Mexican food is kind of out of my life.

I looked up the jazzercise center and understand where it is now and how to get there.  Maybe fifteen minutes away.  And I spent some time looking through an allergy cookbook and getting some ideas.

We watched a movie tonight together, and then my daughter and I watched Into the Storm about the tornados,  I did laundry and folded clothes and am now actually close to being caught up on the house!

My husband and I are visiting another church tomorrow about 25 minutes away.  Please, Lord!  We need a church really badly.

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 206 - Doctor's Visit

Dear Friend,

I slept till 11:00 this morning, I was really exhausted from yesterday.  My daughter and I had to go see the doctor and that took up the bulk of the day.  She drank a lot of water, for her, last night and today, so they were able to get blood samples for testing from her this time.  My MRI was in and I didn't follow it all, but it basically said that my shoulder is all the heck messed up and I do have a tumor there.  This is probably part of,the pain since it is likely pressing on nerves, etc.  The report says it may be a lipoma, but I suspect it's probably one of the fibrous/fatty tissue tumors the Ehlers-Danlos creates.  My doc doesn't know other doctors here so I going to have to look for a physical therapist and a prolotherapist and she'll call,them to vet them.  I also still have to find a foot doctor.  She tested me today for uric acid to see if I could have gout.  She looked over my original blood work as she went over my adrenal glands test results and found that my dhea is all messed up.  There was a whole lot foot in my blood, but almost none in the salivary test, which is the most accurate.  So apparently my dhea supplement is not getting metabolized correctly, which is another thing that causes fatigue.  And my cortisol is going up in the evening which is part of the problem with not being able to go to sleep.

We went to see the Stephen Hawkings movie tonight and it is definitely worth the money and the two hours.

I got no work done today, didn't even get the dishes done tonight.  But we don't have to go anywhere or do anything tomorrow, so I'm planning on being all kinds of efficient!

Oh, my doctor called the dysautonomia clinic in nyc today to set up an appointment for me since her staff had not taken care of it, as I was pretty sure they didn't.  Sweet, sweet young women.  But they are not good at the business end of their jobs.  Oh, I can get saline infusions with  B vitamin panels and B-12 weekly for $75. I already get a certain. Number of treatments free because I paid the money and signed up to be a functional medicine patient.  So, I'll have to get that all figured out.

Oh, and she says that the awful weakness I had Thanksgiving is because I ate the oatmeal with almond milk ... Both of which I am very allergic to now.  So I was having an immune system crisis.  Good to understand at least!

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 207 - Happy Thanksgiving!

Dear Friend,

Today ran a pretty full gamut ... gamet ... hmmmm.  Spell check has no comment on either.  I'm going to go with gamut of feelings

First, getting up at 5:30 was awful!
Second, the train was late!  Not only that, but apparently the senior engineers had the day off and this was a newbie because he stopped the train too,soon and we had to walk a bit to it, which was kind of funny.
Three, we took a cab to the building from where we watched the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  New experience, kind of fun, a little boring.  I had some oatmeal while I was there and maybe I am allergic to it because I felt weak and not great afterwards, almost like I had net eaten anything.  We left and it was snowing and so my daughter and husband decided to walk to Grand Central.  I didn't object because I knew how much they were enjoying it, but my blood pressure dropped and my blood sugar dropped and I literally barely made it to the train.  Police officers were checking everyone's tickets and one of them saw my face and looked real concerned and asked if I was ok.  I was awful.  We got hme and I ate two packages of Pirate's Bootie because it had more salt than potato chips and went to sleep.

For dinner we went to a really nice restaurant right on the Hudson and had a delicious Thanksgiving meal.

And now, it's time for the complaints.
1.  My arm is killing me.  I did have the MRI finally on Wednesday at least
2.  On the same arm I now have an infection where they removed that place on my arm and it hurts.
3.  My toe is killing me.  I haven't even told you about it, have I?  I think it's trying to die or something.  I have a referral to a podiatrist, I just haven't made the appointment yet.

Tomorrow begins my next round of How Do I Improve My Life contemplations.  If I don't finish my study tomorrow I'm going to go crazy!
If I don't pick out my hall chandeliers tomorrow I'm going to go crazy!
I want to pull up one box of Christmas and do just the tiniest bit of decorating.

Till then. I hope you had a delightful day.  And ... may I add that we have got to be clamoring for a true investigation of what happened in Ferguson and a full disclosure.  I think a lot of white people are as upset about this as black people are.  I almost had it out with a woman on a friend's post today!

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 210 - Not Surprisingly, This was Not a Good Day

Feeling pretty sick.  Called the vet this afternoon.  She was shocked and horrified that Stella died.  It seems like she made a couple of bad judgment calls treating her, which just hurts.  She says that Stella's stomach didn't feel bloated and that it did not seem to be painful when she examined it. She did listen to her and heard nothing alarming, but admitted that you can't hear a tortion.  She took some blood and commented that her blood was thick and hard to get out and kind of clumpy.  Now ... Don't you think that should have alarmed her?  Stella could have been given anti-clotting medicine.  She said her blood was like that because she was dehydrated, but I looked at the report and she wasn't seriously dehydrated.  Also, her weight was normal.  For the dehydration she talked about sending her to an emergency hospital for the weekend.  I could only imagine what that would cost and was hesitant about it.  So she took Stella to the back and came back and said they were going to do saline injections under her skin that would be absorbed by her body, taking care of the dehydration.  She mentioned that she had suggested getting IV therapy at the hospital and I said yes, but then she came back out and said she had decided to do saline injections so I assumed that she had decided that that was enough.  She agreed that she had thought it would be enough.

A blood clot fits everything better than anything else. So I was researching blood clots in dogs, and it turns out that pancreatitis causes blood clots.  So, maybe she was right with her diagnosis of pancreatitis and blood clots didn't occur to her.

