Might not finish this entry today, but to get started… I began to panic when Tom started to take off by himself to go to Walmart, so I stopped him and went with him. I guess I felt it was too soon to be left alone after Friday’s attack. 

So we went out and didn’t have any close calls on the road like yesterday when some bitch in a Mercedes pulled out in front of us. Luxury cars are great at stopping fast, even at 12 years old. 

I got Click My Hyperpink Megalast lipstick by Wet-n-Wild and it’s definitely hard to get off just like that girl said. It looks great, and lasts long, but is a bit dry and stiff, so I have to go over it with lip balm. I hate my lips overall, though. Too narrow, too thin. 

Meanwhile, the first toilet is installed! It took almost 2.5 hours, and I didn’t even panic when he left me alone to go get longer hoses after I TOLD him 12” would be too short since these are taller toilets. Sometimes his wife really does know best. 

Lifting toilets that weigh nearly as much as I do isn’t easy, but yes, I’m doing nearly as much work as he is. It definitely takes longer to pull the old one out than to get the new one in. The hardest part is setting the new one down because you don’t want to disturb the wax ring or the silicone along the base, yet you also want to set it down straight. We’re about to install the master bath toilet, so more details to come later! 

Later… 

Both our 32-year-old giant toilets that flushed super slow and took forever to fill are now gone. History! 

I assisted with gathering tools as he needed them… Allen wrenches, crescent wrenches and a hacksaw to try to cut through the rotted bolt holding the tank to the toilet, but it just wouldn’t let go. He had to carry out both toilets as a whole using a dolly. 

I thought it would stink like hell when the hole in the floor was opened but it didn’t. Actually, the silicone he applied around the base of the toilet stunk more. 

They also don’t flush when you stand up like I thought they did. You have to wave your hand within 3 inches of a button on the side of the tank. It has 4 AA batteries and should last at least a year. The button has a blue light when it’s activated that glows red when the batteries get weak, and a small gray knob to do a manual flush. What’s amazing is how FAST they flush! The old ones flushed slower than I’d ever seen any other toilet flush. Even Andy said he’d never seen a toilet flush like that when he visited nearly a year ago. It took so long that sometimes it had to be flushed twice just to get the toilet paper down. These flush in just two seconds and fill up much faster. They don’t flush any louder than regular toilets, as Andy asked. Toilets only flush super loud when there’s no tank, like in public bathrooms. 

I like that you have to wave the button to flush it rather than have it flush when you stand up because then every time we went near it the thing would flush. 

I’ll go ahead and post this tonight, but pictures and other details have to wait. We’re just so beat. He’s already gone to bed.

Very long, busy day, so I’m gonna update as quickly as I can as I’m getting a bit tired. 

Had blood drawn yesterday and the nice Asian guy had to use a butterfly needle on my tiny veins. Wondering if skipping my meds last Sunday is going to really affect the numbers all that much or not. I hope not, or else I’ll have to explain that I skipped that day, but will probably just say I “forgot.” 

I totally dread seeing her next Tuesday! What has to be said in person that can’t be said online or over the phone? I want to go back to 75 for now and that’s that. End of story. I like the woman, she’s fairly attractive for her age, she’s intelligent, but she also has a very commanding and somewhat intimidating personality. I know my body. Again, she may be the expert, but I know what’s normal for me to feel and what’s not, and I know I feel like shit on anything over 75. I’ll just tell her this and that I can always try 88’s again later on and see what happens, and hope she’ll be willing to consider how I feel and not her numbers (not that 10.61 was that bad anyway) and hope she’ll leave it at that. Some doctors have an all-or-nothing attitude where you either do as they say, or they won’t see you. I’m not refusing the meds altogether; I just can’t stay on a dose that makes me feel like I’m gonna die on and off. I just really hope I’m not going to have the hassle of having to find a new endo, even if one that’s closer would be convenient. 

Either way, it’s been an overall good day health-wise. I felt a little questionable a couple of times where I thought my heart was going to race and as if it was thumping a little too hard, but nothing serious. It was probably just because I was standing out in the bright sunlight for a while and was dressed a bit warmly. My pulse was a little over 100 today like it was the day before yesterday. During the medication attack, it probably shot up to 140. 

We first went treasure hunting at Goodwill. I got a small cute doll and a cat figurine for less than 2 bucks. He browsed the electronics, as usual, but didn’t find anything interesting. 

Then we hit Carl’s Jr. I loved the girl’s lipstick that took our order, though that particular color would probably look like shit on me. It was very vivid and even and she said it doesn’t wipe off. It’s Wet-n-Wild’s Megalast. Looked it up on Amazon. Kinda like Pinkerbell. 

Anyway, we got two deluxe motion-censored toilets with easy-to-clean bases that oughta be way cool. They’re American Standards and they’re supposed to have great flushing power because of the size of the hole that fills the tanks faster and all that. The only thing that sucked was that sure enough, a piece on the tank was broken and we had to return it. They were kind enough to switch it out for us, rather than tell us to return it for a full refund like Home Depot did, and then buy all-new ones. 

We were going to get basic toilets for $100 each, but then realized it’s not like we do this every year or even every few years, so we might as well go all out. It’s going to cost close to $500 after the rebates, but should be well worth it for the 12-30 years we may be using them for. Wish us luck with tomorrow’s installation!

I have both great and shitty news. The great news is that my wonderful endo messaged me online to inform me that my thyroid numbers are now perfect. Perfect! My TSH is 3.71 and my T4 is 1.3. 

She also let me know that they would retest me to check for accumulation but that she has labs ordered anytime I need them before our scheduled December test/appointment. Lastly, if my symptoms worsen, go to the lab and come see her sooner. 

Well, yesterday I had mild tightness in the lungs and mild anxiety, but today’s the day it really got me, booming heart and all. As always, I was batshit terrified. No wonder I thought I was going to die the first time I experienced this and didn’t know why. It is the most scariest and miserable feeling I have ever experienced. I would rather have the worst period cramps in the world, puke my guts out, gain 50 pounds, and have all my teeth pulled at once. 

I felt anxiety well up within me, then I felt warm and my heart started racing/booming, along with the other symptoms of lung tightness, the runs, low appetite, a little weight loss (despite not watching my calories or working out the last few days) and jitteriness. My legs felt like rubber and I could barely type the message I sent to my doc or Skype Tom. 

