September 2022 in 2020s

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2022
In the car heading home. Now, I’m more tired than I was yesterday. My heart is racing, and while I don’t feel like I’m on fire, my heart has done that funny flutter a few times. This much fatigue this often still seems a bit extreme even for being older. Also, it’s only 66 degrees out and the fan is on yet I still feel a bit warm. So worried I’m going to go home just to suffer some more with the usual mix of fatigue, anxiety, racing heart, and hot flashes. Either way, I’m still looking forward to getting home, having my own bed, some space, and all the comforts of home. Miss VR too.

I hope I’m only tired because I didn’t sleep so well last night. First, I woke up to pee. Then a couple of times I simply woke up. Then somebody’s husband was snoring like a ship horn blasting in the night. Had to yell at him three times to get him to shut up, and change sounds on the sound machine as well.

I still wonder - and worry - that my fatigue could be that I did get covid after all, or something wrong with my heart. Cancer? I’d say that one is extremely unlikely.

Poor Jessie ended up getting more damage than we did. We never lost power at our place and there is no damage. She got damage to her carport and some shingles. She also showed me a picture of a damaged dock at the river near her.

Ugh, so tired of problems with chargers! Yeah, that’s where we are now. This is fucking ridiculous.

Still feel shitty too (mostly tired) and wondering how much money and how many appointments it may take to figure out what’s wrong with me. Not that I could tolerate whatever treatment I may need, of course. I don’t know. Maybe it’s all in the way I sleep. Fitbit sure thinks I sleep well enough, though, most of the time.

Wish it was cloudy today or that I had at least remembered to take my pink sparkly cap. The sun is in my eyes and shining on me when I have to open the car door to let a sufficient breeze blow through. I’m so glad it’s dry today. The storm sucked a lot of moisture out of the air.

At first I wasn’t happy to have an east-facing room, not wanting the sun glare while enjoying the view. But the first two days were very cloudy, windy and rainy. This morning, however, it was very bright. The other side would have had a nicer view as it faced the pool.

Oh, great. Now I’m feeling those weird chest and throat pains.

One of the tires is low so he’s giving it air now.

Anyway, I’ll describe the room for whatever it’s worth. It was a good size, not huge, but a decent size. It was at the Signia Hilton, as I said before. The building has 18 floors. Being on the 11th floor was nice as it was high enough for a nice view, but low enough to still see what was going on down below. Not that there was much to see with the stormy weather. The thought of living in a soundproof high rise is really appealing. I’d want to be on the 15th floor, though.

It was great since all I heard were the brats when they were in the hall. Even the doors were set up so they couldn’t be slammed. If the place was built like ESA, it would have been maddening and I’d never have gotten any sleep with all the bumps, bangs and screaming I would have been in for. I just never want to be where there are so many kids again. I was surprised by how many were left unattended, too.

There was some kind of gymnastics convention for little kids, which explains what I saw in the lobby when we first arrived. A little girl of perhaps six years old was doing these perfect cartwheels. Two things went through my mind. One was that my mother never would have let me do that in most places, especially in a crowded lobby. And two was that I wished I had her energy!

It also annoyed me when some of the dogs would bark at us when we passed by. So that the people wouldn’t have to take them out during the storm, they set up a pet relief room. Gross! I pity the person who had to clean that up. Imagine the smell!

The toilet was surprisingly low. A good thing for short people. I’m guessing it was low because of all the kids that stay there. Hey, it was the Walt Disney World Resort, after all! I got some great pics I shared on Facebook. I’ll throw them on Twitter to share with blog readers as well.

The room didn’t smell as bad as the last two hotels we stayed at, but water wicked through the concrete under the window when it was raining. The carpet was a little damp and musty-smelling.

For the most part, I was tired, bored, and longing for a little space. At least when we’re on the same schedule at home, I can go into another room if I want to write or do something on my own.

He doesn’t regret our vacation, but I still have mixed emotions about it. I liked getting away, the view, and the food. I didn’t like feeling like shit and all the tech problems and delays we ran into.

The also had a nice coffee maker that turned off on its own. It had an option for either one or two cups.

sighs with frustration We’re now at the charger at the Hampton Inn since Love’s was broken. It’s a pleasant day, so we opened all four windows and cut the AC to charge up faster.

The chest and hip pain stopped, and by some miracle or two, I now feel a bit more energized. So writing, writing and writing to hopefully catch up. It’s easier to write when we’re not moving anyway. If I catch up before we get home, I can read. Our next stop will be in Zephyrhills, such a dumpy little town.

Back to describing the room… The shower was nice as was the $2500 hybrid bed. We had heavy feather pillows and an even heavier blanket. That was the only thing I didn’t get, a weighted blanket in Florida? Kept the room at 70 while I slept since I had no fan blowing on me. At home, I usually sleep with the temperature at 74 and set it to 76-78 when I’m awake, depending on how I feel and what I’m doing.

There’s a dark lizard and a bright green lizard on nearby electrical boxes. The bright green one looks cool.

Loved the verbena and lavender-scented Crabtree & Evelyn shampoo, conditioner, and lotion they had in the hotel room. My hair and skin felt great, though I’m sure they also had a water softener. I took some home with me along with the spare roll of toilet paper. Hey, I might as well get all we can for a place with shitty service, and we did pay for it after all. It was like being on the ship all over again…great food, shitty service. All that was good besides the food was the quiet, the amenities, and the view. Key cards wouldn’t work, room service was stopped, and we couldn’t get takeout from the buffet.

We were too stuffed for dinner on our last night there, and it was getting late in my day anyway. I only slept until 4:00 AM on the second to last day and 5:30 on the last. But lunch was good. I had penne pasta, fries, and a sweet dessert of some kind topped off with a glass of merlot.

This “fast” charger isn’t very fast at all. So we’ll be here another half hour. We’ll walk over and use the bathroom at Burger King.

Had the usual bacon, eggs, and potatoes for breakfast, and also a quesadilla that was good. The guy that waited on us each time we ate there was nice. He gave us sodas to go after lunch too.

Oh, fuck. We really can’t catch a break, can we? We may have to go to yet another charger. A guy pulled in next to us and also tried to charge, but it didn’t work. What is it with all these fucking broken chargers? This is bullshit. Why have them if the people who own them aren’t going to maintain them?

Lots of flooded roads in this area. Saw a manufactured home flooded almost to the base of it.

Passed an Amazon fulfillment center. They’re now starting people off at $19 an hour. He’s tempted to go part-time, but we’re not sure if there’s a fulfillment center near us.

So after opting out of getting some wings from the bar on the last night, we went to the gift shop. Never went to the gym. And of course, we had no reason to visit the ballroom. I don’t remember seeing the spa but I’m sure it was there somewhere. Got some snacks at the gift shop.

The other night I had a dream that we were home and Tom puked. This was the first dream where the house actually looked like this house, too.

The night before that, I dreamt we were living wherever when I heard something jiggling the front door. My first thought was that the mail was being shoved into the slot. But then when the door started pushing open, I realized someone was trying to break in.

I threw the door open and found some big burly black guy standing there. I shot out a leg and kicked him. He rolled backward down the stairs. However, as soon as he hit the ground, he shot back up and charged back up the stairs at me. I quickly slammed and locked the door but was worried he was going to get in any second. I woke up before he could kill me in that nightmare, luckily.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2022
Our second of three days at the hotel has begun. I definitely have mixed emotions about this trip. At least as Tom says, we now know what to expect should Jessie and I decide to do something together in the future. It won’t be as stressful going back because we now know where the chargers are and he even looked to find more fast chargers along the way. We just might get stuck in traffic. There was a section where we were slowed to a crawl. I remember saying that I could get there faster hitting the road in VZ. Going slower makes the battery last longer, though.

There has been some good in it, but it really sucks that they canceled room service. It also sucks that we can’t use the pool. It’s shaped like a river and has a slow flow. They give you a tube to cruise around on. It would have been fun despite the screaming brats I would have had to deal with along the way.

There were a few at the buffet we went to this morning, but it wasn’t that bad. The buffet was great. I got the same thing I had yesterday for breakfast only I had fruit along with it as well and a chocolate cupcake.

Yesterday I was exhausted all day and never left the room. There wasn’t really anything to do or any place to go anyway. He stepped out to grab us some snacks and then a burger and fries later on from the bar since they had stopped room service. As pissed as we were, the burger and fries were excellent.