But another thing I noticed was that her RBC count and her hemoglobin levels were too high.  That opens up a whole other set of problems that she may have had.  Another thing is that she was regurgitating, not vomiting, the fluids.  I didn't know there was a difference, but there is.  Vomiting is heaving and all of what we usually associate with vomiting.  Regurgitating is just -- poof! -- out it comes , sometimes surprising the dog as much as you.  Stella definitely was not vomiting because she would throw u in the room without us even knowing until we saw her.  What I read is that this usually indicates a problem with the esophagus ornate sphincter between the esophagus and the stomach.

I'm not a doctor, or a vet.  But give me one area and I am able to research it into the ground until I figure it out.  I don't know how far I'll follow this.  But I would really like to better understand.  I've read several things about what to do with acute vomiting of mucous and fluids, and we did exactly what everything says.

It hurts so bad.   I'm not angry with the vet.  You can't think of everything all the time.  But if she had let Stella's thick, clumpy blood make her think of a blood thinner or anti-clot or anti-coagulation medicine, we might have this sweet puppy still.

I was pretty much a basket case last night.  I was hiding from the pain as hard as I could.  I got up after a while and went down and just got online on my husband's computer and looked for things I need for the house still. I think he woke up and came and got me around 2:00 am.

I held together better today.  I thought of Jesus saying, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness ..." and I thought that this sort of thirsting should impact how I live each day.  So I tried to live the day more purposefully and less aimlessly and to let grieving undermine me less than it did the day before.

But our daughter was very upset today.  Her computer quit working, her phone is broken, and her dog was dead and it was just too much for her, so I had to get her out of the house.  We found a place in our village that fixes Macs, so we took hers there.  The we got some chips and cokes at a shop and sat outside in the nice weather.  Then we found an AT&T and tried to get her number out on an old phone of mine, but it turned out it was too old and it couldn't be made to work somehow.  And then I learned that she erased everything on it!!  I had a ton of pictures on it!  Aaaargh.

We went into the most darling hardware store where she got paint samples for fixing up the room that will be her studio in the basement.  Then we got coffee at a coffee shop right there.  And then we drove out to a Sherwin Williams where she looked at paint samples.  Got caught in AWFUL traffic coming home because of, apparently, a big wreck that they had set up a big detour around.  Finally got home and made a crazy good shrimp and bacon dinner salad with some gluten-free baguettes.  And now I'm in bed, and it's not even 11:00!

I'm getting this place cut off my arm FINALLY tomorrow!  Thank goodness.

I was determined to pick out the new light fixtures I am putting up in our two hallways.  I absolutely HATE what they have.  Some sort of low-voltage, hideous things.  I also need to pick out the sconces and mirrors I'll be putting up in my bathroom after they wallpaper.  I can't go overboard because I have four sconces and two mirrors.  I'm using a woman's blog as a guide.  I think it's called my frenchcountrycottage.

Well, that's it for me tonight.  It was warm today and I REALLY needed to work outside, but I decided to take care of my daughter instead.  It worked.  She was much more cheerful when we got home and even helped me make dinner.  I think it's supposed to be warm tomorrow, so she needs to be in a good mood because I'm working outside and getting my shed unloaded and reorganized and everything put u for the winter no matter what.  I hope!

I'm never getting another Sheltie.  Someone stole my first one when I was one month pregnant with our son.  Absolutely broke my heart horribly. I got another Sheltie before he was born, a glorious bi-colored blue Merle, which means she was white and a shimmery gray.  Just beautiful.  Then she got two forms of cancer and, according to my vet, offed herself to protect her pack ... us.  She disappeared one evening and I couldn't find her.  A huge thunderstorm broke out and I gave up hope that she was alive.  The next morning my son and I started going through a creek that ran around our property and I found her dead in the water at the bottom of a twelve foot cliff.  I went completely hysterical and almost didn't ever get over that.  I had my Jack Russell before she died, because I knew it would kill me when she died and so I had another dog in place to help me bear it.  And then she went and died so horribly!  But the Jack Russell was so wonderful and became our favorite family dog.  We had her alone until the two wild puppies showed up, and then my husband told our daughter she could get a puppy for her 18th birthday and that's how Stella entered our hearts and our world.

Later.
Lisa

Day 211 - My Dog Died Today

Dear Friend,

my Sheltie died suddenly today.  She threw up more water during the night so I called and got a 1:00 appt with my vet.  She thought she had pancreatitis even though the blood work did not confirm it.  She didn't do an X-ray.  She said that my dog was severely dehydrated so she injected water under her skin for it to be absorbed slowly by her body.  And she gave her a strong anti-nausea pill.  She said she would sleep a lot from the pill.  We brought her home and laid her on her bed in the den.  She watched me while I mopped up her watery vomit which was everywhere.  I had only covered it up with paper towels earlier ... I just couldn't deal with it at the time.  I wasn't being super-solicitous because I thought she was just sick and that the dehydration was the most significant part of her problem and the skin injections would help with that, the anti-nausea med, would stop the vomiting, and the vet was having me change her diet to a lower fat one that wouldn't aggravate her pancreas.  She said we could offer her food later in the evening, and could offer her water after a couple of hours, but that if she didn't take anything it was okay, because that would let her pancreas rest.  After mopping everything and cleaning the mop and bucket, I was worn out and my torn up arm was hurting badly.  So I went and laid down until my husband got home.  We were supposed to go out to eat with our daughter and to a movie, but we decided we didn't want to be away from her that long.  So we went to a burger place where I can eat in a nearby village (about ten minutes away) and then I ran into a grocery store very quickly for some things we needed for breakfast.  We came back home and ... I'm a little confused, because I think I looked at my dog and she seemed to be panting.  It was time to offer her water, so I went to get a plastic dish with some, but when I walked up to her, my daughter and I both realized that her eyes were glazed and her mouth seemed frozen.  Had I imagined the panting, or did she die right then?  She was laying on her bed and had not vomited or had diarrhea or anythingl. I picked her up and sat her in my lap and some gas gurgled up out of her mouth that smelled really bad.  I desperately hoped the medicine had put her in a coma so I persuaded my husband to drive us to an emergency vet clinic.  They told me that she was dead, but that there was a twist in her gut and they could hear the trapped air.  Hat is supposed to be very painful, and the one time I had an intestine swell shut from a reaction, it was awful!!  But she never seemed to be in pain.  She just acted like she was sick and didn't feel well at all.  The ER vet asked me if the vet x-rayed her and seemed dismayed when I told her that she had not.  So I feel like she dropped the ball and failed to recognize what was happening and didn't do the simple test that would have told her.  Or, the other possibility is that she died from the anti-nausea med, there have been some reports of that.  Or, she could have died of shock, hypovolemic shock, where there is not a enough blood plasma.  The vet said that her blood was very thick and dark when she took,some.  So,it seems like she should have out her on an IV of saline or something.  