I’m now virtually certain that the tightness is not something in the air and the IF diet isn’t what triggered my anxiety. I’m also sure there’s no way I can continue on this dose, perfect numbers or not. I’m going to have to dive back to 75s and try again in six months to a year or so. Sometimes the second time’s the charm for me. It was with the 75s and with endo docs, after all. I swear the more I learn from her, the more I realize just how much information my old doctor withheld from me. 

I won’t be able to get in to see my doctor until November 3, but I am going to the lab today when Tom gets home from work. I was so terrified earlier that I almost had him come home. I’m surprised I started feeling better as fast as I did because it usually takes time to recover from this sort of thing, but this time around I was armed with lorazepam and a doctor who actually gives a shit. I didn’t have to resort to the beta-blocker, though. 

I don’t know if it was caused by a pocket flare within the gland or what, but I just know I don’t ever want to go through this shit again. But it seems I do whenever my numbers dip below 8 or so. I would still rather be a little hypo than suffer. I respect the fact that the doctor thinks this is the right dose for me, and while it might be the right dose number-wise, it’s not the right dose for how I feel. I could kick myself for agreeing to go to the 88s when I had been feeling so good on the 75s. Again, maybe we’ll try again in the future. 

Will write more later when I’m not as busy and not as rattled. 

Later… 

Doing another entry now because I expect to be busy over the next few days. We’re going to be picking up the toilets tomorrow and installing them on Saturday, and NaNoWriMo starts on Sunday. Still feeling stable after this morning’s terrifying scare, but worried it’ll get me again at any moment. It’s random and unpredictable. 

Here’s a health update on Tom. He went to his doctor yesterday and he got right in in no time at all. As he said, he’s Middle Eastern so no one wants to see him. Female doctors are definitely way more sought out the male doctors, especially American ones because nobody wants to deal with the funky accents of foreigners that can be very hard to understand. As for me… while I do prefer females, as long as I can understand them and they know what they’re doing, any color or race will do. 

His blood pressure is up even more so his doctor doubled the dose of this medication. This medication (I forget the name of it but it’s a very standard drug) doesn’t make him cough nearly as much as the stuff he was on before. It’s a diuretic so it should help the swelling in his feet. 

I asked him why he has high blood pressure and he told me it’s because he has a family history of it, is obese, and isn’t getting enough exercise. He sits at the computer all day at work and then he works such long hours that when he finally gets home he has no energy left for working out. He just wants to eat, watch his show, and go to bed. 

He’s determined to change this and lose 30 pounds before the trip. I’m the last one who would ever condemn, pick on, or discriminate against heavy people. Some people truly can’t help it, especially if they’re older or have certain medical conditions. But I’m all for him taking steps to a healthier him. Now that I know the IF diet wasn’t causing my anxiety (I figured as much) I may even eventually lose 20-30 pounds if I can, just not right now. One thing at a time. First I have to get my medication regulated so I don’t have the “heart attacks” from hell. It’s not as critical for me anyway because I’m just overweight whereas he’s obese. 

He’s going to work on getting his passport next month, and next month we should definitely have vacation dates. 

Marie happened to catch me on Facebook yesterday, which I use more for messaging than anything else, and she was going crazy due to her situation. I figured it was girl problems. I’m just glad I was there for her because she’s been there for me in the past. I guess Lori gets a little touchy-feely with men and she doesn’t exactly like it. I told her that no relationship is perfect so if she’s just flirting and not actually acting on any of her attractions/fantasies – which we all have – then I wouldn’t call it quits. As she said, Lori is really sweet otherwise. Besides, she’s not getting any younger, and she herself said she doesn’t want to die alone.

Not much to say today. Tom’s got an appointment with his PCP and I’m still waiting for my thyroid numbers to be posted online. 

Still doing my experiment too, to try to isolate the main cause of what was making me anxious. At this point, I’m still leaning toward the dosage increase, regardless of what the numbers may say, but will know for sure around mid-November. I’m skipping Sundays for 3 weeks, then I’ll go back to 88s every day. I want to see if it backs off by skipping (and so far it has), then returns when I’m on 88s daily. The IF diet may still have had a hand in it, but probably not much of one. 

My lung tightness was minimal yesterday and I made sure I didn’t burn any incense. As Tom said, all it takes is one new ingredient I may be allergic to to have a negative effect on me. As much as I’ll miss it, once what I’ve got left is burned up, that’s it. No more. I don’t want it staining our beautiful new chandelier or other things. Smoke is smoke be it from cigarettes, incense or something else. I’ll still have the wax warmers. 

I finally mapped out basic plots to 5 short stories for NaNoWriMo in which each story will be about 10K words. 

Also, I finished categorizing thousands of pictures I’ve saved from around the web and am arranging boards on Pinterest. Then I’ll back up to Facebook and Amazon’s cloud.

Got through yesterday without tightness or anxiety. Today I feel a bit tight, though, and again I’m not sure what to make of it. I just hope it’s something in the air that will pass soon enough and isn’t connected to my medication. It’s supposed to be cloudy today and rainy tomorrow. Hopefully, it really will rain and that will cleanse the air a bit. 

Today I have been keeping a journal for 28 years! Not bad, huh? 

I dreamed I was in jail (I don’t know why) and went off on one of the guards for some reason. She had been yelling at me and I shouted back about doing the best I could or something like that. Then I wrote a letter to Tammy. 

Then I was watching TV somewhere and a news report said some woman who shot someone in self-defense wouldn’t be charged as she was left to pick up all her scattered possessions in some field somewhere. 

Then I got a text message or voice message from Paula to which I replied by asking her if she’d be ok with spending just a couple of days out here and not half a month. I doubt I’ll ever hear from her again, though, and personally, I don’t want to any more than I want to hear from Nane. I looked in on Nane's latest travel pics in real life and she still looks good, but the longer I go without hearing from her, the less I miss her. She was just too judgmental. People that bash fatties, then bash you for bashing violent groups of people is no one I wish to associate with. 

In another dream, Tom had brought some bottles in to be recycled and he complained that loud music was blaring all around him every time he did. We were standing by the car as he told me this and I looked up and found an umbrella floating high above the car that was tied to the back bumper like a helium balloon.

Going about my business while embracing myself for the inevitable storm to come. Sooner or later the anxiety will bite, my lungs will tighten up, and on top of that, I’m sure someone around here will annoy the shit out of me with their noise. If the tightness is due to something in the air, though, as Tom suspects, then why is this the first fall that I’ve experienced it? 

