Category Archives: Tough Stuff

Feeling Like Something Is Missing (or I Guess This Is Part Of The Grief Process)

Posted on November 20, 2019 | Comments Off on Feeling Like Something Is Missing (or I Guess This Is Part Of The Grief Process)

Today should be my grandma’s birthday. Her birthday was something that I celebrated with her almost every year because it is so close to Thanksgiving. The tradition in my family used to be celebrating her birthday either the day before or the day after Thanksgiving with a nice dinner out. Those dinners are so clear in my memory because they were such a big tradition. I loved having that extra time to celebrate with my family since we only really get together for Thanksgiving as an extended family.

Both of my grandparents passed away about a month before their birthdays, so I went through this with my grandpa’s death as well. But because I didn’t really celebrate his birthday with him, it didn’t hit me as hard as this is hitting me. I really feel like I’m forgetting to do something and that I will need to somehow catch up. Fortunately, I remembered to turn off the alarm on my calendar to buy my grandma’s birthday card so I didn’t have that alert about a week ago. But I still feel like I should be going to the store to find the perfect card for her.

My grandma loved butterflies so almost every single card I ever got for her had butterflies on them. I tried hard to always find birthday and Mother’s Day cards that were themed with butterflies or had one on there somewhere. It seems like it’s a common thing to find on cards, so I always seemed to be able to find them. Sometimes I would find the perfect card for her birthday months in advance and I’d get it and save it. I know that my grandma loved those cards and cherished them. I don’t know if any of my cousins ever got my grandma the same card, but I’m guessing that since there aren’t a ton of grandma cards with butterflies that it happened at least once.

I missed my grandma’s birthday dinner last year because it was done the night I flew in for Thanksgiving. It was sad to miss that dinner, but I understood why it had to be that night. That felt weird enough for me, but I knew I’d get to spend some time over the next few days with my grandma to make up for it. And she understood why I wasn’t able to fly in earlier for it. I was thinking that maybe this year would be similar to last year and I would just have a feeling of missing out. But it’s harder than that for me.

I’ve shared how grieving the loss of my grandma has been taking me time to get through. I’m not trying to rush myself through the grieving process and I’m allowing myself to take the time I need and not feel weird that it’s not over. There are things that are very different for me with this death compared to other deaths in my life.

When comparing this loss with the loss of my grandpa, I was much closer to my grandma. I knew I could depend on her and it’s a loss not to have that. I also have watched my grandma decline for several years, compared to my grandpa passing away a bit more suddenly. I would think watching someone decline would make it easier to accept, but I think I just assumed she would continue that path for a bit longer. Even though it was hard to watch her become a shadow of who she used to be, there were still moments where I could see the person she was before and it was a nice reminder of who she was when I was little. And I think the way I found out about my grandma’s death has made this a long process. I had to push the sadness away for a few days because I was busy working at the convention.

I’m sure that I’m going to struggle a bit for a little longer. I’m already expecting Thanksgiving to be tough for me and my family. And I’m a bit more prepared now for having random moments of sadness and grief when I can’t figure out what exactly caused it. When I had those last month, they really took me by surprise and I didn’t exactly know what to do with them. Now that I’ve experienced it, I still will be a bit unsure what to do but they won’t be as shocking or surprising.

Being sad on my grandma’s birthday was something I was more prepared for. There are a few other dates in the future that I’m ready to struggle through. But knowing that they are coming doesn’t necessarily make them easier. I just hope that time will help the sadness be a bit less and allow me to celebrate my grandma’s incredible life on those days and not focus on the loss.

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Default ThumbnailSkipping Over An Anniversary (or Forgetting But Not Forgetting) Default ThumbnailGrandma’s Birthday Dinner (or One Of Our Thanksgiving Traditions) Default ThumbnailTrip Prep (or Guess I’ll Find Out Who Reads My Blog Soon) Default ThumbnailHappy Birthday Grandma! (or Double Birthday Celebrations) Default ThumbnailA Day In San Diego (or Celebrating An Anniversary And A Birthday) Default ThumbnailFeeling Like Something’s Missing (or Getting Sad In The Greeting Card Aisle)

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Posted in Family, Tough Stuff

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Sorry For A Quick Post (or Going Through A Tough Day)

Posted on November 19, 2019 | Comments Off on Sorry For A Quick Post (or Going Through A Tough Day)

This isn’t going to be a big post. I knew this week would be when I’m dealing with pain and nausea, but as I’m trying to write this I’m going through an exceptionally bad day. I’m fully dosed with my medications, but they aren’t taking the edge off for me. I’m lucky that I work from home because I can’t imagine trying to get anywhere right now.

I’m dealing with my usual pain and nausea, but it’s gotten extreme this time. The pain is so bad that it’s also making me nauseous. I’ve got heat packs on me to help with the pain, but it’s just a bit unbearable right now.

