My insurance has an online therapy benefit. It’s an 8 week cognitive behavioural therapy. Learning skills to cope with the way my life is. Had the first session today. Learned I am coping rather well, surprisingly enough, but then I have had 25 years with chronic illness to learn. Interesting things: Setting goals. I don’t have goals. I cannot have goals because I live in the moment, and almost never think ahead or plan ahead, because I never know even in the same day if I am going to be able to do something I had agreed to do. Decide to go shopping with a friend this afternoon? Have to cancel because when I agreed I was physically able and before the time arrived, I was no longer physically able. Chronic, painful, exhausting, debilitating illness can be fun. Not. LOL Reaching out: I am terrible at that, because I always think the other person has their own problems and they don’t need to be listening to mine. Also, I was cut out of a friend’s life once for being ‘too needy’. I wasn’t, but she saw it that way. Therapist today said maybe she was projecting on me problems in her own life, but that just makes a stronger argument for not reaching out. Going to work on that next time, I think. Asking for help: kind of the same as reaching out. Don’t want to be a burden or get cut out of someone’s life again. Intellectually I know that people like to help, but emotionally I am still at the point of losing my best friend. Back then, I did not give up and called to ask why she was no longer speaking to me, and we worked it out and are still friends, only in a different way now. It hurt, and it still hurts if I let myself think about it. Which I don’t. Most of the time. I am very good at repressing and not allowing myself to think about things. Works for me, or so I think. I may find out different with therapy, but that’s life, right? I am very, very wary about asking anybody for anything. And when I do, I am always waiting for the dreaded loss of contact with the person. Even when I am reassured it will not happen, over time, contact slowly becomes less and less. Life is hard sometimes. Really hard, but you just have to live with things as they are, I guess. 

But I did surprise myself with how well I am managing being alone over 99% of the time. Not being able to do what I need or want when I need or want to do it. Not being able to go grocery shopping, or just shopping. Or pretty much anything. Somethings I can do something if a friend goes with me (and provides the transportation), but that happens less and less often, as friends tend to spend time with friends who CAN do things. I’m pretty sure that anyone with a chronic illness or disability will tell you that even good friends tend to drop away over time. You get left behind as their lives go on. And I cope with that. Pretty well, so the therapist says. Yay, me. I am a person whose brain figures things out while I talk about them, and I have not had anyone to talk to for quite a long time, so am looking forward to this. Seven more sessions to go. I may have mentioned that Gertrude the Cat is not a very good conversationalist, so no help there. LOL

Be safe. WEAR YOUR MASK. Save someone’s life.

I was quite disturbed recently that a book had been banned in my town, because ONE person asked for that to happen. One person can decide for an entire town what is and is not allowed. ONE PERSON. How is this justified? How is this reasonable, rational, sane? Was then delighted to learn that enough people spoke up to protest this and the ban was rescinded. Does not change the fact that it happened, in my town, here in a very enlightened and progressive state.  Here’s an article about it. https://turnto10.com/news/local/north-attleborough-school-district-reverses-book-ban-amid-criticism-southern-new-england-massachusetts-january-23-2024

is a disgrace.

Got my ears checked and it seems I need hearing aids. They are very delicate about suggesting it, as it seems people are very sensitive about the subject. Why? I want to hear, what’s so hard about that? Deafness is not a personal failing, after all But the bonus of this is that it seems one ear has something odd about it, inner bones are wrong or something, so I am getting an MRI. Finally. Have been wanting one for a long time, because something is wrong in my head and I keep getting a sort of brush-off when I bring it up. I had an MRI when I first got fibro, because they thought I had something else at first. Seems I have lesions on the brain (little white spots) which can be an indicator of MS, but I do not have MS. Be interesting to see if anything has changed in that respect. More lesions, did they disappear, what? 