I’m trying to think positive and hope for the best as hard as it is. I’m doing a test where I skip my meds every Sunday for 3 weeks. This will put me back down around 75 mcg. If the anxiety subsides, then it was likely that 88s were just a bit much for me. I will then ask my doctor to put me back down to 75 and try again at a later date to do the 88s. Sometimes the second time around works out. It did with the 75s. Meanwhile, my lab numbers should be posted soon too, but regardless of with they may say, it’s how I feel that counts. 

I felt well during most of yesterday and became a bit anxious and tight toward the end of my day at which time I took a lorazepam. 

We ate at Denny’s and went to Walgreens afterward. There I found a dual Chapstick, something I’ve never seen before. One side is banana and the other is strawberry. 

For just a couple of bucks each, I got body mist in a pink glitter bottle and one in a purple glitter bottle. The bottles look nicer than the sugarplum and strawberry scents smell. It’s like the smell has been watered down or something. It barely smells. 

Got a headband with clear gems and a similar-looking barrette wide enough to gather my thick hair. It’s not as thick as it used to be, but it’s still kinda thick. 

Got pink glitter duck tape that was to be strung across metal bands we were going to string across the couch and dresser legs to keep Roomba from getting stuck under there, but then Tom read that all we have to do is just glue little knobs on top of it. So now I have all this beautiful tape, but nothing to tape, LOL. 

After we came back home we took the bikes out and it was after that that I started to feel bad. So just maybe there is something out there. We’re skipping our morning ride today. I’ll hit the treadmill instead. 

We decided that rather than get taller oval toilets with an overflow system, we’d just get shorter round toilets like what Jesse had. Our toilets seldom overflow anyway. 

I asked Tom if he thought we stood a chance of ever moving to Hawaii and said that I didn’t think we ever would because all we could probably afford was attached living. Well, even if we were all on one floor with concrete foundations where you couldn’t feel the vibration of heavy footsteps, we’d still get the blasting TVs and other things that you don’t hear in houses. Old folks love to blast their TVs, and if there were cabinets along the dividing wall, you’d hear those being closed too. Unless there was a firewall between the units, of course. 

I lived in a couple of different 4-story brick buildings back east, a common apartment set up there, and never heard these two sisters whose place ran alongside my kitchen and bedroom. That was because of the brick firewall between us. Meanwhile, I could hear the lady on the other side of me playing the radio that sat on her kitchen counter from two rooms away. 

What was funny was the point he made in his response. He said, “I can’t possibly know what the future holds. Had someone once asked me if I’d ever move to Oregon, I’d have said probably not. If someone told me I’d drive a Cadillac someday, I’d have doubted that, too.” 

LOL, I’d never have guessed I’d leave New England, learn so many languages, quit smoking, be happily married for so long, share my journal online for all the world to see, or publish books even if I didn’t make shit doing it, etc. 

A large boat “crashed” ashore in my dreams last night, though I don’t know what beach I was on. It struck me that that was just how those kinds of boats “docked,” and I watched as people began to trickle off the boat. 

Then Tom and I moved into a strange house that was in the shape of a long L. Its long corridors and polished floors suggested it might have once been used as a non-residential building. Tom’s bedroom was at the very end of the long part of the L, toward the left. Mine was further up the hall on the right. I was standing in the doorway of his bedroom where he was trying to sort blankets that were twisted around him in his twin-size bed as he readied himself for sleep. I asked him if he wanted me to close his door, saying I didn’t care if it was left open or not, but I needed to know so I could be sure the rats didn’t wander in there. 

Then I ran up the hallway, shoes echoing off the painted brick walls, past my bedroom where my sound machine softly played white noise, and over to the rats’ cage on the left, straight across from the short end of the L in which the kitchen and then the living room were located. 

In the last dream, I might have been in a therapist’s office. The woman, whoever she was, told Tom, who sat next to me, that when I called it “home” and not just “where we live,” I would then be in the right place. 

The dream therapist then asked me to close my eyes, visualize myself in a nice place, and then describe it to her. 

“I’m floating on a cloud,” I said. “Only that cloud is the ocean. I think it’s in Hawaii. There’s so much color all around me. So many pink flowers.”

Just when I thought my endo was going to blow me off, especially being a Saturday, I received a message from her confirming the lab for both yesterday as well as the week before I see her in December. So I’m back to loving Doc O again, just not her location, LOL. 

As soon as I got the message, we got me to the lab and I not only didn’t have to wait long, but Kylie was my vamp for the second time. She always gets my tiny little veins on the first try. 

It turns out she was Doc O’s patient as a kid before Doc O started seeing adults only. She liked her a lot, saying she was the only one that seemed to really care. I agree. I’m just not sure she always gets just how much a dosage increase really does affect my anxiety levels. I know levothyroxine is the same thyroid hormone our bodies are supposed to make anyway, but for some reason, normal or not, an increase seems to be a bit of a shock to my system. The extreme dieting may have had a hand in it, but dieting has never affected me to this degree while this medication has. I’m still leaning towards the medication as the main culprit. 

Until it gets close to my next lab check-in, I’ve decided to skip the meds once a week to lower my levels just a teeny bit (this will almost put me back to 75 mcg) until I feel better. The anxiety has been coming and going. I’ll have a day without it and then I’ll feel anxious, and back and forth and back and forth… I’m not going to tell her that I’m skipping, of course. 

It was great to be able to grab a bite to eat and have my coffee the instant I got up, just like old times. It sure would be nice to be able to have my coffee as soon as I got up on vacation so we could get going sooner, but I can’t go a whole week without it. I would feel horrible as my body began to crash. This can take months to recover from, too. I passed the point of no return a long time ago. Just a short break from this medication and I feel like shit, gain a million pounds that never comes back off, and retain enough water to solve all our drought problems. 

I’m going to have mixed emotions if my numbers turn out okay. If it were the medication, it would be simple enough to adjust the dose. If it’s not, I may wonder if the diet really did screw up everything. I started the IF diet around the 8th of October. It was on the 13th that the anxiety kicked in. Seems a bit long if it was the diet. Shouldn’t I have felt anxious that day or at least the next day? I still think it’s the medication which means that after I’ve had time to adjust I can one day attempt the IF diet again since it works so well. I will probably wait until after our vacation. 