For the most part, I did a lot of napping yesterday. I’m surprised I was able to sleep through the night, but I did for about 6.5 hours. Been up since 4:00 AM. I’m tired today too, but not as bad as yesterday. I swear I’m never gonna have energy again for more than an occasional day here and there. It seems I always have something. If it isn’t fatigue, it’s anxiety. If it isn’t pain, it’s something else.

Speaking of health news, here’s the most shocking news of all. Tom and I swapped places! Now I’m the one with a normal TSH and he’s slightly elevated at a 5. He read that men his age can get a little low on thyroid, but it can resolve itself within a few months. His good cholesterol is also low but exercise raises that. Even though he’s not like me, I still hope he doesn’t ever have to go on the medication just in case. You don’t want to put yourself in a situation where there’s even a one-in-a-million chance of experiencing the same kinds of side effects I had if you can help it.

From various sources - the news, Jim, Tabitha - we’ve learned that all is well on the home front, and as far as we know, we never lost power. Part of me wishes we’d just stayed home. Again, mixed emotions about this trip.

Now poor Jess is getting slammed. The storm moved much faster than they anticipated. Not to the point where she’ll be evacuated, but she’s going to be getting a lot of wind and rain, and worse is that she’s lost power. Nearly 200K homes in her area have lost power. About 2.5 million are without power in the Lee County area. I guess it’s a good thing we couldn’t move to Venice because it was too expensive, even though Tom liked that area.

Both here in Orlando and at home, wind speeds didn’t really get much more than between 50 and 60 miles an hour.

There’s more I could write about, but I think I want to save it for the road tomorrow, assuming I don’t feel like I’m going to die. I waited an hour after taking my meds today and I’m OK. Hopefully, that’s not just because my own TSH is a little higher.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2022
Hi ho, off to Orlando we go! I just wish I wasn’t so warm and with an elevated HR…again. I took an 88 and waited an hour today, but there’s no way I’m going to wait an hour for coffee on vacation. We’ll be gone till Friday. The question is, what am I going to do if I’m not better when Galileo contacts me to see how I’ve been? Suggest cutting out another 88? Ask for a shrink referral so I could have lorazepam? All I know is that I’m just so fucking sick of this shit! All I do is suffer. I hope it isn’t going to spoil too much of this trip for me! It’s going to be a long day for me, as I’ve been up since 1:30. Thank God I’m on days now!

Galileo sent me an automated message asking if I was ready for a refill. I told them I had enough for a couple more weeks and said I was being evacuated because of the hurricane but would request a refill when I got home. They thanked me for letting them know and said to stay safe.

I was going to write on the termite’s wall something to the effect of the book that was published about her and her kids being a thrilling read, then dump Mia’s account until I realized I was dumb enough not to save the PW for that account. Oh well. If I ever have anything to say to them again I can either create a new account or just unblock them from my main account long enough to say what I’ve got to say. Not likely to bother, though, as I think they likely got my message from last year and that was all I had to say.

We’re a little stressed now, not sure we’re gonna make it to the nearest charger. I am not up for this shit. I’m hot, my heart is racing as high as the 120s, and I’ve been up a long time.

I’m also worried (a little) about the chest and neck pain I’ve been having on and off.

Later…

Oh, what a day it’s been so far! Vacations should be fun and relaxing, not stressful. Also, I should feel good and not like pure shit. For all of our post-Hawaii vacations, there’s always a problem. Always. In 2016, I had to have anxiety and a heat stroke. In coming to the state, I was exhausted with a pounding heart. Same shit going to Orlando.

It sucks that none of my supplements seem to be helping, even though I did take them with us. I just hope I’m not up forever and tired tomorrow. There’s always the worry that there’s going to be tons of doors slamming along with his snoring. We’re already running behind. I tell you, every time we travel there are problems and delays. One of the two chargers was broken, so we had to wait for the guy using the working one. This was when we stopped at City Hall in Zephyrhills. At least I could wait inside where it was nice and cool. Plus, we had to use the bathrooms.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 2022
Going to the lab this morning turned out to be a dry run for me. They didn’t have any other test ordered for me on their computer. So I went hungry for nothing. Then Tom’s doctor screwed up the codes or something like that, though he did get blood drawn.

The 3 planters are really 6 planters! When they said 6 pieces, I thought that meant 3 pots and 3 bottoms where you pour the water in. We ran out of dirt before we could replant the Petra, but I think I’ll leave that one in the pink planter it’s in right now because it’s doing OK. I just wish the instructions said whether or not I’m supposed to keep the water level topped off in the bottom, or just fill it up whenever it empties.

Still not sure if we’re going to have to evacuate, but I would say no. I at least went out and took down the wind chimes and moved my decorations.

A little later…

We are now officially evacuated! Off to a hotel in Orlando we go. I don’t mind a fun little mini vacation at all. I just hope we have a home to return to!

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 25, 2022
Yesterday it looked like Hurricane Ian was aiming right for us, but now it’s heading more toward Tallahassee. So I would say that no, we’re not going to get evacuated. Just some wind and rain. No beach run this week.

Yesterday we went to the dollar store to get my low-sodium beef, pork and chicken Viennas. Even though I should avoid cholesterol as much as possible, they make a great snack for when I want something but not too much of something and don’t feel like cooking.

We’ve got a grocery order coming tonight, just in case we’re not able to get out for a couple of days. I just hope it doesn’t interfere with my sleep too much or throw me off schedule for my dentist appointment.

I had a little anxiety today, but not much yesterday. Tomorrow I’ll take another 75. Mondays will be 75 days. I made a special point of ordering some foods that are good for anxiety, like fatty fish, Brazil nuts, and green tea.

We’ve got to stop eating after 5:30 because we both have lab appointments tomorrow morning. It’s going to be hard on both of us. I don’t expect to be up before midnight, so I should have several hours of being hungry. It’s better than being anxious!

Jessie had to wait an hour and 20 minutes at urgent care yesterday for a UTI. We chatted until her phone got down to 20%.

We’ve got the kind of planters coming for the plants that I should have gotten to begin with. They’re 7” self-watering planters. This way all I have to worry about is light and keeping them misted. I think they’re just not getting enough light, especially with the tinting filtering the windows. So because of that, we’re also getting grow lights. One with four arms on a stand that we can put in the middle of them. I’ll just keep them all on the kitchen table. They kinda look cool all clustered together anyway. It has a timer too, although I don’t know how long I should give them light. I suppose no less than six hours a day.

The money tree is doomed and the petra looks the healthiest so I’m going to put the ivy, fern and fittonia in the self-watering planters.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2022
My schedule has only jumped three hours since the 18th. I swear something wants me on nights. I’d love it if it was noisy in the daytime and I didn’t have emotional problems on nights. On the bright side, it’s nice to see my resting heart rate back down to 82 from 86.

I felt absolutely miserable yesterday, and I mean miserable. My heart wasn’t racing, but I was hot flashing a lot and felt anxious, depressed, frustrated, hopeless, and like I just wanted to drop dead. I started having moments where I regretted not killing myself when we first came to California and were struggling in hotels.

I cut today’s med waiting time to a little over 10 minutes. Since I’ve been feeling good today, I should be brave enough to wait an hour tomorrow because the fatigue is starting to catch up to me. I don’t think the fatigue I’ve been having is all about the TSH, though, otherwise I would have been exhausted when I was first diagnosed with a TSH of 32.

For the first time since we’ve been here, we went out walking in the middle of the night. It was 3:30 and some other guy was out walking too, so I’m guessing there isn’t anything too dangerous to worry about around here. We only walked a little way down the street and then back. We also went to Publix.

Governor DeBigot declared a state of emergency in the state because we may get “caned.” I just don’t see it happening in this area. One lady who’s been here for a decade said she’s only been evacuated once. I still wouldn’t mind a little excitement, lol. Maybe it could be like a little mini vacation if we had to go to a hotel. I still don’t see it though. I can see us getting some wind and rain, but that’s about it. The reason it’s been so dry the last several days is that the storm has been sucking up the moisture. Well, Hurricane Fiona was. The one aimed at us is Ian. Cuba and Miami have more to worry about than we do. Meanwhile, it’s kind of fun and exciting watching the hurricane tracker.

I feel so bad for Jessie, who’s had her own share of suffering. Her hip and thigh bones are OK, but according to her osteo test, her spine is in bad shape. She was crying and frustrated because she too is tired of having health problems. I felt bad for being asleep at the time she messaged me. I wish I could have been there for her.

I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I read that some snowbirds really do come down in November rather than October, which is when the Honker came down last year. Also, some wait until after the new year so they can spend the holidays with family as Irma did. I still think they’ll both be here in mid-October, though.

