Ugh, how did two appointments turn into four more? I swear appointments are like cockroaches. They just keep multiplying. But as Tom said, do you want to get better? Yes! Yes, I do.

So I met with Rhonda at 7:30 yesterday morning. While I do appreciate virtual appointments over in-person appointments, damn, was she hard to understand at times! She was garbly and squeaky. Plus, there was a lag in hearing each other, so we would sometimes accidentally talk over each other.

She brought up things I didn't think she would, and didn't bring up things I thought she would. I thought she would bring up female exams, but instead she brought up how concerned she is about my blood pressure always being high every time I go to the office. She asked me to test my blood pressure with her, so I ran and got my wrist cuff, and my systolic number was through the roof. I don't know that I trust it to be accurate, but I'm going to be restarting losartan now that I suspect the stuffy nose I thought was due to that was actually because my turbinates were swelling. I'm to take half a pill at the beginning of my day and the other half before bed.

I asked her if high blood pressure could cause fatigue, and she said it can. But then when I checked a couple of different AI models, they said it doesn't usually cause that. So just when I was about to wonder why she wasn't very truthful, I went to a medical site that said yes, it can cause fatigue because your heart is straining to work as hard anymore. I found that it can also cause arrhythmias, which I didn't know, and even tinnitus. I don't know that it's causing my PVCs because Jessie has that too, and her blood pressure is kind of low. I wonder about the tinnitus, though. I thought it was just age, but who knows. I do sometimes get pulsatile tinnitus when I stand up quickly and feel the blood gushing in my neck.

So we talked about the fatigue and all the possibilities that could be causing it. Now that my CPAP is working more efficiently after the nose job and I can increase the pressure, we're hoping I'll continue to get good AHI scores, which will help, and it seems like it might. Meanwhile, she was a little surprised to learn that no one's monitoring my CPAP and wants me to go to a pulmonologist who's also a sleep expert. I was a little worried when she said he was in my town and that she would refer me to the one we didn't like, but it's actually the one I like best. She's mailing me a referral to him as well as another order for CAC testing at a place in Trinity that accepts my insurance, and a lab order.

We agreed that I'll try to get my TSH under control on my own first. She wanted to do another virtual appointment in 6 to 8 weeks, but she was pretty booked out and what she did have didn't align with my schedule, so I'll be seeing her in 10 weeks. Before that, I'll go to the lab, but I won't have to fast. If my TSH is still elevated, then yeah, we're going to have to start by adding a 100-microgram pill once a week and see if that helps.

Today and yesterday I haven't felt really cold, and it almost feels like some days I'm hypo and other days I'm okay. She's not sure whether absorption issues are a factor or not or if the gland is simply dying off. It was a little strange that she asked me to confirm that I do have a thyroid since she sent me for an ultrasound not long ago. Also, wouldn't I be well over 100mcg if I didn't?

It was amazing how quickly I got a clinical note detailing what we discussed. She didn't miss a thing I said! I guess they record it or something. It doesn't bother me at all, unlike how it used to annoy me when my first Cali dentist would include notes on what we discussed with the bills she'd send us. Like my being multilingual had anything to do with needing a new crown.

I forgot to mention my nasty fall the other day. I'm lucky I wasn't seriously hurt. I was at my desk off the kitchen when I reached forward for something and the chair slipped out from under me. It happened in a nanosecond, and I had no time to brace myself or grab onto anything for support. My inner elbow smacked the desk, leaving nasty bruises, and I crashed into the side of the chair as I went down, bruising the area a few inches below the nape of my neck. The fall felt so violent and rough on me. I'm definitely getting too old and heavy to be tossed around so viciously! Again, I'm lucky it wasn't worse. Had I gone down on my nose or teeth, I definitely could have ended up with a lot more than just a couple of nasty bruises.

I had a really bizarre dream about Officer Johnson, and again it made me wonder if she was thinking of me and that triggered the dream, or if my having the dream is going to cause her to think of me. But I don't think she has thought of me in years, probably not since shortly after I left Estrella. Sometimes I'm tempted to start allowing messages again, but I don't want to hear from anyone I don't want to hear from, even though I suppose I could ignore or even block them. Then again, why would I hear from anyone I actually wanted to hear from?

In the dream, I pulled some kind of prank on her by calling and leaving a message somewhere. I don't know where I called or what I said, but I didn't really expect her to call me back. Yet whoever I called passed my number along to her because a woman who appeared to be a good friend of mine was listening to my voice messages on my phone when she handed it to me and said someone named Rachel left me a message.

First I was shocked that there was a message from her, and then I thought, Wow, so that's her name? Then I thought I would make my next blog title: I Now Know Her Name Is Rachel.

Then I remembered that for some reason I disguised my voice and gave a false name in my outgoing voice message. I hoped this would confuse her if she was pissed at me. I grabbed the phone from my friend, played the message, and heard, "Hi, Jodi, this is Rachel." Her voice sounded kind of weird and definitely not very feminine. Then she hesitated as if unsure of what to say next. I could hear birds chirping in the background and remembered that she liked them as pets.

Finally she said, "Well, this is one non-entrained phone call." In the dream, I didn't know what that meant, so I looked it up and was told it meant surprised or something like that, even though it doesn't really. Then she asked me to call her back and hung up, leaving me unsure if she sounded angry or not. I hoped that in my mind she simply wanted to catch up and see how my life had been, even though I doubted that.

We still lived in Maricopa, and I was worried that my stupid prank may have jeopardized our home or caused other problems if she was pissed at me. I was unsure whether to call her back and torn on telling Tom about what I did and her call. I thought it would be exciting to tell him that I now knew her name and that she called me, but I didn't want him to worry about how and why that came about in the first place.

Speaking of where we're living, I really get the feeling this is our last stop. This is our last car, and our last house. For a while I missed the excitement of change and variety. While a part of me will always miss those adventurous times, it's getting less and less with time. Stability is what we need as older people, even if this place isn't perfect and I can't stand one of our neighbors.

Sometimes I still feel like life is over, and we've done everything we're going to do as far as anything all that new and adventurous. Besides, I've been to so many places and done so many things that things lose their newness and excitement over time anyway. But the good thing is I get a little more okay with that over time, even if, yes, we're essentially just living our lives until it's over. I mean, I know that every living human being is doing that, but still. I can't go so far as to say we're in death's waiting room, but we are pretty much just surviving, trying to enjoy life and our hobbies, and navigate health issues (especially me) until our number is up.

Since I have been doing a little better health-wise overall, and therefore better emotionally, I'm not as anxious to get to the finish line as I was for a while there. So yeah, I'm going to stick around and enjoy the new adult coloring books that are coming today. I just don't know if they'll arrive before I crash.

I'm also more okay with not having local friends and family that aren't toxic. I get Andy's point that he made about having people around if we get in a jam, but how often do we get in jams as retirees? It does kind of suck that I wouldn't have any friends I could call upon to take me to visit Tom if, God forbid, he was ever in the hospital, but there is such a thing as Uber and Lyft, and I wouldn't want to put anyone out to begin with. In other words, even if I had tons of friends and family willing to take me in if Tom died first, as I expect he will, I wouldn't want to put them out. Besides, I would be way too miserable to go on anyway, and we live in such a high-tech world that it would be very hard for me to navigate on my own. Sure, I'm much more tech-savvy than your average 60-year-old, but at the same time I'm not. Things aren't like they were in the '80s and '90s. Fixing things around the house, as well as dealing with electronics and just choosing insurance plans, would be damn near impossible for me. Uber and Lyft or not, transportation would still be an issue, too. Also, you don't want to recover from surgery all by yourself. If I had to have surgery with no one to drive me home and look out for me, well, I guess I'd be pretty screwed. So, as I've always said, I'm on his timeline.

Sometimes I sit back and imagine a 10-year-old kid in a loving home with a loving family at Christmastime or something like that, all excited about what her presents may be and the fact that her grandparents are staying with them for a while, and I relish feeling so safe and naive to the dangers and true hardships of the world.

When I look at old pictures from when I was a kid, it's hard to believe I was once in the same room with three grandparents, two parents, two siblings, two aunts, two uncles, and anywhere from one to four first cousins. It's even hard to believe I was once in the same room with multiple family members on his side.

A random memory came to me the other day of the journal sitting on the table in my parents' hotel room the last time I ever saw them in the late '90s in Phoenix. I still wonder what she wrote in that little book, but I think it's a pretty good guess to assume there were plenty of negative things about me, mostly about my appearance. It's sad just how obsessed they were with appearance. That almost seemed to matter more to them than what was going on inside my body or my head.

It was incredibly hurtful and insulting the day my mother kindly informed me in a letter that she didn't want to hear about "babies" anymore after I stupidly confided in them about our difficulties conceiving—not that that one didn't work out for the better in the end. Part of why I don't have friends isn't just because I don't trust people but because I do a fine job of keeping my own self entertained. So much so that I know I would have resented having to share some of my time with a child. Call me selfish, but the stress and all the work and money that would have gone into that would have been a killer, even though I suppose our lives would have turned out differently as well. I doubt we ever would have been able to leave Phoenix.

Okay, so that concludes this long, rambling entry about what's going on and all the thoughts that run through my mind. I'm going to hop in the shower now. We're going to Walgreens this morning to pick up my new losartan prescription as well as my levothyroxine refill. Yes, I'm going to get a candy bar while I'm at it. I'm only pre-diabetic, not diabetic, lol. Plus, I have plenty of time before she tests my A1C again.

Sure enough, instead of simply replying on the portal telling me to use my best judgment where the NAD is concerned because OTC stuff isn't regulated, they had to call. Not only did they have to call, but they couldn't leave a message even though I gave them permission a long time ago to do that. Instead, I was asked to call back. Then, sure enough, I go to call back, and I'm told that the portal is the easiest way to communicate. Yeah, but they won't fucking use it!!! The girl I talked to said she was new, but that's no reason not to look in my fucking file and see that I prefer portals to phone calls. Why ask patients if you're not going to honor their request? So again, with the next medical group, I'll choose what they want rather than what I want, and I won't even bother signing up for the portal.

My eyes are getting bad again, and I don't know why. Bad again, as in crusty when I get up and teary when I'm awake. I'm still using the drops, though.

I tried yet another tactic to get spammers to leave me the fuck alone on Penana, but no matter what I say or do, they just won't back off. I posted notes saying that anyone trying to sell me something or to get me to connect with them on other sites would be reported and deleted. I also posted a note saying I was leaving Penana, but none of this did me any good. These messages were right there in front of their fucking faces, yet they still tried to get me to email them and sell me their "services."

