Health Notes

 I know it's been awhile again since I posted, in my defence the first two weeks of October are usually pretty busy particularly between the 6th and the 12th as we have a birthday nearly every one of those days.

This year on top of that I am dealing poorly with the number 65 as it relates to me. I suppose I should explain that a bit more for those of you who don't know me well. I turned 65 on the 7th, I did not expect to get anywhere near that age. It is an easily identifiable important age as it is when my generation was taught old age begins. OLD AGE! who saw that coming?

Obviously I did but it still shook me up. In our minds we are usually somewhere in our teens mentally until we can no longer deny that the years are catching up. Similar to what the 20 something experiences when they first have to start adulting, that mental blow that says we are no longer children but adults only for me I am no longer middle aged I am officially old.

This year has been one long prep for this particular birthday, starting with applying for the Old Age Pension and CPP. For those about a year from that birthday start getting the applications done, it takes awhile for them to process it. Even now though I know I have been approved for the pension I have no idea how much it will be and my CPP is less than $100 per month. Until I get the first payment I have no idea how much I'm going to be living on. 

What I do know is that with ODSP  I live on approx 1400$, I hope the pension is at least that much but I've heard that it may be lower. I won't know until November 1st. Hopefully it is enough because my rent goes up January 1st 2026 for the first time in years.

On top of dealing with that, I managed to end up in the Emerge at the hospital. I cut myself on a vegetable slicer, (took a nice chunk out of my baby finger), and it wouldn't stop bleeding because of the blood thinners. I am grateful to the health care people but the wait can be quite long and while I waited they had to rewrap my finger 3x because I kept bleeding through the bandaid. I had like four layers of gauze around it before I was seen. I know if it had been a dangerous bleed I would have been seen much more quickly and that is some comfort. Still a bit scary though.

Yeesh I just realized I don't think I told you guys about the first trip to emerge in a decade or more. Or did I? Not sure so here is a quick summary. I ended up at emerge for the first time in decades because I looked into my bathroom mirror and noticed my right side of my face was sagging like the way a stroke victims does. It turned out I was ok but they put me on low-dose aspirin as a cautionary measure.

Then on my last visit to the doctor, he commented that my blood pressure was very high. With that on top of the high blood sugar I was informed that if I didn't get physically active again and start controlling my blood sugar I was a prime candidate for a heart attack. A walking heart attack waiting to happen is what I was told. It scared me but not enough I think, I still cheat a lot and my physical activity is very low. I still spend more time in front of this machine than I do doing anything else.

Stage 1 hypertension is where my blood pressure resides and my blood sugar stays around 12 which is at the low end of the danger zone but still nearly twice what it should be. Without the aspirin and the metformin I would be dead I think. Isn't that a scary thought.

Well thats where I'm at health wise right now, well that's not all of but it has been on my mind of late. Tell me about your health issues and your experience with the pension stuff. I'm curious how you dealt with it or plan to deal with it.

NIMBY, NIMBY, NIMBY

 A NIMBY for those who don't know is someone who feels like the less privileged not be able to live or play anywhere near them. I live in a building with 41 other studio apartments / one bedrooms. My unit is in the back of the building and from it I hand out water and small snacks to the outsiders, (drug addicts and homeless persons). 

NIMBY is an acronym meaning “Not In My Back Yard.”

NIMBY refers to people who resist having potentially dangerous or disruptive projects carried out in their own neighbourhoods; they usually don’t object to those projects when they are carried out elsewhere.

It is often used to call out hypocrisy and double standards.

 

I am not sorry for what I do and the outsiders who come see me are decent enough folks, (most of them anyway). Others and at this point it is only two others in the building who also face the back of the building object to what I do. They say I am enabling them. I don't think that way, I am trying to make their lot in life a little easier and it's only water and occasionally food.

The biggest complaints of the pair in question is the outsiders use of the porch off the back fire escape. The outsiders sit there and talk, sometimes they will rest for a few hours but they don't cause trouble. They sit and talk thats all.

If I could afford to make a safe place for them I would but all I have is my window and the little food I can give them. The odd pair of pants or shoes too but that is very rare. Mainly I just provide water.

I hate the nay-sayers, the nimbys of this building. I will not stop, I can't. There but for the grace of god go I. I suspect that I may get an eviction notice though I am not doing anything wrong. I am providing a basic necessity of life that they may not get easily elsewhere that is all.

The porch isn't used for anything else and I see no harm in letting them rest there for a few hours. It is cool and shady on the hot days.