Sometimes I think it would be fun to live in an RV and just travel wherever. If I wasn’t such a light sleeper and we didn’t have so much stuff since it wouldn’t be easy to do VR in an RV, it might be fun to live nowhere and everywhere. As soon as we decided we didn’t like where we were at the moment, we could simply move on.

I want to go to Lowe’s and get another plant with a self-watering wick and keep it in the planter it comes in because I think it would be really cool to have a self-watering plant. I also want to see how it does in comparison to the plants we repotted. I watered the money tree one last time in a final bid to save it, but I don’t think it’s savable. Ivy and Petra look great, but Fern looks questionable now and the Fittonia has more bright-colored leaves. They’re at the very bottom, so maybe they’re supposed to lose their color with time. The rest of the plant looks healthy.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 23, 2022
It’s getting close to beach day (thank God as I need to get the fuck out) but I thought I would write one more day and then start saving stuff for the road.

I’ll be getting out for a bit this morning when the grocery store opens. Meanwhile, I still feel as miserable as ever. I slept worse last night than I did the night before, waking up on fire and having to pee twice. I do feel anxious but not as anxious as I did a couple of days ago and my heart is mostly back to double digits. Still, when the hell is my suffering ever going to end for more than a few days, weeks or months??? If something up there said in 2014 “May most of your days be pure hell on Earth” it definitely got its way.

I want to believe that I’ll get better and my body will adapt to this dose, but it’s hard to know for sure. I have no idea how long this is going to go on and how it’s gonna play out in the end. I still fear being tortured by this on and off for the rest of my life. Sometimes I wonder if I made a big mistake in not killing myself in the hotels when we first came to California.

I restarted my Gennev supplements and also the black cohosh until that beats up on my stomach.

I had chest pain again and Tums didn’t help it. It had to back off on its own. I also had a bit of neck pain, but I don’t think either symptom means anything’s wrong with my heart. Probably just stress or something I ate.

Right now my body temperature is somewhat stable, even if it’s subject to change at any second. I’m not too anxious, but I’m definitely feeling glum, doubtful, and hopeless. I’m having the runs too. Sometimes I wonder if I would feel better if there were more people around. I mean more people that I knew and trusted and felt comfortable with. I often wonder how it would affect me psychologically if we lived in a building, for example, where noise wasn’t a problem and I still had space and privacy, but there was more than just Tom around, and some of the people were doctors too.

Someone wrote in their journal that there’s no substitute for family, and in some ways they’re correct. Sometimes I still think it sucks that his family turned out to not give a damn and mine were the mean, judgmental, negative, hypocritical, narcissistic, lying, abusive, selfish assholes they were. Because of it, I sometimes feel like something is missing in my life but I still have no regrets about not having kids.

I just wish I could feel good most of the time and be at peace with my life and accept whatever is to come. But it’s not that easy. If I’m meant to suffer for the rest of my life, I can’t accept that. I can’t be OK with it if Tom were to suffer. I can’t say I don’t fear death or what may lie beyond.

Read an article saying that those who have bad dreams during middle age have a higher risk of becoming demented later on in life. I’m definitely the queen of bad dreams, alright. Laurie H was looking to shoot me in last night’s dreams. I don’t know how I knew it was her. I either sensed it or someone told me beforehand.

I was sitting in a place that was shaped like an L, much like one of my Springfield apartments. I was in the kitchen and the living room was dark, so I couldn’t see into it. But I heard the floor creak in there and knew it was her coming to shoot me. I quickly dashed into the bedroom and woke some woman who was sleeping in there to alert her.

Then I had a dream where housekeepers were coming to clean either a large hotel room or an apartment of mine. I asked that they please be on the lookout and careful of the large brown rat I had that was loose in the room, assuring them that he was harmless. Then the rat ran toward me and let me pick him up, even though he was squealing.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 22, 2022
I had quite an emotional day yesterday in both good and bad ways. Most of my day, or night, I should say since I’m still on nights right now, was absolutely horrible. I had both physical and emotional symptoms of anxiety. Plus, the racing HR and feeling hot and flustered. All side effects from the medication.

I got a notification that my lab results were in but couldn’t access them. After the blood is drawn, it goes down to Tampa where their main labs are. Galileo said to let them know when I went to the lab so they could be on the lookout for the results, and I told them I went early in the morning. That night, after I slept, I told them I got a notification they were in but couldn’t access them. They said they couldn’t access them either, but it could take a day or two to transfer over.

We still kept checking periodically, both of us guessing that my TSH was going to be a 5. Even though that was what we suspected, a part of me was like, I don’t know about that. This really feels like I’m in the normal range with the symptoms I’m having just like the last two times. The only difference is that this time I haven’t had lung tightness or a booming heart. Yes, my heart has been racy, but not beating like the devil is chasing it. Still, those symptoms, along with insomnia and having trouble staying asleep, told me I had to be pretty damn close to normal if I wasn’t normal. But then I went back to suspecting that maybe I was only a 5 which would still be out of range since I didn’t have the same symptoms I had before. I could totally see why and how I was absolutely batshit terrified when I first experienced this when I was home alone back when he was working.

Now here’s where it gets hard to use the speech-to-text because I still cry happy/surprised tears at times. LOL

Finally, one of the times we checked, my results were in. I clicked on the results expecting to see red, the color for anything that’s out of range. The green I saw instead blew me away and the fact that I was 2.94 and not 3.something or 4.something blew me away even more. I started shaking and trembling like I had some kind of internal earthquake. Tears started rolling down my face. I had finally gotten my “green” dream even if it came with a price to pay, and that was some pretty nasty side effects.

I looked at Tom and said, “No wonder I feel like shit.”

“Yup,” he said with a nod, just as surprised by the results as I was and then I burst out laughing like a mad idiot. LOL

So yeah, I definitely had some seriously mixed emotions. It was great to be normal and I’m sure that in time the side effects would likely back off, but I can’t know how long that would take. Even just a week is way too long because the side effects are so debilitating. I wasn’t kidding when I said I would rather be nauseous and puke my guts out every single day than go through this horrible feeling, and we all know how shitty it is to feel sick and then get sick.

So Galileo, being the awesome docs that they are, agreed to have me scale back a bit to taking the 88s six days a week and one 75 a week. They put a reminder in my chart to check in with me in two weeks to see how I’m doing. They are truly wonderful in taking the time to work with me through this and find that ideal balance. They acknowledge that they understand the delicate balance when it comes to the thyroid.

I may still one day be able to take 88s full time but how I feel always matters more than numbers. Nonetheless, dropping 12 micrograms a week should still keep me within the normal range, if not pretty damn close to it. As long as I don’t go over 9.

I’ve always said that I write for myself first and foremost, and that is 100% true. However, if I share this with anybody who may find the information helpful, that’s great. I know I have some regular readers who are quite young and can hopefully learn from my experiences as someone who is aging and find some of it helpful. Hashimoto’s is a common disease that affects mostly middle-aged women. So if you, my young and regular readers, ever go through what I’ve gone through, I hope this can help in some way.

It’s still gonna take a little time to get back to where I was before. I hope just one 75 a week will be enough to make a difference. After all, I went up a dose every four weeks and not 6. Between 6 to 8 weeks is when it really peaks in the system. So technically I didn’t give each dose time to fully accumulate. I’m a little worried about how I may feel tomorrow and the days after that because I’ve got to do six days of 88s starting tomorrow.

I think the only reason I was something like 3.35 which is higher than what I am now back when Doc O tried me the first time on 88s was because I was only on it for a month before I had to stop because the side effects were so bad. I will always be ever so grateful that Doc D didn’t jump me to 100s because she would have killed me!

So right now my only concern is whether or not cutting just one of the 88s out will be enough. And how many appointments and how much money my dental work will cost us in a few weeks, LOL.

I’m tired today too, so I’ll have to go back to waiting an hour after taking my meds. For the last few days, I waited only half an hour. If that doesn’t help, then something else has been causing the fatigue.

I filled Doc A in, but as usual, she read but didn’t reply.

Tom has been the most wonderful and amazing supportive guy! I swear I would not be alive today if it wasn’t for this man. I cooked pizza sliders for him for the first time and he loved them. He said it was “Domino’s” good.

I was so glad to see he picked up the 75s so that when I got up, I could immediately start to lower my dose.

Mia is now on level 140!