I've been really badly torn up over losing her.  She was probably the most beautiful sheltie you would have ever seen.  

It hurts so bad.  My daughter is using anger at the vet right now to offset her grief.  I doubt that that will last her very long.  I'm old enough to not be mad because I realize that people make mistakes in spite of their best intentions.

It's hard to put a pet you love into the cold ground, even if you do wrap her up in a blanket.  At least it's not raining.  

That's all for now.  

Lisa

Day 212 - Great Doctor's Appointment!

Dear Friend, 
well, first off let me just say how glad I am that I did not go to the game!  It was bitter cold and my husband says I would not have been able to handle it at all.  He said something about the bleachers that I didn't quite catch, but he said he wound up standing almost the entire entire time, which wouldn't have worked at all.  He ran into terrible traffic coming home and was really tired when he got here, but he got here safely.  

I saw my doctor and got my prescription for Klonopin.  Thank goodness, because today's was my last dose.  With anxiety nipping at my heels so much, I'm glad I didn't have to go two days without it altogether.  

But more importantly, she is referring me to that neurological disorders clinic in Manhattan.  She also went over my food allergy tests, the one I told you abut that showed 52 things, and another one that tests a different response by the blood when exposed to something.  If I understand right, the first one examines what a white blood cell does when it is exposed to some substance.  Does it swell, does it change in someway, etc.  the other tests if you actually produce IgG then exposed to something.  Bear in mind that I don't really know what I'm talking about here!  Anyway, she showed me how the two tests completely contradicted each other on a whole lot of foods.  And then she asked me to go through and mark the foods that I don't actually eat.  And a ton of the foods I test as being very allergic to are foods I don't ever eat at all!  So he can I be allergic to it?  She said that she thinks i do stool have a leaky gut.  Lemons and onions are both shown as being allergens, and she said those two things almost always mean a leaky gut because they break down tiny in digestion and so, if your villi are loose, these particles easily slip through and your body recognizes them as "stranger danger" and forms antibodies to attack them.  So, the goal is to help the gut heal, which will cause the villi to tighten back up and not let food particles out into the body.  So, she put me on some maximally heavy-duty probiotic and L-Glutamine ... I don't remember what that does.  Let me see if I can find that real quick.  Hmmm well, bunches of stuff.  Anyway, the third one was really interesting because it is digestive enzymes.  I'm supposed to take two or three with each meal and what it does is it enables yr body to digest the foods down to eensy-weensy (sorry for the technical, medical jargon!) pieces so that, even if they get out of the gut, will be so small that your body won't pick up on it and make antibodies and all of that.  I forgot to ask, but I think this protocol goes on for about six months.

So, after looking through all the tests,,she said I can kiss dairy goodbye for the rest of my life.  It just isn't coming back, period.  I react too strongly to all of its components in every test.  I can't remember what she said about eggs, but she said there is a faint possibility that I might be able to reintroduce wheat at some point.  Slim to no chance ... but still, a possibility.  So, for now, I am to completely eliminate all dairy, all grains including oats, corn, turkey ... and I can't remember the rest.  But it was easily doable.  I'm also scheduled to see their nutritionist next week.  

We talked abut the saline IVs , and those are easily doable.  No problem.  I read some more about it as a treatment for dysautonomia and I found A LOT of stuff about using it to treat hypovolemia, the loss of blood volume.  Down in Australia, though, they won't let you get it unless you are pretty much unconscious and have to go to the ER, and then they charge you $350 for a one-liter bag of salt water! I know this because I came across a blog by a woman down there who has an extremely funny, dark humor about dealing with dysautnomia.  She captured so well the frustration of one day being fine, and the next day being barely able to function.  She has two teenage sons and she said of them that each day she spins the personality wheel hoping it lands on just "sullen" and not on "spawn of Satan"!  It made me laugh so hard.  

I called my former doctor's office this morning to be sure they had faxed over the information they were supposed to since they hadn't sent it when I last went in.  They told me they sent it on November 6, but the doctor didn't have it.  I had hoped to go over the cortisol test, but we spent a much time on the allergies that there really wasn't times. But I asked the girls in the office about it.  They are very sweet Korean girls, but none of them have any medical training and not much office training either.  Because the office manager pulled out a big stack of papers and started going through it and finally found my test results at the bottom!  Oh, boy.  That's not good!

Well, that's it for me tonight,  I hope you have a great weekend.  I plan to lock myself in my study and not let myself out until it is finished!!

Lisa 

Day 213 - 37th Wedding Anniversary!

Dear Friend,

37 years have gone by since I married my husband.  37 years with more pain and heartbreak packed in them than we could have imagined.  I don't thnk, I know, that I could not have survived them without him holding me.  There has been great joy and happiness throughout the years as well, joy that the two of yours have always shared.  Life is long, life is short, but it always has the same end.  I only hope that at my end, I am in his arms.

I am having a pretty good panic attack right now.  He will be going to Pennsylvania tomorrow to see our girls play in the NCAA and expected me to go with him.  Last I remember, tough, was hm saying he had to check his schedule to see if henhouse get away, and then I forgot all about it.  I'm pretty worn t right now from the game last Sunday and all the work getting ready for the luncheon ... was that only yesterday??  And then handling the furniture being delivered and a lot of work that had to be done for that.  Plus I have a 1:00 doctor's appointment and I have to get my klonopin refilled then. And I'm just sometimes.  Didn't get much sleep,last night.  But I hate to disappoint him and I want to be with hm land mosylunimeorrynaboutnhm being on the road by himself.  Whch of curse means I am saying that he has to have me with him to be safe,  last time I checked I was not God, and I'm pretty sure that status has not changed!  Plus ... the high where they are going tomorrow is going to be 34! I wouldn't even be able to be outside in that cold.  So I told him I really didn't want to go, and he immediately said that was fine, but I feel guilty enough about it to be in a panic over it.

