Daily Archives: September 8, 2015

Fund page updated.

Some pictures of my nephew’s room where the fire originated. His stuff is a total loss, as is much of his parents’ stuff which was in the room next door. They shared a heat vent so the smoke damage hit them hard even though the fire didn’t, then came the fire hoses.

The biggest salvation was him not being home when this happened.

It apparently started because he overloaded a power strip and left his air conditioner running while he was gone. No one thought to turn it off, figuring the breaker would blow if overloaded. Failing that, the smoke alarms should have warned them. They didn’t go off, period,until after the door had been opened and flames leaped up.

I gripe a lot about my family, I know, and they can be really shitty. But I had a home burn once and they helped me out. I am returning the favor trying to help them. They will have nowhere to go in three days so please keep passing this along, I will notify of every update.

And say a prayer for the seven lost kitties and 2 lost ferrets who did not survive. May they rest peacefully in heaven.

It may be my gallbladder after all instead of just GERD, and that means it’s going to have to come out sooner or later.  So for now I am on a stronger acid reducer in hopes that we can get the worst of the symptoms under control until I feel like having my gallbladder out.  I want to wait until after my class in October at least. say the week after that and see what we can do>  I go back in a week and see how I’m feeling then.

Wonderful day today in that I cut all the cokes due to the acid and I haven’t been sleepy since this morning! I’m very excited about this and wonder if GOd is healing me also of the side effects of my meds.  That would be a wonderful thing not to be sleepy all the time.

Had the  conference and all with my professor this morning and hope to do well in the big class conference this Thursday.  I’ve done my meme but wtn my daughter to look at it and see if it “looks right”.  I told him my idea and he seemed to think it was funny, so that is what I will go with.  I need to do my reading and discussion soon too; it being a short week had thrown my schedule off some.  But I will get it all done.  I know I will ! :)

Sigh.  More and more and more, for this huge brave soul that enlivens the body of my sweet Atina.

As if everything else wasn’t enough, she’s begun having signs of pancreatic failure: ravenous appetite, horrendous huge nauseating stinking greasy poops that look like, if you measured them, about the same volume as what she took in.

I know these signs well, having dealt with something similar myself over the course of several years.  Rapid weight loss and malnourishment are the predictable results.

So I took her to the hospital, with the plan of explaining all this to her surgeon, and my extreme hesitation to perform surgery based on my concerns of her inability to absorb nutrients merely for her maintenance needs, let alone the 200% of basic needs that the body requires for healing after major surgery.

But as fortune would have it, her internal medicine resident showed up to check in with us prior to surgery; and after a good deal of putting our heads together about it, decided to call off the surgery (whew!) and do an impromptu clinic visit instead.

A good thing on many levels.

Atina’s blood pressure was higher than it was two weeks ago, which is bad news about her kidney function.  A bunch of blood was drawn again, basic kidney function tests plus a battery of pancreatic function tests that get sent out to somewhere.

I have been kicking and screaming about just going ahead and starting pancreatic enzymes after drawing the test.  I don’t see why she should be left to lose even more of her body by pooping it out, for the sake of academic “correctness.”  I’m thinking about this.

She did get a prescription for a medicine that will control bacterial overgrowth in the intestine, and I know from my own experience that that alone will help reduce stool volume.  But it doesn’t do a damn thing to assist nutrient absorption.

Believe me, I will not let this thing rest for long.  A couple days, maybe.  We have a recheck appointment on Friday, and might make it that long, but if I see things deteriorating even a hair’s breadth between now and then I am going to make a LOT of noise.

All of this is adding up to autoimmune disease, in my own medical mind.  A lousy prognosis.  One lousy prognosis on top of another.

I’m looking for silver linings here.

One is that my sweet Atina has become very cuddly and snuggly–leaving my arms and legs covered with gaudy blotches, since I bleed at the slightest contact with tooth or claw; and my sweet Atina is all teeth and claws, like any healthy adolescent.

Unfortunately, the very fact that she is being so clingy is a sign that she is not feeling well.  Most healthy adolescents are busy testing limits, and snuggling with Mom is the last thing on their minds.

But I treasure these moments of puppy love, and only say “OUCH!” when badly bitten, or if flailing paws with claws come way too close to my eye.

And then there is Colorado.

There is no endpoint in sight yet, so Colorado it is, and will be, until then next thing happens.  Fact is, I like Colorado a lot.  You can find pretty much any kind of terrain you can imagine here.  There are a lot of natural and man-made geologic features that are unique and breathtaking.  The flowers, the wildlife, canyons, mountains, rivers, glaciers, everything.