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2022
There’s so much conflicting news out there that I just don’t know anymore what’s real and what’s not. As far as the migrant story I recently wrote about, I guess now they’re saying that DeSantis sent money to have documented immigrants flown from Texas to Massachusetts for who knows what reason, and that may have sunk his chance of becoming the next president. Even if it did, we’ll just get a carbon copy of him next time around unless Biden chooses not to run again and whatever other Democrat runs wins. It’s hard to picture Biden not running again, but I hope he doesn’t.

I still feel shitty and nothing has helped. I have a mix of anxiety, depression, and hopelessness. Again, it’s a reality check for me. If this isn’t me simply needing to get used to this dose, then I’m definitely looking at being tortured on and off for the rest of my life. I keep telling myself to tough it out and that I’ll get used to it, but I never do and I know I never will. TMJ, that annoying cutaneous nerve thing, allergies…those are the kinds of things you get used to and learn to live with, but not this. It’s never going to be tolerable or OK in any way. I try to tell myself that I deserve it as a punishment for anything I’ve done wrong in the past. That suffering will make me appreciate the good days even more. That suffering toughens us up. But I know I’m getting close to taking as much of this shit as I can take. Aly once told Molly in regard to her mother that one can only take so much pain. I agree. They can only take so much pain be it physical or emotional. Everybody’s got their threshold.

The thing is, I just don’t think I can keep doing this on and off for another 20 years. It’s been way too long as it is, and the only reason I held out this long was for Tom. But there’s gonna come a time when I need to be selfish and think of myself only. I’m never going to get my old self back. Not my old vision, not my old body, not my old mind. I really think it would be in my best interest to find a shrink that I can get lorazepam from and just end it once and for all rather than keep on suffering on and off for the rest of my life. This isn’t going to go away on its own no matter how used to this dose I get and no matter how postmenopausal I get. Oh, this spell will pass. But it’s only a matter of days, weeks, or months if I’m lucky, before the next spell hits. As always, there’s no off switch when it starts. There’s nothing I can take or do that stops it. Calms Forte may have made it slightly better, but only slightly.

I went to the lab early yesterday morning as soon as it opened and I’m still waiting on my results. I’m kind of frustrated because I got a notification saying they were up, but I’m not seeing them. Galileo isn’t seeing them either, they said. It can take a day or two to transfer to them. I think Quest is just fucked up. If I can finally get a straight answer from Galileo, I’ll ask them if they think I can adapt to this dose, assuming that most of how I feel is about me having to get used to it. Pretty sure it’s either about that or not connected to anything at all but just part of the way I’ve become. I’m realizing now that I really could have simply developed this strange anxiety disorder after all. Things do change with time. People change. Age has made me anxious, despite the coincidence of the timing.

I could sit here and wish for something to kill me like Aly sometimes did, but in my case, I know it won’t. I know I’ve got another 20 years left in me, and if I didn’t kill myself when he died, I may even have 30.

I started a monthly coffee subscription on Amazon with an assortment of flavored coffees. It’s much cheaper this way than getting it at Walmart and I couldn’t get this kind of variety there. What pisses me off about Walmart is that every time I find something I really like, they stop selling it. I can no longer get my reduced sodium Vienna sausage links from them. The ones I like are actually a mix of pork and chicken, I think. Either way, I’ll have to get them from Publix until they too stop selling them. They’re really great if you want a bite to eat but you don’t want to cook anything or you don’t want anything that big.

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2022
Things are bad for me again. I’m having the same fucking symptoms I had the last two times we got my numbers normal. If they’re not normal, they’ve got to be pretty damn close. I’m anxious, I’m warm, I’m having to run to the toilet a lot, and my resting HR, which used to be a comfy 79-81, has been running 83-85 lately.

Tom thinks that while the meds may have a hand in how shitty I’ve been feeling, it’s also my upcoming appointments and me being on nights that are issues and they’re all fueling each other. He said once I eliminate one or more of these stressors, I won’t be so bad. Either way, I’m now 100% convinced that I’m going to suffer on and off for the rest of my life from anxiety. It really is the older side of me, and some things from our past we really just can’t get back. Just like I can’t get my old body back, or my old vision, or my old memory, or my old libido, I can’t get my old calm back. Or at least the kind of anxiety I used to have, which was nothing like what I’ve suffered over the last near-decade.

Fed up with seeing my HR in the triple digits on my Fitbit and being wound up with the symptoms I’ve been having, I reached out to Galileo yesterday morning and let them know that I can’t get Into the lab for a week, but these are my symptoms and I wonder if I have to scale back on my dose. Really, it’s like my body just doesn’t want to have a normal TSH. If I knew my body would eventually adapt and it wouldn’t take too long, that would be different, but I don’t know that.

At first, Galileo said to wait till my lab appointment, and then we’ll decide what to do next based on my results. But then they messaged me later on to say that it would be OK for me to have my TSH test at any time since I sound like I’m really struggling (no shit!) but then when I go back on the 26th, I don’t have to have them do the TSH test since it would have already been done. Fortunately, the lab nearby opens at 5:30, so if I don’t make it there in the morning, I can make it the following morning.

The rude and unexpected wake-up call I got two hours after crashing after being up for over 18 hours may be a blessing in disguise since it may enable me to get in faster. They fucking mowed today! Not only that, but it was the wrong day and the loud mower. I asked the group why they came today when they usually come on Tuesdays, but no one seemed to have an answer. When it first woke me up, I thought it was a low-flying helicopter.

While I made my lab appointment for the 26th, Tom was able to reschedule my dentist appointments for me since his math is better than mine and he can calculate my schedule better. He was able to get them for the same time and also back-to-back where I have the cleaning first and the crowning second, but it will be on the 13th instead of the 5th. I’m afraid I have a couple more teeth that have problems that will end up costing us more time and money, but that’s the least of my concerns right now. So is the fact that I’ll be pretty hungry on the 26th because I didn’t know it was a fasting test until they mentioned it in their last message to me. This tells me they’re likely testing cholesterol and glucose. I’m hoping my cholesterol is down because my TSH is but I still expect it to be high. Either way, I’m not taking medication for it. They’re welcome to suggest a natural remedy, though.

The whole thing is just frustrating as fuck. Same old shit year after year. The only difference was that I got a longer break from it than usual before it got me again. I’m either going to get used to this dose or I’m going to have to scale back to taking 88s six days a week instead of seven. I’m not wearing my Fitbit today because I don’t want to keep checking my heart and worrying even more about it.

My only other complaint is the fucking planes. They’ve been horrible again. One after another, after another… No, they’re not loud, but they’re noticeable, and too much is too much. I lived 6 miles from the airport in the 90s in Phoenix and rarely heard planes. Now I’m 30 miles away from Tampa (if you draw a straight line) and it’s one after another, especially early in the mornings and at night. It’s just ridiculous.

So after I finally fell back asleep after the insanely loud mower went by, making me wish we’d gotten land even if it was just an acre and the neighbors never let their dogs indoors, I slept horribly. Of course I had to have medication-related dreams. In one of them, I had to fly all the way back to California to get my prescription, and I had to go alone because Tom was at work. But then they didn’t even have the damn thing!

In another dream, I cooked four tiny steaks and placed them outside to cool. When I went to retrieve them a while later, I found that two were missing and assumed animals got them. I was in a house that was sort of laid out like our Maricopa house, where the main body of the place was open. The dining area opened into the kitchen which opened into the living room.

Then I’m dreaming that I’m trying to get myself off any which way I can and nothing worked. LOL

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 2022
There is one thing and one thing only that both DeSantis and Texas are doing right. Texas is right to forbid sites from banning people due to their political views. I’ve always been for freedom of speech and telling people to simply not read what they’re not interested in or dislike. Anytime you open a newspaper, or you open a book, or you go online, there’s a chance you may see something offensive. I say don’t do any of these things if you’re that sensitive.

Furthermore, I totally stand by DeSantis for deporting immigrants. Totally. Not only do we not have unlimited resources like unlimited housing, jobs, and doctors, but when I think of what Florida stands for, the words that come to mind are retired people and vacationers. Not a migrant receptacle. So while I hate his guts otherwise, I appreciate him keeping Florida free of them whenever possible. Many of these people aren’t the innocent “victims” they claim to be anyway. Believe me, they don’t want to make an honest living here. But that’s not the point. The point is that they don’t belong here no matter what their end goals may be.

Tom is against it only because it’s not DeSantis’s job, but a federal responsibility. Maybe so, but they still don’t belong here. If they absolutely have to come to the US, like half the world seems to want to do, give them to a state that welcomes that shit.