Maybe the numbers don’t have to be bad, though, to make me a little anxious. Or maybe I have simply developed an anxiety disorder after last year’s trauma. I just don’t know for sure and not knowing is what makes it frustrating. 

Receiving broken toilets is also frustrating. We were going to install them today, but when Tom pulled one out of its box yesterday he noticed it was broken. He called Home Depot and they said they wouldn’t replace it. Instead, he had to bring it in for a full refund and buy another one. Not trusting that the second toilet didn’t have cracks in it, he returned them both for a full refund and on Wednesday he’s going to go to Lowe’s for replacements. Hopefully, we’ll install them on his next three-day weekend. 

Last night I had ratty dreams, but don’t remember much about them.

Bob’s back to being loud and distracting. Yesterday he was hammering something at the lower side of his garage door. The only thing I can guess that’s in that area might be the gutter. My first thought was, great, he’s going to keep me up all day. But I didn’t hear anything when I got into bed. Either the sound machine did a good job of blocking him out or he stopped. Still, how many weeks is this new project going to take? I’m tired of having one of the noisiest people in the park being right next to us. Just totally sick of the computerless, restless outdoor neighbor who never wants to be indoors. The only thing this guy doesn’t have that Jesse had is the motorcycle and mutts. 

Sure enough, the doctor didn’t confirm that it would be okay to go to the lab on Saturday, as I asked her to, and if she still wanted me to go to the lab the week before I saw her as originally planned. I'm sorry, but there's no excuse for this and I don't care how many patients she has. This may not be a matter of life or death, but she - or someone - should be able to handle that much. Her not having time to respond to my second to last message, as I was told by the nurse I spoke to, is no excuse either. If she had the time to read it, she could’ve jotted down a quick reply. Her answer didn’t require much thought let alone a novel. I mean what’s the point of the portal if you’re not going to use it? 

Maybe the negative feelings I sensed in her the last time around weren’t in my imagination after all. It was nothing she said but just something I sensed like a dog senses fear. It was in her body language and while she may have a bit of a commanding personality no matter what and she might have just been having a bad day, I really think she dislikes me and doesn’t have much tolerance for dealing with anxious people. 

She may be knowledgeable and she may be sorry that I was traumatized last year, but could it be time to look for a new endo? I have been considering it regardless because she is just too long of a stressful drive, and the valet parking is a real nightmare. 

In last night’s dream, I had just woken up in the late afternoon. I stumbled into the living room with a yawn where half a dozen people stood waiting for me. I muttered something like, “Sorry. Been working graves online. Government project.” 

Then I noticed one person was a woman wearing a long fancy gown which I complimented. 

Next, I was back in the bedroom where the radio was playing and a new song came on that I liked. As I listened to it I looked at the window before me and noticed that the curtains were fading. Then the bedroom melted away and I was in a pool with some guy and what I assumed was his daughter who was in her late teens or early 20s. The water was cold at first but then it felt nice. Sitting on a nearby lounge was a naked girl of about eight years old. Ignoring the odd sight, I turned back to what was probably her older sister and said, “New curtains are definitely in order for the bedroom.”

After my last entry, my anxiety picked up to the point that I took a lorazepam, and even my stomach decided to get in on the action. I had the runs. So after having to be redirected FOUR times to endocrinology, I got a hold of a nurse who said the doctor had read my message but hadn’t had a chance to respond as of yet. Hadn’t had a chance? But I left the messages days ago and they usually say just 1-2 business days to get back to you. That’s how it usually is anyway. 

When I got up there was a message from Chris saying that the doctor contacted me online and that I didn’t have to call her back. So I picked up the doctor’s message, and she still doesn’t seem to think that the dosage increase is affecting my anxiety, from what I understand, though she says extra labs can be done. At least I think that’s what she’s saying. I asked her to confirm that it would be okay to go Saturday to the lab and if she still wanted me to go to the lab the week before I see her as originally planned. 

She also mentioned seeing my PCP. Not sure why, but I already have an appointment scheduled with her for early December. 

Regardless, she may be an expert, but I know my body. I’m not saying it’s 100% responsible, but I really believe it’s got a definite hand in it. The timing is just too coincidental. I was right the first time around, so why would I be wrong now? I’m sure worrying about it doesn’t help either, but when they get me close to normal it does seem to affect my anxiety. 

But fine. I’ll continue the 88s as she advised, I’ll go to the labs, and we’ll see what the numbers say. Worst case scenario, I can just skip one day a week and that’ll put me back to 75s. If the numbers are too high I’ll just tell her I may occasionally “forget” to take it.

Tom upgraded to Mac’s El Capitan, but I’m still using Yosemite. El Cap just doesn’t seem to have any new and exciting features I really need. What would be nice would be if Firefox wasn’t so damn slow, but since it has more features I need, I’m kind of stuck with it for now. 

No anxiety yesterday. My heart did race me awake, though, and today I’m borderline anxious but it’s backing off. Really starting to wonder just what the fuck it is I ever did to deserve this on-and-off suffering I’ve been going through for over a year now. As soon as I think I’m over it for good, back it comes. I’ll give it a few more days and see how I feel. I might call the doctor’s office on Friday or Monday. The wacky diet may have had a big hand in my anxiety, but I can’t rule out the dosage increase yet either. The biggest telltale sign of hyperthyroidism is rapid uncontrollable weight loss, a symptom I haven’t had. Nor have I had a booming heart, the runs, or a decrease in appetite, though my appetite is down a bit and I’m not holding weight as easily as I usually do. 

So while it’s unlikely I’ve been flipped from hypo to hyper this doesn’t mean it can’t make me a little anxious. Or can it? That’s what I hope to find out. What’s almost as frustrating as the anxiety itself is not knowing for sure what’s causing it. It’s hard to help ourselves when we don’t know where to begin. Stopping fasting was a start, though. That definitely seems to help. If it is the meds at all, I don’t know if I’ll adapt and the anxiety will eventually go away for good, or if it will still go away if something else is causing it. It’s hard to believe, for whatever reason, that one could suddenly develop an anxiety disorder like this, but things do change with age. 

Speaking of doctors, I got a weird message in which all that was said by automated voices was that the call was on behalf of (then they say my name) and that I could press 1 for customer service or call their toll-free number at my convenience. I would normally ignore calls like this but since my name was used, I first wondered if it was connected to whoever’s been using my name and number, according to that guy in Auburn. 