Bought some cooked shrimp and cocktail sauce from the grocery store. Have not had shrimp in years because I am not sure how to buy it or cook it. Anyway, next day I had major,major pain. Was it the shrimp? Better today. Also determined to go back to 5 mg prednisone instead of six, because more pain/awake all night, I will go for the pain for now. Being awake all night and then needing to sleep half the day is not my idea of a good time. 

Sometimes, I just feel like I cannot catch a break, but never give up, never surrender. Right? 

And, it’s yet another gray day. This is so like February in New Hampshire, where it felt like the sun did not shine for the entire month. Sort of saps your energy when it is all gray, gray, gray. Not that I have that much energy in the first place. LOL

Be safe, people. Wear your mask. Please. I am thinking of putting a sign on my door: No Mask No Entry. Almost nobody wears a mask, even at the doctor’s or the hospital.

From a post on Bored Panda:

“…And if you really want to talk about real life, be it COVID, the flu or common cold, you will get exposed to the virus, it will go through this process over a day or so, then you will be infectious but will not yet have symptoms. You are infecting others before you know you have millions of virus particles inside you. So if you are at work and a coworker has a cold it is good to avoid them, but if you interacted with them the day before when they had no cold, you were potentially exposed and may get the cold yourself. And as I teach students, the symptoms you experience are not due to the virus, but your immune response to the virus. Otherwise you would not be asymptomatic yet have the virus raging inside of you. When your body recognizes the foreign invader you start to get symptoms. One last tid bit, you are sick longer than you are infectious. With a cold you might be infectious till day three or four of symptoms or so, then no longer, but you still have several days of symptoms to go.”

Sort of. Cold, cold, cold. It was 13 F this morning. 21 now. Winter is here. For now. 

Hurt my leg. Nothing I am aware of doing, but stood up and oh, my. Could barely stand on it or walk. Went to clinic, went to hospital for x-ray, slight inflammation and of course, arthritis, but it’s just a muscle thing, it seems. Already better but had to take celebrex AND 2 extra strength tylenol to be able to walk. Slightly better today. Yay. 

Did I mention my homemaker’s work screwed up her schedule and she could only come once a week? NOOOOOO. Got my caseworker involved and now she is back to twice a week, except Mon and Thurs instead of Tues and Fri. Don’t like Monday, because that’s the holiday day, but better than only coming once a week. I really like her, so glad it worked out.

I am in a NextDoor thing for my town and am appalled at how many of my fellow townies are MAGA idiots. Very disturbing. Why on earth people actually seem to worship that orange disgrace is beyond me. I think it truly is a cult. Brainwashed followers think he can do no wrong in spite of all the proof of all the wrong he has/is doing. How can people be so willfully ignorant is beyond me. Want to just live my life and be happy and safe, but you can’t do the ostrich thing in today’s world and pretend nothing is going on. Genocide, homophobia, misogyny, xenophobia, so many things wrong that are happening all the time all around us. It is very disheartening. I have no idea what to do about it, even if I was in a position to do anything about it. Which I am not. I sign petitions. That’s my big contribution to the world. Kind of useless, aren’t I? Oh, well.

Day before yesterday, with the help of my homemaker who prepped the potatoes, I made corn chowder. Last week, with her potato help again, I made tuna soup. Homemade soup is so good, and you have meals for two or three days. It’s a good thing. Corn chowder is so easy. Cube and boil potatoes, add creamed corn, let heat a bit, add a can of evaporated milk and a scoop of bacon grease for flavor, heat again, don’t boil, add a butt-load of pepper and you’re good to go. I like pepper. Tuna soup is boil the potatoes in V-8, add canned tuna, bit of oregano, heat a bit, and again you are good to go. I have a lot of soup recipes that I can make now that I have someone to do the prep work, which I cannot do right now. 

That’s it for now. Wear your mask, vote BLUE, and be kind to your fellow humans. Be kind to animals, too. Just be kind. It is not that hard. 