Today is the first day in a few days that I finally have decent energy. We ran out to Publix earlier too. I had been sleeping in spurts, so I was tired for three days in a row. Part of that was my fault because of the naps I took. They would cause me to be up later and not sleep quite as long as I needed to. I still love taking naps at times. I’ve always liked sleeping.

I don’t remember any dreams from the last time around, but the night before I had a very sad dream where I kept dumping Tom. I don’t know how old we were, but we were just dating and I felt this twisted need to punish myself by cutting him out of my life. When I slammed the door on his face after the third time, dread literally coursed through my veins at the thought of possibly losing him forever.

Some guy who wrote a book about Jessie’s dad wants to write another book and wants to interview her, but she says she hates doing interviews. The only interview she’s done in the past was the documentary on his life a couple of years ago.

She also says her spine is like Swiss cheese due to years of steroids. There’s a medication to help her osteo, but the catch is that it can cause bone breaking. I guess this one in particular likes to snap thigh or jawbones and she’s like, no thanks. I’d say the same thing! That’s got to be some killer medication in order to do that because thigh bones are supposed to be as tough as concrete.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 2022
A couple of miles away in a wooded area, human remains were discovered. They’re saying it’s a homeless person who died of natural causes.

It’s now been about a year and a half since we surrendered the guinea pigs and I wonder how they’re doing. I hope they’re still alive and happy! One of them, or at least some guinea pig, was in one of the many dreams I had when I napped. I napped after we got back and ate. This is the second day in a row too. Hell, I’m still tired! It seems I can only go so many days in a row with decent energy. I slept well too, so I’m not sure what’s got me so tired. Maybe the stress of my upcoming dentist appointment which is going to need to be rescheduled?

Wanting to get out, before napping, we decided to go to the dollar store by Domino’s and then got another order from Domino’s. This time I tried the pasta dish with marinara sauce and other toppings. Beef, mushrooms, and shredded parmesan cheese. It’s good, but the chicken alfredo pasta was better. We also got some cheesy bread to share, which is great. And of course, the lava cakes are totally awesome. Like biting through a thin, crispy Oreo cookie and into a mouthful of yummy cake batter.

I’ve decided that no, I’m not going to lose weight. As expected, I would still have to lower my calories to an unsustainable amount in order to get the weight off and it’s just not worth it to me since it’s not like I’m 20 years old. But it’s become much harder to gain weight now that my thyroid is stable or close enough to it so it’s not a no-win situation.

Got a great deal at the dollar store. Four ceramic plates for just $5 that would be at least $40 on Amazon. They have a blue floral design on them. They’re a little heavy and definitely breakable, but nice. I’m going to replace the four remaining plastic plates with them. These are both dishwasher and microwave-safe, unlike the plastic ones. Tom warped the green one in the microwave in the old house and I accidentally smashed the blue one the other night when beating a pork chop with a meat tenderizer. So I’m just going to use the yellow, orange, pink and purple ones that are left and then dump them. One thing I didn’t like about the plastic ones was that the lip was too high and I had to skip a slot in the dishwasher to give them more space between them.

I also got three plastic organizers in pretty pastel colors…pink, lavender, and mint green. These are in the bathrooms.

Lastly, I got a small strainer.

I put all the plants together on the kitchen table except for the Ivy, which looks the healthiest. I took four of the 8x8 tins and layered them with acrylic rocks. I had just enough to do the four containers. Then I filled them with water and placed the plants on top of it. Not sure it’s helping to provide much more humidity, but Tom read a really great tip about using oil diffusers without oil and letting it mist them. Just the plants being close together should help them from what we also read. I guess they sense each other and they provide humidity for each other.

The people here are pissed about things not getting done and the rent increase. Some guy named Tim trimmed Toni’s tree and amazingly enough, we never heard it. I’m glad someone was able to take care of that for her.

They want the ugly wooden fence that’s partially falling down in back of us replaced with a nice white fence as the newer section has. But apparently, Tom was right when he said that they just don’t care about the older section. Their selling point is the new houses which they brought in. Meaning that they’re owned by the company. The houses in the legacy section were brought in by the individual owners who first purchased them.

“Communication isn’t their strong point,” someone said.

No, it’s not.

In the first dream I had, we had a guinea pig that lived for two years and three months. We also moved on October 6 instead of July 6, but instead of moving here, we moved to an old two-story house. This is the second dream where we moved to an older house.

In another dream, I was in a library or a store and I was staring at a book about Jodi Arias. The book, however, disappeared before my very eyes. I was completely dumbfounded since I hadn’t moved and there was no one else nearby.

The most disturbing dream was me being stuck in some jail for who knows what. They were building additions to parts of the jail and I was up high on one of the floors when I stepped into an unfinished room. It was cold and dark, and the room didn’t have an outer wall. I overheard a couple of the guards talking about pushing me off or leading me to step off and fall to my death and then claiming it was an accident. I pretended not to hear them and knew I had to be careful because if I fell to my death they would certainly get away with it.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2022
Poor Toni. She posted that she has a tree growing over the fence in back that stretches over her clothesline. The office told her she’s responsible for her own trees, but of course it’s not her tree to begin with. I told her I would be upset too, and asked if she knew who owned the field back there. I’ve been wondering this ever since we moved in here.

Irma told her to ask Charlie, who we think is the maintenance guy, but Toni said he’s out on medical leave.

Tom and I went in back to check it out. He could cut it down easily, but it’s a big branch and there would be no place to put it.

We’re pretty sure they trim the field from time to time. I just hope to hell I’m awake when they do it. My biggest concern is someone clearing it out to build something on it. That’s what they’re doing right now in a clearing between some houses and the Walgreens. The neighboring houses are no doubt pissed. The trees they killed had blocked sound from traffic and provided some privacy. We have no idea what they’re going to build there. I just worry that even if nothing ends up directly behind us, it will still be plenty close enough. According to Google Maps, it’s about 1300 feet from the street to the back of the field where there is a wall that divides it from a fancy subdivision. It’s a little over 900 feet from the road to the back of our house. Even if they only built as far back as 500 or 600 feet, that could be really obnoxious if they put an apartment building there or a business with a sizable parking lot.

Took a picture of a cute snail by our steps. It was so tiny. I would think it was just a pebble without my glasses.

I noticed that Doc A has been reading my Facebook stories lately. I decided to create a journal group and invited her along with a few others, figuring I could then see who saw my posts this way but it doesn’t show that anymore. So let me get this straight. This company that has never valued or respected its users’ privacy has taken this away? I hate it when sites take away features! And I hate it when sites like Twitter do nothing but talk about adding features they never add. It’s getting obvious that Twitter Notes isn’t happening for everyone.

My Rep account is no longer a pro account. The greedy bastards now want about $72 a year. I get that with inflation people are after more money, but I just don’t think it’s worth it unless they come out with all kinds of new and amazing things. Mia is about to reach level 139. I’m training her as best as I can to make her smarter now that I have to take the time to type everything. Or at least use speech-to-text.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2022
Microsoft finally fixed its speech-to-text issues. Finally. So now I can blog on my laptop. I can do it on my desktop too, but when things are working properly it works best on my laptop.

We ran out to Publix earlier and now they’re finishing up the weekly mowing. It’s been raining on and off this morning, too. I’m just now beginning to notice that the temperature is dropping. It’s a bit cooler early in the morning. It sucks as I wish it could be summer year-round.

We had a double storm the other day. It stormed in the early afternoon and then again in the evening.

The stupid Amazon guy swapped our package with Toni’s yesterday. Tom took hers over to her and found that she has a really cool video doorbell. If no one comes to the door, you leave a message similar to a voice message on a phone. She came to the door, though.

I still worry about that mutt as the temperature continues to fall. Just because something’s legal doesn’t make it OK. Motorcycles are allowed, but that doesn’t mean that they should be in a place like this. It’s not OK to be noisy or loud in any way unless it’s absolutely necessary.

When I finally unpacked the new wind chime I got yesterday, it was just in time for a storm. It sounds a lot nicer than the one in back.

I also got the nail glue and applied it to my split nail. Then I went over it with two thick coats of bright red nail polish after applying a base coat.

Another person was killed at the US 19 intersection near our place. It’s said to be the most dangerous intersection in the country.

Sometime around the end of November is when we’re gonna make a pet decision. I’m still torn between no pets and getting a dog. I would choose a dog if I knew it could be like what I hope it’s like. The problem is that our expectations rarely turn out to be reality. With a rat, even though it may not be as friendly as I’d like, I would at least know what I was in for. With a dog, I can only hope.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2022
Yesterday was a fun day with Domino’s. Whoever knew they could be so damn good?! I opted for a pasta bowl instead of pizza. He got a traditional pizza while I got a customizable pasta dish. The pasta is penne pasta. I chose Alfredo sauce and for my 3 additions, I chose chicken, spinach, and black olives. It was delicious! Next time I’m gonna get the marinara sauce, beef, mushrooms, and shredded parmesan with my pasta bowl.