I was struggling a lot on Sunday as well and the only thing that was helping me was sleeping. Even though I had a good night’s sleep, I napped for about 10 hours throughout the day. The longest stretch was a 5-hour nap. When I’m asleep, sometimes the pain and nausea wake me up, but it’s much better than when I’m awake. Sunday might have been the worst day ever, but right now it’s not that much better.

I’m lucky that as I write this on Monday, I don’t have much that I have to do. It’s my day off of work so I can just focus on taking care of myself. And that’s exactly what my plan is. I’m going to be gentle and easy on myself and just do what I need to do to make it through the day. The pain and nausea should be ending for me later this week, and I’m really hoping that this is the worst of it and things get better from now until it’s gone.

Sorry for such a short and negative post, but that’s all I really could pull together for now. But I hopefully will be back to my normal posts tomorrow.

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Default ThumbnailJust Dragging On (or Another Apology For Another Short Post) Default ThumbnailGrateful For Quick Turnarounds (or Neutral Doesn’t Mean Bad) Default ThumbnailA Quick Post (or I Really Hope I’m Not Getting Sick) Default ThumbnailThis Is Another Quick Post (or I’m Tired, Burned Out, And Still Blogging) Default ThumbnailHappy Thanksgiving! (or Just A Quick Post) Default ThumbnailHappy Thanksgiving (or A Quick Post)

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Posted in Health, Tough Stuff

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Finding Little Things To Make Me Happy (or Shopping And Text Groups)

Posted on November 8, 2019 | Comments Off on Finding Little Things To Make Me Happy (or Shopping And Text Groups)

I have been in a bit of a down mood lately. To me, this is obvious in the posts that I have been writing. But it took me a while to be in a place where I want to work out of the funk. I know that this is probably due to a few different factors, some of which I have no power over and can’t control. And just fixing the ones I’m in control of (such as getting enough sleep) hasn’t been enough to make me feel better. I’ve had more depressive episodes before, so I knew this wasn’t anything serious. But I still don’t enjoy being in a down mood for an extended period of time.

I finally was ready to work on fixing this over the past few days. It’s not easy to get yourself out of a bad mood, but I wanted to work on it where I could. Like I said before, getting enough sleep has been a big fix I’ve been needing to work on. I still am struggling a bit with falling asleep when I should, but at least now I’m getting to bed at a more appropriate time and not staying up doing other things until very late. But since this wasn’t enough of an improvement, I’ve been working on finding other things that I know make me very happy.

Fortunately, it’s the time of year for me to do some gift shopping for my family. I bring Hanukkah presents for my family to Thanksgiving, so I only have a few weeks left to do my shopping. But because I’m a bit crazy, I had gift ideas as soon as I had bought their gifts last year. A few gifts have changed since then, but I’ve been having so much fun doing some shopping and trying to figure out the perfect gifts to get for everyone. I’m also bringing birthday presents for my parents to Thanksgiving to give them those early since I had ideas for those as well.

If I had unlimited money, I would spend so much buying presents for other people. I get so much joy out of finding the perfect gift and seeing how happy it makes someone. I do have to be careful with how much money I spend on presents, but I will always find a way to get presents for my family. I don’t have to get them expensive things if they are creative. And I seem to be good at finding unique and creative gifts. I have all the presents picked out now for my family, and I’m already so excited to give them what I got and see how much they like them. (sorry dad, if you are reading this and were hoping to get some hints of what I got you)

And while I haven’t been feeling particularly social while I’ve been down, I do still crave being social a bit. Going out isn’t always the best option when I’m in a mood, but texting can still keep me from feeling isolated. And I’ve really been enjoying different group texts that I’m a part of as well as texting with my friends individually.

One of my text groups is with my friends from Orangetheory. We have always been a bit silly in that group so that is appreciated no matter if I’m in a good mood or bad mood. We will share random GIFs and memes and joke around about the workouts. We aren’t always in the same class together (and one friend in the group doesn’t live in LA anymore), but it is nice to have workout friends to chat with even if we aren’t in class. I’ve got another texting group with other Orangetheory friends, but those aren’t as active as the main one I’m in.

I also started a text group for women in the online dating FB group I’m a part of. I created it for safety because not everyone has a friend that they can use as an online dating safety buddy as I do. The text group is for us to share the information of who we are meeting and where just as a safety measure. And we check back into the group when the date is done and we are safe. I don’t love that we have to be so cautious, but it’s necessary and I’m glad we have a safe space with no judgment. I am glad I’ve always had a friend that I can use for this and not worry about what she thinks, but I’m even more glad now that I’ve created a space for others to use when they didn’t have someone. That group is very new so we haven’t had a lot of texting yet, but we have been sharing a bit of silly stuff as well. But what makes me happy about it is that I was able to start a group like that and feel like I have done something that would benefit others.