I was anxious most of yesterday, so I'm skipping my levo today. I think that's part of why I've been feeling shitty lately at times and having my sleep broken up. It hasn't been fragmented so much as there's been a break in the middle of it. I'm also starting to wonder if breathing issues are part of the reason for that. It seems to happen when I'm on my stomach. My AHI score has been a little elevated, and I felt short of breath when I woke up. I would take clonazepam a lot less often than I do if I stopped having broken-up sleep like this.

Anyway, I'm sick of getting stuck in this twisted game of "Would You Rather." It's either energy and anxiety or fatigue and cold.

The breakage curse lives on! Tom is out picking up my prescription, which I was too tired to accompany him to get, so I figured I would catch up on some blogging. They say things happen in threes, so hopefully, between the refrigerator, then the toilet, and now his old Google Pixel phone crapping out, this will be it for a while. Luckily, we hadn't turned in my old Android or iPhone for recycling, so he was able to transfer to the iPhone since it's faster than the Android. He'll still eventually get a new Android because iPhones suck. It's just a question of when. There have been nothing but delays! This is exactly why I decided to drop the rest of the upgrades, forget about aesthetics, and just focus on functionality, because there’s simply no getting ahead.

While I was able to dodge storms or the threat of them by some miracle the last time I was on nights, it looks like things are going to be back to normal next time I'm on nights. I'm slowly rolling onto nights, staying up to just past midnight. In a few days, there are going to be storms, as well as shortly before my appointment, as is usually the case. I almost always have to deal with storms before appointments, which is part of why I try to keep most appointments during the dry season. However, we do have some storms during the drier times.

There is some good news, and that's that I can now handle higher pressure settings! Unless last night was a one-off and just a fluke, it seems that the reason I was having so many mouth farts was due to my swollen nasal turbinates. I guess that now that there isn't so much resistance, it doesn't have to increase the pressure as much. When I first checked the max pressure for last night, and it said 7.8, I first thought I forgot to save the settings I tweaked because after having it set on 8 for a while, 7.8 is where it would usually max out. So in some ways, my sleep apnea is better, not worse. Still can't sleep without a CPAP, though, since the closures occur in my throat and I'll just have the snorties if I do. I would at least have to sleep elevated for sure, and I would rather not do that.

I'm still tired today, but for different reasons. I don't regret splurging on all the Chinese food I got, but it's a classic reminder, after having horribly fragmented sleep and waking up constantly, that processed and fried foods really do mess with your sleep. If you wake up a lot and you don't cook, I would seriously suggest learning! It isn't that hard to throw uncooked pieces of chicken in an oven along with a potato or to fry up a fish fillet or some eggs, etc. I definitely sleep more soundly when I eat clean.

I feel absolutely heartbroken for my friend Becky now. She lost her husband last week. She said on her wall that it was sudden, and he didn't suffer. He was Tom's age, and they had been married for 12 years. I remember when they got married in Florida. It's so sad that they only got to live in their retirement home for seven years. Becky is only a couple of years younger than me and way too young to be a widow, yet probably too old to meet anyone new. I know she has a very active social life, as well as three kids and other family members and friends, but I worry about her being all alone out there. A part of me longs to reach out to her. I have yet to hear from her directly, which is understandable, and beg her to move here, even though I know she hates humidity and all that.

Here we go again with the bed and back issues. I have no regrets about getting a waterbed, but I totally regret getting a shallow soft-side with tubes. We have other more important things going on at the moment, like my crown, getting the new refrigerator, water filter, and dealing with the toilet, but as soon as we can ever get a break between things breaking, we talked about building a hard side. Buying a hard side would cost way more, so we realized we're better off having Lowe's cut wood to the size we want and doing it ourselves. I definitely want something deeper and a single full-wave bladder rather than tubes.

Just like with my previous mattresses that weren't waterbeds, there's a bit of a dent forming where I sleep. I don't think the black foam underneath is breaking down, but I think the foam in the cover could be. To boost me up a bit more, I wedged some memory foam between the black foam covering the tubes and the soft cover. Not sure if this is going to help my back, though. I've been waking up with lower back pain as the bed gets saggier and appears to be losing water when in fact the sides are actually stretching. Part of it could also be the foam breaking down. I'm a little worried that I might overheat this way, but we'll find out.

Damn, do I miss the old hard-side king-size waterbed I had in Arizona! It was so much easier to make as well. I just threw a piece of foam on top of it, then a cover sheet over that, and simply stuffed it down along the sides. You can put regular sheets on soft-sides, but because it's so soft and the mattress is only 8" thick, they slip and bunch.

They say it's going to be wetter this summer here. Oh, of course it will be. Now that my nose is done and I'm not suffocating awake, why not throw in more thunderstorms to wake me up with those instead? As it is, I'm pretty tired today because I was up longer than I wanted to be due to a 90-minute power failure. It would have been worse if it had happened the day before, though.

My eyes are still a little oozy and itchy, so I don't know if this is a permanent side effect of surgery or not. I just wish I had been warned up front. That's my only complaint. When trying to take a nap earlier without the CPAP, I could see that even if I didn't need a CPAP anymore, I would probably have to sleep with nose strips because even though my nose is much more open, it's not like it used to be. Even Tom has noticed a difference over the years, since everyone has a degree of nasal valve collapse as they age.

I'm no longer sure eggs really help with energy because the last two or three times I had them, they didn't seem to make a difference. I've been making them for Tom because the plasma place recommended he have that a few days before protein testing to help boost his protein levels.

I was a little frustrated to wake up to find a voice message from my insurance company. I was like, why do I have to do any health work now? So I called them back, and all they wanted to do was tell me the same thing they sent me a letter about, and that was to set up either a virtual appointment or have a nurse come out, and I would receive 250 points for it. As I told her, they already notified me about this, and I do plan to schedule it just as soon as I get my dental and ENT appointments out of the way. Or at least the ENT and the first dental appointment. The second one will just be to have the permanent crown placed.

Written yesterday afternoon…

I was discussing what the doctor said with Tom, and because I was so out of it, I misunderstood some things. When the doctor said the symptoms seemed more bothersome than what he saw upon examination, it didn’t mean he didn’t believe me. He just meant that he normally wouldn’t operate on anyone who looked like me unless they complained of symptoms. He believed me when I said that while I was fine when I was up and about, I was anything but fine in my sleep. That’s why he was so aggressive with the turbinates, and yes, he did file some of the septum bone down.

I fed the surgery report to AI to have it summarize and interpret whether it thought the doctors made the right call by skipping valve repair and going right to the turbinates and the septum, and it agreed. I know it seems I always have to worry about something, LOL. But until I know if I’m breathing better, yes, I’m going to worry about whether this was all worth it.

One thing I can say for sure is that there was definitely a lot less pain than with the cholecystectomy. With this, I’ve had very little pain in my nose, which is where I expected most of it to be. Instead, it ended up in my head, throat, and eyes.

Of the three hospitals I’ve been in, I think this one was the best. They weren’t as nice in Brooksville, where they did my gallbladder, and Tampa General was kind of crazy. The tall, slim, dark-haired, dark-eyed recovery nurse was the best. I just think it would have been nice if they had prevented my eyes from becoming infected.

LOL, at least I didn’t pee. That was one of the things on the surgery report… urine output: none.

Since he said I was healing nicely and it would be safe to stop it, I decided to drop the prednisone since it could mess with my stomach and make my heart race a bit. I accidentally skipped my levo. My brain is so fried that I took it out of habit like I normally do when I get up, but then when I took the other drugs, I remembered that I couldn’t take the prednisone on an empty stomach, so I ate—and that would pretty much cancel out the levothyroxine. Oh well. It was accumulating a bit anyway.

Tom just got back from donating, and I was able to make us some scrambled eggs even though I could barely taste them. I just needed something with more substance in me. I’ll let him empty the dishwasher, but he doesn’t mind. He’s always offering to help, but because he does so much as it is, I try to do all I can.

This afternoon…

I thought it was the prednisone—although I’m sure I would be having issues by now if I were still taking it—but it was the amoxicillin-clav that was causing the side effects in my stomach. It was also causing my heart to race, so I had to stop it. I let my ENT know and asked Rhonda for Diflucan.

Really getting sick of this endless suffering and totally regret not putting myself out of my misery years ago! Slept horribly, and I’m totally exhausted. No energy to do much more than lie around. Now that some air can pass through my nose, I started trying to breathe through it in my sleep, and just like before surgery, I couldn’t get enough air and woke up. The inside is still swollen, crusty, and stuffy. AI says I’ll notice 30 to 50% better airflow after the stents come out, but that’s still days away. I feel very run-down and like I have a bad head cold.