But then I looked up the number, which is supposedly the payment center of my medical group, and other people wonder if it’s a scam of some kind. I think it might be because never in the message did they identify themselves, and I don’t know why they would be calling us about money. We either pay in person or online if they don’t send us a bill. I’ll run it by Tom when he gets up and see what he thinks. I only just discovered the message recently. Goes to show how much more I’m online than on phones. 

I hope his leg is better when he gets up. He bumped his shin really bad while picking up the second 98-pound toilet. They’re sitting in the laundry room waiting to be installed this weekend with hopefully not too much drama along the way. 

Still think it’s kind of weird that no one got back to me regarding my messages about the anxiety. You know I love to spy on people, and she’s been pretty consistent with her Facebook game-playing. Even when she was in New York she was playing games. But this daily habit has ceased to exist lately. 

Given that she has only 13 friends, 3 of whom could have 2 accounts and be the same person, I wonder if she’s the loner type when she’s not working or if she’s just not a very well-liked person. Her tone and attitude on the job suggest she may be a real bitch in her everyday life. 

I have always been a loner myself and have always enjoyed spending most of my time alone. Not all of it, but most of it. I’m more productive that way. But lately, I wonder if I would feel better and more secure if either Tom was home all the time, or a couple of people lived with us (that we both knew, trusted and felt comfortable with) and someone was always home. I don’t know, though, because sometimes the anxiety kicks in when Tom’s home. His presence certainly helps, but it doesn’t prevent it completely. 

Andy's not doing much better either. He’s frustrated because he stopped losing weight, and within less than a 24-hour period, both his refrigerator and his washer crapped out. His washer is fairly new, too. I really feel for him. When we lived in Arizona it seemed that our stuff was constantly breaking. As soon as we fixed something, something else would break. 

Not sure if I’m going to be doing this year’s NaNoWriMo because I’m struggling to come up with ideas. I’ve got 10 more days to figure it out if I’m going to. 

Still having loads of fun creating boards and pinning pictures on Pinterest, as pointless as it may be. Then again, almost everything we do in life seems pointless at times. It’s just a fun thing, sort of like putting together a puzzle of a picture, only I’m putting together a “puzzle” that consists of many, many pictures. 

During the millions of times I woke up, I remember bits and pieces of interesting yet senseless dreams. I was sitting at this weird desk in what almost looked like a giant warehouse. I was working at a computer when I looked up above me and saw several cobwebs and what looked like this strange fungus dangling from the ceiling. I hunted for a vacuum to suck it up with, but couldn’t find a vacuum hose long enough to reach them, or anything stable to stand on. 

I know that I also had dreams involving Charlotte and Molly, but I don’t remember much of them. It seems like I might have been walking somewhere when I crossed paths with Charlotte. She kept asking me for a favor but I couldn’t understand a word she was saying. 

The Molly dream might have had to do with us writing in paper journals. 

I also had a dream that I was out riding my bike and rode by Andy's place. His front door was open and I knew he was hauling groceries in from his car. I stopped when he spotted me and said, “I know you weren’t expecting any company, but since I happened by, need a hand?” 

I don’t remember what his answer was, but the most interesting dream was the letter sent from Stacey that she meant to send to someone else. That was the sexy bitch of an apartment manager Andy and I both had to deal with back in the early 90s down in Arizona. The letter contained about five non-digital photos. There was a guy standing by a pool in one where Stacy had written, “My friend Dave.” Then there was a picture showing these battery-operated fish swimming through her pool. Neat idea. :-) 

I planned to write her back and ask if she wanted me to send her the letter and pictures back, or if she wanted me to forward them to someone.

What a shitty night last night ended up being. It was absolutely horrible. After I ate the first time around the anxiety backed off, but then it hit me again and it eventually turned into frustration, which turned into depression. I was literally in tears. Then I took a lorazepam and laid down for about an hour but didn’t sleep. Naturally, I felt better when Tom got up and we discussed it. Both he and Aly think it’s the diet and not my medication. 

I have totally stopped the diet altogether because one of us is right and I need to find out who it is so I can fix this. Again, before about a year ago, I never felt these kinds of emotions. I’ve been depressed at times, but I never had this kind of anxiety. I’m also not accustomed to feeling any negative emotions without a damn good reason either, like after losing a pet or something like that. Even when we were dirt poor I didn’t have this degree of anxiety. As I was telling someone recently, I’d rather be broke than go through this. Both are hard to deal with, but being poor was an easier kind of hard. It was more straightforward. There was no mystery to it and you knew that even if it may take time, someday it would end or at least not be so bad. But I’m not 100% sure what’s causing this anxiety and I don’t know if this is something I’m going to suffer with on and off for the rest of my life for what. Today’s been good so far, though. 

Let’s just say that extreme diets make me sick or mess me up emotionally, and I have no willpower to stick to the reasonable ones. Alli messed up my stomach and skin, low carb makes me gassy as hell, and IF diets love to play on my moods/emotions. The so-called reasonable ones? They just leave me hungry and moody. A bit sluggish too, for the few days I can stand to actually stick to them. 

I didn’t diet yesterday but the day before I did. Also, the day before yesterday I didn’t have any anxiety at all, while I dieted the previous day. So it seems to affect me the day after I diet. If I diet tomorrow then I’m likely to suffer the next day. Not worth it. Not worth it at all. 

I’m kind of surprised the doctor never responded to my messages. I’m pretty sure that they’re obligated to respond to them, so I wonder if something’s up with her. Even if there was, why hasn’t any other doctor contacted me? Well, if stopping the diet doesn’t continue to make me feel better, I will call them and ask to go to the lab so they can check my numbers. 

The only negative thing I feel today is an achy crown. It does that at times, but it doesn’t feel like it’s loose or anything. 

Been using LiveJournal since 2008 and I'm still learning things about it. That number rating I’ve been going by is my all-time rating, not my daily rating. Today I am in the 7286th position while my all-time rating is now up to 12,785. And all because I started answering the daily questions I only recently discovered, LOL. 

Yesterday evening was chilly, so I wasn’t out riding for long. I went out for 15 minutes an hour ago, and later I’ll spend 5 minutes strength training various body parts and then hit the treadmill for 10 minutes. 

