Skipping my meds today to see how I do. So far I seem to be a little less lightheaded but if any of the symptoms I’ve been having are connected to the drug, I’m going to feel residual effects for months. The fact that it’s lessened and that I don’t have any anxiety confirms my suspicion even more. I’m definitely going to give my doctor an ultimatum, either change my medication or lower my dose to 50. If she won’t do that, fuck her. At that point, I’ll decide whether or not to seek a new doctor or just give up on my health altogether for a while.

The crystals reflecting the sunlight streaming through the carport in the late afternoon cast what looks like a bunch of flying rainbows in the dining and living room area. It looks so cool.

I wasn’t anxious yesterday but I was lightheaded. My vision is way worse too, especially in my right eye. I’m wearing an old pair of bifocals and I find it’s a bit easier to see with those than with my progressives. I wonder what that means.

It’s weird how he and I are going blind and deaf all of a sudden only I would prefer to have his problem. I’m already mostly deaf in one ear but I’m used to it and my other ear makes up for it. He wants his hearing back but I keep telling him he’s not missing anything but annoying sounds that he says he doesn’t mind. Wish I didn’t mind hearing landscaping every single day, along with the traffic/planes, and freeway car stereos that can be heard in the front part of the house, especially on warmer nights. I’ll never understand why most people aren’t bothered by such sounds but obviously, most people don’t mind daily landscaping, power tools and other equipment running, traffic or loud music. If enough people were bothered by these things there would be stricter laws regulating them. That’s one area I would love to be “normal” in! You do adapt somewhat the more you’re exposed to something but some things are easier to get used to than others.

What’s a little worrisome about Tom’s case is that according to his research, if you don’t regain hearing within two weeks you probably never will. The way they treat it is either with steroids or a steroid injection directly into the ear. Ouch!

It’s pretty fucked up that he can’t get in soon enough to have a chance to regain his hearing. They could at least give him a hearing test to see how much he’s lost but no. It’s ridiculous the way we have to fight with doctors, their incompetent staff, and the fucking insurance companies. I thought about moving to a country that has Universal Health Care but that wouldn’t necessarily mean the doctors would be any better than they are here. Who knows? I just know that I get so frustrated at times that I really miss all those years I didn’t see doctors or need medication during the first 14 years or so of the millennium. If they keep this shit up I just might return to those days.

Even scarier was this case he read where a woman went deaf in one ear and eventually lost the other ear as well. That would be absolutely horrible if he ended up totally deaf! He doesn’t have a knack for languages like I do whether they’re spoken or signed, and getting him to learn to sign and read signs would be a real challenge. It’s even difficult for me to read some signers if they’re sloppy, and yes, just like some people write sloppy, some people don’t exactly make their ASL easy to read. It would just make life really hard for him and I know he would hate it. Sometimes I think I wouldn’t mind the peace that it would bring even if it meant never hearing music again, but I know there would be plenty of hardships along with the peace. Still, if one of us absolutely had to go deaf, I would certainly rather it not be him. Anyway, he’s going to be contacting the insurance company. He also has to take the car to be smog tested.

Having just gotten royalty payments for book sales in India, Japan and the UK, I’m now thinking that perhaps Amazon hasn’t been ripping off its authors like I thought they were. Still doesn’t explain why they couldn’t reply to my messages, but maybe the only problem was sales not showing up on my book sale reports and not that I wasn’t getting paid. Guess I’ll leave my books on their shelves and get back to work. Going to finish up a couple of stories I’m doing just for fun, including the Palma story, and then I guess I’ll get serious again. This means going through and editing old stuff as well as fine-tuning any current stuff I may decide to submit for publication.

We went to Rite Aid yesterday and I got bright mint green nail polish with a colorful confetti topcoat. Like I needed just one more bottle of nail polish, LOL.

Also got this blue and green glass dragonfly that you clip onto plant pots. It didn’t quite fit on the pot my cactus is in so I stuck it on the upper arm of the bench swing.

Lastly, we got a couple of sweet treats and I finally found a pair of those clog slippers I’ve been wanting to try in size small. They have a leopard pattern on them. They’re cheaper than the ones I was going to get on Amazon.

Took my bike out earlier and I don’t know why my heart had to be pounding its ass off after just two rounds around the circle but it was. At least it settled down fast enough and I didn’t freak out or anything like that. As I was coming around in back I spotted Mary exiting her car in her garage and said hello. She said hi and remembered meeting me last summer and the house I live in but didn’t remember my name. She said at 86 she’s entitled to have a bad memory. Then she goes, “Wait a minute. I had a birthday yesterday. I’m 87 now.”

LMAO! She cracks me up. I like her.

She complimented my bike and said that because I’m “so little” I can get youths’ bikes. Actually, I think it’s a woman’s bike. It didn’t really specify child or adult but since it has a rider height range of 4 ft 6 in - 5 ft 6 in, it could be either. My helmet is definitely a kid’s helmet. I can’t exactly fit into all grown-up things.

Anyway, Mary said she could see where it would be noisier where our house is due to all the traffic since we’re right on a busy road and all that. Yes, and I can see where her place would be quieter being in back by the cemetery. She would still hear some landscaping and definitely freeway traffic but she wouldn’t hear nearly as much traffic inside the park.

So then I rode back around the circle and there was Joe putting the mail in the mailboxes. I spotted Bob and Virginia just beyond him sitting on their patio and Virginia said something like, “Wow, you’re ablaze with color.”

Between my bike, outfit and helmet, yeah, I was a little colorful. Joe said I looked like Mrs. Pee-wee Herman, LOL. I asked if that was good or bad and he just laughed. Well, I’m definitely colorful, weird and eccentric but I wouldn’t want the real Mrs. Pee-wee sitting on me. She could probably crush me!

So my bike ride turned into a social chat but with all good people. I even exchanged hellos with Mr. Twenties when I was dumping trash on the other side of the house.

I had some interesting dreams last night. I had a second dream suggesting I’m done with periods, and then something about the black bitch in Arizona’s daughter dying.

Then I was taking a shower in this bathroom that had a radio built into its doorknob and I was trying to figure out how to work it.

Most interesting was that I had a dream that my thyroid numbers were normal. My T4 is but there’s no way my TSH is.