I had wine at our celebratin dinner,mop so I'm super tired.  And my feet are burning and itching for some reason.  Never a dull moment!

Have a great day tomorrow.  I'm pretty sure I will feel conflicted!

Lisa

Day 214 - First Party Is a Hige Success!

Dear Friend,

Things went great today.  I think we had around 350 people come!  The tent to was an absolute essential!  I stayed at the door the entire time greeting people as they came and telling them goodbye as they left, but I understand that people were everywhere!  We definitely need to figure out a better way to handle coats!  We had two hat racks upstairs and about three or four ladies taking coats, giving claim tickets, and running the coats upstairs to hand up, but it still got backed up a good amount.  The cleaners didn't show up!  I called the owner and she nearly had a heart attack.  She sent two teams out  right away and had one person stay to help clean up.  She apologized profusely and I, sure it won't happen again.

The furniture is scheduled to come tomorrow sometime between 8 and 10 am.  Qu'elle nightmare.  I don't know why I didn't reschedule and see if they could do it Friday instead.  I have to look good in the morning, because the last time my decorator was here I looked like absolute death!  She liked one of the tables I picked out for the vestibule, but didn't like any of the ones I picked for the foyer.

I went to sleep after the party and slept for three hrs.  A few minutes after I woke u I started hearing my dogs back from the front yard!  So I jumped up to go get them and slipped in some vomit ... Went flying and landed ON my shoulder with the torn deltoid, rotator cuff, etc!  Wowee wow wow!  It hurt so bad!  One of our dogs has a sensitive stomache and doesn't lie stress, so I'm guessing who it was.  And, my daughter got downstairs sooner than I did, obviously, and found that out front door was wide open!  While we were both upstairs asleep!

Our son may have a job!  A community college in the town sphere he is needs to hire an adjunct professor real quick!! This would be so AWESOME GREAT for him!!

Well, I'm off to sleep.  I'm not going to get enough sleep, but I can sleep later if I need to.  We watched a House tonight and it was the final one with him in the mental institution and it left me pensive from when I was in a mental palace for suicide prevention for two weeks.     Not a fun time, but it does lend a certain depth to my life now.

Well.  Dying for some sleep.

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 215 - Much Better Day!

Dear Friends,

Blood plasma and blood pressure are wonderful things, and I woke up with both this morning.  Thank God!  Yesterday was no fun at all!  

Last night I wrote out an extremely detailed to-do list with the resolution that I would follow it to the T.  I'm being too overwhelmed and directionless during the day.  And I thought that,this way, even if I had another bad day, I could have an easily drawn up plan of action.  Good plan, but I planned a BUNCH of phone calls this morning and with placing these calls,and all of the interruptions that occurred, it was probably three hours spent just on this list,  

I made hair appointments for me and my daughter, which I later had to cancel
I got a $500 credit on the mattress and box springs we purchased.
I contacted the seller of the bad ceiling fan and found that they had already credited the amount to me and all they asked was that I donate the bad fan to a charity ... I don't even have to return it!
I called the MRI to see if I could get in earlier, but the answer was no.
Up I found a dermatology clinic and made an appointment to have this lace on my arm removed.
I found a podiatrist and called and left a message to make an appointment,
I called Vanderbilt to see which hospital they recommended here in NYC for the dysautonomia.
I researched the two main candidates some 
I called my doctor to confirm when my appt was. 
And any other number of things.  
Checked with Southwest on our flight schedule and made arrangements to be picked up
Called the prolotherqpy doctor, but wasn't able to get a time that worked for while I was there.  I found one in nyc and decided that this is gong to be a routine part of my life so I needed a local doctor to do it.  

So, I pushed all of those balls a bit further.  

I could not pick out the two tabled.  So I sent an email to my decorator showing her my three picks for each room and asking her to make the decision for me,  hopefully I'll hear from her tomorrow. 

I'm so,tired.  Going  to bed now.  Giving the big Thanksgiving luncheon tomorrow,   Just shoot me now!

Cheers
Lisa

Day 216 - A No-Blood-Pressure Kind of Day

Dear Friend,

I just never could get my blood pressure going even though I drank saltwater during the night and in the morning.  There were workers here I had to deal with, and I know I looked like death.  Then I told them I HAD to go back to bed, and I barely made it.  It's just the weirdest feeling.  I tried staying sitting upright in bed, but couldn't get to feeling any better at all and had to lay down flat.  After about thirty minutes of that, I was able to get up and dressed and do some things, but never got to feeling ...

WHAT??

I just lost a fair amount of things I'd written.  Nothing important.  Just decided to check if the hospital in the nearby layered city had a autonomic nervous system disorders department, and they don't.  So I started to check in nyc and fund that New York-Presbyterian University Hospital of Columbia and Cornell is considered the best hospital there and is ranked #2 in neurology.  So, I guess I'll be contacting them to get in.  

I'm pretty excite about my theory of what's going on.  If my immune system has decided that neural transmitter enzymes are enemies, that would explain my sky-high levels of antibodies in my blood.  It could also explain the dysautonomoa because the antibodies plug the receptors for the neural transmitters, and it could explain the kidney problems because the antibodies made to combat the neural transmitters are plugging the glomeruli in the kidneys and killing them causing the kidney disease.  Gee, I LIKE neat packages!  Wouldn't it be nice if that was right.  And I'm actually not over-reaching here.  I've been the one to rightly diagnose a lot of things that had my doctors stumped.  It would explain why I can't get my CRP levels of inflammation down no matter how careful I am with staying away from foods, etc.  because these neural transmitters are always being produced.  So, if my immune system is targeting my neural transmitters, I guess that would mean I have an auto-immune disorder.  Bummer.  