Last night I dreamed we just moved into this place and it was horribly cluttered. Tom went out to run an errand that had to do with something financial. Some financing or payment connected to the place. While he was gone I took the opportunity to try to sort through our stuff. A cat suddenly appeared and I assumed it was Simone. She was rubbing against me affectionately and purring away. I then said, “This time you’re here to stay no matter how much I suffer.” Then it suddenly hit me that Tom was taking an awfully long time to return.

Didn’t sleep all that well. The traffic decided to wake me up this time around, and then I woke up to pee, and then for no apparent reason at all.

I was a little surprised to find that my endo never got back to me online. They usually get back to me in a day or less, and if they can’t, another doctor does. I had no anxiety at all yesterday but today I was borderline, so I ate earlier than planned. Tom thinks it’s connected to the diet but I don’t know what to think at this point. I’d rather stay fat and feel better if that’s the case, but rather than decide to quit or diet, I’m just going by how I feel day by day. I will say that the anxiety did pass in less than two hours after I ate a frozen dinner of cheesy rice with chicken and broccoli and had some fresh strawberries for dessert. So I got a good balance of carbs and proteins. Maybe my dear hubby is right after all. He is a very smart guy. So I guess it’s either be fat or be anxious. I’ll take the extra cushion, thank you.

My LiveJournal user ratings are now 12,921.

Again I had snippets of very strange dreams. In one I brought my PCP three or four vials of my blood supposedly for future blood tests. She asked why I brought them and I told her I brought them because she asked me to. Then she insisted that she never asked me to bring any such thing.

In another dream, I opened the front door of a house that seemed to be in a remote and mountainous setting. The mountains weren’t as steep or as green as they were when we lived in Auburn, but they gently sloped downward and off into the distance. I couldn’t see any other houses at all and I looked at a particular spot across the street and imagined Alyssa living there. I was thinking of her last night, so maybe that’s why I dreamed of her.

Next, someone was looking for somebody, and as I was telling them where to find them, I mentioned having a crush on them, not knowing that the woman I was talking about was standing right behind me. Who knows how well they took the news, whoever they were, because that dream only lasted a few seconds.

In the last dream, I opened a small box that was filled with bottle caps and Styrofoam peanuts and I wondered why the person(s), whoever they were, kept returning the caps of the bottles I gave/sent them.

I placed the box down and looked around the room I was in. There were about three twin beds side-by-side along one wall and my own twin bed was on the opposite wall facing the other direction. I realized the room was an absolute mess and I demanded that those who slept in the room put all their belongings on their beds because I was about to vacuum the floor.

Just checking in to the sound of thunder. Earlier it was the faint strains of polka music coming from the clubhouse. Yes, once again we had a live band here (Oktoberfest), and once again I’m thinking about how I came here to escape what I just can’t escape. Someone drove by with loud music a few times yesterday, and today it’s the band. Fortunately, they don’t have live bands playing here as often as they do landscaping and other annoying things. It didn’t last as long as the last band they had. 

I decided to try my best once again on the IF diet since I’m probably going to feel anxious at times anyway. Diets have never made me feel anxious. Only this damn evilthyroxine has. It got bad enough last night that I decided that rather than wait and call (and risk the nurse misinterpreting me), I’d leave the doctor a direct message online, and I did. That way it’s in my words and she can tell me directly if she wants me to go to the lab. I’m stable at the moment, but I just never know when it’s going to hit me. It turns itself on and off at random. At some point in the night, I realized I was no longer anxious. It just clicked off light a light switch. Maybe part of that is because I lost myself on Pinterest. I try to do things to distract myself and my mind from dwelling on it when it hits me. 

Pinterest has been around a while now, yet last night is when I got really into it for the first time ever. At first it seemed pointless and I didn’t really get how it worked, but it’s a great way to create picture collections. Pics are one of my hobbies, especially nature and animal pics. They have every subject under the sun there to search for, plus I downloaded their tool to allow me to pin pics from all over the web. 

Tom printed out a little holder for a thing that can recharge our trash bin’s batteries. This way we don’t have to keep going through batteries. I scold him and tell him he should’ve gotten just a basic pail. We don’t need a motion-censored one. :) 

No new toilets this weekend cuz one of them isn’t due to arrive till the 22nd, and he would like to install them both at once. With me helping, of course. :) 

Andy got kicked off of Ask and accused of using a bot. Well, not only would he never want to use one there, but he probably couldn’t figure out how to create one any more than I could put a Rubik’s cube together. That’s just not the guy’s thing. So we swapped messages and pics in chat on Facebook till he discovered his account was accessible again and we returned there. Because we sometimes make funny comments/answers, the system probably thought it was a bot cuz it seems like gibberish to outsiders. We’ll randomly grab half a sentence off the web somewhere and the other has to finish it in a goofy, funny way. 

Tried Kiwi berries for the first time. They’re ok. Not bad, but not great. Aly recommended golden raisins for lightheadedness caused by low iron, so I put those on next week’s grocery list even though I’m not big on “boogers.” 

Last night I had a dream I moved in with this family who had a girl of about 16 or 17. She was so unhappy about my moving in and had other family problems that she ran away. About 5 years went by and I overheard someone talking about finding her to tell her that her father was dying. I was glad the girl had run away because I knew we wouldn’t get along, but I was also worried about her as well.

We got a pretty good thunder and rainstorm late last night at around 2am. It rained a bit today too, and we hurriedly took off on the bikes to go “rain riding.” We were hoping to ride through at least a little drizzle, but sure enough, it cleared up. The roads are all dry now. 

Feeling flashes of anxiety again, but I don’t know what to make of it. I’m feeling it more emotionally than physically. My heart isn’t booming or racing up a storm or anything like that. I just feel odd feelings on and off that again, just don’t seem normal for me. I guess it is now, though. It’s hard to describe the feeling and it’s as subtle as it is obvious, but I guess it’s anxiety. It’s just that fleeting feeling of unease, dread or doom. That’s the best I can describe it. 

Eating does seem to help, and at first I thought that since I was dumb enough to go riding on an empty stomach, I just needed to eat when we returned and I’d be fine. But I continued to feel it intermittently. It’s hard to believe this is all about food since starting the IF diet, but to find out for sure, I decided to swap eating times. I was to wait until I’d been up 8 hours before I started eating, but then I decided to eat during the first half of my day instead to see if that helped, but it hasn’t made a difference. 