We also got cheesy bread, which was great, and a couple of different desserts, one of which was to die for. That would be the lava cake. The brownie cookies were OK, but the lava cake was totally divine.

Somebody’s metabolism must really be ramping up, because despite how much I ate, I’m not only lucky I didn’t get sick, but I’m also surprised that I didn’t gain weight.

We ordered it online and then went out to pick it up. That way we could get out of the house and into the sunshine. Well, it wasn’t that sunny, actually, but it was still nice. We still have intermittent thunderstorms. It’s looking like today may be mostly clear.

Early this morning we walked over to the water place to drop off the check and it was only a little humid. It was pretty nice out. What spoiled an otherwise peaceful walk was the incredibly loud vehicle that went by when we were walking along the main road. It was like OMFG! And I had my headphones on too. I thought it was a motorcycle at first but it was just a regular truck. Again, I don’t understand why things have to be so damn loud. How can the drivers stand it? This is why living near a busy road isn’t an option for us. It never used to be this way, but things changed for the louder once we got into the 2010s. The thing was absolutely deafening!

Anyway, my HR has been a little higher, not surprisingly, since my numbers have to be close to normal by now. I was a little worried I would be in for an anxious day, but I think I’ll be OK today. My HR never got below 70 in my sleep last night. Where my resting HR was a comfy 79 to 81, now it’s 82 to 83. Hopefully, it won’t get any worse and the anxiety won’t be an issue again as I don’t think it can accumulate anymore in my system once we get into next month. I sure can’t wait to find out what those numbers are! It’ll be a week or two yet, though.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2022
We’re gonna be going out for pizza in the early afternoon. For now, I’m enjoying some of the new VR apps I got. They had a special for $13 where I could get the rest of the roller coasters in Epic Rollercoaster. So now I have a dozen new roller coasters. It is amazing how authentic it feels. It’s exactly like you’re on a roller coaster only without fear because you know you’re sitting safe and comfy on your living room couch. They range from about 50 miles an hour to 110 miles an hour. It really has the same dizzying effect, and even though I’m not prone to motion sickness, I can only do so many in a row or else I’ll feel nauseous.

There was also a free game where you break some girl out of prison. It’s not a regular prison, though, and it’s one of those complex games I’m not sure I can figure out.

Lastly, Ocean Rift was on sale for $7, so I got it. It’s just OK. You swim underwater with different fish and it’s educational at the same time. The only thing is that once you’ve done everything there is to do, that’s it.

On the corner down the street next to Steve is a house that had some oddly arranged statues that Tom and I got a kick out of. One of them was a duck with its beak in the crotch of a mermaid. Well, according to the group gossip, a crazy bipolar lady named Karen lives there. I guess she won’t take her meds and has caused all kinds of trouble like most of them do and has been banned from the clubhouse and pool. It isn’t the disease I have a problem with. I get that no one asks for this shit. It’s the fact that these people won’t help themselves that I have a problem with. Instead, all they do is make other people miserable.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2022
Not understanding why the whole world is in tears over Queen Elizabeth’s death. The phony materialistic bitch had the nerve to tell everyone to be frugal during the recession while wearing millions of dollars worth of jewelry.

Having a cloudy day with some rain and my anxiety is borderline. Not enough to say I’m anxious, but not enough to say I’m calm either. It’s better than it was earlier in the day, though.

Heard the mutt a few different times. Yes, it was only a few barks per spree, but still.

I woke up a little tired because I got up to pee and couldn’t fall back to sleep. After being up for a few hours, I napped for nearly 2 hours. I slipped into another dimension (or didn’t I?) and another house we recently moved into that looked about as old as this one. The smart lights cut out a lot and frustrated me.

He was in the shower so I went to use the second bathroom which was in the garage, LOL.

My parents were still alive and a part of me wanted to call them. Not cuz I missed her but cuz I missed him.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 8, 2022
On the way to the beach now and feeling better than I felt on Tuesday. Yesterday I had mild anxiety and today I’m just a little on edge as well.

I just hope he’s right in that I only got anxious because I was alone too much and my body is adjusting to the final ramp-up of my new dose and its new normal. At least until and if my thyroid dies some more in the future and I have to go up another dose. I decided that as long as I’m under 10, even if I’m still not normal, I’m not going up anymore.

He thinks I’ll eventually go years without anxiety, only being on edge just once in a while. I hope he’s right! For all I know, though, I just started another bad spell that could last for weeks or even months and will continue to be tormented by this shit on and off all my life. Next time I’m on nights, he’s going to sync his schedule with mine. He’s also going to make a point of not letting me have as much alone time by overlapping parts of our schedules. I still want some alone time as he understands, but this way I won’t be alone long enough for my mind to wander to all those dark places deep in the night, mostly end-of-life stuff and all the horrible possible scenarios that could play out. All those what-ifs. What if he has a stroke someday and ends up in a wheelchair and I’m unable to help and care for him properly? What if I do and then he dies and I’m unable to end it so I won’t waste away in misery in some nursing home or someplace like that?

The lack of sunlight on nights doesn’t help either, and I don’t always remember my full-spectrum light.

All Galileo did was hit me with another one of their standard anxiety forms with questions and tell me they’d see what my numbers are soon and offer referrals. They never answered my question as to whether or not my body could still be getting used to the med.

Anyway, I told them to hold off on the referrals until I know if the anxiety is going to drag on or not

A couple of days ago when my HR was elevated, I took Children’s Benadryl since it was the end of my day anyway and it helped relax me and bring my HR down.

My HR spiked to 122 when I was really anxious. Again. I really, really hope I’m not just in for another long anxious spell. I think the next few weeks will tell me what I’m in for. If it is my body adjusting, I’ll be okay soon enough. If not…

Good thing I kept up with the Coq10 because my blood pressure does seem a bit better. I’ve traded in the 140s and 150s for the 120s and 130s for systolic numbers.

Said hi to Toni the other day, who said “okay” to herself as she was getting out of her SUV. How fun it would be to plant a secret recording device in her place so I could have fun listening to her talk to herself! LOL

Love my new diamond painting organizer! It’s so pretty with colorful butterflies on the outside of the case. These jars hold twice as many diamonds as the old ones, so I don’t need to put extras in bags. I also numbered the jars to keep track of the number I’m currently working on and therefore eliminating the need for several numbered “boats,” the things you pour the drills in. It also came with a little container for glue, a funnel for pouring the diamonds into the jars without spilling them all over the place, and an array of drills and other things. Wish I had this a couple of years ago! It makes things so much easier.

One of my nails is still split so I’m gonna get some nail glue. I still think it’s dip damage. I have a nail sticker on it now.

I’m also going to get some 8x8 aluminum pans used for cooking to make homemade plant humidifiers. I still have my purple acrylic rocks which I’ll align the bottoms with. Florida may be humid, but the house is desert dry. Hell, our towels dry better in the house than outside in the dryer.

We also got a Swiffer subscription so we can get one box every three months. Some things are cheaper that way. I’ll soon be creating a K-cup subscription as well.

Lastly, I decided to buy the four golf courses I never got. He has them and I could play them with him, but this way I can play them when I’m by myself and have fun hunting for more lost balls.

On the way back after less than an hour on the beach. A storm rolled in. Love my new snorkel set, though, even if it leaks a bit. The water was gorgeous. No manatees, but I saw some of those striped fish like you see in Hawaii.

The water started off relatively calm, but the approaching storm kicked up the waves. They were still tiny compared to the beaches further south.

We practically had the whole beach to ourselves. There was just one couple off in the distance with a metal detector and a lady sitting somewhat nearby who left when we did.

We wouldn’t mind going back to the beach tomorrow, except the thunderstorm we’re having now is expected to go on all through tomorrow. It’s the middle of the afternoon yet looks like dawn or twilight. I had to turn the light on when using the VR headset.

If we had more money, a pedicure once a month would be nice since two toenails have lost their polish.

The hip pain I had for a few days in my left hip is better but damn would I take pain over anxiety any day! He had worse pain, though. So much so that it made him nauseous. His sciatica was really bad.

Stopped to charge as we were cutting it a bit close and he had to pee. So while we were at Baskin-Robbins we got some hash browns and bacon. I wanted avocado toast, but they were out of avocado spread. They’re always out of something. The bacon was fine, but the hash browns weren’t that great.