Jan 2026

1/1/26 Another VZ challenge came out. Part of me wishes they would space them out a little more. Seems that as soon as one ends, another one starts. But I do love the challenges, so reaching Canada will have to wait a bit as I do this 112-mile challenge with rides in SoCal, Mexico, Argentina, and Italy. Slept well and got my highest sleep score ever of 95, but didn’t get enough deep sleep, so I took a short nap. I think I only slept as soundly as I did because of the cocktail of drugs I took the night before: half a clonazepam, Zyrtec, and even a couple of ibuprofen. Listening to fireworks for a few hours now. Luckily, they’re not nearly as obnoxious as July 4th. Sipping Chardonnay and doing some editing. Tom crashed at his usual time. I watched the ball go down too, and as always, part of me wished I were there. Added more songs to my Spotify favorites list and did more name checks by the month on PB using Gemini. Abby still doesn’t appear to check out my PB posts, so I blocked her latest account to see if it piques her curiosity enough to check out Blogger. When I see that it doesn’t, I decided I am going to go ahead and keep that blog private for now for sure. Saw that Toni is on Melanie’s friend list because she “liked” one of her posts. Yeah, I figured as much. If I ask to connect with someone on Facebook, it would be really nice if they just politely said “no thank you” or “I’m not looking to add people now” instead of going into some grand story. First she ignored my request, hoping I would forget about it, but when I mentioned it again, she said some shit about setting up Instagram. Not sure what that had to do with connecting on Facebook, but it’s obvious she doesn’t wish to add me, and all she had to do was say so. Deleted Eileen. She’s ignored my messages and has pretty much gone Arteaga on me. The Toni who’s my neighbor definitely doesn’t seem to be around. Just don’t know if she’s staying with someone or ill in the hospital. ​​​​​​​So what will 2026 hold for me? More of the same old never-ending health issues? More sleep disturbances? I really hope not! I really hope this is the year I get my energy back so I can be more active more consistently. I don’t want to give up my life. I just want to give up suffering. Some days are really, really hard on me. Very debilitating physically and therefore puts me in a shitty mood emotionally. I really hope this trend can end and that the next long-term problem isn’t so damn debilitating. When it comes to anything that interferes with either your breathing or your sleep, you’re pretty much fucked. My stomach has been gassy, bloated and nauseous lately, and I think it's the B-12 gummies I've been taking. It isn't the B-12 so much as the fillers in the gummies, from what I read. Fake sugar is not kind to my stomach. Meanwhile, Tom gets the kind that dissolves on your tongue for free through Medicare. So I'm gonna take some of those because he gets more than he can take anyway. I was worried at first because the dosage was so much higher, but then I learned that it's water-soluble and the body only uses what it needs, sort of like vitamin C.​​​​​​​ Later... Another wonderful day of feeling absolutely miserable, thanks to sleeping just as miserably. The first part of my sleep was fragmented, and the rest of it was disrupted by allergies/nasal valves. My God, I am so, SO fucking SICK of this shit! It has to end soon. It just has to. Somehow, some way. Either the doctors have to help me or I have to end it. I would still prefer not to give up my life and abandon Tom. The problem is I’m not able to really enjoy and live that life if I’m exhausted out of my fucking mind so much of the time. What good am I to him if I can’t even help myself? The fatigue is totally wearing me down, both physically and emotionally. Been having stomach issues as well. I’ve got bloating, constipation, diarrhea, and a little bit of nausea, and I’m still not sure what’s causing it. Even though Ray and the honker's vehicles were here, they didn’t appear to be home last night. Tonight, however, the dark truck is parked in Ray's driveway, and he’s parked in front of his lanai. Really, really hope to hell they don’t do windows while I’m sleeping! Believe it or not, the honker didn’t ride or turn on the motorcycle once last month. I’m still expecting him to make up for lost time soon enough with the projects and the motorcycle, though. Tom isn’t surprised, saying people tend to ride less and less as they get older. Well, right now, Ray is more of a concern than the honker. Deciding I judged Vanessa a little too harshly, I told her she could text me whatever was going on with her whenever she wanted because, after all, I’m just a boring, aging retiree with nothing but health problems. She still reads me at times, although I didn’t mention that, of course. I started the VZ challenge, but since I’m so tired, I don’t know if I can make any progress today. Anyway, I’m just really frustrated and feeling hopeless where my sleep is concerned. I’ve been saying I’m going to sleep elevated, but I haven’t yet because I just don’t like it. That’s got to change starting tonight. I’ve got to start with the small wedge pillow and see what happens because it’s the only way I’m going to know. If I still have problems, then I’ll jump to the large wedge pillow and test that out next. Meanwhile, I looked up foods, drinks, and medications that can interfere with deep sleep and cause fragmented sleep. Rather than drive myself crazy poring through a long list of things to avoid as it gets close to my bedtime, I decided to just keep it simple and make sure I stop eating and drinking everything but water and herbal tea 4 hours before I think I’m going to crash. It will be 6 to 8 hours for caffeine. I think that taking my steroid nasal spray before bed was a dumb idea because it came up on the list of possibilities for causing fragmented sleep. Another thing was benzos. They help you fall asleep but can cause frags. Really worried about my nose and allergies. I don’t know for sure that they would be willing to do surgery on the valves, and I still can’t believe there’s a medication that could help me, since I’ve already tried the gold standard treatment for this kind of shit and it’s done me little to no good. Plus, there's my sensitivity to consider. I worry my only option is going to be what isn't an option—to get out of Florida. First, I don’t have the energy to move. Secondly, the only thing we could afford if we moved to a drier climate would be an apartment. Why would I want to trade allergies waking me up for the people around me waking me up? So I’m at the point where it’s come down to do or die because I can’t live with this kind of sleep deprivation and fatigue for the rest of Tom’s life. They either help me or I’m gone. At this point, there simply is no happy medium because I’m not willing to accept a life of feeling like shit most of the time. No matter how good your life is—and mine is just fine—you don’t really have a life if you don’t have your health. Anything that interferes with either your breathing or your sleep really makes one’s life hell. Well, I don’t know what, if any, kind of an afterlife awaits us when we die, but I’ll be ready to find out if my health doesn’t improve in this life because I’ve had enough. To survive eight years of hardcore anxiety just to get hit with this for the last half a decade or so makes me feel totally beyond cursed. 1/2/26 I have been going through hell and feeling so cursed from above, whether or not there is actually anything up there. Why does something not want me to sleep?? Why is it so important that I be exhausted so much of the time?? What did I do to deserve this?? How will I ever get through this?? Will it ever end?? Will it be replaced with new problems if it does?? These are the questions running through my mind. I wish I had Tom’s confidence in my allergies/valves/sleep issues being resolved! Anyway, I slept worse last time around than before and before was bad enough. First, my sleep was fragmented, even though I avoided foods, drinks, and medications that are said to cause fragmented sleep. The first time I got up, I took half a clonazepam. A few hours later, when breathing issues woke me up, I took melatonin and had a strange, vivid dream I don’t remember, along with a nightmare. In the nightmare, we had a utility room in the house, and we had a shopping cart that we kept in it, of all things. I knew Tom was out that day, so when I woke up to find someone had placed the shopping cart at the foot of the bed—something Tom wouldn’t do—I knew someone had gotten into the house. In RL, I was scrambling in my mind as to what I should do. I tried sleeping elevated, but unless I have no choice, it's just really uncomfortable on my back. I didn’t want to ditch the CPAP for now and go back to snorting and feeling like I ran a marathon in my sleep every time I got up. Yet the oral mask was a bust, and I certainly couldn’t stick with the nasal mask if I couldn’t breathe through my nose. Luckily, I saved the hybrid. I’m going to have to use that even though the harness isn’t as comfortable, and sleeping on my stomach is going to be a little tricky with it. I managed to nap with it for an hour or so. It would be great if I could manage to adapt to this, because that would eliminate mouth farts, chipmunks, and the need for elevation, not that that's helping anyway. Could still go hissing like a mad cat or whistling like a tea kettle, though. Damn, do I hope I can get my nose fixed and into a mouth guard instead, but I don't dare get my hopes up. I've always been a pessimist and I don't see that changing. Because I’ve been sleeping in spurts, I have been utterly batshit exhausted and brain-dead. I can’t think straight, and I feel like shit. It practically sucks the life right out of me just to do this journal entry. I really, really don’t know how much more of this I can take! Remembering back three or four years ago to the last ENT that would actually see me in that shitty group I first went to, when I told the doctor my nose had been stuffy lately, I thought he had said something about a collapsed septum. Yet, knowing what I know now and the fact that septums don’t collapse, I’m pretty sure he said I had collapsed valves. 1/2/26 I’ve been so brain-dead that I commented on one of Todd's posts from the wrong X account. The one I would have preferred to keep to myself. It’s hard to keep accounts straight there, as opposed to if you have multiple accounts on Facebook or whatever. I think I’m just going to stick with my main account there for Spaces. I won’t do written posts there. I’ll save those for Bluesky. To my surprise, Eileen noticed I unfollowed her and requested to re-add me. I unfollowed her because I thought her account might be hacked, or she’d just gotten sick of me. I don’t know. It looked like her account had been taken over by AI or something. Although she’s still here and Tom saw her earlier, I’m not hearing from Toni, but oh well. I know she has a lot going on. Nothing from Vanessa either, but I’m not surprised. I also wouldn’t be surprised if I did eventually hear from her. She’s just going to make me wait for a while first, but that’s OK, because I know it’s going to be all about her when and if I do eventually hear from her. 1/3/26 Talk about bipolar energy levels! Yesterday I was horribly exhausted and in a shitty mood because of it. But I finally managed to get decent enough sleep with the hybrid. I don’t want to get too excited, though, because I had a good run the first time around with the oral mask yet that ended up being a disaster. I was a little tired and winded when I first got up because it was on the lowest pressure setting for starters. We’re slowly ramping the pressure, but this is the kind of mask that can’t handle higher pressure as well. The bigger the mask, the easier it leaks. It’s not as comfortable as the nasal mask, but it’s certainly more comfortable than the oral mask. I have a feeling that it’s going to be months, if ever, before I’m back in the nasal mask again. I took a full clonazepam before bed, and yes, my sleep was a little fraggy, but the times I woke up were only for a minute, except for when I used the bathroom. I got two hours of much-needed deep sleep. I don’t expect to sleep as well next time around. It’s not as easy to get enough deep sleep as you age. I thought I would be a little tired today, since it usually takes two or three good sleeps to pay off a sleep debt, but I actually have pretty good energy. Maybe it was the B12 I took earlier. Still wondering if that’s messing up my stomach. My stomach is a little better than it was, but I still have some issues at times. It’s most likely connected to the B12 or my cholecystectomy. The only thing I’m not too happy about right now is the fact that my package said it was out for delivery, but I didn’t get it. It’s some little shit carrier I’ve never heard of. Now I have to wait until Monday. There’s no excuse for the fact that the damn package has been in my state since the 29th and I’m not going to get it until the 5th. Got some rain today but no thunder. It hasn’t been as cold either. We’ve only needed the heat four or five times so far this year. While my new brown sugar body scrub smells divine, I can’t smell the colorful shower bombs I got. I do like the little temporary tats it came with, though. One is a heart and arrow, and the other is a tiger. I immediately thought of my Canadian buddy when I saw that. I feel like I’m forgetting something, but I can’t think of it. For now, I’m going to spend the rest of my day/night playing around in VR and editing. I might quit doing VZ's challenges because where they used to include beautiful rides, they’ve been sending us to the slums lately and it's getting old. I don’t want to ride through run-down cities, highways, and industrial areas. I want beautiful countrysides and quaint little villages. 