I'm going to call tomorrow and see if there is any chance I can get my MRI moved up.  Sometimes I move my arm wrong and, I want to tell you, were talking about agny of a kind I haven't known before.  Well ... I don't really remember the times when muscle bundles tore off in my cables, but it don't remember those  continuing to be terribly painful.

The wallpaper in the bathroom is GORGEOUS,  All of the blinds are installed in the house and, because of someone's error, not mine, there were two extras so I was able to change out the dark wood ones in my husband's dressing room and bathroom. This is going to look so much better after the trim is painted white and the walls a nice gray.

I was DETERMINED to pick the console table for the vestibule and the chest or table for the foyer today NO MATTER WHAT!   And I have spent soooo much time doing this, not just today, but for a few weeks.  So today I really worked hard on it and i think I do have the two picked out.  But it's late so I'm going to wait until tomorrow to email them in.

Our daughter went into the city today.  Not long after she left it started POURING rain!  She had a miserable time, poor baby!

So ... to HEALTH!  Yours and mine!

Lisa

Day 217 - Fun Day!

Dear Friend,

I slept 11 hours last night.  But when I woke up I woke up alert.  Not quite ready to jump up, but I got another pillow and sat up more in bed, turned the heating blanket on pk and my sweet husband brought me a cup of coffee.  I started in on some online stuff and after a short while I wanted to sit up more and then I WANTED to get out of bed!  This is whole new territory for me!  And, it's just 11:00 and I am so ready to go to sleep.  I've got a good to-do list made I for tomorrow.  It was the one for today, but I didn't get any of it done, so it should be fine for tomorrow.  I did go to our NCAA regionals game and was so proud of our team for winning!  So we are trying to figure out what hst them for dinner again this week before they go on to play this coming weekend.

Some of the students were already chanting my husband's name at the game today. That was neat!  Our daughter came and it is so good to have her here!

We are giving the big Thanksgiving luncheon this week.  There is a lot to be done, but I don't think I really have much that I have to do, which is just a wonder.

 I saw an art print today that had the days to-do list which was :  WAKE UP, SEIZE THE DAY, GO TO SLEEP, REPEAT.  Gosh, I haven't seized a day for a loooong time!!

My daughter made me watch a Taylor Swift video of her singing her latest song in a car with a guy singing it to the radio.  Cute idea.  Great song.  Made me realize that I must get myself to jazzercise.  Jazzercisemis my Obi Wan Kenobi ... if you get my Star Wars reference.  My only hope. Get it?

Had a good talk with our son this evening.  He's quitting his job at the end of the week which I'm very glad about.  He's working in his apartment and can't get to any of his meetings.  Not good.  He's putting out some job applications for some professor positions and to work at some rehab places.  I think he'd be good at that.  He and his roommate are going to host a Thanksgiving dinner for some of their AA friends who don't have anywhere to go.  My gosh!  The goodness of God and His kindness and mercy never cease to amaze me!  I never would have believed this could happen a few years ago.

Well, I'm about to fall asleep ... which is so strange!

Have a great week!

Lisa

Day 218 - First Dinner in Our New Home

Dear Friend,

Well, I unfortunately opened a youtube email that had something about nancy pelvis never making the front cover of Time, or Newsweek or so,etching.  Who cares.  BUT ... it also hd a link to a mysterious creature found off the coast of Florida which led to a mysterious creature seen in Holland, which led to the two surfers surfing over a great white shark, which led to the 13-foot tiger shark off the coast of Haliewa, Hawaii(we used to go there so I had to watch it), which led to a Japanese version of a "megloadon" sighting in the Mariana's Trench, which led to a cat trying to get her mate to come back to life after being hit by a car, which led to a cat chasing off an alligator, which led to the 26-foot great white shark suddenly appearing by a boat occupied by young men who only had two adjectives in their vocabulary: "big" and "fucking", which led to a 12 minute video about the video of the strange creature seen in Holland!  In other words ... I must never get on youtube late at night.  It is a black hole!

The dinner party went very well.  The girls seemed to have a good time and I got a lot of hugs when they left.  The food was delicious, and the caterer used the corn gluten-free pasta I had recommended and agreed that it was much better than the brown rice kind.  The cleaners came at 10:00 this morning and other people came around 2:30 to set everything up.  So, the house is looking really clean now.

It looks like the last two sconces will be in on Mondayive got way too much stuff on the shelves in the sunroom.  I may just carry a bunch upstairs until the other rooms get delivered and I can disperse them as they should be.

The game is tomorrow at 1:00. Depending on the weather, I may not stay for the whole thing. I really,mreLly, REALLY want to get my white desk cleaned off badly?

I am feeling almost encouraged this evening.  My study would only take about three days of focused work to finish it.  Our son's room could probably be done in four days of focused work.  The library would probably take me one day, since most of the work to be done in there is my husband's.  The garage would only take one day.  The pool house would probably take one day.  Straightening the shed back out would take one day.  The dressing room is pretty much finished.  The basement, however ... two to three weeks would be needed!

In the meantime, I have to get the he's decorated for this Thanksgiving luncheon.  Were going to have the most unusual Thanksgiving day ever.  We will be spending it in a building across from Macy's watching the parade and then eating dinner at a nice restaurant in town.  My first Thanksgiving without having to cook for,years and years!

Tomorrow is the 41st anniversary of our first date!

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 219 - Feeling Much Better

Dear Friend,

I am happy to tell you that I did not tear anything in my left shoulder with all those spasms.  It is fine today, and I am so grateful!

I give my first vent tomorrow evening: the dinner for our ladies' athletic team.  The cleaners are coming in the morning to clean the downstairs, and I actually have the entire downstairs pretty much picked up and ready for them.  I'm going to take pictures of how my accessories are arranged and print them off and tell them that I want them out back exactly(!) as I have them.  The china deliver in the stairwell has been installed and I'm really happy we it.  The crystal basket for the vestibule has been installed.  It's pretty small, but so is the space, and there was only five inches available from the ceiling to the top of the door when it opened.  One problem, though.  This basket was smaller than the fixture that had been there and had almost a hundred years of paint piled up,  so the painter grinder it down ... But he smoothed out a large circle, while the rest of the ceiling has a bit of a texture to it.  The last two sconces for the foyer have not arrived yet, so the two that are up there look completely out-of-place.