I can still feel a bit of my down mood lingering, but I’m so glad it’s starting to lift.  I have to stay aware because if I don’t keep working on it I know that things might go back to being down again. Knowing that I have some ongoing things that are making me feel better helps, but I’m going to keep working on finding more things that will bring me joy and make things feel more normal for me again.

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Default ThumbnailSpreading Some Holiday Cheer (or Finding Cheaper Ways To Make People Smile) Default ThumbnailBuilding Upon My Monthly Challenge (or Continuing To Work On Shopping) Default ThumbnailGift Shopping (or For Me, It’s That Time of the Year) Default ThumbnailIt’s Almost Gift Giving Time! (or Excited To Finally Give A Present) Default ThumbnailA Happy Hour Celebration (or Looking Forward To Another Wedding) Default ThumbnailDriving Around For No Reason (or Finding Places That Make Me Happy)

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Posted in Dating, Fun Stuff, Shopping, Tough Stuff

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Having Another Lazy Weekend (or Trying Not To Feel Like I Missed Out)

Posted on October 30, 2019 | Comments Off on Having Another Lazy Weekend (or Trying Not To Feel Like I Missed Out)

I was really expecting to be able to go out and be social this past weekend. I had a party I was supposed to go to and I was excited to get out and see my friends. And through most of the week, I was feeling up for it and ready to go. But then it seemed like everything hit me on Saturday and I was exhausted.

I think a part of it was how crazy my work has been lately. It’s the busy season right now and it seems like the busy season is worse than ever. There have been times that I have 3 customers in online chats, 1 customer on the phone, and several other customers trying to call. Everyone working has been busy like this so it’s not that I’m picking up the slack from someone else. It’s exhausting having to multitask like that and the customers are bringing up some very complicated issues. There have been some calls where I’m working with a customer for over an hour because either they have a hard issue or keep adding new questions. When I’m done with work, I need to decompress. It’s not always like this, but lately, it’s been every day.

And Saturday was no different from the rest of the workweek. It was a crazy day and when I was done I just couldn’t think of doing much else. I did go to my workout since that helps me feel like the workday is over, but when I was home I didn’t want to have to leave my house. I tried to pull it together and go out, but I ended up falling asleep and not waking up until close to when I wanted to go to bed. I texted my friend who was hosting the party and hopefully she understands why I couldn’t make it.

Sunday was a lot of the same. I was tired even though I slept more than I had in a while. And my body was not feeling so great so I had to do a lot of stretching before getting out of bed. I had some errands that I had to do, so I went out to do those and then went back home to relax a bit more. I needed to recharge and I’m glad I didn’t push myself to go out. But at the same time, it’s a little sad that I wasn’t able to.

I try not to feel like I’m missing out too much when I choose to stay home. I know there will more parties and outings in my future and missing some won’t affect me being able to go to others in the future. But I was frustrated because I really thought I was finally over the exhaustion I had from the convention and was ready to go out again. But this exhaustion was caused by other issues and no matter how recovered I felt from the convention, I still would have been affected by my work.

Everyone I work with is hoping that things calm down after Halloween. We are still in the busy season through the end of the year, but Halloween is extra busy (just like New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day). Hopefully, we are back to the normal busy season next week and I won’t feel as overwhelmed and exhausted at the end of the workday. And if I am, then I really need to do some work on how to manage this better. I’m sure I need more sleep than I’m getting right now. But maybe I also need to add a few other stress management things into my life to help. I’m not sure. I just need to get through this week before I can focus on it since this week is hopefully the craziest and most exhausting week of the year.

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Posted in Tough Stuff

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I Needed A Week Long Nap (or Dealing With Exhaustion)

Posted on October 22, 2019 | Comments Off on I Needed A Week Long Nap (or Dealing With Exhaustion)

Last week was not a very exciting week for me. After everything that happened, I was exhausted. Physically exhausted, mentally exhausted, and emotionally exhausted. If I had just had the convention, I probably would have been exhausted for the week. Having that plus my grandma passing away brought my exhaustion to a new level.

I have realized that I didn’t really give myself time to grieve much in the days after my grandma passing away. I had to stay focused on the work I was doing at the convention and that’s what she would have wanted me to do. I was grateful for the distraction, but that also meant that things finally started to hit me more last week when I had the time to think about them. I had a big breakdown on the day she passed away, but after that, I had mini-breakdowns each day. I have been able to get myself together after a few minutes, and it gets easier each day. I’m worried that it will hit me so much more at Thanksgiving, but there’s nothing I can do in advance to help make that easier.