1/5/26 After a great day yesterday, I’m back to feeling as miserable as I was two days ago. I’m horribly exhausted and brain-dead. If I had to handwrite journals like back in the old days, it would be really hard for me to keep up that way. My sleep got broken up, and I’m still under the influence of melatonin, but mostly clonazepam. Clonazepam has a long half-life of 30 to 50 hours. I went to bed with nothing, and then four hours later, the hybrid mask started leaking at the side of my nose, blowing air up toward my eye, and making a hissing sound. I also felt like I just wasn’t getting enough air, even though technically one can breathe just fine even with the CPAP turned off, because there are plenty of ventilation holes for exhalation relief. I guess I was just panicky. So I took 0.5 mg of a melatonin gummy, hoping to fall back asleep, but I couldn’t. I still felt like I was suffocating. So I got up and took half a clonazepam. I might have subconsciously tried to breathe through my fucked up nose in my sleep as my jaw relaxed. The thing is that even though the frame and mask are a size small, they’re still slightly big for me. I may be heavy, but I otherwise have child-sized features. I’m barely even 5 ft tall. So Tom put tape on the nasal part of the mask because I wanted to see if that would force me to breathe out of my mouth more often, as well as stop it from leaking. That didn’t quite feel right, so I removed the tape and tightened the harness, and that seemed to help. By then, I was so fed up that I said fuck it to the CPAP for the moment, took another half of clonazepam, threw a nose strip on my nose, and shoved a nasal dilator as far up my nose as I could get it. That’s another thing right there. If you look at people wearing nasal dilators, you can’t see the tubes. But if I were to try to shove this thing all the way up my nose, it would practically be in my brain thanks to my kiddy-sized little button nose. So I took my 10-year-old-sized body back to bed and slept for another four hours, though I knew I was screwed and destined to be exhausted when I got up. Despite getting a good total of REM sleep and deep sleep between the two sleep sessions, the two-hour break in sleep screwed me, along with the drugs in my system. Things just aren't like they were in my twenties, when I would wake up from those killer asthma attacks and be up for an hour or two until I settled down enough to return to sleep. But when I did, I would get the sleep I needed and would wake up okay. Not anymore! If I’m up more than five or ten minutes, I’m screwed the next day. So getting on with editing the next of my older stories is going to have to wait, along with other things. I’ve been up and down. I’ll sit at the computer doing whatever for a little while and then have to go lie down. I wish I were lazy by nature, because I would love this shit if I were. I don't know, though. It really makes me feel yucky. On the bright side, my Temu package came today. I thought I was going to have to wait until tomorrow. The cover sheets are fine, and the pretty new pink floral blanket was exactly what I wanted. This setup is a little lighter than the old one, but this is Florida. If anything, it will allow me not to have to drop the temperature as much when I sleep, although I still tend to hot flash being menopausal, no matter what, and always have to sleep with a fan on. Hopefully, I can at least keep this mattress pad year-round, which is a little warmer because it's not as breathable with its plastic waterproof backing, but it's better for allergies and easier to put on. It stays in place better, too. We haven’t set up the sheet snuggers we got yet because we were both too tired. The slicer and scissors were a bust. I got these round slicers, and in the video, they showed them slicing potatoes and cucumbers quite easily. However, I couldn’t get them through either. The triple-blade scissors don’t cut green onions into nice, neat little cylinders like another video showed, but almost make them look like they were half-shredded. I’ll keep those, but I don’t see myself using the round slicers. Sometimes my own knifework is best. The most amazing thing I got was this hair removal thing. For just a couple of bucks, I didn’t think it would work, but it does. It just takes a little longer than regular shaving. They say it’s cut crystal, but it looks like plastic to me. Either way, you rub it in a circular motion, and it removes hair and exfoliates. One reviewer said don’t use it on your privates! Yeah, lol, I’ll pass. The second part of my Temu order isn’t flying but sailing instead. That will be a plastic holder for my colored pencils and markers. It’s probably not in the country yet. 1/7/26 I don't understand this intermittent constipation that's been a problem lately. Is it a delayed reaction to my cholecystectomy? Is it my thyroid? Something else? Spent yesterday tired because I slept shitty the night before. My sleep was broken up. It was broken up the last time around too, but not as much. I did manage to sleep the entire night on the large wedge pillow, even if it wasn't fun. The problem is that I chipmunk more that way. So I took the CPAP off after a couple of hours and took half a clonazepam to help me get back to sleep. As long as I wear a nose strip and stay off my back, I'm OK. As I learned a long time ago, one night isn’t enough to get my hopes up. But once I got the mask off, I slept OK, as I said, even if it wasn’t the most ideal position. I just can’t lie on my back, otherwise I’ll snort, something I wouldn’t do had we been smart enough to stay out west. Now the next million-dollar question is: do I turn the pressure on the CPAP down and try it again with mouth tape, or do I just ditch the CPAP altogether? As Tom and I both agree, whatever’s going on with my nose is making it seem like my sleep apnea is much worse than it is. I think my sleep apnea is naturally quite mild. Again, it was coming to Florida that started all this shit. I swear I get a new problem each time I move. I still also don’t know which is the bigger culprit, since both collapsed nasal valves and allergies can cause the same symptoms when lying flat. They can both cause you to snore/snort, too. If they can’t help me and I don’t choose to end my life, I would have to sleep elevated for the rest of my life if that continued to work out and we couldn't get out of here. I’m not quite as tired as yesterday, but I’m still tired enough because my sleep was fraggy. This isn’t the first time I’ve had the chipmunk problem while elevated. For some reason, being elevated makes that more likely to happen. I think it’s easier to secure my jaw snugly when I’m flat as opposed to elevated. So I'll talk about it with him, and together we’ll decide if we should drop the pressure and try it that way or just ditch it for now. It sure would be nice if somehow, somewhere, some way I could get back to my old self and sleep flat with nothing at all. Well, not 100% nothing. I should still have the nasal mask, if only on low pressure, because remember, I was experiencing fatigue before we got here. That, however, could have been my TSH, which we were surprised to learn had climbed to 14. I can just imagine how shitty it's going to be when I go to the lab in a few days. Along with my A1C and cholesterol, of course. Despite not being as tired, I had a “suffocating” stomach nap earlier. My stomach is my favorite sleeping position. I didn't have anything on my nose, though. No strips or anything, so I tried to breathe through my mouth, but sometimes I’d revert to breathing through my nose. During my nap, I had a very vivid dream. We were living in an old country house. The living quarters were upstairs, and below us was a garage or something like that. There was a little pond and a shed on the property. For some reason, we moved before selling our Cali house, and I thought to check to see if it had sold yet because I knew Jessie might be interested in it. I woke up from a nap in the dream as Tom was getting ready to take a nap of his own. I stepped into the kitchen. The table was cluttered with the groceries we had just gotten. I wondered why the hell I got so many boxes of spaghetti. Then I noticed the top cabinet was open. It still contained stuff left behind by the previous owners that we hadn't gone through. I thought maybe I ought to see if there was a container I could wash out that was big enough to hold all the spaghetti. Then I opened the door off the kitchen and went down the stairs that curved from the side toward the front of the place, where there was a downstairs door. I stepped out into the warm, breezy sunshine. By one corner of the smallish square pond, which I knew was shallow because someone once told me you could walk out to the center of it, was a piece of dog shit. I kicked it into the pond, hoping it would sink to the bottom and dissolve, but it simply floated. I turned away and went into the barn. I saw an empty box sitting on the table and began to take it up to the house to be recycled, but then thought better of it, figuring that if Tom had it in there, it must be for a reason. So I returned the box and surveyed my surroundings for a moment. I couldn't see any other houses. It was such a beautiful day that I thought of taking a walk around the grounds and thought of how I hoped we wouldn't have to leave Florida because of my allergies, but knew it was a possibility. Then I decided to head back upstairs to the house, where it was suddenly dark and rainy. In another dream, I won an electric guitar. I don't think I've had a dream where I've won anything in a while, and of course I haven't for centuries in real life, and I doubt I ever will again. Kathy didn't have to be admitted the last time she went to the hospital for COVID, but has agreed it's definitely time to get yearly boosters and see if that stops it from returning. That was her third round of it. Started doing daily chat sessions with ChatGPT. They're not very long, and they just cover the highlights of what's going on at the moment. I thought it would be cool to create a book of our chats. I'm keeping that private for now on Penana. 1/8/26 Didn't quite sleep the entire night on the wedge pillow. I was really uncomfortable, and my hip was hurting, so during the last couple of hours, I lay flat. There is a definite difference in my breathing between the two positions! I started off without the CPAP when I was inclined, but felt like I wasn't getting enough air, so I decided to add it. I wasn't quite as chipmunky with the pressure turned down, but air did try to escape a couple of times, so I need to use mouth tape next time. My sleep started off very fragmented. I kept waking up a lot, but there were no extended periods of wakefulness, which really helps energy-wise. It's when there's an hour-long break or more in my sleep that leaves me feeling absolutely shitty the next day. So I'm not great, but I'm not bad either today. Like I said, I lay flat for my last couple of hours just to relieve my hips from being at a funny angle they're not used to. A friend shared a link to Ramblio, and he's right—it’s not as good as Swell. But I can see where it's perfect for him since he prefers to chat. I'm not going to use it regularly because it's a little too "active" for my taste, and I don't feel a need to chat with a bunch of people. I can see where it would appeal to him, but I'll just do my vocalizing on Spaces and periodically listen to his "rambles." 