Wednesday, September 29, 2021

Wednesday, September 29, 2021

 

     My sleep last night was troubled. Obsessive thinking got the better of me. I have been swinging back and forth; I get this feeling under control, and then it gets me under control. Fortunately, the swings weren't wide. I go from discomfort while being functional to calm and fully functional. I see this as something I am going to have to go through.

    While there was some discomfort in my leg and hip last night because of the work with the acupuncturist, I could still walk as far up Kukuna as I have been.   Even the young and healthy prepare for the Kukuna climb. It's pretty steep.

     As I passed Judy's driveway, I saw a car slowly descending the steep hill from her house. Given the hour, I assumed Adam was bringing Luke home to get him ready for school after spending the night with Judy. Luke is a severely disabled child with Fox1G genetic syndrome. Sometimes he goes on lengthy crying jags. Judy gives her son and daughter-in-law a break by taking care of him for the night so that they can get some sleep. When Luke's distressed, he must be carried at all times. It's tiring. However, it wasn't Adam; it was Judy. She had an early morning Turo drop-off scheduled with Mei. Mei usually doesn't call on Judy to do those early morning ones; Jane or Jeff, the co-owners of the Turo site, do those. Now, Jane and Jeff weren't available. Judy happily pitched it. Mei is one lucky lady to have Judy on her team.

      Judy has been a fantastic support. She called while I was in one of my deep, obsessive phases.   She understands this results from my PTSD, triggered by an occurrence. I can't share the occurrence on the update because it involves other people. I doubt anyone meant to hurt me, no less throw me in a tizzy like this, but something happened that was a reprieve of some of my mother's most disturbing behavior. 

       Mike used to say that he felt I had been tortured. Judy said her first impression of him was when she met Mike. Neither of us had it easy. We were the whipping boys for our mothers. I guess that's what Mike and I had in common; it bonded us. He once said he thought I would start crying and be unable to stop one day. When that day came, I was to call him immediately. He would come home, and he would hold me through it. Well, it looked like that time had arrived. I felt unmoored from emotional control at times. My body was bursting with the need to cry. No, it was not just because I had lost my beloved Mike. Although, indeed, that was a factor. He saw himself as my protector and my refuge. And he was both those things for me. Hopefully, I was that for him too. Again, that does not mean we were always perfect with each other.

       For those of you who know the study, The Magic Relationship rule: for every negative interaction, a couple, probably any two people, must have five positive interactions for a relationship to be functional rather than dysfunctional. The one out of five is rock bottom; ours was much better than that. My best guess is it was a one-to-fifty ratio. The worst thing that bothered me about him was his inability to hold a casual conversation. Doing so requires improvisational skills. You have to know how to build on what the other person said. Mike didn't know how to do that unless the conversation had a purpose or a context. Then he was good, even fantastic.  

   He did other things' wrong,' like he consistently forgot to turn off the stove or oven, not to mention a few bad personal habits. I found those funny. 

    The biggest thing that annoyed him about me was my excitability and tone of voice when I got frustrated with him- which I know of. He was more rigid in his thinking than I was. He was terrified of chaos. Why would someone terrified of chaos want me in his life? Good question. But it worked.  

    Judy recommended I get medication to help me through until I reached the other shore. I used to be on Lexapro. My line was, "I'm on Lexapro for my husband's anxiety." I don't know how much it did for me. I got off it after Mike died. I didn't have to worry about his anxiety anymore. Besides, my doctor wrote me to make sure I wasn't taking more than half a pill. There is the possibility that it was Mike's anti-anxiety medication that caused his fatal pancreatitis. Of course, he was on doses beyond the recommended amount. 

       Nonetheless, the doctor's message was all I needed to get off my prescription. It was over two years before I started experiencing this emotional turmoil. I suspect the chemical was well out of my system by then. I had been okay; then I fell off a cliff. I didn't want to go back on the regular medication. I had some CDB pills in the house. 

     Damon recommended I get them after Mike died. I took two the other night when my thoughts overwhelmed me, and I couldn't sleep. You have no idea how radical that is for me. I have to be reminded I can take an Ibprobum when I am in physical pain. It just doesn't occur to me. I had to be in serious pain to do this on my own. When Judy recommended chemical relief, I took her advice. I took two more pills. It had an almost immediate effect. I have always been very chemically sensitive. Using the CDB pills means I can take something periodically without committing to a daily medication regime. 

  Right after Judy's call, I went to Kaiser for a GYN appointment. The medication must have had some effect already. While I wasn't totally calm, my blood pressure was 111 over 64. So low, I would think it's somewhat of a concern at my age. My weight was also a surprise. Usually, I take off my shoes and outer clothes; yes, I always wear a sweatshirt when going to Kaiser. They keep their temp low, and I freeze. Today, I didn't feel like stripping down. The scale usually came within 142 to 145-pound range. Today it was 140.8, with all the extra weight. My scale had been telling me I was losing weight. Agitation is good for my figure. It makes some people eat more. I eat less.