Crying and grieving is tiring. And being exhausted from lack of sleep didn’t help that feeling. So last week, I really just spent the week doing what I had to do and not much else. I worked and went to my workouts, but I didn’t do much beyond that. The week was a bit of a blur for me, but I honestly don’t think I left my house much last week. I went to the grocery store and ran errands, but I didn’t do anything social. And being home was probably the best thing for me because I could rest when I needed to.

And I also needed to focus on a lot of housework. The days I was working at the convention were packed and I wasn’t home much at all. When I got home, I would put my stuff down, make sure my bag was packed for the next day and go to bed. I had piles of things around my house that I put down and knew I would deal with later. And last week was the later time I had to worry about it. Fortunately, a lot of the things I had around my house was stuff that I didn’t need or had a very obvious storage place. But there are a few things that I still need to figure out if I will keep them and if I do where they will go. And besides organizing, I had the normal cleaning stuff I had to do. I hated how dirty my house felt because I hadn’t cleaned in a few days. I finally have it back to how I like it and it feels much better.

While I don’t love that I basically took a week to recover from a crazy few days, it’s exactly what I needed to do. If I hadn’t taken that time, I think I would still be dragging on a bit right now. I would have pushed myself to do more and I would still be exhausted. I’m still grieving a bit and dealing with the emotional exhaustion, but it’s much easier to deal with when I’m not physically exhausted. And I am dealing with a lot of pain and nausea right now which I think would have been much harder to deal with if I was tired. I still am taking naps occasionally, but this is normal for me when I’m feeling nauseous.

And at least I’ve got some fun things planned for this week and I’m feeling much more up to them than I would have last week. I’ve got some Halloween parties to go to and a Halloween costume to make. I haven’t started the work on my costume, but I have the idea and hopefully, it will be easy to make once I have the supplies. And since Halloween is one of my favorite holidays I think that will boost my spirits even more.

And even though I am not fully back to my normal self, I’m glad I’m much closer than I was last week. I am still being gentle with myself and making sure I don’t overschedule things, but I also know that if I don’t start doing things again that it will also affect me. I just have to slowly add things back in and not be worried to cancel them if I need to.

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Default ThumbnailHaving Another Lazy Weekend (or Trying Not To Feel Like I Missed Out) Default ThumbnailWorking Through General Panic Issues (or Dealing With Lack Of Control) Default ThumbnailA Bit Of Self-Care Fail (or Maybe I Was Hard On Myself) Default ThumbnailA Week Of Getting Back To Normal (or Still Dealing With The Same Old Issues) Default ThumbnailA Good Workout Week (or Only Dealing With Old Issues) Default ThumbnailAnother Weird Workout Week (or Dealing With A Different Type Of Nausea)

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Posted in Tough Stuff

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A Big Loss In My Family (or Saying Goodbye To My Grandma)

Posted on October 17, 2019 | Comments Off on A Big Loss In My Family (or Saying Goodbye To My Grandma)

I’ve worked on this post multiple times and I keep deleting and re-writing it. I wish I had an eloquent way to write this, but my words are failing me. As you can probably tell from the title of this post, my grandma passed away.

She passed away peacefully on Friday. I actually found out while at my convention. I had just changed for the gala and was walking back from my car after dropping off my daytime clothes when my dad texted me. The text said to call when I had a break at the convention and I immediately knew that it was going to be about bad news. Several things went through my head, but I called my dad back right away and he let me know that my grandma passed away. My parents thought about waiting to tell me, but they didn’t want me to see it posted on social media or something before they could give me the news.

I immediately burst into tears. I knew my grandma wasn’t doing well and that she was probably going to pass away soon, but I had really hoped that she would make it to Thanksgiving so I could see her one more time. The last time I saw her or talked to her was last Thanksgiving (she wasn’t really able to talk on the phone anymore so I didn’t get to call her over the past year). So I wanted to see her again so I could feel like I had a chance to say goodbye. I hate that I didn’t get that chance, but I also know that my grandma wasn’t really herself for a few months.

I had been having weird dreams for the 2 weeks before her death that she would pass away while I was at the convention. I don’t know why I thought that, but in all my dreams I found out in the middle of convention voting. I never dreamt it would be as I was walking into the gala. I hung up with my dad quickly since I was trying to pull myself together. A friend of mine saw me crying hysterically on a couch and he went to find some tissues for me and sat with me for a little while. And when I went into the gala, I tried to hold it together but there were several times I started crying. I felt so lucky that I was surrounded by friends that night who were able to comfort me a bit. And I remembered during the gala that the purse I was using was one of my grandma’s that she passed down to me, so that made me happy.

I know when my grandpa died I wrote about his life and what he had done. But I can’t do that with remembering my grandma. I was closer to her than I was with my grandpa and everything about her is a memory of something amazing.