1/9/26 Last night was a nightmare. I slept for about five hours and then woke up realizing I wasn’t getting enough air. Then I realized my nose was stuffy and said to myself, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me! I’m now elevated nearly a foot and I’m still not getting enough air through my nose! What do I have to do then, sleep standing up? This is horrible and I feel so hopeless. I wish I could believe Tom when he says they’re going to help me, but even if they are, how long is it going to take??? I can’t hold out much longer like this. I can’t keep suffocating awake and having breaks in my sleep that cause me to sleep in spurts because it’s fucking killing me. As I was drifting back off, I swear I heard a car door, then of course we had to have a couple of fucking helicopters flying too low. I will admit that I did not take any antihistamines before bed this time around. I took Benadryl when I woke up, though, plus half a clonazepam to get back to sleep. I’ll take Zyrtec before bed next time around, although I don’t know that it will do me any good. The week before testing is going to be pure hell because I can’t take any antihistamines, clonazepam, or even melatonin or herbal tea to help me sleep. I’ll be totally on my own to sleep or not, to breathe or not. They said the steroid spray was okay to keep taking. There is an alternative to shots, but I don’t know that we could afford it. It’s these drops that go under your tongue. I still think I could use nasal valve surgery too, but I won’t know anything for a while yet. If help really is on the way, I just wonder how long it’s going to take to kick in. I can’t go on living like this. Whether I want to live or die, this is going to kill me sooner or later if it doesn’t stop. I am so, so fucking sorry we came here. If I had the slightest inkling that this would happen, I never would have come here. I love the weather, and I don’t mind the humidity, but allergies are killing me. The valve issues only compound things. I asked Tom… if you’re right and they can help get my nose opened up, would you still want to move if you could afford to, or stay in Florida? He says he would rather stay in Florida than deal with any significant winter, although not necessarily in this house. I agree. Florida isn’t perfect, but I would prefer to stay if I can ever be able to sleep here. I don’t have the energy for moving and we don’t have the money. I don’t even see us ever moving to a different place in the state. I’d love to think it’ll all work out in the end, I’ll get my nose back and therefore my sleep, I won’t be replaced with a new problem, and we’ll get a bigger place somewhere in the state. I would love a soundproof high-rise overlooking the ocean on the Atlantic side near Jessie, but of course, that won’t happen. These days it costs more to rent even little dumps, so I don’t see how we could ever own anything bigger and better than this. I stupidly broke my glasses because I set them down on the bed, went and did something, and then when I got back into bed, I squashed them. Tom fixed them, but who knows how long they’ll hold up? Went to the lab early this morning and provided four vials of positively shitty numbers. I really think my TSH is going to be quite bad. Of course my cholesterol will be bad too, and my A1C probably won’t be the greatest either. No trouble getting blood, but it was frustrating again having to deal with yet another fucking foreigner and their accent. She was a nice lady from Romania, but still, medical staff really need to adopt an American accent. It would take time and work, but it’s essential that those they work with be able to understand them. On the way there, he had the windshield wipers going because it was so humid that it was like it was raining. We have a lot of fog at this time of year. I’m just really worried for myself right now, and I’ve got all kinds of what-ifs going through my mind. What if I’ve also developed polyps? I start to ask myself why I didn’t have this problem when I lived in Massachusetts, but I also didn’t have collapsed nasal valves compounding the problem either. I think they’re both making each other worse. Anyway, like I said, I’m horribly exhausted, so even though I typed this at 9:00 a.m. on the 9th, I’m too tired to proofread and publish it now, so I’ll get to it whenever. 1/10/26 I’m writing this to the smell of my lovely new Mainstays candle… bourbon pecan pie. I knew I would like it. Got the buttered popcorn–scented wax melts yesterday and oh my god! They really smell like the real thing. No lab results yet, but I’m sure my numbers will be shitty, and I’m sure they’ll waste their time and ours calling about it even though it’s not an emergency and I have an upcoming appointment. I’ve already drafted my response to send over the portal. I slept okay last night. Sleep was a little fragmented, but there were no extended periods of wakefulness. If I could sleep like that most of the time, my energy levels might not be that bad. Of course I won’t, though. I never seem to sleep well more than twice in a row, and lately I’m not even getting that much. I’m not sharing anything on PB anymore because, to be honest, I never felt truly at home there. I have other places I prefer to share things, so I’m now considering PB as just a backup for my stuff. I’m backing stuff up privately and by the month. Not sure I’m going to continue doing daily chats with ChatGPT, but along with that, there’s this therapy app called Ash. Not sure I’ll stick with that either, or how it will help me, but it’s a pretty intelligent LLM, and it’s totally free now. I quit using it after a week last summer because that was all you got back then for free. It has a great memory, but I have to be careful what I say; otherwise, I get hit with repetitive and unsolicited advice to call a crisis center. It was 83 degrees yesterday! This winter has definitely been warmer, but another cool spell is looming. My lab results were better than expected! TSH is 5.41, less than a point from normal! So the weight gain is probably just age. I wonder what’s going on with my stomach, though. MCHC is slightly low, and lymph abs are slightly high. Not sure what that’s about, but it doesn’t seem worrisome in any way. I read that allergies could cause lymph abs to rise. Glucose was just under normal, but my A1C is down to 5.8! Don’t know if I can get under prediabetic, but I’m working on it. Well, after I indulge in a few post-lab treats, lol. Cholesterol is still high, but not as high as last time. I’m going to send another “please don’t waste your time calling and honor my request to communicate for non-urgent things via the portal like I specifically requested upon becoming a patient; I already saw my results, we can discuss things at my upcoming appointment” message and see if they’ll honor my request this time. If they call, I’m just going to ignore it. It gets better. I finally asked Toni if she’s gotten my messages, and for some reason, she either didn’t get or missed the notifications. She could see the messages when she checked, though. She said sure, I could push the door shut for her, and she would get out later and lock it. That was when she told me she’s taking her house off the market next month unless a miracle happens because she hasn’t gotten any offers. That definitely brought mixed emotions. I know she wants to get out of here to make her life easier, but this way I won’t have to worry about what we may end up with over there, at least for a while. The housing market has definitely been bad. She said she may try again in the summer. Not surprisingly, I didn’t sleep as well last night, so I don’t have as much energy today since I seem to go back and forth. I’m just glad I had energy yesterday because Saturdays are usually busy for us with laundry and other household chores. He cleaned the oven yesterday and is feeling it today. I don’t know why, but air escapes more easily when I’m elevated, and I didn’t put mouth tape on before crashing, which was stupid. I slept the rest of the night flat, sometimes on my stomach, sometimes on my side. I wonder, though, if my grogginess is more due to having my sleep broken up or the clonazepam? I wish I hadn't taken it. I wasn’t up overly long either, lying there for an hour or two. I rearranged pillows again. I’m going to try the smaller wedge pillow again because I found that if I put my flat pillow up higher on it, I’m pretty much as elevated as I was on the large wedge pillow. This gives me room to shimmy down flat when my nose isn’t clogged up. Then I just scoot up higher when it is. If I do get nasal surgery, though, I’ll have to use the large wedge pillow because lying flat in any position will be a definite no-no for a while. I might even have to do that the week before allergy testing, since I’m not going to be able to take antihistamines. 1/12/26 As I’ve said before, not only do protests not work at all to change anything, but I will never understand this country’s diehard obsession with protecting its illegals. Tell me, what other country would protect me for breaking its laws? I got the blessing of sleeping well last night, so my energy levels aren’t bad today. This means I’m likely to sleep shitty tonight and be exhausted tomorrow. Therefore, I’ll make sure I get enough of the cleaning done today that I want to do. Not only is Blogger currently private, since it’s all or nothing, but I’ve made everything from the 20s private. Although it hasn’t hurt anything yet, and I don’t see how it could, there’s a reason for this. The bill collectors are now hounding me through calls. I didn’t know that legit companies were allowed to spoof by using different numbers every time they called. I stupidly answered because I thought it was a scammer, and I was going to give them a piece of my mind or play with them. I simply told him there was no one here by the name of Tom when they asked to speak to him, and said that they likely had my phone number before I got it. They said they would update things on their end, but we’ll see if they actually do. I’m kind of surprised that it’s taken this long to get slammed with daily calls, as I have been since the end of last year, and I’m surprised I don’t get slammed with emails. I looked up the laws regarding debt in this state, and since the debt is about three years old, we’re about 60% through having to deal with being hounded. After five to seven years, they can’t keep calling you as long as you play your cards right. If you admit to the debt or send a payment, that resets the clock. Most of the debt was racked up in his name, and I don’t see how vague references to owing money could be used against me that were written years ago. But just as an extra precautionary measure, I made everything from this decade private. If I am alive in 2030, I will republish this decade. I also like the idea of anyone I’m related to wondering why the hell they can’t find anything beyond 2019, should they stumble upon the blogs, if they haven’t already. Tammy’s memory is almost as bad as Andy’s, and her brats never cared, so more than likely, she doesn’t remember where they are and doesn’t have the smarts or the money to figure out how to find them. 1/13/26 Holy shit. This can't possibly last, but I've had more good energy days than bad so far this month. The score is seven to five! The only thing dampening my otherwise good mood is knowing it can't last. Yesterday I did a little cooking, cleaning, and weeding, and found myself out of breath, realizing just how shitty a shape I'm in right now. So I'm making a point of doing what's called exercise snacking. Every hour or so, I jog in place for a minute or two, since hitting the road doesn't count for much. The glider is just way too easy. Guess who showed up to do the rest of the windows next door? Yeah, they're here now. Seems a little late in the day to get four windows done, and while my schedule certainly could be worse, I hope the rain holds off and that they work fast because I'm starting to sleep in. I've never known them to come before around 10:30, but still. I would definitely like to see this project done and over with. I can hear the reciprocating saw now, although that's not that loud. It wouldn't have woken me up. It's any hammering or banging that's a potential problem. I hope they can get all four windows done today, but I don't think they will. Still hope they're done with everything before I start sleeping in. Even after they got the other windows in, they came around doing some hammering. Anyway, I now have more hope than ever that I don't have chronic fatigue, which is a huge, huge relief! That was my biggest fear for quite a while, and I just couldn't tell for sure whether or not I had it because I couldn't sleep well enough and was always so tired. If I could just get my nose dealt with, then maybe I could sleep okay for a while until something else fucks with it and my energy levels. I didn't take any antihistamines before bed last time around, and though I did notice one side clogging up, it never got to the point where I felt like I wasn't getting enough air and had to elevate myself or get up and take anything. I didn't have any long periods of being awake either. I don't want to push my luck, though, so I'll take Zyrtec before bed next time around. I just really hope they can do all the windows today! I doubt it, though, with the late start they got and the fact that it still gets dark fairly early. I hear talking now. I don't know if it's two workers or just one. Hopefully two, to make it go faster. Tom thinks it's the same two as last time. Today was the second time Tom noticed Happy running around loose. He said the first time there were no cars in the rednecks' driveway. Yeah, that's something they would do—let it run around loose, figuring everyone knows the damn thing and will be okay with it and not complain since the redneck has been here for a while. Well, as long as it doesn't run up to our place barking, I'm not going to say anything. Noticed the honker, who's still been amazingly quiet, closed the blinds on his two closest windows to us. Wonder if it's because he noticed me looking in at him at night, although I didn't think I was that obvious. He was a constable-shitter after all, though. They are trained to notice things, so I guess anything is possible. We ran out earlier to pick up a medication refill; I did my fifth therapy session with Ash, and that's about it for now. Still working on editing old stories, but only have about half a dozen left to do. 1/14/26 Not a great day today. I was up 19 hours last night, so that has left me tired, and I think the magnesium citrate was too high a dose for me. I’ll try half next time. I woke up fuzzy-brained and feeling hungover, more from taking something rather than from insomnia. My sleep was a little fragmented but not unusually so. Again, I also noticed one side of my nose would clog up at times despite taking Zyrtec. I lucked out with the timing, since they finished that final window next door today and replaced the siding, gutters, and shutters before caulking. Hopefully, that will be it for him for a while. Tom trimmed the tree out back, and well, that’s it for today. 