I worked really hard today getting everything cleaned up and working with the zillion people who were in the house asking a zillion questions.

Oh oh.  I mentioned to someone about flowers for the tables, but forgot to double check on that.  Too late now if they didn't get them ordered.

Well, I'm super tired and going to head for bed.  What am I saying?  I'm IN bed!

So, here's a question.  How am I supposed to find a dermatologist and a podiatrist?  It's way too complicated.  Maybe I'll just use doctors at this hospital where I'm going for my MRI.

I don't know what is becoming of the world with all the various forms of hatred being cultivated these days.  Hate the immigrants.  Hate the Muslims.  Hate Obama.  Hate a Liberals.  Hate Democrats.  Have you heard the new thing with people throwing a fit that a Wal-Mart in Florida is going to offer meat that has been slaughtered according to halal regulations.  So, now were supposed to hate Wal-Mart, too.  Okay, well, that ones pretty easy because of the way they treat their employees.  I had to delete a funny joke I had posted because my older brother used it to make a ridiculous political statement.

And now have you heard the new thing out there that Allah is actually the name for some ancient Moon God and is, in some way, Satan??  I just have no words.  Well, I have two words.  Gullible and ignorant.  

Oh, I had an actual reaction last night just out of the blue after brushing my teeth.  My tongue swelled up and I got a hive on my chin.  Have no idea why.  Had to go downstairs to get some medicine to take.

Tomorrow I really want to get my laundry washed and the laundry room tidied up, and my desk cleaned off, stationed in the room, and the sunburst mirror hung.

Im almost looking forward to winter.  I wonder why that is?

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 220 - A. Better Day

Dear Friend, 

I failed to mention that I had a pretty severe and sudden panic attack yesterday. When they installed the chandelier, both men and my daughter thought it was waaaay too big for the room.  I knew it would be fine once the furniture was in, but that triggered a pretty strong panic attack.  I just won't take Xanax for those yet any way.  I know it's a cortiso rush.  I know my body will metabolize the cortisol after a while.  So, what I did was jump on a computer and start shopping for wall sconces for my bathroom.  I'm going to buy new sconces, so this wasn't wasting time, but it was pretty intense for quite a while.  Good news is I did find three very nice options, each less than $50. Yay. 

Today my back, well, actually, behind my left shoulder, was still hurting badly so I called my chiropractor, but couldn't get an answer.  One time before there phone was off for some reason, but they were there.  So I hopped in my car and drove up to that village.  But, sure enough, they were closed.  Darn!  I needed to pick up some jewelry I had had repaired at a jewelry store there, so I went over to pick it up.  It's just right across the street.  Well ... It was hysterical!  The only people there were the two owners who look ancient, but are actually only in their late 80's.  She was bent over and her hands were arthritic and she moved unbelievably slowly!  She couldn't find my jewelry for a while and I, of course, had no idea where my receipt was.  I asked her how she was doing and, she sounded just like a New Yorker in a Seinfeld episode.  "Oh ... I'm doing fine, but don't ask me about my kids!  Sheesh!!  Do you know that my sister-in-law's kids took her keys away from her!  And now she can't walk anywhere or even go get a gallon of milk!!  and MY kids!  Oh, I've decided that they aren't worth the trouble!  Do you want my two??" And on like that in this smoker's hoarse voice.  It was all I could do to keep from laughing.  That is, until she found my jewelry and said the price would be $198!!!  I was really sure that there had to have been a mistake and so she said she would try to reach her son.  So I said I was going across the street to a diner to get some coffee and I'd come back by when I was through.  Well, I got my coffee and ordered what turned out to be one of the best fresh fruit salads ever made ... and four slices of bacon ... when I got a call from the son who is hysterical.  I already knew he was hysterical from when I took the jewelry in.  He said he would fix my jewelry for me, "and not just because you're beautiful and you're blonde!"  He's probably late 60's. So he calls and was going on about how he had had a root canal and then someone had double- parked and he'd been stuck in his car for two hours and his mother didn't know where he was and etc. etc.  He said he was at he store now, so I went back over and it turned out the high price was from all the work it took to repair and reform a badly broken silver filigree bracelet.  You can't see that there was ever anything wrong with it now.  So I paid up.  I was in a lot of pain and he could tell so I told him about all my torn-up shoulder business. Well, after just a few minutes a man came in with a HUGE dog that apparently belongs to the jeweler. As best I could tell, this man had given the dog a bath.  So, the jeweler says, oh!  You need to talk to this lady here!  And starts telling him about me because the mans wife is a functional medicine doctor!  Well, this old man gets all excited and says come on in.  Well out a cold laser on you and you can see if it helps.  I demurred, but he just kept insisting and was so enthusiastic, so I went ahead. We walked about halfway up the block to his wife's office.  She was, like, "You what???"  And he was saying, "yeah ... Just put the cold laser on her!  It'll help her!"  So she took me into a rnd out some gadget on me and said, "um, you know this isn't the usual way I do business."  I laughed and told her he had been so enthusiastic that I couldn't say no.  She was very nice, and it learned a very important lesson and that is ...

THERE COMES A POINT WHEN YOU CANT KEEP TRYING TO LOOK TWENTY!!!

Whoa!  She is well past 60 with long hair bleached bright blonde wearing makeup and clothes that were completely incongruous with her age and profession.  Plus ... she hadn't really brushed the back of her hair and looked slightly crazed!  Yea, I don't think I'll be going back.  