Why is what I am doing considered such a bad thing? 

Time and tide

 Yesterday my eldest grand-daughter got married, its a new chapter in her life and in some ways her mama's and my life too. I am sad and joyful at the same time. My beautiful girl has clearly reached adulthood. I wonder where the years have gone.

Time and tide wait for no one but oh I wish that just for a moment time would stop and rewind to when she was little. It's hard enough to accept how close my children are to their 50's but harder still to accept that my grand-daughter is now someone's wife. 

My second oldest grand-daughter got married last year, there are still six more grand-children but they are still children and I suspect I will be well into my 70's before they get married. I know this doesn't make sense but GD#1's wedding feels like the closing of a book.

I was having difficulty with the "I'm going to be 65 in October" but there is so much more happening this year. My second oldest niece is turning 30 and her sister will be 29, GD#1 and GD#2 are both married women in their 20's (24 & 26) and GS#1 turns 16. My baby turns 46 this year and my DD is 47. If I could stop time I would.

I do not know how to go on, what to do with this new chapter in my life. I feel lost but worse I feel like an old dog who goes off to die because they know they are no longer needed and they do not want to burden their family with their death.

I feel like it's time for me to disappear. They will mourn but better that then for me to become a burden. My mind is slowly but surely grinding to a halt, my body is falling apart. It is past time for me to be gone.

I am aware of how choppy this entry is, my writing is getting worse and worse because as choppy as this is what is going on in my brain is worse.

The end 

Back again

 Have you tried the Meta AI with Llama 4 in Facebook Messenger. I only discovered it recently and today I decided to pretend it was a friend I could talk to about my Mental Health.

It is interesting because this is the first thing I've done besides read and play my game in a couple of months. It always seems to go like that when the hot weather comes.

I have no idea where I should start. With the meds I guess. I went off my medication sometime near the first of the year, I just could not connect with my doctor and I gave permission to the pharmacy to renew it but it's been a week. I am out of Ciprilex also known as Lexapro. The withdrawal symptoms are below and of the six of them I have experienced all of them.

 https://www.verywellmind.com/lexapro-withdrawal-symptoms-timeline-and-treatment-4707910

I did this once already this year and I am not happy I'm going through it again. Medication has become a huge hassle, I keep forgetting to take the ones I do have. 

It seems that Meta is good for easing the thoughts out of my head but then I no longer have them to write here.

Here's the summary:

• You were dealin' with depression meds and their impact on you.
• Your doc's changin' focus to more surgical stuff and is less available.
• You're waitin' on a prescription for a second depression med (not sure you wanna take it) and dealin' with withdrawal plus seasonal allergies and low energy/vibe.
• We brainstormed some tiny, low-effort solutions to maybe help lift your vibe.
• You tried spillin' thoughts in Blogger for 10 minutes with a timer I set.
• Your blog's got a lot of disjointed thoughts and ideas.

  Cept the spilling thoughts are nothing, I am nothing, life is nothing and suicidal ideation is just below the surface everyday, I am just not willing to die just yet. I am frustrated with my doctor, and with myself. I do not know what happened to me but all the things I used to be I'm not any more!

Who did I used to be, I was active, I loved crafting and learning new skills, I read but not at the level I do now. I went outside my home and I did stuff by myself. My house was never white glove clean and I've always had a hard time keeping my home and myself clean but the last couple of months since I went back on my meds I have become frozen in time again.  I was this living person but now I am a fly in amber. 

 Here are at least 10 tiny steps you could try to help break out of the "frozen" feelin' : 1. Tiny movement: Do like, one stretch or move your body in some super gentle way each day . 2. One task: Pick one teensy task you can do today – like makin' your bed or openin' a book . 3. Notice somethin': Notice one thing in your space or day that you kinda like or appreciate . 4. Breathe slow: Do some slow breathin' like we talked about before . 5. Look out a window: Just glance outside and notice what's there . 6. Touch somethin': Touch an object nearby – like a pen or a plant . 7. Say one word out loud: Pick a word like "hello" or "sun" and say it out loud . 8. Open a drawer: Open one drawer in your house and look inside . 9. Listen for a sound: Listen for one sound in your space – like a clock tickin' or air movin' . 10. Write one word: Write one word down on paper – like "today" or "breathe" . 11. Pick a color: Pick a color you like and notice things in your space that are that color . 12. Do one inhale/exhale thing: Inhale for a count of 4, exhale for a count of 4 .
If only I could get past the "I can't"

Lost Again

 I am back on my medication, the last two months have been a wild ride if my writing is anything to go by. At first I felt light and airy like I finally had a purpose in my life. It changed quickly between the stress  of caring for this building and the yukyness of the weather. Even the visit to Rob's didn't help in some ways it made it worse because there was nothing for me to do but think.