I remember being little and thinking my grandma was so glamourous. When she got ready in the morning, she would do her hair and makeup and then wore this mesh thing over her head while she got dressed to make sure her makeup didn’t get smudged. I loved that she did that. She always was protecting her hair and making sure she looked good. I remember when my grandparents went to an amusement park with us and my grandma agreed to go on a water ride because she thought she’d stay dry. Our raft got stuck under a waterfall and she was the only person under the water. She was soaked and we were all laughing so much.

She was also an amazing cook. When they had their house in San Diego, their kitchen always smelled delicious. It seemed like she could make anything and I was lucky that my mom had the same cooking skills. When my mom and grandma cooked together, the food was just that much better.

And my grandma loved playing backgammon. I think everyone in the family learned to play because of her. She was easily the best backgammon player and we joked that she was a witch because she could always roll exactly what she needed. She loved that she was able to kick all of our butts and never went easy on us. She played to win every time and her face lit up as soon as she knew there was no way for her opponent to beat her.

And just like my grandpa, she loved to travel. My grandma went to all 7 continents and loved to explore new places. And I loved traveling with her. I remember when we were on a cruise in Belize and there was a dance contest one night for all the guests. My grandma ended up dancing with the boat captain and she was dancing up a storm! I know we have a video of that somewhere and I’m so glad that I can watch it again one day.

I really wish I could say enough so you all could know how amazing and incredible my grandma was. Losing her was heartbreaking, but at the same time I know she wasn’t doing well for a while so I’m glad she’s no longer a shell of who she used to me. When I saw her a year ago, she wasn’t the same person I remembered most of the time. But every so often, the old grandma would reemerge and she would be who I remembered. Last year, the moment that stuck with me the most was when we were watching old family movies. We were watching a birthday party when I was little and my dad was on the screen. My grandma turned to me and asked me who that was. I told her it was my dad and she turned to look at him sitting on the couch near us. My dad in the video had hair and my dad now is bald. My grandma turned to me and said in a totally serious voice that my dad looked much better when he had hair. It was so funny and made me so happy to get a glimpse of the grandma that I remembered.

I tried to find a nice way to share photos on here, but there are too many that I love and no great way to organize them in this post. So here are some of my favorite photos of my grandma that I had on my computer (I don’t have any of my favorite photos with her from when I was younger).

And this is one of my favorite recent photos with her. I had picked my grandma up from where she was living in San Diego to meet up with my family. She couldn’t find her sunglasses but I had some extra ones in my car. They were much flashier than what she would wear, and my dad took a picture of us because he said my grandma looked so cool. I just love this photo of us.

The last photo I have with my grandma is from last Thanksgiving. We were trying to get a nice family photo and it was difficult. So I told my uncle to set his camera to take a video and I would find a still image that would work as a family photo. But instead of selecting a posed one, I love this candid one of us all and my family seemed to love it too. I’m glad that I have a silly photo of all of us together last year.

I’m going to miss my grandma so much. I don’t know if it’s hit me since I wasn’t expecting to see her until Thanksgiving. I think this Thanksgiving is going to be a tough one, but my grandma would want us to celebrate her and not be sad. She would want us to have fun, be silly, make crazy jokes, and enjoy life. And that’s what I’m going to try hard to do.

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Default ThumbnailSkipping Over An Anniversary (or Forgetting But Not Forgetting) Default ThumbnailSeeing Signs (or Is This Denial?) Default ThumbnailSan Diego Day (or Some More Family Time) Default ThumbnailA Couple Of Days In San Diego (or Trying To Focus On The Good And Not The Sad) Default ThumbnailGoodbye Dante (or An Obituary For My Beloved Dog) Default ThumbnailGoodbye Grandpa (or Remembering A Full Life)

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Posted in Family, Tough Stuff

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Under 90 Days Left In The Year (or Doing A Bit Of Reflecting)

Posted on October 9, 2019 | Comments Off on Under 90 Days Left In The Year (or Doing A Bit Of Reflecting)

Life has been crazy for me lately, but I’ve had a bit of a break over the past few days. I spent a lot of the time when things were calmer getting stuff done that I had been putting off. I also spent some time catching up on social media. While I do run some social media accounts, I haven’t really done a lot on social media for myself. And when I was catching up on seeing what other people have been up to, I saw a lot of posts from a few days ago talking about how there are only 90 days left in 2019.

I have said this a million times, but I have no clue where the time went. I was just thinking about how I should figure out if I was going to do something for my birthday, and my birthday was 2 months ago! I think I missed the chance to do that, but there’s always my half birthday. I know that time flew by because I have been very busy and my life is quite repetitive. From week to week, things do tend to stay the same for me. I have a similar schedule every day and even the things I do outside of work tend to be similar. And things have been crazy with trying to fit a lot of stuff in when I’m not working and things tend to chunk up together so I have a cycle of being extremely busy followed by a time where I don’t have much planned.