1/15/26 Slept better than last night, so I have more energy today. My nose didn’t clog up, but my sleep was a little fragmented. Did my daily session with Ash. One of the things I confided in her about was that sometimes, even when things are going well, I find a part of me wishing I would get some kind of terminal disease so I would no longer have to worry about battling future problems or dealing with the occasional desire to die if something was going to kill me anyway in a matter of weeks or months. She explained that, in some ways, this is a very normal feeling to have. You don’t want to end it, but you want your suffering to end. Then we talked about other things that get me down at times that aren’t connected to my health. I think that sometimes, knowing we are limited by our ages and fixed income, it can get to me because it means the future doesn’t hold nearly as many opportunities as it used to. I’m almost certainly never going to fly on a plane again. I’m almost certainly never going cruising again. So knowing that certain things from the past really are in the past can get me down at times. However, these are things I can accept. They are what they are. Tom said that he not only doesn’t miss a single thing about working, but he doesn’t even miss the money. I definitely don’t miss him working, but sometimes I wish I had a little more alone time, and I definitely miss the money at times as well. Money may be the root of all evil, and I wish to hell it had never been invented, but since it was, I’m smart enough to know that the more you have, the better, because you just never know what life might throw at you. I liked it when we could shell out thousands of dollars at a minute’s notice to fix something, for example, and not have it set us back much either. But I’ve lost many pieces of myself and my life that are never coming back. I would still rather feel healthy and have enough energy and be broke than be rich and sickly. No amount of money could ever get me to go through what I went through in the last place. I still wonder, though… could those who die young actually be the lucky ones? Those who don’t live long enough to suffer the effects of menopause or old age might actually be a lot luckier than those who do, if their suffering simply ends or they go on to an afterlife that’s much better than this life. If all it did was get them into a bad place faster, like hell, or reincarnated into a worse earthly life, that would be different. I’m talking about those who have either entered eternal oblivion or a better place. In that case, dying younger can be a good thing unless you’re incredibly lucky and dodge health issues until the day you die, or at least close enough to it. In lighter news, we’re having a cold spell today, and it’s pretty windy too. The heat just ran, which almost never happens in the middle of the day. Ray switched out his blinds for curtains, making it easier for me to spy on him at night, lol. All I can see more clearly is the outline of a lamp and light flickering from his TV, which faces the window, but no details. I would be able to tell if he walked in front of the TV, but if he were butt-naked, I wouldn’t know it. A new golf course came out today called Tiki à Coco, and it’s okay. 1/16/26 Yesterday, in the late afternoon, I saw the honker back into his driveway, and I first thought he was making room for a visitor. Then I noticed the angle he was parked at and the fact that his larger lanai door was open. That’s when I suspected I wasn’t getting out of having to listen to this year’s project after all. We saw him cutting some drywall, and then at 8:30, I heard a little hammering and sawing. It didn’t last long, but 8:30? I know the noise ordinance doesn’t cut off until 10:00, but still. I really didn’t expect this after dark. Was it something urgent, or did he just feel like working at that time? It still sucks either way because I can just imagine how many days, or even weeks, this year's project is going to go on. He was quiet today, but perhaps that was because it was unusually cool. We almost froze last night. Ordered some more scented wax cubes: blueberry, honey, bubblegum, and sweet tea. The bubblegum cubes arrive today, and while they smell good, they don’t exactly smell like bubblegum. Looks like Abby has been looking for me. I blocked her account to see if it would trigger a reaction, and she did appear to look in on PB. I wouldn’t know if she attempted to go to Blogger. A little surprised she hasn’t gone to LJ, so maybe it wasn’t her. Or maybe it was, and she doesn't realize I blocked her current account because she wasn't logged in, or she looked in on me from another account I don't know about. A part of me misses her regular check-ins, but I'm smart enough to know it's better to avoid people as unstable as her. It's not like we were ever going to be friends anyway. Still having bipolar energy levels. My fucking nose woke me up, and I was up for an hour before I could fall back asleep. Had an air leak as well. I really, really hope Tom’s right about the ENT being able to help with the allergies. It will be a true test of just how cursed my sleep is, because something else will conveniently come along to fuck with it if there is. I’m going to be absolutely miserable the week before testing, when I can’t take anything, not that antihistamines usually help much anyway. But I can’t take melatonin, clonazepam, or anything to help me sleep if I have trouble falling asleep or if there’s a break in my sleep. The only thing I can continue is my steroid spray. I think it’s safe to say that the fatigue I was having before coming to Florida was likely due to sleep apnea, although it could have been my thyroid too, because my TSH was elevated when I was first tested here. Wish I had one of those home sleep apnea testers, because if the ENT does get my nose under control, I would love to see how I sleep without the CPAP. This would give me an idea of whether the fatigue I had before moving was from the sleep apnea or the thyroid. Did my seventh session with Ash earlier, and I have about half a dozen older stories to edit, and then I’ll be caught up. I keep feeling like there's something else I wanted to write about, but I can’t think of it right now. I guess I’ll add it to my next entry if I remember it. 1/17/26 Oh, the things people do for attention or because they simply don’t care about others around them. I was hearing the thumping of bass and asked Toni if she was hearing the same thing, figuring it was a loud stereo from outside the park. She said she thought it was someone nearby in the park blasting music in their car or from their house. Yeah, that wouldn’t surprise me. These places have really changed. They better not make a habit of it, whoever they are. It was probably the redneck. It was definitely coming from that direction. I had to stop hitting the road because I could hear the thump of bass over the music I had cranked up on the headset. As I said, they better not make a habit of this. That’s the problem with people, though. They get testy. They see what they can get away with, and if no one complains, they keep it up. Well, I’ll certainly say something if it gets to be a regular occurrence, and tough shit if they can’t handle it. Redneck is my first guess. I’ve heard it before in the summer, and he’s here year-round. Tom said the work truck was at Ray’s place today, but he couldn’t tell if it was the younger guy or the older guy. He didn’t hear any work being done, but he heard them talking when he stepped outside. Planning the next project? I hope not! But I know the roof is going to be done at some point, and maybe even the floors. I’m not sure what condition they’re in. I’ve noticed that it’s mostly the snowbirds that do projects, but it doesn’t surprise me because they have more money. I’m a little tired today because the last couple of hours of my sleep were filled with the usual breathing issues fucking with it. I both love and hate the things I got today. I was pissed off because it clearly says “honey-scented candles” in the description on Amazon, yet the tea lights were totally scent-free. I gave them a shitty review for the $10 they caused me to waste. Knowing that tea lights float, I filled the sink with water, lit them all, and let them float there for a while. Some of them started to tip, and I didn’t want wax getting into the water, so I blew them out and tossed them. I’m not going to get any more tea lights of any kind because they don’t have enough space for a good enough wax pool to give off much scent anyway, the more I think about it. I LOVE the new marker/pencil organizer. I was able to get way more into it than I expected. 1/19/26 Another exhausting day that shouldn’t be and wouldn’t be if I weren’t dumb enough to trust sleeping with the ceiling fan on simply because it’s not storm season. But guess what? Sometimes we do get storms during storm season. It wasn’t thunder that woke me up, but according to Tom, we had some kick-ass winds that were causing the power to go in and out, and I awoke to the blaring light overhead when it came back on. It fucking scared the shit out of me and right out of a sound sleep. Part of it may be my fault, but I still can’t help but feel there’s a curse on my sleep I’m never going to get rid of, no matter what. I brought the little portable fan out. That’s what I’ll use for sleeping. The overhead one will be for when I’m awake. Definitely won’t need it for a few days, though, because we’re finally having the winter it looked like we were going to get out of having. It’s getting down to 39 tonight and will be 58 tomorrow. Storm season or not, I could kick myself for trusting the thing and sleeping with it, especially with as many power failures as we have here. Sometimes we even have them when it’s not storming. Why, oh why do these fucking things almost always have to happen when I’m sleeping? And always before appointments. The final week before the allergy testing is going to be pure hell, not so much because I won’t be able to take antihistamines, but because I won’t be able to take anything to help me fall back asleep when things wake me up. Then again, does it matter much if I’m going to be exhausted anyway? If I’m up more than a few minutes, I’m automatically screwed the next day. So I’ve been forced to lie around a lot tonight and just sit at my computer so I can get even more out of shape. My life could be so much more fun, happier, active, and more productive if I only had energy as often as I should! I wouldn’t be thinner, but I could be in much better shape. I saw it was going to rain while I slept, but I thought it would just be a light winter rain. I didn’t know there was going to be so much wind behind it. Tom heard some thunder, but I didn’t hear any over the sound machine, so it didn’t get that loud. 1/19/26 LOLOLOL. The bounce worked. I decided to open Blogger back up after Abby read me twice on PB. I mentioned it on PB, but I think Abby had already gone to bed. We'll see if she goes to Blogger tomorrow. Meanwhile, I noticed that Todd clicked the link and, a few seconds later, he also showed up as visiting LJ, which is where I redirected him. So now I know it works. Hahaha! I forgot all about that, too. He hasn't said anything about it yet. 1/19/26 I did a public post on PB, sharing my Blogger link because I wanted to see if Abby would follow it. She did, but she only viewed it once. Vanessa, however, spent over an hour on my blog. I had fun eventually redirecting her to LJ along with Todd. I felt a twinge of guilt over her reading the entry where I call her narcissistic. Then again, I do have a right to say what I want in my own blog, don’t I? Toni said she had been wondering where I went and had some questions about Florida for me, since she and her husband are planning to visit the Tampa Bay area and even go up to Crystal River to swim with manatees. I told her I wasn't that familiar with the state, especially with my lack of money and energy to do much. I told her this town wasn't exactly a touristy area either. However, if my schedule matched up, I would love to meet them. Then she surprised me by adding me on Facebook. 