    I am one of the blessed old women who always looks for the nearest bathroom. I wanted to see if anything could be done to help the situation. It seemed to be getting worse. The doctor was a sweet young woman with eyes like the blue-eyed Afghan girl with the dark orange hood taken years ago. Fortunately, the good doctor's eyes were free from that young girl's suspicion and pain. She smiled when I made the association, indicating she had heard this comment many times before.

     She had many thoughts about the causes of my problem. As part of the diagnostic procedure, she had to catheterize me. Now that was a whole new experience but not as bad as I thought it would be. I was surprised. It reassured me that Mike wasn't completely miserable with his catheter. He spent about four weeks with it because he couldn't get out of bed or use a urinal. It only came out in preparation for his death when he was taken off all life support. 

      Before the doctor catheterized me, she cleaned the area. That made sense. When she was finished, she pointed to a box of tissues, suggesting I wipe myself. As I threw the tissue into the trash, I noticed something that looked like blood-soaked wipes on top. When I looked again, I saw the strain of yellow; it was iodine. I am allergic to iodine. I throw up when I consume it internally in hard-shelled seafood, iodized salt, or one-a-day vitamin pills. When my skin comes in contact with it, I develop a rash. Ow! When the doctor came back to hand me my report, I asked her if she used iodine. Yep!.  She Gerry-rigged a bidet. She asked her nurse if she had something I could use to clean my privates with water. She came back with a liter of drinking water. That's what I used. I squeezed the bottle and had my own improvised bidet.

    I went to the Croc store next. As I was moving into the right turn lane to get onto Henry Street, a cop car came zooming up behind me to my left, blue light whirling, but no siren. I only saw him in my side-view mirror at the last minute and pulled over. I'm not sure he could have gotten through without hitting me if I hadn't. I have no idea where he went. 

      I went to the Croc store because I had problems with my new Crocs. I ordered the same size, but the shoes didn't fit properly. The toe box was wide enough but too short. From what I could figure out, the back strap on the new shoes was too short. I took the shoes to the store to see if someone there could take the straps off my old red Crocs with the paper-thin soles and put them on the new ones. The store owner did that for me.   

     As I pulled out of the Coconut Grove parking lot, I had a little car accident- at my usual under 5 mph. I can't make right turns. I didn't see the projected area below the row of bushes. There was a little pile of rocks, decoratively displayed, perfect for me to run over. The damage wasn't too great; I have a scratch on my right rear hub cap. Oh, well.

     Then I went to Home Depot to return the three half cinder blocks I bought to replace the cracked large planter filled with dirt that held the mailbox erect. However, the ground in the front of the house is slanted. The stack of cinder blocks rested there at a precarious angle, ready to fall on someone. I thought of ways to level the area or use shimmies under the bottom block. Neither seemed like a good permanent solution. If they didn't work, someone could get hurt. I would have to replace the planter with another one.

   I was planning to pick up such a planter when I returned the cinder blocks. While waiting for the clerk to process my return, I got a text from California E's father saying they were ready to sign in. Oh, Oh. I had forgotten. I told them I would be home in half an hour and ran out of the store before the return had been processed. It wasn't a great loss. Each cinder block cost $2.50.   It was all for naught. E wasn't available when I got home half an hour later.

    I remembered why I hadn't entered our appointment in my calendar. I had written California E's father through Remind. Then I couldn't read the thread to confirm which dates I had requested. I forgot to ask for help from Julia or Laura. E's dad and I agreed to meet the next day at the same time.

  I had an appointment with adolescent D.  He was doing well with using his auditory working memory, and I saw no purpose in continuing working on BrainManagement Skills – for now. We applied Phase I of the Phonics Discover System to an eighth-grade reading passage. Phase I always starts with the sound of the word. Either he reads the word, or I do. Once one of us has said it, he figures out the sounds in words and which letters represent those sounds. 

   He read one word correctly and was surprised. I thought he read it right by "accident." He often said that he read a word wrong by "accident." Well, of course, it was an accident. He hadn't deliberately misread words. He didn't seem to understand his tendency to read words incorrectly was his problem. Now his mind was reading words correctly by accident. This means his automatic processing is starting to work. Yay! 

     I told Judy I was reading spiritually minded books on Buddhism to see if they could help me regain my mental composure. She recommended Thomas Merton. I read Seven Story Mountain when I was in high school. I didn't remember it. Mike has several books of his. I found Seven Story Mountain and started reading that. Wow! Wow! and Wow! His language is incredible. I found the way he used words so satisfying. So far, I had only read his description of his childhood. I wasn't into his psychospiritual thoughts or teachings. 

    Judy said that many people don't like reading him; they consider him boring. I can imagine I did when I was in high school. His sentences are complex, and his thoughts weave in and out.   However, I love following the trail. It's like finding the melody in a jazz piece.