But I started to think more about what I have done this year and what I still want to do. I took another look at the various goals I set for this year and I’m glad that I have been making some progress on them. I don’t think I’ll be successful with all of the goals I set this year, but it would be a miracle if that happened. The goals I set are a mix of those that I know I can do and some that are more difficult. My priority is to get the ones accomplished that I know I can do plus a few of the harder ones. I think I’ll be able to do that this year, but I also want to make sure that I’m not being complacent and just doing the goals that I can do without much thought.

But I also can add some more goals for the last 90ish days of the year. I don’t exactly know what I want to get done, but I want there to be a change in my life. I have been living a life that doesn’t seem like a lot gets done or changes. And I need a change in my life. I am tired of living the same day over and over again. There are so many things that I want to change about my life that I’m not in control of, and I need to think beyond those. If I just focus on the changes that require someone else, I won’t make the changes that I can do on my own. And I think my focus has not been on the ones I’m in control of. I don’t quite know what those changes are just yet, but I know there are things I can do. And I’d love to work on them (or at least figure out what they are) during these last 90ish days of the year.

This is all still such an abstract idea for me because I have just been doing some thinking about it and not planning or doing any action steps. And I know I have been aware of this before and I haven’t been able or willing to make changes. I don’t know how many attempts it will take in order to finally make the change, but hopefully, it will happen one day. I don’t want to have 10 years go by and realize I’m still living the same life. I’m shocked when I realized how many years I’ve been working at this job because I don’t know how time went by without a lot of changes. I want to make sure that my life is as awesome as I want it to be, but it’s not there yet.

I don’t always love using the calendar to set goals and plans. I do set goals at the beginning of each year, but sometimes those goals are already things I’ve been working on. I don’t believe in waiting until the first of the month or a Monday to start a new plan. But for some reason, knowing there were only 90 days left in the year connected to me and got me to think about how I want to end out this year. I want to have some things to think about as accomplishments for 2019 and it’s not too late to start working on them.

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Default ThumbnailMy 2019 Goals (or Another Year Of Planning Some Big Things) Default ThumbnailA Mid-Point Check In (or Some Slacking and Some Progress) Default ThumbnailStarting To Wrap Up 2017 (or Getting In All My End Of The Year Things) Default ThumbnailStarting The Year With A Lot Of Transformation (or Who Will I Be By Next Year?) Default ThumbnailOne Year (or Actually One Year And A Couple Of Days) Default ThumbnailReflecting Back On 2014 (or How I Did With My Goals)

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Figuring Out My Pain (or Staying Calm While Stressing Out)

Posted on October 4, 2019 | Comments Off on Figuring Out My Pain (or Staying Calm While Stressing Out)

I wrote about how I didn’t sleep much before I did the Dri-Tri and how much that affected my finish time. Not sleeping before the workout was a bad decision, but I was hoping it would just screw up my workout. I didn’t think about if it could cause any other issues. And while I don’t know if this story is really connected, I have a feeling that it is.

I know that as you get older, you deal with more random pain. I feel like I am pretty familiar with pain since I deal with it almost every day. But whenever I have new pain, I worry a lot about what happened. Especially when the pain happens to be with my back. Back pain concerns me a lot because I know that it can be connected to my hip issues. And when I was showering after the Dri-Tri, I had something happen in my back that was really concerning.

The pain started as I reached for a towel after my shower, but I know that it wasn’t due to that movement. I really do believe that it is connected to not sleeping and then doing a tough workout. I’m sure that because I was tired, I wasn’t using the best form and I probably was slouching while biking. Bad posture can cause a lot of back pain which is why I try to be very conscious of my posture, especially since I work at a computer for so many hours a day.

Once my back started hurting, it was excruciating. I was supposed to have fun that night at a party to celebrate my friends adopting their daughter. I made it to the party, said hi to my friends, and then had to leave because I was in so much pain just standing up. I hated that I couldn’t be there to celebrate with them, but I knew that I had to take care of myself and make sure I didn’t make whatever happened to my back worse.

I spent the next few days taking some painkillers, using heat and ice, and putting different topical treatments to help with the pain. And then my pain started to shift from my back to my hip. And then I started to panic.

I know that both my hips will need surgeries in the future, but I don’t want to do them anytime soon. Recovering from hip surgery wouldn’t be an easy process and I know that it can take a year or so before I could get back to where I am now. I don’t want anything that prevents me from working out, so I have been careful with my hips. But I also know that I can’t avoid all activities that are potentially bad for my hips so I do take some risks. But I was starting to think that the lack of sleep/crazy workout combination was the thing that finally did the damage to my hip that would require surgery.