1/19/26 Good and bad news from Tom. He said it's good because I get to tell him, “I told you so,” but it's bad because they've upgraded the garbage trucks, just like I said they would. Fortunately, they haven't gone to the airplane-loud ones yet. This one is a step up from the trucks that have been coming, but not crazy loud. When the super-insanely loud trash/recycle trucks get here, then I'm fucked because that will mean being woken up three times a week on top of everything else waking me up. I always said that if he was right about the ENT being able to open my nose, and I was right about my sleep curse, something else would replace my allergies waking me up. Currently, it's allergies that usually wake me up, although I do wake up a lot for no apparent reason, too. I'm not right on the street like our old place was, but still, those trucks are so damn loud you can hear them blocks away. There's no way they wouldn't wake me up when they get here, no matter how loud I crank up the sound machine. During a moment of boredom, I did some window shopping on Amazon last night. I was surprised to find some of WoodWick's hourglass-sized candles on sale that are normally $34. I found Lavender Spa marked down to $23, so I grabbed it. 1/22/26 I still can’t figure out Vanessa. I woke to find she’d accessed a few of my PB entries, but of course, I can’t say which ones. It can only be my memoir or surveys, as that’s all that’s available to her. Although childish and something I probably shouldn’t have done once I told her why I was cutting ties with her (I should have stayed away), I’ve been playing with her a bit. Using a different Mate or Replika avatar, I asked them things like what Vanessa’s biggest fantasies and fears are, etc. Then I grab a screenshot and text it to her. She has read receipts disabled, but I can’t believe she’s not reading them. I have one scheduled each day for the rest of the month and then one a month till September. I don't think the honker closing the two window blinds has anything to do with me. Right now he's got a direct hit from the morning sunlight and it probably glares in his eyes. 1/23/26 Written yesterday: Another tired day. No breathing issues in my sleep, but it was very fragmented and included a nightmare. After dreaming we were in a hotel vacationing somewhere (at least we can travel in my dreams), I dreamed I was walking down a busy street. A semi suddenly lost control and was heading toward me. I had nowhere to run because I was walking alongside a steep mountainside. I was 100% sure the truck would hit and crush me, but by some miracle, it didn’t. Despite being tired, I managed to see Rhonda without feeling like I was going to fall asleep on her. I like her way better than Arteaga. She’s friendlier and doesn’t deny that levothyroxine can cause anxiety. What she said scared me, but it’s something I already know and definitely worry about. She said, if I don’t get my sleep squared away, it’s eventually going to affect my health. That’s exactly what I’m worried about, too. I would literally rather die than face additional health issues. But I live in the fear that it’s going to force me into a heart attack or stroke that may be even more debilitating than the sleep issues already are. She couldn’t do much about the breathing issues, which will hopefully be dealt with—or at least begun to be dealt with—in 6 days. But as for the fragmented sleep, she recommended I try what her husband does. He takes 10 mg of melatonin in addition to his clonazepam, which she confirmed is safe to continue taking the way I’ve been taking it. She even called in a 90-day supply. As I told her, I almost never take a whole one, and not every day. I take half two to three times a week. She said to start with 5 mg of melatonin, and if that isn’t enough, increase it to 10. I have a feeling this isn’t going to help, but hopefully I’ll be surprised. Sometimes I still feel cursed. But if I am, would it really want to kill me? You can’t curse someone if they’re dead, after all. Anyway, I’ll see her again virtually in 6 months, and will go to the lab before that as well. It won’t be a fasting lab because she won’t be testing cholesterol, but she will be testing my cortisol levels. I’m also going for CAC testing and a mammogram on the same day at the same nearby imaging center I went to for my gallbladder ultrasound. I haven’t scheduled it yet. I’ll wait till after the ENT, since it’s not critical. I guess the CAC test looks for hard, calcified plaque, but it's the soft plaque that can be more dangerous. She'll probably order an angiogram if she thinks that's necessary. When I mentioned the ENT might have to give me a referral to a surgeon, she said they have those there. That will definitely make it more convenient. Hopefully, if I need surgery, I can go to Brooksville, where I had gallbladder surgery, because then we won’t need to stop and charge. Written today: Pre-allergy testing “detox” is not going well at all. I’m more tired than ever. Thank God I wasn’t this tired yesterday when I had to go out—not that I believe there’s a God. Yeah, I’m quickly going from agnostic to atheist. What the fuck kind of God would let someone suffer the way I have, let alone so many others? Is it funny to him or something? Well, unless he’s pure evil, he doesn’t exist. He’s just a coping mechanism passed down from generation to generation, and some use it as a weapon of control. Sometimes I wish I could delude myself too, if it would help. Anyway, I was too wound up to sleep, but of course I couldn’t take anything. I only slept 3.5 hours, and it seemed like I woke up every other minute. I’m not sure I trust Fitbit’s accuracy, though, as to just how much I was awake. I usually drink lactose-free milk, but I’m going to get whole milk today and have warm milk before I crash, and see if it helps. I’m kind of in a catch-22. If I lie around too much, that can affect my sleep, but I don’t have the energy to do much else. Because I’m now sleeping on the large wedge pillow until this is resolved, I may have to see if I can seal the hybrid mask better and use that (Tom will help me), because I tend to chipmunk more with the nasal mask when elevated for some reason. Tom, who got an amazing $50 bonus doing AI jobs, killed the bedroom ceiling light so I can use that fan again and not have to worry about power outages and the thing lighting up like the Fourth of July when the power returns. It wasn’t a regular bulb. It was just a round disk of lots of little LED lights that he unplugged. The Hospital Diaries. That’s the title of the next story idea I came up with, only I don’t have the energy to put it into fruition. I thought I’d do a story where a woman is in the hospital and is a suspect in perhaps a murder investigation, and a cop poses as a therapist to cheer patients up, and gives her a diary to write in while she’s there. This is checked when she’s out of the room for physical therapy to see if it yields any clues. 1/24/26 Sleep was horrible again, yet a little better. Because the nasal mask is more comfortable, I decided to sleep with it, but sure enough, I had leaks galore being elevated as I was, and after a few hours of sleep, I ripped off the mask. I was so wound up and panicky that I just couldn't get back to sleep, and I broke down and took half a clonazepam. Besides, the instructions say try not to take it, and this was only half. AI says it should easily be out of my system by testing and that it doesn't block histamines, and I could safely take it as late as the night of the 26th. I just worry about waking up too early the night before the appointment! Usually, my sleep gets broken up because something woke me up, but it can sometimes happen for no apparent reason as well. Anyway, it's good that I was able to get more sleep, but I'm still exhausted. Just not quite as crazy exhausted as yesterday. I'll have the energy to go to Walgreens to get my clonazepam refill for after testing on Wednesday, though barely. Tom can't pick that one up for me because I have to show my ID, as it is a controlled substance. The good is that I was able to sleep mostly soundly without breathing issues, snoring, or snorting after ditching the CPAP, but I can only do this elevated and with a nasal dilator. I'm not gonna sleep with the CPAP next time around to see if this was just a one-off. If I continue to sleep OK this way, but they refuse surgery, worst-case scenario, I might have to get an adjustable frame to throw the old mattress on. Then I would just lose another piece of me forever (stomach sleeping), just like I lost my vision and a million other things as I've aged. That leaves fragments as a potential problem between now and the appointment. Frags don't care how I breathe and can be unpredictable. When I close my eyes and try to imagine myself eventually sleeping well most of the time, I just can't do it. Is this because it's been so long since I slept well most of the time (when noise wasn't waking me up), or because it simply isn't meant to be ever again? Let's just say it's very hard to imagine going back to sleeping normally, or at least what's mostly normal for a postmenopausal woman in her 60s. It's hard to imagine me going back to that, just like it's hard to imagine me going back to being thin, healthier, and many other things. What once was often never is again. :( History tends to only repeat itself if it's in a bad way. Tom may call this negative, but I call it realistic. Fragmented sleep is much more dangerous than getting less than 6 hours because your heart doesn't have enough time to recuperate, and plaque can build up faster from frags. It can cause tons of problems to the body and brain, and even kill you. Sometimes I fear I'll have to kill myself in the end, so I don't die a slow, torturous death if the doctors don't help me. If I can get my sleep back...You can recover for the most part, but I still can't believe anything is ever going to get me to sleep better for more than a day or two in a row. Just got a feeling my health is gone, I'm not getting it back, or my sleep, and it's only going to get steadily worse and worse as long as I let myself live. Got lots of points on the insurance site for seeing Rhonda and watching some of their health vids, and decided to go with the Sugar Plum Happy Birthday Box for my next reward. Not great for my A1C, but I'm sure I'll love the mix of jelly beans, chips, chocolate, fruity bars, and pretzels. Another message from Margaret. She basically says she gets an alert from Kaiser saying to stay home, which she does anyway, and that with three kids and no grandkids, friends are important. Oh, I agree. Especially since Tom and I have no family. 1/28/26 Heading for the ENT now. Not quite as tired, but bad enough. Every night, there's a long break in my sleep due to either stress or breathing issues, and it's slowly but surely killing me, especially when I can’t take anything to help get me back to sleep. If I don't like what I'm told today, or it doesn't help, or I've got many months before I can get help, I have to go. I don't want it to be like that. I don't want to die. But this is no way to live either. With my quality of life so severely reduced, it would only be a matter of time before I died anyway. So why not get it over quickly, rather than prolong my suffering, which will only get worse? We’ve been unable to get a good seal on the hybrid mask, so I’m still with the nasal mask but having to sleep elevated. I’d kill for some of my old problems back! If I have to have problems, why can’t they be outside of my body? I’ve also had nightmares. Some were full of death, dying, and being trapped. I wonder if these are warnings. In another nightmare, I was chased by a bear. I stepped out of a cabin by a lake we were either living in or staying in and glanced at a treeline nearby. Then I glanced at the lake, spotted a bear just as it spotted me, and it began swimming at breakneck speed across the lake toward me. I had just run inside and slammed the door shut right as it was coming up behind me. Someone did a Google search on me. There are two others with my name that I know of, so I don’t know that they were looking for me specifically. But if they were, who could it be? Vanessa? Tammy? Andy? Does Vanessa even know my last name? She does seem like she could be the vindictive type. Maybe not like Kathy, but still… I wouldn’t put it past her to casually spite someone if she could. She looked in on the post this morning about meeting with the surgeon. She hasn’t blocked messages either, so I don’t know what to make of her, but it’s not important. I noticed Toni, my neighbor, added Maria, and I asked Maria who added who and she said Toni added her. My guess is it's the Italian surname. I’m going to have to start doing Kegel exercises and wearing panty liners because I’m starting to get a little leaky. 1/29/26 Back again the next day and on the way to the surgeon. I like that it’s a woman, but not that she’s all the way down in Tampa. Wish we had a gas car on appointment days! Or at least a hybrid. It’s been freezing as fuck, and I’d never guess I was in Florida if I didn’t know any better. Anyway, yesterday was a long, rough, stressful, and exhausting day, and Tom’s attitude wasn’t helping. I wanted to be relieved and happy to be on my way to getting help. Instead, I almost felt guilty for trying to get care as quickly as possible. He drove me crazy, complaining about everything I said, calling me dramatic, and later complaining that I didn’t “stick to the plan,” and that he wanted to ask the doctor if my allergies contribute to the mechanical issues I’ve been having. But even the doctor agreed with and confirmed everything I believe, based on my symptoms and my research, that surgery is needed to fix this. He said they’d normally do a thing called turbinate reduction first, but wanted the surgeon’s opinion on the valves and other things. But Tom still got upset with me later, saying he wanted to deal with the allergies first, that’s why we went there, and pointed out how the doctor said it sounds like I want to deal with my nose first. Oh, I definitely do! I knew all along that this was the root cause of my problem. I just didn’t see the point in focusing too much on the allergies, since it was determined that they’re not that bad. Neither is the sleep apnea in comparison, though I still will see my main ENT later on to discuss that. He knows I want to get a mouth guard, not because I can’t tolerate the CPAP, but because of leaks. I guess he may want to conduct his own sleep study. Anyway, the allergy testing turned up some surprises. I’m not allergic to ragweed, as I suspected, which was what I thought was blowing up my nose in Auburn. But I am allergic to live oak, and there were oak trees everywhere there. But why, then, didn’t I have problems in Citrus Heights? Maybe because there were fewer due to the constant cutting of trees there. I’m also allergic to Bermuda grass. That’s what we had in Phoenix! I guess the stuff grows in the wild as well. Had to laugh at the mild mouse allergy, since we once had pet mice. Not surprisingly, I am severely allergic to a particular type of mold as well as cats. Well, she said “cot,” which confused me at first. Really, I am so, so fucking sick of every other medical