July 11

 We had the hotel room for two nights so I decided to spend my second day in Alberta exploring South Common Mall which covers 5 acres or more, all outside entrances, no covered walkways here.

He dropped me off in front of Michaels so I would have a starting place I wouldn't forget. 

After getting embroidery needles, pencil crayons & a drawing book I headed out to my next goal. I really needed my hair trimmed so I looked around until I found a barber shop. I thought I might get a good deal but it ended up costing me the same as it would if I'd gone to a salon. Even so I felt tons better once my hair wasn't such a mess. The place was called Tommy Gun's Original Barbershop. I liked the woman who did my hair a lot, she was patient but talkative. Highly recommend this place!

Alberta has been under a smoke haze from various wildfires so instead of a warm day it was kinda cool so I went looking for a place I could get a cheap sweater. I found an Old Navy. It was difficult to leave that store with just the sweater, they had so many pretty dresses ...

I was hungry and wanted to sit and write for a bit so I went looking for a Tim Hortons. After about half an hour of rest I headed back to the Michaels only to get side-tracked into a Lindt store. I had some luck and found a small package of their chocolate which I bought.

I was headed back to Michaels when I remembered the movie theatre that is there. I decided I was going to treat myself to a movie before heading back to the hotel.

I watched a movie called Astroid City. It was a genre that I wasn't familiar with but I did enjoy it along with my popcorn and a couple of chocolates.

Once it was over I decided to head back to the hotel so I called a cab, it was only $13 from the theatre to the hotel which seems very reasonable to me.

Sadly when I got back to the hotel I could not remember our room number and had a bit of a panic attack even went as far as talking to the cleaning staff before going to the front desk to ask. After I dropped off my stuff I decided to look into the on-site restaurants.

Both Chop and Denny's are on site so we could go high-end (Chop) or comfort food (Denny's). We decided on Denny's.

After a good meal and our other routines, we headed to bed. I slept amazingly considering how much walking I did today.

July 9th & 10th

 I was on my way to see GD#3 in Aurora with my son when he made me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Everlovin' was planning on coming down to get me that night after work. I was a little worried because it meant he would be very tired after working all day and then driving the 2 hrs to get me and the 2 hrs back cause we needed to be at the airport at 9:30 or so. My son said that Aurora was pretty close to where Everlovin' lives near the border of Toronto and Markham so he could drop me off and save Everlovin from having to make the trip. It also meant I could worry less about his heart and the fatigue he would be feeling with the time change between Ontario and Alberta.

So instead of spending the night traveling
dinner was provided by my MIL and I got to sit out under the gazebo and see all the pretty flowers my BIL has grown.

I need to say before I go any further that I had never been on a jet before, I'd ridden in a fixed wing so it wasn't totally strange. I was beyond excited and nervous, first to be going into a real airport, and second for riding in a jet (Airbus320).

So much to tell, all exciting to me but maybe not so much you. E showed me how to measure my bags to make sure they were the right size, and we checked the big suitcase. When our flight was called they asked people to put their carry-ons into stowage but we didn't.

We then had to go through the metal detector. I had to hand over both my bags and go through them, thankfully I didn't have any problems though E had to go through them a couple of times because of his tools.

On the other side, they opened our bags searching for Contraband, luckily the only thing I had was a pair of scissors which I lost because they were a cm too long, I'm just glad I had my backup pair.

We sat and waited what felt like hours before our flight was called. We waited in the waiting area. Our tickets were standby tickets so they had to assign us our seats before takeoff

E and I were in the same row on the plane. He got a window seat so he switched with me so I had the window and he was on the aisle; it was my first time after all and he was being nice. Love that man of mine!

This was just before we started to taxi to lift off. Because we were at the tail end of the plane the wing kinda got in the way of the view a little.

Once in the air, I watched out my window for a while til we got above the clouds. I tried to get photos and if any turned out I will share them on Facebook.

During the rest of the 4-hour trip, I read and watched our fellow passengers. I saw a family group standing around a row of seats I'm assuming the seated ones were elders but I couldn't see their faces.

My seatmates were a couple of age with me so we mainly ignored each other. There was the proverbial kid in front of us that kept pushing back on the seat and shaking the table my tablet was on.

In front of me was a screen on which I could keep track of how close we were to our destination, at the one-hour out mark I put my stuff away and got a few winks.

 

After touchdown, it was a simple process although waiting for our big bag on the carousel worried me a bit. We went and got our car from the rental place. That was fun (not) we went to the window we thought we were supposed to go sent to another one and then were looked after by this nice lady who was just beginning a second shift.

We found the car and headed out to the hotel. After getting our room we went out to get dinner. For the first time in years, I had dinner at the Olive Garden. Delicious as always!

Our hotel room was literally exactly what I would like my tiny house to be with a kitchenette, laundry, and a breakfast nook so we had space for both of us to have a desk. It was absolutely perfect!

After relaxing and doing our games we went to sleep. I slept so well that night!

Still here

 Been dealing with my stuff but I can feel the Depression lifting so that is good news.

Did my first bone density test and my first squish and scan since the  cancer with two all clears! Count me a happy camper and incredibly grateful for both of those things. Even my weight and blood sugar are in a good place. From 240 to 202 lbs, sorry not sure the kg equivalent, when I think of my weight I always think pounds.

One more thing, I'm headed out of Province with my Everloving, going to get to West Edmonton Mall finally, and a night at the Calgary Stampede, maybe. I am on my way to heaven!