S, then I went to a different chiropractor who iced my back and put me on e-stem for quite a while.  I had to leave then to go see my psychologist.  She's very concerned about me going to see my mom.  My having had two panic attacks this week probably didn't make her feel any better about it.  I said that I wasn't looking forward to it, but I wasn't going to write her out of my life.  She said that, no, she didn't want me to write her out of my life.  She just wanted to think of how she can help prepare me to stay at her house for a few days 

I asked her for some help with this miosphonia, hatred of sound, problem that I have.  Have I mentioned that?  It's a condition where sounds that are background noise for most people throw you into a rage.  Someone posted about it on Facebook and I looked it up and was so amazed that it's an actual diagnosis.  The trigger varies, but the defining characteristic is that the sound sends you into a completely uncontrollable, irrational rage completely disproportionate to the level or type of sound.  That's how I am with popcorn eaters at theaters.  It was an article in Psychology Today and there were many comments at the end of the article from people who were just finding out that it's not just them!  It turns out that they think that the sound is going through the wrong part of your brain or something like that.  But I think a great study would be to see how many people with this also have PTSD.  Because, for me anyway, these sounds are HUGELY LOUD and I can't turn my focus off of them and I can't stop this flaming anger.  So I'm wondering if the PTSD unlocks some basic survival mechanism where silence is vital to survival.  So when someone is supposed to be quiet but keep making a noise, you want to silence them to be safe.  She thinks it's tied into PTSD, too, or is a trigger for an episode of PTSD.  She was impressed that I made the connection between this misophonia and PTSD.  I said, "Well ... I have been in therapy for a number of years now!"

I made tacos and a fresh fruit salad for dinner tonight.  Ground chicken and veggie cheese.  It is so nice to have food in the house!  Getting started on this food delivery service is one of the best things I've ever done!

My left shoulder is still really painful.  I went back to the chiropractor who heated my back up and gave me an adjustment.  He says it's super inflamed.  I have a feeling that I tore something in there.  But, hey.  One MRI at a time, right!  Speaking of which ,,, I called the doctors office and they thought they had everything squared away with the radiology department at the hospital.  So I called the radiology department and -- NO!!  They were WRONG!  So ...  some more phone calls are going to be made and supposedly I should be able to call and MAKE AN APPOINTMENT TOMORROW!

I'm not placing any bets, though.  

It may snow tonight, which reminds me that were going to have to get snow tires for my car and our daughter's. Great.  

We watched the first episode of Gilmore Girls tonight.  All three of us had forgotten how good it is! 

Well, that's it for me.  I think I get to stay home all day tomorrow!  

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 221 - Most of the Lighting is Up!

Dear friend,
This will be super short cause I'm in a lot of pain.  The chandelier is up in the living room.  It is very simple and elegant, mostly metal with a few crystals. It's very big, but it will look great when all the furniture is in.  The dining room chandelier and sconces are GORGEOUS!  The entry light is here and the two sconces for the foyer have been ordered.  I got my wallpaper ordered ... Figuring out how many rolls I needed was hysterical!  Hope I not horribly off.  All of the wooden blinds are ordered.  I still have to find plantation shutters for,the living room that are at a price I'm willing to spend.  

The day was a hour between workers putting up lights and a meeting with three people about the dinner were giving for our athletic team Saturday night.  Can't figure out how to get the seating arranged.  They just kept going on and I told them there was no way the dining room would hold three ten-foot circular tables.  Had to get out a measuring tape to show,them.  I finally said I'd figure it out and get back to,them.  

I called the hospital in the large city nearby and they argued whether I really needed an MRI or a something else.  Good grief!

I got dinner started and then a muscle in my left shoulder/back area suddenly cramped up so bad that I was in crazy bad pain,  I've soaked in hot water with a ton of Epsom salts and used an ice pack for a long time and took a couple of Tylenol.  Still hurting Superbad so in going to bed really.  


My big goal for,the week was to keep the house picked up all week long and that's already gone down the drain!  Rats.

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 222 - Got the MRI results back

Dear Friend,

I saw the doctor and got my MRI results and, well, they were not what was expected.  They did the wrong area, as I knew they were, but in doing the image of the shoulder, they found that I also have a tear in my rotator cuff.  So, guess whs going to be going back to get more prolotherapy in December when I go to Nashville?  And guess what lucky friend I'll be calling to see if she can take me??

I talked with my doc about a dysautonomia specialist and we talked about Columbia,  she did a quick google search and found that there is apparently a medical group in manhattand and dysautonomia is all they do.  I have to get this figured out quickly and get in before the first of the year.  

I think I can return this ugly ceiling fan.  I checked their specifications and it says that it takes 60 watt bulbs, but it only takes 40 watt.  That and it's just god-awful ugly!

I got my groceries from the grocery delivery group today.  So exciting!!  This man just walks in with a whole bunch of boxes, sets them on my kitchen counter and left.   Heaven!

I'll be giving a dinner on Saturday night to our lady's soccer team which should be fun.  And then the luncheon on the next Wednesday.  Were trying to get the lighting put up before this.  We got the ceiling medallions up today and they are SCRUMPTIOUS!  Ethan Allen delivered the fixtures today. Now, we just need the painter to show up and paint them, and paint the stairwell ceiling also.  The house is going to be soooo much brighter and more cheerful when I'm done with it!  

I got most of the house neatened up today in time for the cleaning company.  I still have several,loads of laundry to do.  I'm still getting caught up from our trip to Texas and our having company.  I hope to have the laundry finished tomorrow, the house neatened, some progress made in our son's room and in the library and a whole bunch of stuff in the back hard out up in the shed to wait out the winter.  I have to order furniture covers for the first time ever before the snows get here.  And it looks like they may be getting started next week

Slowly, slowly.  

I just wish I were getting some exercise in.  Of course, right as I'm about ready to start trying for that, winter is coming and it's getting too cold to go take a simple walk!

Cheers!
Lisa

Day 223 - Stairs are Recovered Finally!

Dear Companion.