Not sure why those two blank things are there, and cannot get rid of them. Sorry. :(

I got to go out and do a bit of shopping. A friend took me. We went to the Dollar Store, the local plant nursery, and Shaw’s. It was fun, but it was also very, very slow, painful, exhausting, and just plain difficult. Even getting in and out off the car was hard. Won’t do that again til I can figure out what caused this and get the miracle cure that must be out there somewhere, right? Probably not. I took Celebrex last night and 2 extra strength Tylenol this morning or I would not have been able to even contemplate going out. So much pain. I am appalled at how much I have lost as far as function, mobility, etc., in just a few short weeks. Not that I was particularly mobile before, I need a shopping basket to hang off of anyway, but I am so much worse. I am finding it very worrisome and somewhat upsetting, because what if I don’t get better from this? How long will I be able to live by myself? Am I going to need care and there is nobody to do that anyway. The thing is, if I am suddenly a bit better tomorrow, I will totally forget how bad I was and that is a really good thing. Have to keep thinking of my motto: ”Never give up. Never surrender.” Thank you, Galaxy Quest. 

Been over two months since I last blogged. Nobody noticed, it seems. Oh, well. I have been feeling very abandoned lately. My kids, neither of whom live near me, at least keep in touch with Signal, a messaging service where we have our own group. Fun. My oldest friend lives quite a ways away, and has some issues in her own life, and does not keep in touch on any sort of regular basis. I understand. My nearby friend has made a load of new friends and does a ton of activities, and there is no time left for me. I get this too. I get less and less mobile as time goes on, and cannot be out and about that much, and the things we used to do like play games are not that interesting for her anymore. Real life is more fun. Chronic, painful, debilitating illnesses are not.

I have also had a lot more health issues. A LOT more pain for whatever reason I have no idea of. I did make a discovery, though. A friend got me some CBD oil, which one of my doctors recommended I try. It works great for back pain, but my all over joint pain (the new crap I now live with) gets worse. A lot worse. If I take Celebrex, it makes the joint pain much better, but does nothing for my back. Cannot take them both together since Celebrex can cause bleeding, and CBD oil ups the chances of that happening again. I had a bleed a year and a half ago and was hospitalized for three days. Fun times. As a result, I have to wear one of those ‘help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up’ things, mainly because I had to crawl from the bathroom where I passed out from loss of blood to the living room where the cell phone was. Cat thought it was very weird, but fun. 

I did get a new homemaker who I like and does a pretty good job. I also hired someone to come in and help organize and declutter, since I am totally physically unable to do that. She will come for an hour a week til I run out of money to pay her. I also hired my homemaker to do the same type of thing, and again, until I run out of money. So hopeful on that subject. The person completely redid my pantry shelf and everything is organized. Veg together, beans canned and dry together, canned and dry milk together and so on, so I only have to look to see what I have in any category. She did it in one hour. ONE. Have some empty jars that were scattered all over because no place to put them, so will have homemaker put the dry food, flour, oatmeal, etc in them. More space opens. Yay. Want to do the cupboards, too, as there are a lot of things I no longer use, since cooking is hard, and some things I know I will never use again. So bye, I hope. Maybe someone else can get some use out of them.

We did have snow one day. Melted and gone two days later. But I had moved laptop back to table by window, so messed about on it and watched snow fall most of that day. Was a very good day. Now I am very tired, so going to couch with my Oasis. Anything that is not an original keyboard Kindle is very annoying with the ‘here’s more books’ and such crap taking up space and you have to wade through it all. Also magazines. I don’t want magazines, but you just cannot seem to stop them coming, and then there is no way to delete them that I have found. God, I miss my Kindle keyboard. So much. But the last battery I bought for it was dead, and came all the way from China anyway, so I guess there is no hope for it. I miss it so much. Anyway, am reading my Torchwood fan fiction, of course, and right now am reading another Harry Grimm book by David J Gatward. Really like these character-driven mysteries. So over and out. Time to collapse on the couch. :)