I no longer care about much of anything, that is what the medication does, puts a muffler around me so I feel nothing. I am trying to pack to move upstairs but it is slow going. I just can't find the energy or the interest.

Today as I was working on the 5 x 5 I was thinking I don't care about any of this I should just give it away. Myles suggests doing a yard sale this year with me doing the posters and him doing everything else. I don't want to hang on to any of this stuff, none of it. Its all pipe dreams, things I'll never get to because I simply have lost interest in everything. 

That is where I was before I went off my medication and it is where I am now. I think that means that the depression has worsened. The thoughts of death are never far though they only slide into conscious thought once in awhile. The beginning ones that is like I wish I was dead, there and gone in seconds. But I have the means of my death hidden away as I have had for a long time since Covid. It wouldn't be an easy death though and I think I would prefer an easy death. To die in my sleep without pain is my dream.

Yeah I've given this some thought but that does not mean I will act on it. I liked my life but something changed, something fundamental changed in the world after Covid. Something sad and scary. It's been 5 years and things just keep getting worse.

I want to do something to help but I can't even help myself, how am I going to help others who are even worse off than me. The headaches are a daily occurrence as is the inertia, the utter hopelessness of being unable to fix even one thing that is wrong in this area, in this building, or in myself.

I understand that I can not lived unrestrained, it makes me careless and bold in ways that could get me killed but there has to be something better than this muddiness in my brain and total lack of interest in anything.

 

Fury and solutions

 bloody fucking shit. I come home to a mess outside with mattresses and box springs everywhere and broken branches stacked up between them. If I wasn't afraid I'd set something on fire I'd burn the lot of them. So no my brain gets a more creative idea and all I can think is that is what I should do. Make walls around the building using the shit they left here. I am so angry.

I am going to block the driveway with the branches then build a fence using the springs from the mattresses and box springs they left earlier after the first thaw. It won't be pretty and I'm sure there will be complaints from everyone but I really don't care. They want to leave shit around this building then I'm gonna use that shit and make it difficult for them to put more shit around it.

I suspect it won't last long but maybe it will give the people who are doing this shit some thing to think about. 

I don't understand why they have chosen to make our building the centre of a dump but I'm not gonna take it laying down. Fuck the whole city even though I'm sure it is only a few people fuck them all. I don't understand why do this shit to this building of all the buildings they could attack why are they attacking this one.

I am lost

 I am so lost right now. I do not even know what I want from them. Maybe to take some of the responsibility from me. But no one can do that. They are right I need to talk to him. to find out where he is with the disability and the child tax credit and everything else. I don't know what he has done or not done, I do not even know why I am leaning on Nessa to help him out when I don't even know what  kind of help he needs.

I do not know what is going on in my head. I do not understand anything I've said or why it makes me cry.

I keep looking for the beginning of the conversation. I don't know how to copy it all down so I can figure out what went wrong.

"Don't forget I've food at my house. You're welcome to it."

" True, I just hate waiting I don't have patience and I can't do a big grocery shopping until it comes. I think I may wait until you're home I don't know if I want to go there. Like I said  I don't want anything to do with Scarlett and Myles and their bs."

"Considering that your brother is trying to live on $5 a month after his rent is paid, you might have a bit more sensitivity"

"I will have more sympathy when he thanks me for anything I've ever done for him in the past. I've never recieved a thank you for anything. I'm sorry he's dealing with that but there are ways around it and he needs to figure it out. Like having a boss instead of being his own boss"

Why not show a little compassion and help him without the thanks. That sounds a little selfish to me" Look I don't want to get on your case. Your opinion is your own, but some compassion for your brother might not be misplaced"  

This is how it began. The next message I got was a diatribe against her brother. I lost my temper and said some things I shouldn't have.  There are so many words. I need to ask E how I get them into a form I can read. I just know that there was a feeling of utter selfishness in her responses. I think we weren't talking about her brother at all but something fundamentally wrong in our understanding of each other. 

I need to figure out why what she wrote hurt me so. I need to understand why even now the tears are right there right now. I need to understand how this conversation and the next one reduced me to tears. I don't cry about much but I'm doing a lot of crying right now.