Does it seem to you that I mostly complain?  I wonder if it's because I always right this the last thing of the day when I'm tired.  Plus, I always write this after I have written out tomorrow's to-do list which is always impossible and leaves me discouraged.  Maybe that's not the best time to go over your day!  I look back and I didn't get enough done, I look forward and I know I'm not going to be able to get enough done.  And that's just with doing the laundry, the dishes, keeping the house picked up, trying to make the bed, keep the bathrooms cleaned, etc. etc.  I am doing soooooooo much more housework than I was and it's being really hard physically on me.  Today I had to get three rooms of the downstairs cleaned up because of a meeting that was going to take place.  I swept and mopped, etc. etc.  and it completely wore me out.  Completely.  Havingt the a cleaning company come in once a week is keeping my head above water, but that's no help,with maintaining the house on a daily basis.  My health has deteriorated during the last seven years when I had a full-time housekeeper.  Now I don't have that service at all ... and I am just not in good enough health to do all of this now.  I don't know what the answer is, but the is taking a toll on me.  I don't even have a spare second to write or even THINK about exercising.  Maybe things will get better when I'm completely unpacked and all of the decorating is done.  When we moved into the last house, the house was completely ready and I had a very strong he's keeper who completely unpacked for me and out things away.  I didn't want her doing that ... she was just bullheaded and did it anyway because she said the boxes were in her way!  Now I look back at what was very frustrating with great fondness.

I did get one major thing taken care of today.  I have gotten into the company that does your grocery-shopping for you and delivers it to your home.  Almost all of the prices were the same as in the stores, and the delivery fee is only $6.99.  It took a LONG time to get my order ready, having to go in and select vegetables, then bell peppers, then red bell peppers, then four of them and then put them in my cart!  But I'll be able,to keep using this list and just refine it.  WE'RE ACTUALLY GOING TO HAVE FOOD IN THE HOUSE!!!  It's so exciting.  Rats.  I just remembered I forgt to get soups for my husband!

I see my doctor tomorrow so should learn what's going on with my shoulder.  I imagine physical therapy is next which will drastically cut down on having time to stay on top of the house and laundry,

I got up early this morning to have things ready for some workers who were coming today.  By early I mean 8:00.  I didn't feel great p, but not nearly as bad as I'm used to feeling.  I did have to go sit down and sleep for a while after I got the main stuff done.  The stairs are re-carpeted now!!  They look BEAUTIFUL,  I'm gong to have to keep the dogs off of them, though, because someone has been peeing on them!  I've got two tension pet barriers somewhere that have a gate to walk through.  I need to find those and get them set up.

By January, I'm going to be doing yoga or jazzercise five days a week.  I'm not going to let the house trump my health anymore past that date,  I wonder if there is anyway at all I can get everything unpacked and things organized by then.  Hey, here's an idea!  You could come help me!

Cheers!
Lisa

Oh, I finally got up the nerve to read the bid from the designers to help me do the family rooms of the house.  Well ... that's not going to happen!  And, our Thanksgiving luncheon invitations are getting a really good response.  More than 200 RSVPs already!  That's very exciting.

And, I am going to have to give three December events, which is am not happy about.  But at least they are pretty small.  One is a fancy champagne cocktail party, one is faculty and staff leaders, and one is student government officers.  So ... Not too bad.  And the staff here are way, WAY better at handling these sorts of things so I actually have some good help.

I need to get out winter clothes from the basement in the next few days.  It's supposed to be snowing next week.

Day 222 -

Dear Reader,

Well, I woke up really well again this morning.  Not groggy.  Able to get right out of bed.  Only problem was that it was 12:20 in the afternoon when I woke up!  Kind of hard to get much done when you wake up in the afternoon.

I found some good stuff last night that really encouraged me to find a dysautonomia specialist quickly.  It turns out that there is a form of this in which your immune system mistakes a chemical messenger sent out from one of your nerve systems as an attacker, so it makes a bunch of antibodies to attack this messenger and in so doing, the antibodies plug up the receptors for this chemical messenger.  So, one part of my nervous system is not communicating with the other part of my nervous system.  Maybe this is why??  And tests show that my umber of antibodies is completely off the charts!  Far more than just food allergies would account for.  So, what if they are because my body is attacking this chemical messenger?  There is a medicine that unplugs the receptors so that these chemical messengers get read again.  Wouldn't that be great if it were as easy as that?  Reading all of these things makes me able to imagine what life would be like if I got better!

My husband went to a game today and was really tired when he got home.  Our daughter was in his study using the computer, so he took a long nap in the den.  I had planned on cleaning in the den, so that didn't happen.

I didn't get much done today, anyway, because Epwestern (wow!  How did spellcheck come up with that word?  I don't even know what that means!) we left the house around 5:30 to go eat and see a movie.  We saw Interstellar and it was pretty good. Definitely not a waste of time.  But our daughter was cranky afterwards and arguing about every little thing.  In the car I said that I though in re-introducing the two cats we could take them into a neutral room ... and she interrupted me sharply saying I said you weren't supposed to just let them into a room.  I started to clarify and she interrupted me again saying "that's what the internet said!"  I tried again to explain and she cut me off very sharply saying, "I don't want to talk about it, Mom!"  Wow!!  After a minute I said, "the internet says not to just put them in a room and let them work it out.  What I am saying is we could take them into a neutral room and there give them each some kind of wonderful treat to eat.  Then take them out again.  Keep doing this daily until they associate being in each other's presence as meaning that something good was going to happen."  I got a grunt out of her.  I'm sure this is very hard on her.  She's left her boyfriend, her brother, her apartment, her friends, her town ... and is now just in a bedroom in her parents' home.  I'm sure that is very hard. At dinner I asked her how her portfolio book was coming along and she told me about it.  I told her that she is smart and talented and has an extremely good work ethic, so someone will be lucky to get her.  So I did not deserve this crankiness!  I imagine this arrangement is going to be difficult until she gets a job.  Please, Lord!

We are trying out a mega church in Manhattan tomorrow.  Possibly a waste of time, but well see.  Pretty frustrating.

My big toe is looking a mess today and hurting pretty bad.  The color is definitely off in it from not getting good blood flow.  What a bother!

I feel like I need to let my body sleep tonight as much as it needs to tonight.  But I don't want to lose that much time again!  I'll just kind of play it by ear as the night goes on.

Cheers!
Lisa