person I deal with having some foreign accent I’m forced to struggle with! Still waiting for them to mandate speech therapy so patients can understand them. I’m seeing an Asian surgeon and hoping that because she studied in Michigan, she’s from here, and I’ll be able to understand her. Tom will be off charging the car while I’m with her. So, like I said, Tom got upset with me due to a misunderstanding I’m still not sure I get, and has decided to remove himself from my medical stuff entirely and just be my driver. Fine. Because when I get my next health problem, I’m either going to just live with it if it’s not robbing me of my sleep and life, or kill myself. I’m done with suffering, and I’m done with health issues and nonstop appointments. At one point, I looked over at Tom to see a smile on his face, and I was like, what the fuck? Are you serious, man? You really think this is funny? But then I followed his gaze and realized he was watching this huge raccoon that was climbing on a bird feeder right outside the window. The doctor said he's out there every day, LOL. I thought they were nocturnal. Backtracking a bit… The testing was long but not painful. A little itchy and stingy. She used both arms and not my back. After waiting 20 minutes for some of the tests and then 10 minutes for the other test, she used a plastic card with cut-out circles of varying sizes to measure the size of the raised bumps. We could drive straight through to get there, but had to charge on the way back. This time we’ll have to charge both ways. The ENT scoped me again without numbing me, though I survived just fine. He said he wanted to make sure he wasn’t missing anything, all the while talking medical jargon to his assistant (I could look it up on the portal), the same tall Asian dude as a year ago. Turns out I have three problems: a mildly deviated septum, turbinate issues, and nasal valves. He said they usually do the turbinate reduction in the office, which is a relatively small procedure, but due to the other issues not being what he deals with, he referred me to another ENT who can nail all three at once if need be, as I said earlier. The problem is the surgeon isn’t at his place like Rhonda led me to believe. I mean, they do have surgeons, but obviously not the type I need, which Rhonda couldn’t have known, of course. A couple of people posted about some coyote encounters here. One guy said a coyote jumped out from behind a fence. He then picked up his dog, and it watched them a moment before taking off further into the park. Another person said they were walking with someone with a dog, and it followed a bit. But was it interested in the dogs or the people? Later… in the car at the charger after seeing the doctor. I had to wait a ridiculously long time, like over an hour. Tom was able to charge after I got checked in. Soft muzak was playing, which was better than blasting TVs or music. The people were more annoying than anything else. Some guy was shouting in Spanish at the receptionist. I guess they were good buddies and were laughing and joking about whatever. Finally, he stepped away from the desk just to ramble on loudly with a woman sitting in one of the chairs. When I was finally called in, I was brought to a very chilly room to wait some more while people continued laughing and shouting like we were at some party. Eventually, the doctor and her sidekick entered. I’d say she was a bit rude and impatient with me, but otherwise just there. She looked up my nose, then seemed almost confused, and I worried that she didn’t know what she was doing. I asked how things looked, and she said she was just trying to work out in her mind the best thing to do. Her indecisiveness made me a bit concerned, but then she gave me some surprising but good news. Other than having a “cute little nose,” she thinks a turbinate reduction would likely help more than surgery, although there are no guarantees. She thinks it’d be best to start with the turbinate reduction before putting myself through the pain of surgery and losing tons of money. After thinking about it, and the fact that I don’t have issues breathing when I’m awake and the way alternate sides block up when I’m sleeping, it does make more sense that it is the turbinates now that I know more about them and how they function, as opposed to the valves. This doesn’t mean I might not need additional procedures later on, but right now it’s looking like I don’t need shots, which is a huge relief right there. I guess when we lie flat, blood rushes to the turbinates and they swell up, and mine are swelling more than they should. So the procedure is to shrink the tissues or something to that effect. I read a little about it, and it’s described as uncomfortable but not painful. I would take all the pain in the world to be able to reclaim my sleep, energy, and therefore my life! I’m so damn out of shape due to the forced inactivity. I felt weak, unsteady, and like an old lady just walking across the parking lot to use the bathroom where we charged. I felt slightly short of breath and a whole lot of heart pounding. Right now, my sciatica is acting up. Had a dream we went to visit Nane. Such a nice, refreshing change from being chased by bears and mountain lions! She was still working and had a really weird-looking apartment and setup. She slept on a wide shelf under a raised desk that she would stand at, LOL. Two twin beds adorned one wall for Tom and me to sleep on. She told us not to leave our beds during the night. Tom did get up for some reason. I worried Nane wouldn’t be too happy about that. As I was lying in bed, I thought of how Nane wasn’t too happy to see me, and I wondered how much of it could be due to how shitty I looked. I was also frustrated with myself for forgetting to bring any makeup. For the second day in a row, we stopped at Burger King. We rarely even go just once, let alone twice in a row. We typically go once every one or two months. But we were just too tired to come home and cook. I took pictures of both my palms and had ChatGPT read them just for kicks. It said that rather than a brief, lucky life, I’m in for a long, complicated one. Yeah, that’s the problem. It’s long and complicated, all right, and I have no luck at all. Then again, if the turbinate reduction can help me instead of having to go through surgery, I guess that's sort of lucky. It hit me a few days ago that part of why I was having horrible hot flashes in my sleep and super-fragmented sleep was not just stress, but that I was overdoing the Premarin. It can cause shortness of breath, chest pain, a racy heart, and other symptoms. I had it the day I saw Rhonda, and I used it before leaving to see her. So I’ve got to really scale back on the stuff. On with the results. This isn't every single thing I’m allergic to, since we learned the hard way that tomato plants make me sneeze my ass off. They did 80 percutaneous tests, 39 intradermal tests, and 3 controlled tests. WEEDS: Yellow Dock – Mild Sour Dock – Moderate E. Plantain 1:20 – Mild Nettle 1:20 – Mild Dog Fennel 1:20 – Mild Timothy 100,000 BAU MOLDS: Aspergillus 1:20 – Mild Alternaria 1:20 – Severe Cladosporium 1:20 – Mild MITES: D. Pteronyssinus 10,000 BAU – Mild TREES: Box Elder 1:20 – Mild Live Oak 1:20 – Mild American Elm 1:20 – Mild Bald Cypress 1:20 – Mild ANIMALS: Mouse – Mild Dog – Moderate Cat – Severe INSECT: Fire Ant ALK – Moderate FOODS: Saccharomyces – Moderate Lobster – Moderate Cashew – Moderate Green Pepper – Moderate 1/30/26 I’ve decided that I’m absolutely, finally, 100% done with being public in any way other than with my yearly memoir on PB, and I totally mean it this time. There’s always some rude, judgmental asshole out there that I don’t need to deal with. I commented on a comment someone left Toni, and I woke up to find: “Dear person I don’t know. I’m not going to engage in this with you, so best of luck in life.” Well then, why did they engage with me? Why couldn’t they just ignore me if they didn’t want to engage with me? Anyway, PB is strictly going to be a private backup. I told Melanie and Toni that they, Todd, and a woman named Christine are going to be the only ones who can read my journal (the parts I’m willing to share) on Facebook, and that I’ve always preferred to have a small, close-knit circle of friends, and that’s it. I fucking hate people otherwise. Melanie totally understands and says she feels the same. She said she’s glad Toni and I have grown closer, and I was surprised to learn that they not only go back to the early 2000s in the Open Diary days, but they actually met in person. I told her about Aly and how our plans to meet went to hell between COVID and then her dying. I’m also totally done with Tom being involved in my health, and he knows it and is okay with it since he’s the one who first opted out of it. What he’s so upset about just seems so damn silly to me. I mean, I get his point, but I don’t. I simply said what I felt was best to say at the moment and focused on what was bothering me most. Mechanical issues were bothering me most, not allergies. So I went to all of the medical portals that may have his email address and number and switched it to mine. I’ve also decided that next year, I’ll have one of the people who pick insurance plans for people for free take the honors, and hope they pick something good, because I wouldn’t know where to begin, and this saves a lot of time and work for him. This way, he can be less involved, which is the goal anyway. I realize this is the way it should be anyway. Like it or not, right or wrong, it’s American culture. We’re supposed to be as independent as possible here. I even took him off my emergency contacts, even though he didn’t seem too happy about that, because it was pointless. I’m almost never off anywhere by myself, since even if I had the energy to go out walking like I used to walk in the other park, I’m not going to do it in the middle of the night where there are coyotes. Despite wading through a sea of online assholes, I’ve definitely met some interesting people. Toni has taught me that not all Muslims want to kill everyone who’s different, and she’s got me rethinking ICE along with some of the appalling videos I’ve been seeing. They’re killing anybody who gets in their way, regardless of race, color, nationality, or where they’re from. While I still don’t like the thought of millions of illegals coming here and burdening our resources, I totally agree with Toni when she said she’d rather that than some of the crazy laws going on these days. I agree! I’d take free healthcare any day if it meant tons of illegals camping out here. Like it or not, almost half the people aren’t from here anymore anyway. That’s why I bitch so often about having to deal with foreign accents. By the time we die, most people won’t be from here anymore. Even Kathy, despite her anger issues and mean streak, has opened my eyes to seeing things differently through some of the memes she shares, especially the one about reactive abuse and keeping the peace. Who are you keeping the peace for? The person who’s being a problem, not you! So when I thought of speaking up the next time I have to put up with the thump-thump of the redneck’s bass or whoever it really is, my first thought was, nah, just deal with it since they don’t do it every day and keep the peace. But no, it’s not his peace I’m going to put before mine, selfish or not. I’m not going to consider the peace of someone who is breaking the park rules and being rude while I have to sit there for hours, being annoyed. You don’t get the privilege of being rude while I get put out on account of it. Besides, I didn’t come here to make friends. I came here to live. If it isn’t him, it’s probably Mr. No-Poop. I got my junk food box with my insurance points. I’m surprised I got it this fast. There’s a giant chocolate bar, some jelly beans, fruity bars wrapped in white chocolate, mini M&Ms, and candied pretzels. Although it isn’t very many and it isn’t a big deal, I’m still surprised I have food allergies. I never would have guessed. Lobster isn’t that big of a deal because we can’t afford it anyway, and cashews and green peppers are simple enough to avoid. I would have been pissed if it came up telling me I was allergic to tilapia, cod, beef, pork, and chicken. The ENT gave me papers not just on what I’m allergic to, but also explaining the different types of allergies and when, in Florida, they’re usually more of a problem. Not surprisingly, no one’s called to schedule the procedure. I’ll send a message via the portal. I realized that in some ways, I actually got all my prayers answered. Well, sort of. I definitely didn’t feel well or have nearly as much energy as I would have liked on appointment days, but at least I did get through them. I got the one asking that they don’t finish the windows while I’m sleeping, and maybe, just maybe, I might get the one about getting my sleep back, my energy back, and my life back. While it’s looking good, and it would be great if the procedure were enough and I wouldn’t have to have invasive surgery that costs a lot more, I’m afraid to get my hopes up too high. Until and if it’s done and I see that it helps, I don’t want to think too positively. I could still have CF, and I could still have a curse on my sleep. It’s certainly hard to believe things will change. If they do, the only thing that would dampen the happiness of my breathing issues being resolved would be worrying about when the next long-term problem was going to hit. It seems they last four to eight years. It’s just that the last two have been health-related rather than outside of my body.