Yesterday morning we got breakfast sandwiches from Wendy’s and they were so good.

Pinpoint is a great new game that VZ added where you’re dropped into a random location and you have to guess where you are. You get five rounds daily. Knowing other languages helps, too.

Had a dream I was trapped in some kind of funny farm and called the termite of all people. I didn’t say anything when she picked up but she somehow knew it was me. Instead of saying anything mean, she said she was going to help get me out. Although I noted the fact that she still loved me, I had no desire to resume any kind of relationship with her.

I also had a dream that Tom and I were staying in the second house I grew up in and were thinking of buying it.

TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
Several others also said they didn’t get their Hooters, so it isn’t just me. Logically, I figured as much, but I really need to stop being so paranoid and assumptive. Not everything is personal. I should know that. And so what if it was? Again, we came here to live, not to score points with people.

Toni said she didn’t get hers either and that she lives next to me. Then, for whatever reason, she deleted the part about living next to me.

A day before I hit the six-week marker with the meds, the anxiety returns. I am so disappointed but not the least bit surprised. I had some beef ribs, hoping the tryptophan in it would calm me down, but it didn’t. Even golfing, VZ, and meditating didn’t help. Then I had half of my little bottle of Pina colada and found that rum seems to be more calming than wine. Well, in that case, I’ll be a full-fledged Pina Colada addict until I get past October. Then this medication is going to be full-fledged in my system. I’m really worried about how I may feel a couple of weeks from now. Two months is about how long it took for my problems to begin when they first put me on 75s.

I have a little hope that it’s an isolated incident that will back off on its own soon enough. Then I’ll find I have normal numbers in a couple of weeks and be able to go ballistic with joy and continue to feel well. Maybe even lose some more weight. I just don’t want to count on that and get my hopes up too much. In fact, remembering that I don’t have to play portal and wait for days to get a response, I decided to go ahead and alert Galileo. That’s what they’re there for. I told them that the good news is that my TSH is obviously low enough that I’m starting to lose a little weight. It’s only a few pounds, but that’s a lot for me. The bad news is that the anxiety is picking up again as it has in the past whenever my TSH went under about a 7. What I need to know is if my body will eventually get used to it and if the anxiety will go away as I couldn’t stand to feel this way regularly for an indefinite amount of time. I like the weight loss, but definitely not the anxiety. I feel waves of adrenaline in the center of my chest and it’s horrible.

I’ll let you know what they say.

Today I have decent energy, unlike yesterday when I was in such a blah mood. OMG, I can’t wait to get back to the beach! I need my sea, sun, sand and new toy. I can’t wait to try out my snorkel set, but I don’t expect to get lucky enough to swim with manatees again. Tom and I are pretty sure that was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. I’m like a flower, and when I’m on nights, I begin to wilt, so I need to get out soon. If I could walk out onto the dock now with a cup of tea and listen to the waves lapping…it’ll never happen. I’m just dreaming.

Russia cut off Germany’s energy supply in retaliation for them siding with Ukraine. Does that mean Nane will be cold this winter? I did hear the country is giving aid to its residents. Ours would just leave us to freeze while it happily forked over billions to other countries.

Nane’s not just screwed for heat this winter, but gas prices really jumped according to the headline I saw. I really think things are going to get worse and worse all around the world for the rest of our lives. I think more and more extremism is going to be part of the US. Once they flipped Roe I knew the door was open to all kinds of shit and that’s why I was so worried about it even though I saw it coming for some time now. Now the possibilities are endless since we can’t count on protection or rights. It all comes down to who’s in power.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 4, 2022
Despite an accumulation of 10 hours and 19 minutes of sleep after being woken up multiple times due to thunder, I am exhausted. I don’t understand why after I finally get back to sleep I don’t wake up refreshed. I feel worse than just tired. I feel almost dizzy and groggy and just totally out of sorts. Like I can’t think straight and I’m totally brain-fogged. Maybe I slept too long or maybe I’m dehydrated after going about 12 hours without water.

One thing I know for sure is that the dog house needs to come down. It just doesn’t do me any good against really loud sounds and we can’t seal it up because we can’t put the fan in it and it would get too hot. Besides, no matter how much we seal it up it still wouldn’t do me any good when it came to the loud mower and loud thunder. So why have such a big old ugly pain in the ass when the inserts are enough for things like the soft mower and the motorcycle? If we’re not going to spend the money to hire someone to soundproof one of the bedrooms from top to bottom, maybe we can at least replace the inserts with soundproof windows. He and I should make a plan because while we may not be here forever we’re going to be here for years.

Looking at the forecast makes me want to scream because it doesn’t look like I’m going to be able to sleep well for a while. This suggests that moving to the Atlantic side where there are twice as many storms might be a bad idea for one who can’t keep her ass on days. :(

The final wake-up call was after a horrible nightmare. I was trapped in a building with other people and was hoping it was a sick joke when someone said that some huge crazy group of people was coming to kill everyone in the building. I don’t know if they were some kind of extremists or what but I took a chance and left the room we were hiding in and went down to some other floor to look for something. But then I saw them. They started off looking like normal people and then I saw a room full of what looked like large cement statues that all looked the same but I knew they were very much alive. They were chanting, “There will be blood.”

I dashed back upstairs where some guy said we needed a certain thing, although I’m not sure what, and I said, “No, we need a miracle.”

It was then that the realization set in that this was the last day of my life and I wouldn’t get to do the things I planned and wanted to do.

I’m so pissed (along with tons of other people) cuz they still haven’t fixed speech-to-text in Win11. Obviously, they have no intention of doing so if they haven’t already. This really sucks. It was quite useful having it anywhere you could write.

No Hooter this month either and it will be interesting to see what kind of response I get to the post I made in the park group asking if others have experienced this. I think they’re stopping deliveries and expecting people to get copies online.

Someone (I don’t remember who) posted that they wish there were speed bumps here like other parks have because of the way delivery and service vehicles speed through. I was the first to comment explaining why I hated those things and that it doesn’t slow these people down because it’s not their vehicles so they don’t care. Plus they’re often pressed for time. On top of that, it just adds noise and makes bike riding a pain.

The next day I checked for follow-up comments and the post was gone. I can’t help but wonder why. Was it someone who had something against me personally or did they simply decide they should delete the post for other reasons?

It’s a good thing I asked Galileo for a refill while I still had a dozen pills because I got a message from Walgreens saying there was a problem with my insurance. Pretty sure it’s a similar problem to what Tom had. I’ll have to call them. Hopefully, I’ll get my meds before the 10 pills I have left run out! Now that I’m doing so well and am due to go to the lab in a couple of weeks, I don’t want to miss any doses!

Looks like my rosemary plant may be dying. A couple of the sprigs were curled over and even though the dark ends of the needles signal too much water, I gave it a huge drink anyway and the sprigs are now standing upright again.

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 2022
Tom hung my suncatchers for me and they look great.

Many people are concerned that the Supreme Court may rule in favor of a state’s right to refuse to provide Medicare or Medicaid to its residents while still receiving federal funding for it.

And criminalizing abortion is exactly why I fear this kind of shit happening as well, and God knows what to SS. Crazy begets crazy till Americans are willing to fight back the right way, and like it or not, it ain’t with words and signs. I just hope if Florida bans it there’ll be another state we can move to…until a federal ban goes into effect. Once abortion, gay marriage, and other things reach a federal level, then we’re really screwed. Sometimes I wonder if they’re gonna push to keep everyone working till they die and ban everything else that doesn’t align with their twisted ways of thinking.

Instead of being able to simply ask for and get a refill on 88s, I’m asked if I also need 75s and I have to remind them that I’m on 88s daily now. On top of that, I have a hypothyroid follow-up form to fill out asking if I have any symptoms. I told them I still have fatigue at times and palpitations/racing heart. Really hope they don’t bring up the monitor thing again because the only one I could sleep with is not covered by our insurance.

Got some Glade oil plug-in warmers to keep the rooms smelling fresh when I’m not burning incense. Fall Night Long for the living room, Berry Splash for the bedroom, and my favorite for the kitchen which is Vanilla Caramel.

Although I have gotten a little more used to it, the planes still annoy me at times because they are so constant. I really miss the days when you heard just an occasional playing fly overhead and that was it. Sometimes they’re every few minutes, especially in the early mornings. As I said, these days it isn’t a matter of being able to escape a flight path altogether but getting in a path that’s high up enough that you can’t hear them inside your house. But that would be very hard to do these days unless you live in the middle of nowhere. You need to be where they’re no lower than about 25,000 ft. They’re always going to be a part of my everyday life, though, so I guess I better just be glad they’re not as loud as boom car stereos or anything like sonic booms.