I still worry it’s the dosage increase. Coincidently or not, these are the same feelings I had several months ago, though I don’t see how my numbers could’ve been that far off every time I’ve felt this way. All I know is that I never felt this before last year and I sometimes worry that last year’s trauma has given me a whole new and permanent anxiety disorder. I just might not feel anxious every day, though. Tom doesn’t think it’s the meds. He thinks I’m just worried about the meds and that I’ll settle in after another month or so. 

The only other symptom I feel at times is tingling in the lips and that’s another symptom of anxiety right there. But WHY? Is it me? My eating habits? The meds? Something else? 

I know I’m not in any danger or anything like that, but this isn’t a very pleasant thing to live with, so I really hope it backs off. I’ll message my doc if it doesn’t. 

Had a dream I was in an RV or some other large vehicle when we ended up lost at the end of a dead-end road tightly flanked by trees, much like we did when we moved to Oregon. As Tom got out of the RV to check out the best way to get turned around, the RV’s brakes released and started moving backward with me inside of it. Neither of us seemed too alarmed, though. 

Did I expect to hear landscaping and projects here? Yes. Just not nearly every day. Did I expect to hear car stereos blast by the bedroom THREE times in one day? No, not at all. Really, if you can't escape this shit in a retirement community where CAN you escape it? I doubt most of them are people who live here but more like people visiting or who work here. Still, the owners should remind them that this isn't the ghettos. 

Later… 

No way. Just no way. This anxiety I’m feeling, which is worse today, is almost certainly connected to the new dose and not the diet I was doing. It’s got to be. I ate more yesterday and today, yet I’m still having symptoms of anxiety. I’ll be damned if I’ll put up with this shit again. I’m calling the doctor’s office on Monday as Tom suggested since even he can't be entirely sure of anything. Not even a lorazepam has helped. I should have known better. I was feeling fine on the 75s and that’s where I should have stayed. All that should matter is how I feel and not their damn numbers. When you don’t feel good, then screw the numbers. I really hope the booming/racing heart isn’t next. 

What I’ve got to find out is whether or not this medication can cause anxiety even if your numbers aren’t bad. I mean not bad in a certain way. I can’t believe my TSH has dropped too low, but I wonder if my T4 could have gone a little higher. She will probably send me to the lab to find out, but I’m thinking I’m going to have to dose back down to 75. 

Another reason I’m starting to suspect the medication (besides the fact that it’s getting worse) is that no diet has ever made me feel anxious before no matter how extreme it may be. It can make me sluggish and shaky, but it’s never made me anxious. I swear this isn’t normal for me. Not even in the worst of times in life. Things I worry about can be on my mind, they can mess with my sleep, and they can sometimes give me the runs, but these flashes of anxiety I feel well up in my chest… that just shouldn’t be happening. Not unless it’s possible to suddenly become this way for some reason. 

I’m just tired of suffering on and off and wondering what the hell I did to deserve it. I was doing so well for months, and now it’s back. Again, being poor was easier. It’s frustrating and depressing to have to once again deal with anxiety I’m not used to. This isn’t like when we stress or worry over something that eats at our minds. This is worse. 

One of the toilets hasn’t arrived yet, so we might just install one of them tomorrow.

 Got a lot done today… laundry, making out the grocery list, cleaning, etc. Now I can finally relax and do some writing. I could skip my workout with all the physical activity I’ve gotten today doing things around the house, but I don’t want to. I like riding and getting some fresh air. 

Tammy left a message and I first decided I’d call back in a week or two when there was less going on. Remember, we’re installing new toilets this weekend. They’ve arrived at Home Depot and all we have to do is pick them up tomorrow. 

But then I realized she’d be there for me if I wanted to talk. She always makes time for me as soon as she can, and I knew that a 10-15 minute chat wouldn’t kill me as much as I prefer Facebook to phones. 

She had both good and bad news to inform me of. I’m thrilled to learn she and Mark recently quit smoking and I hope they STAY quit. Yes, she will suffer for a while, and yes, she will gain weight cuz her metabolism is about to take a hit, but the cravings will pass and the weight can be lost later on. 

The bad news – and I didn’t know this – she’s had diabetes for years. I know of others who had it, changed their eating habits, lost weight and got rid of it, but it might not be that easy for her. She can eat right, but the steroids she has to take can cause both weight and water gain, and she’s exercise-challenged cuz of her knee and arthritis. 

It gets worse. She needs an insulin pump and her damn insurance has denied her cuz her numbers are too high. 

What. The. Fuck? 

When it comes to state, government or medical insurance, I am sooo sick of them not taking care of their own. Meanwhile, if you’re a foreigner or you’re in another country, they’ll give you EVERYTHING. It’s totally beyond fucked up. 

So she has diabetes, our mother had it, and our grandfather had it. That means I could be next, even though I’m not that big and I’m pretty active. Still, she inspired me to get a good 20 pounds or so off. I think I might be able to do it now that they’ve got my thyroid meds regulated and I’ve found that IF diets work for me so long as I don’t overdo it. They can make me weak, shaky and moody and therefore I sometimes have to eat earlier than planned. Still, like with quitting smoking, you usually have to suffer a bit to make changes in life. 

She and Mark, like us, are doing projects around the house little by little. Their place is a lot newer than ours, but they still want to customize it to their tastes. I guess screens need to be replaced every few years there cuz of the storms. Meanwhile, we still have our 32-year-old screens, LOL. She isn’t worse than us in all ways. She’s never needed heat since she’s been there, the lucky girl! 

She wants to go on a cruise someday, too. I think she’d love it. This will be our second one. After the first one, I thought it was a hectic pain in the ass since we lived in such a tiny town that we couldn’t fly to and from. We had to Amtrak to and from the airport. But after the shit we went through upon moving here, I realized how much fun it was after all, though yes, cruises are rocking with all kinds of wild and fun adventures. It’s like a giant playground in the middle of the ocean. If you want to relax, don’t go cruising. 

Got some goodies arriving tomorrow, including a realistic miniature chipmunk. That was an add-on for just a few bucks. I can add it to all my other animals. I also want to get the skunk and possum. 

The hairpiece came today and I wish it hadn’t so I could’ve gotten a refund. Dumbest waste of money yet, even if it was just $5. I can’t get it to stay in place. 

My LiveJournal ratings are still rising. I’m now at 13,148. I changed themes and couldn’t find the old one afterward so now it has a new look. 

I dreamed my cyber friend Christine adopted a baby, and the pill dreams are back, too. This time I went to shake a pill into my mouth and ended up with a whole mouthful which I was struggling to spit out. I’d never be so dumb as to shake a pill from a bottle full of pills into my mouth in real life, though.