Oh and one more bonus item, I get to fly on a jet to get there, first time ever!

I am so lucky that my Everloving always finds good stuff for us to do.

Depression

 I have mentioned that I have Dysthymia. 

What is dysthymia? Dysthymia is a milder, but long-lasting form of depression. It's also called a persistent depressive disorder. People with this condition may also have bouts of major depression at times. Depression is a mood disorder that involves your body, mood, and thoughts.

Body, Mood, Thoughts

Body: Hurts, involuntary muscle twitches, hands shake, head aches

Mood: None, no fucks given, no joy or anger to be found.

Thoughts: Blank unless I am cursing my body.

all of this equals Major depression.

I started this entry in the hopes that I would be able to create some kind of plan to get myself back to myself but the headache is just getting worse and I feel tiredness pulling at me. I may have to wait it out a little longer. NO that is the depression talking. I know that and still I just want to stop trying. Just stop and hold still for a little while longer.

Maybe disappear into a thc haze for a few days. Or go back to sleeping 12 hours a day. Something, anything to avoid dealing with whatever the root cause of it is. This is not like the Dythymia, it is like a heavy blanket holding me down, smothering any spark I have left.

2022 to Present

 No apology, I spent last year dealing with Breast Cancer and the slow progress through the various steps of diagnosis, removal, radiation treatment, and chemotherapy. I was lucky in that the radiation they used was electrical rather than nuclear so only burned my skin instead of losing all my hair and extreme weakness.

Because I caught it so early the only chemo I had to do was a pill. Mind you it is a pill that suppresses estrogen so I am having sweats and hot flashes ie menopausal symptoms. Since I already did that between 50 and 59 I am not keen to re-experience it, still, the alternative is a reoccurrence of cancer so I will accept it as necessary.

My main concern these days is the emptiness I feel inside where my creativity used to reside. You would think such a thing would make me more creative instead of less. In truth I have had little interest in much of anything except for my game "Knights and Brides", watching Netflix in series binges, and reading, though the reading hardly holds my interest much.

I am aware that these are the symptoms of deep depression and that I need to stop avoiding that fact. Thankfully I have not reached the self-loathing level and I hope I don't; the last time I was there I tried to kill myself. Didn't do it right but I did try.

More than that though I have become aware that my body is in nearly constant motion and that concerns me because it is not the good kind of motion. I'm not walking or dancing or anything like that instead my legs bounce whenever I sit down, either one or the other sometimes both. It could just be a habit but the constant shaking of my hands is not a habit, indeed it pisses me off. I  used to be able to stop it but it is getting harder and harder to do that. 

Add the involuntary movement of my hips and sometimes full body jumps when I am trying to sleep and it is super concerning. The twitches used to be confined to my legs but these days it is my hips and lower back. As I said earlier my legs are never still.

I keep telling myself that I need to go see the doctor about it but I keep putting it off mainly because it may be symptoms of Huntingtons'. I already have dementia in my family medical history, I don't want to add that as well. Depression, anemia, and cancer are bad enough. Yeah all those are part of my medical family history and I have experience with all of them, I don't really want to add any more.

Top that off with the nightmare my GD#3 has become and it is really no wonder I have no interest in much of anything.

I thought I would enjoy this trip even if it is in the winter, that has never mattered before and I did enjoy the first day but I am so out of shape. The boots I brought stress my legs even more cause they have heels and are fairly heavy. I wore them because I wanted to work on my legs, and make them stronger but it didn't work out very well. Instead I am stiff and sore and reluctant to move around much.

That brings me to today and the fact that I stayed behind rather than go with Rob. I was tired and wanted to sleep in but about half an hour after he left my body twitched itself hard and I decided to get up rather than suffer any more of that. 

This little blog entry was necessary for me to put things into some kind of order. Even now I am not done thinking but I know I have to make some decisions or if not decisions at least try and figure out how to change the direction I am headed. I am only in my 63rd year I still have another 20-40 years to live and I don't want to spend them as this hollow shell I have become.

K & B Clan Wars

Hopefully this will help Lady Eliza. This is where I found mine.

Grand-daughter #3

 She has been displaying symptoms of mental illness. The adults in our family have been doing the best we can to mitigate the symptoms. The behaviors just kept getting worse. Two days ago she took off from a public building for the third time. Her mother with my full support had her admitted to the mental health centre at the local hospital.

Tomorrow she will be released and there is no plan in place. I feel that if she doesn't end up there again tomorrow night it will be in less than a month. That is unless they gave her some medication to calm her down. 

As expected she arrived and within 3 days was in my care. For a day and a half I let her scream, at the end of which time she went to her maternal grandparents and then to her mother. I have agreed to take her for a few hours as needed but I will not have her stay here overnight, which I suppose was her reason for screaming all day.

My poor neighbours!

I have a minor case of PTSD after that, I hear her screaming in my mind at the oddest times. I am sorry things went that way but in the end she only has herself to blame. Oh I am sure I could of done things differently but no effort of mine got her to stop for more than a couple of hours. Not even a calming touch was enough to make her stop for long.

I am sorry for Ashley as she now needs to do this mainly on her own. Where does the root of the problem lie, I don't know but in the last year she has steadily gotten worse and worse.

I am tired of this topic it seems that all I've done over the last few months is talk about her and now I really want her out of my head for awhile.