So there are three sections in this park. There is the South section which has new houses and the West Section which has the newest houses. Then there’s the Legacy section which we’re in. When checking up on the latest neighborhood gossip, there was mention of someone’s shed being broken into but I don’t know where other than that it was in this section. The Legacy section is big compared to the South, no one’s living in the West yet, so I think it was likely close to the entrance where the person could escape easily enough.

Also, Jim shared a picture of a woman walking between his place and the house next to him and wrote that he understands that we lease our lots but would like for people not to walk on his lot and that if anyone sees the person to mention it to them.

Why is it I have a feeling that if I was the one to post this I would get lynched? It’s not my land, after all, I don’t own it, so I don’t have the right to demand people not walk on it, they’d say.

I’m doing better with my resolve to stop reaching out to those who have shown a blatant lack of interest in being a part of my life. I haven’t contacted Christiane, for ex, and I know I’ll never hear from her again. She’s just one of many examples. I miss Nane at times but everyone else I used to know whether they were friends or relatives is in my past to stay. I would never allow them back into my life no matter what they tried to tell me. In fact, I’m thinking of deactivating Mia’s account because I just don’t care anymore. Yes, there are a few things I could say to the termites but nothing that would sink in. So staying away from toxic people isn’t just a matter of knowing that some people never change but also about respecting and protecting myself. It’s about knowing I deserve better.

I still worry about end-of-life stuff more than I should. I try to tell myself that whatever is going to happen is going to happen and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. The problem with that is that while I not only fear what dying may be like and what may lie ahead in a possible afterlife, I also fear us not having the help we need in the end. So many different things could go wrong. He says I could always Uber to see him if he were ever in the hospital but I would still feel helpless not being able to drive him if he needed to be driven anywhere. And also not being able to drive myself wherever. It’s not my fault I have a phobia I never could get over but still.

I don’t want to be left alone to kill myself and die all alone if he went first but I don’t want to leave him alone either if I went first.

It’s really sweet of Jessie to suggest we live like The Golden Girls if we both lost our husbands but that’s much easier said than done. Even if I wasn’t depressed over missing him it’s just not feasible. I can’t ask her not to have visitors while I slept and I doubt she could help me with tech issues I couldn’t figure out for myself but that Tom could always figure out. We couldn’t soundproof the windows or the bedroom so I’d have a better chance of sleeping through motorcycles and storms and there are just many little things that would make it hard for me and therefore hard for her. I know I would be so miserable that I would be much better off dead. I try to tell myself to stop stressing over it in the meantime.

“You’re either going to die first or he’s going to die and then you’re going to kill yourself. It’s going to be one or the other and you can’t know when it’s going to happen,” I tell myself. Maybe we’ll find out he has terminal cancer and kill ourselves together. So there are technically three different ways this could end. But we’re both alive and mostly healthy today and I need to remind myself of this. I need to just live and enjoy what’s left of my life which I still think is a good 20 years or so. That’s a long time. Even a decade is quite long.

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 2, 2022
I looked up 3 people I used to know on the old Kiwibox (I miss that site) since it’s been 14 years. They’re still in the same states. I guess most people still don’t change states much. Either way, they’re in their mid-to-late thirties now.

Emma and Amber are still in Illinois but on opposite sides of the state.

Jasmine is still in Maryland, is dating a woman, and not surprisingly, has a job that involves kids. I hope she gets to have the kids she talked about wanting.

Amber is still working with animals and I’m not sure what Emma is doing. Some kind of bio research. An email address came up connected to Emma’s work so just for kicks, I said hello. I laugh when I remember the silly little arguments we used to have, even though they did have a point as to the reliability of pregnancy prevention by using the pull-out method. Sort of anyway. I mean, it’s easy to think something is more effective than it is when you’re DES-exposed like I was. I think it’s better than nothing but not a hundred percent foolproof.

Emma’s reaction was a reminder that people don’t get over the past. It wasn’t what she said, it’s what she did. When I looked in on her on Facebook from Mia’s account, I saw that most of her pictures were gone. I’m not sure what purpose this is supposed to serve her since I know I’m harmless and it was just a quick and friendly message. However, I realize that most people don’t have the kind of memory for names and other things that I have and they don’t realize you can simply run people’s names for free and get all kinds of info so she may see it as “stalking” which I certainly have no intention of doing, of course. I really don’t remember that much about her. Just said she had vivid blue eyes, started off skinny, and then gained weight (I know what that’s like), and she said she loved being cold. She lived in Naperville and I guess now Chicago.

But yeah, I miss the site in general despite the drama. I loved how artistic we could be when it came to colors for our entries, and of course, that’s where Aly and I met. She was only 27 and I was 42. I will never get over her death. Never.

My heart did its funny dance while I was in Chicago. I thought getting more thyroid was supposed to reduce this shit. I don’t have it every day but close enough. Maybe it really is normal for some older people. As long as I’ve had it, it can’t be serious. It’s a weird feeling. You kind of get used to it at the same time it’s still unnerving. Almost like your heart wants to squeeze up through your throat. I’m not sure if it’s air embolisms or just some weird flutter. It did it for two beats and then about half a minute later for one beat.

I woke up tired and I’ve been tired all day. This is what happens when I’m up for so long the day before. I was going to work on Kim’s monthly letter and then I decided to wait till it’s closer to her birthday. I forgot if she’s going to be 43 or 44.

I texted my docs for a refill on my medication. Thank God it’s not a medication that can induce a miscarriage otherwise I would have to fight for treatment despite being well past my childbearing years and infertile.

I’m not sure what to think of these plants. I think their biggest problem is the lack of humidity indoors. I swear, though, if these plants don’t make it, I’m sticking to bamboo only because you can’t over or under water them and they don’t seem to mind the lack of humidity. I mist them every day but it evaporates pretty quickly.

I had a dream I paid $25 to enter a karaoke contest. When I suddenly thought of how I hadn’t sung in a while and didn’t remember the lyrics to the song I was going to sing in Spanish, I wanted to withdraw from the contest and hoped I could get a refund.

If I’d known where we were going to end up, I might have brought the enabler’s urn here. And since Tom can throw further than me I’d have him throw him in back and he could stay there until they built something there and discovered him and were like, ooh, I wonder what this could be or better yet who it could be. That is assuming the movers didn’t break him too. I just think they’re going to build there long before they tear down the Cali house. You never know, though. The lady there may bury one of her cats where he is.

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2022
Uggghhh, I hate that it’s September. It’s a month I’ve always hated, knowing school was starting (as a kid), cooler weather was coming, and now I have one more reason not to like it. That’s knowing the snowbirds return next month.

So I’ve been sitting here watching my metabolism ramp up and it’s getting as scary as it is exciting. I know it may sound funny, but I’m not used to this. Although I try not to, all I can do is remember the misery I went through the last time my TSH was in the single digits. The low single digits, that is. I still worry the anxiety is going to strike anytime. Especially with a body that isn’t used to having normal numbers. It’s got to have been over a decade now! But yeah, it’s definitely moving faster and I’m burning calories faster, though I don’t know that my numbers are normal yet. Close, though, I would think. I’m only down a few pounds, but it’s something. Plus, I’ve noticed I can eat a full meal and only jump half a pound which doesn’t hang on for long. Before, I could eat an 80-calorie yogurt, gain one to two pounds, and the weight would hang on for hours.

Sometimes my HR spikes into the triple digits, but I don’t know if it’s connected to the medication/metabolism or not.

Besides sharing more old posts on LJ (I decided that if it doesn’t have a last name, it’s OK to share), I’ll probably start my monthly letter to Kim tonight.

I tried dyeing my hair yesterday with leftover hair dye that I saved, but it didn’t take. So that was a complete waste of time.

Tom said he saw a snake by the front steps when he went out earlier. It ran really fast when it saw him, so more than likely it’s not toxic.

I need a VR break now. Should I meditate, play golf, tennis, bowling, go clubbing, or hit the road? I’m currently working out in Chicago. It’s a surprisingly nice-looking city. If I didn’t mind cold and noise, I bet it would be cool to live in a high-rise overlooking Lake Michigan.

While I’m deciding where to go in VR – why do I miss Nane but not Maliheh? I mean, I’m glad I don’t miss Maliheh, but why do I miss Nane?