Every day that went by, the pain was less in my back and more in my hip. I started to struggle with sleep because I wasn’t able to find a position that I could sleep in and wasn’t painful. I was trying to not panic too much about the pain because I know that not every hip-related pain is about my hip issues. People without the issues I have can get hip pain. It’s not easy to remember that when I’m in pain, but I tried. And it did help that the pain overall was getting better, even if it was more hip-related each day.

Right now, I’m still in pain. It’s a weird, dull pain that doesn’t feel like how I remembered my hip feeling before surgery (that pain was sharper and more like little shocks). I’m trying to remain optimistic that this pain really is just about lack of sleep and the Dri-Tri (or some other innocent reason) and not a sign that I need to have hip surgery. I’m hoping that because the pain has been getting a bit better every day, that even if I did do something to my hip, that it is just temporary. It’s hard to remember sometimes that I am allowed to have normal hip pain and not worry that it’s something serious. And this past week has really tested me in working on not panicking about that.

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Default ThumbnailSleeping Away The Day (or Sometimes The Pain and Nausea Are Just Too Bad) Default ThumbnailDealing With The Pain (or Not All Pain Is The Same) Default ThumbnailAccepting Some Help (or Hope This Helps The Pain) Default ThumbnailTrying To Go With The Flow (or Staying Calm And Remembering To Breathe) Default ThumbnailPain Distracts From Other Pain (or The Rain Isn’t Too Bad This Time) Default ThumbnailStaying Calm With Changes (or Testing My Fear Of The Dentist)

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Remembering A Year Ago (or Still So Grateful My Friend Got Help)

Posted on September 5, 2019 | Comments Off on Remembering A Year Ago (or Still So Grateful My Friend Got Help)

About a year ago, I wrote a post about a friend who I had to force to get help because I felt they were a danger to themselves. That night was one of the most terrifying nights of my life. I have shared a lot of what happened with my friend because he doesn’t remember much about it (which I’m grateful for because I said some harsh things to him to force him to get help). When I wrote that post a year ago, I had no idea what my relationship would be like with my friend. Now, I’m so grateful that it hasn’t changed. If anything, we have gotten closer.

That night will stick out in my mind for so many things. I feared what would happen if my friend didn’t listen to me. I had threatened to call the police to get him if he didn’t go to a hospital, but I was so worried he would drive somewhere else and I couldn’t call for help for him. I didn’t think he would do anything to hurt himself while he was in the car, but I was still scared he would get in an accident because he was acting very irrational. I had no clue if my friend would talk to me again but I had to realize I was willing to sacrifice our friendship if that meant his life would be saved.

But some positives came out of that night. First of all, my friend got the help he needed. He has told me since that night that his doctors believe he might have harmed himself that night, so he needed to get help and he did. He has done some amazing work with his doctors and in therapy in the past year and I’m so glad that he has taken those steps. If that horrible night was what needed to happen for him to get the help and medical care he needed, that’s a good thing. I also witnessed so many friends coming together to help, both that night and for the days after it. We pulled together to help our friend with things like moving his car to a place where it won’t be towed, picking him up when he was coming home, making sure he had things he needed, and looking into options for paying for his medical bills.

My friend has also become much more open regarding this since this happened a year ago. I think that’s a good thing because more people can learn from what he has gone through and that can support him if they are going through something similar. I’ve shared on here several things that I battle with, and I have only seen positive things from being open. I hope that that’s what my friend is experiencing as well. From what I’ve seen, he has only gotten good things from his openness.

I know that my friend has been a bit anxious about this anniversary and I can understand that. He has gone through so much in the past year and I have only seen a fraction of it. I have tried to remind him that this is also an anniversary of him getting help and starting a new phase of his life. I’m sure he is remembering things from before and it’s not always easy to see the difference in your own life sometimes, but I see the difference. I know he isn’t the same person he was a year ago. I don’t worry about him the way I used to because I know he is in a much better headspace than he was before. I know that he is more comfortable reaching out and asking for help if he needs it. He has more resources than he had before and can manage things differently. I’ve only seen positive changes in him and that makes me hopeful that things are just going to continue to get better.

A year ago, I had no clue what would happen or if my friend would be ok. I’m so glad that things turned out the best that they could. I know that not everything is perfect, but they are being worked on. And seeing all these positive changes in my friend makes me feel better about forcing him to get help because that was something I really did struggle with. But now, there’s no question that it was the right thing to do and I hope that anyone who knows of someone who is at serious risk of harming themselves would do the same. It’s not easy to do, but it was the right thing to do.