I guess I’ll go ahead and put in to become a resident, since I seem to live here.  I did want to winter in Arizona, mostly because mixing winter with an RV can get complicated.  But I’ve learned a lot of other stuff, so I can learn that too, if the rest of me holds up.

I like the idea that if I need some botanical medicine to treat my nerve pain, I can just waltz into the dispensary of my choice and buy some.  I don’t use that much, but in the surrounding states if you don’t have a medical card from that state, possessing ANY amount of the Herb will get you busted.  I don’t think I could deal with getting busted, so I’ll stay legal.

And wait. 

I’ve been entrusted with the love and care of this beautiful soul, so I will let her be my guide, and my guardian.  Ours is a bond of perfect faith.  How many of us ever find that in life?

An afternoon snooze...

You know the person…snarky, bitchy, unpleasant to be around…that’s me. I found myself saying “I’m just not a nice person” (then I wonder “Was I ever?”). In my post I am a chameleon, I talk about my ability to blend in to my surroundings, having never really learned who I am. Sometimes the blending becomes absorbing, and if I spend too much time with one type of person I tend to take on that persona.

From a very young age I was trained to be charming and witty, perfect wife material for a lawyer or some other high muckety-muck (my mom didn’t want me to marry a doctor like she did-life’s too unpredictable). At my step-daughter’s wedding reception a couple days ago, I proved I still had it in me. Nevermind the fact that I was actually able to cope with a very large number of adults and children whom I didn’t know (social anxiety be damned!), I was also able to interact with them all in a way that would have made my mother proud.

But then during my nightly rehash which prevents me from falling asleep every night, I thought about all the things I said/did wrong or stupidly. That’s when I realized that around certain friends and family members I’m not a very nice person, and I don’t like who I’ve become (or have I always been this way and am just now noticing it?). So it’s time to evolve once more.  I’m starting DBT today, which entails learning mindfulness, and I’m hoping I’ll be able to learn to think before I speak. I’m hoping I’ll be able to become that other woman, the one people enjoy being around.

Tagged: identity, personality, social anxiety

For many years I refused to accept my diagnosis of bipolar disorder.  I was challenged by a great deal of self-stigma…I blamed myself for my symptoms, I felt guilty for having something wrong. And by no means did I want to be a part of a group that was looked down upon in our society.  I simply did not want to have to deal with my illness, so denying it seemed like I could make it go away.

Like any other serious illness my bipolar disorder just got worse without treatment.  It escalated to the point where I found myself in places that I could never imagine I could end up.  I pushed people away from me, left a successful career in the dust, and became so depressed I could not get out of bed.

Fast forward several years and I am now successfully treated with a proper combination of medications and have moved forward and rebuilt my life.  

But there was a period of time when all I could think about was bipolar disorder.  I dreaded taking the medications because it made me feel “less than” everyone else.  In some ways I felt as if I was damaged.  I was completely devoid of any confidence and my self-esteem was at my all time low.  I measured everything I did through the lens of bipolar disorder and forgot about the whole person that I am.

I have come a long way since then but was struck this evening by my 10 year old nephews awe with how many states I had traveled too.  He was putting together a map of the U.S. And ask me to tell him where I had traveled. When he put the map together leaving out 7 states he said to me, “Look at all the places you have been!”  In that moment he was in awe of me.

It struck me that I needed to remind myself that there is so much more to my story than struggling with a mental illness. It doesn’t even have anything to do with how much I have traveled but more importantly that I had forgotten those experiences contributed a great deal to the person I have become.  

More than anything there have been times when I have wallowed at times in much self-pity thinking my life was cheated because of bipolar disorder when the real focus should be on my experiences in spite of it.

The reasons for my extensive travel are many and they actually have sculpted in a large part my journey in life.  Bipolar disorder contributed to a few of my wondering experiments to strange places but for the most part my adventurous spirit took me down the path of exploration.

I think it is tempting to become so consumed with fighting and managing an illness that we sometimes forget who we were, who we are and who we are becoming.  But one thing I have learned is to make certain I am not identifying myself through only one lens.

Each of us who live with a mental illness are far bigger than a diagnosis.  We are mothers, sisters, fathers and brothers.  We are someone’s child.  We are employees and friends and full of life.

Remember all of who you are and focus on the whole picture that makes up your experiences not just the struggles and the pain, but the joy and happiness that makes you a unique individual.  

It can be an adjustment to think this way, but it is critically important.  You are more than your illness-way more.  And life starts feeling better when you recognize that fact.