And if you are struggling and want help, there are many resources out there. Going to an emergency room is an option if you don’t feel safe. They will help you and make sure that you are safe or get the help that you need. But I know that some people can’t or won’t do that for a variety of reasons. So if you don’t want to do that or are not sure if you need help, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. There are available 24/7 and can offer resources or just be someone to listen to you. Getting help isn’t easy, but hopefully, you will see the good that comes out of it by hearing a little bit of what my friend accomplished since he got help.

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Default ThumbnailSo Many Birthdays and Anniversaries! (or A Month Of Celebrating And Remembering) Default ThumbnailA Non-Surgery Anniversary (or Another Year Of Being A Medical Miracle) Default ThumbnailTrying To Help A Friend (or Why Do Bad Things Happen To Good People?) Default ThumbnailTen Years Ago (or Another Big Milestone) Default ThumbnailSo Grateful To Work From Home (or Just Getting Through The Day) Default ThumbnailIt Can Be Tough To Get Help (or Trying To Be A Good Friend To My Friends)

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Guess Stopping The Medication Was The Right Choice (or Maybe I Should Have Read More Into The Side Effects)

Posted on August 27, 2019 | Comments Off on Guess Stopping The Medication Was The Right Choice (or Maybe I Should Have Read More Into The Side Effects)

I wrote last week about how I was stopping the new medication that I was on for my eating disorder. I was a little disappointed to be stopping it because I wanted to see if it was going to work, but I was just not happy with the side effects that I was having and they were starting to affect my life more than I was ok with. At first, they didn’t seem that bad. But they started to get worse and the benefits I was seeing weren’t worth the issues I was having.

I’ve been slowly decreasing my dosage and it will still be another week before I’m off it completely. And technically the medication can be in my system for another 6 weeks so there is a chance I will still experience some of the side effects for a while once I am done. The thing that bothered me the most and got me to want to stop was the vertigo. And fortunately, that has pretty much stopped. I still have a few moments of vertigo, but they are mild and brief. It’s nothing like what I experienced a week ago when I wasn’t able to sit without falling over. I have a feeling the pins and needles feeling in my hands and feet will take a long time to go away. But that is more of an annoyance to me than an issue so I’m ok with that taking longer.

I did do a lot of research before starting this medication and I was aware of a lot of the side effects. Of course, there are hundreds of potential side effects with any medications so I try to just look at the big ones that people have and not the little random ones. But I guess I should know better than that because I have a history of being the person who gets the one in a million side effects. But I also know that reading all of the random things can be scary and I don’t want to freak myself out before starting something.

I mentioned in my workout recap post that my workouts were not that great last week because I was dealing with horrible nausea again. I also mentioned that I expected that it was going to be an easier week for me because it was supposed to be the week that I got my period so things would be getting better. But I didn’t have my period that week. I knew I wasn’t pregnant and I knew I was under a ton of stress so I didn’t worry too much about it. But when my stress level went down and I still didn’t have my period, I started to worry a little bit since I usually am not late. For some reason, I was looking at the side effects of this medication and happened to see that one of the random and rare things can be irregular or changes with menstrual cycles. And I knew that there was a good chance that the medication was the cause of this.

Irregular cycles could be a good thing if I could guarantee that I would have fewer cycles a year, but it could also make PMS or periods longer (like what I dealt with recently with two weeks of PMS). I don’t want to risk having longer PMS or periods for the off-chance that I will have fewer cycles a year. I want to keep my cycles regular so I know when to expect things and to be able to plan things out. I can’t do anything now since I’m working at coming off the medication now, but I’m so glad I’m doing that because I don’t want to have to deal with this any longer. It’s a side effect I wish I knew about because I might not have taken the risk with taking it knowing how bad things already are for me.

I know that this isn’t my therapist’s fault. She warned me about the major side effects and gave me information on the other side effects. I probably should have been a better advocate for myself and looked into the side effects before taking it, even if that meant going down the rabbit hole and looking at the one in a million ones. I was just so excited to see if this medication was going to work and I didn’t want to look into the problems. But now I’m dealing with the issues with it and I’m just hoping that it’s out of my system soon.

I guess I just have to be grateful that I did decide to stop the medication last week so I already started working on decreasing the dosage so that I am almost done. I didn’t let the idea of success cloud my head and make me ignore the pain I was in. And now I just have to work through this and hopefully, I’ll be back to my normal self again soon.

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Default ThumbnailA Quick Vyvanse Update (or I Guess Forgetting Helps Time Pass) Default ThumbnailAlmost Giving It A Full Try (or Ending Things Early) Default ThumbnailAnother Quick Therapy Appointment (or Video Appointments Make Things Easy) Default ThumbnailNo More Late Nights? (or Is My New Medication Making Me A Party Pooper?) Default ThumbnailSome More Virtual Therapy (or Trying Another Medication) Default ThumbnailSkipping A Transformation Challenge (or This Was An Easy Choice For Me)

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