I couldn’t believe I was out well after dark riding my bike in shorts and sandals in mid-October, but I was. I’m loving this endless summer! They’re still claiming we’re going to get a lot more rain from January through March, but I’ll believe it when I see it. 

Tom needed to get some vitamin C on Amazon, so we also got some goodies while we were at it. He got when he usually gets… Computer/electronics-related stuff. I got some wall stickers to replace a couple of wall stickers in the hallway. They’re silhouettes of birds on branches with a few flying around them. 

When I went to apply a 31” sticker of a figure skater I accidentally “twisted” her ankle. She’s also got a kink in her knee. I also have a sticker of a giant eye that I’m kind of sick of. 

I also got a couple of bronze lady figurines from this series I’ve been collecting. Got about a dozen now, all in different poses. 

Every now and then I check Mary's pathetic tweets just for shits and giggles. This is the one that let her crazy ex kill her baby and that I stupidly let use me to type her “story” from jail. I worked my ass off and didn’t get shit in return. Actually, I did get something. I got falsely accused of bashing her in my blog (better be careful what you accuse people of lest they actually act on it in the future), she blocked me on Facebook, then she unblocked me, and that was when I told her I was done with her. All she does is suck whatever she can out of people. 

Anyway, she’s ”overwhelmed” and “miserable.” Oh, poor baby. She must not currently have a bad boy to use to buy her things. I’m honestly surprised she hasn’t gotten knocked up since her release. 

She is otherwise intelligent and a great writer, so it’s too bad that she has to be so selfish and paranoid and befriend people under false pretenses. 

No landscaping or wood chippers running today, but here we go again with the small plane circling round and round. I don’t understand why they do this at times, but when they do it’s kind of annoying.

It turns out that not eating was definitely what was messing up my moods. I guess my blood sugar got too low. Tom was wonderful about it after work. He let me whine all about it and then he took me out to eat. We just grabbed some fast food from Jack-in-the-Box, but it was sooo good. Never knew there was such a thing as vanilla Sprite before. Going to have to try their peach and raspberry versions in the future. 

After Jack’s, we went to a grocery outlet where I grabbed some fresh strawberries and orange juice. I was already feeling a million times better. It seems that the better a diet works, the shittier they make you feel. One doesn’t need to give up on this sort of thing altogether, but it’s definitely best not to be so extreme about it. Maybe do it every 2 to 3 days instead of every single day. 

When I researched IF diets it said that it helps toughen you up to hunger and makes you able to withstand going longer periods of time without eating. This is definitely true. I guess it’s like that with a lot of things. Having more pain can toughen you up to it, so this makes sense. You just gotta go easy with it and not get so carried away. 

I really felt horrible yesterday and it was frustrating until I knew for sure what it was. When we lose a pet and we get depressed we know exactly why we’re depressed. But I wasn’t sure at first what was causing my anxiety and depression. I couldn’t help but keep thinking that being as poor as we once were was so much easier. That was straightforward. With anxiety and depression, there can be a number of possibilities. Usually, however, I don’t feel any negative emotions without a reason. But until you know what that reason is, it can make it seem even worse. 

At the grocery store, I also got a wind chime with three little cowbells. I got this one more for sound than for looks. It sounds different than anything else I’ve got out there. We just have yet to have enough wind to move it. 

Today has been amazingly and unbelievably quiet so far. The last two days were horrible with all the landscaping in tree cutting I heard for hours at a time. Today, though, is totally dead quiet. I don’t know that it’s ever been this quiet in the middle of a weekday. 

Last night consisted of many quick and senseless, silly fragments of dreams. It was the other way around where it was Fran that was still alive and he was making funeral arrangements for his dead brother Rick. In real life, Rick is the one who’s still alive. 

In another dream, I was excited that this woman who made a movie gave it the title I suggested. I was trying to get a copy of it to send to my parents, LOL, who seem to be alive and well and half my dreams. 

In another dream, I seemed to have moved in with a woman I was attracted to (Nane?). I don’t know if we were in a relationship or if we were just roommates, but we were in a large room watching a movie when I decided to leave. She said something like, “Yeah, it’s down to just 50° in here.” 

I mentioned calling my parents and she made the comment about it only being a few days since I last called them. I said they might be worried about me since I just moved in with her and wanted to let them know I was okay. I asked her how often she would call her own parents and she said every week to 2 months. 

As I rose from the couch we sat on, I also mentioned the book I was writing and said, “If we did what I’m about to write about, you would cringe.” At least I think that’s what I said. I’m not entirely sure about the last part. 

Then I was walking in high heels along the street and was surprised at how easy it was to walk in them. Some guy walked by and said I should walk closer toward the side of the road. Then he told some girl who magically appeared that her joke wasn’t funny and was suddenly holding a rat that I realized was mine. 

My user ratings on LiveJournal are now up to 13,370. It’s listed on my profile page there. I’m probably getting more viewers because I just noticed they have daily questions that I’ve been answering, although my tracker isn’t reflecting much in the way of new activity. This is probably thanks to all the mobiles out there. Trackers are blind to them and since more and more people are using them I don’t see most of my blog visitors anymore. 

I sincerely hope the video I shared on my Facebook wall of a rat attacking a pigeon grosses Andy the hell out because he is continuing to drive me crazy with the food talk and it’s more than obvious that he is not a true friend at all. The more I hint or even bluntly suggest he quit driving that subject into the ground, the more he discusses it. Well, that tells me something about him right there; that he’s not a true friend. So I wasn’t just paranoid in suspecting that he truly does enjoy annoying people. Well, anyone who can get off on doing that is obviously not a friend no matter what they may say, and therefore I’m not checking in as much. 

I’m even fucking with him at times by using Ask’s constant technical issues as an excuse to delete his questions and comments to me about food. Obviously, I won’t delete them all otherwise it would be obvious, but I do delete some of them and just say that I never got them. 

Regardless of the fact that he obviously enjoys annoying people, I still think he has a serious food addiction. His whole life is nothing but Facebook, food, canning and cleaning toilets. Well, I’m sure there are some porn and dreaming of young studs he can never have mixed in as well. Either way, if he’s stuffing the shit out of himself as I suspect he may be, I would be genuinely concerned for my health. He totally overdoes things. First it was cigarettes and pot. Then it was alcohol. Now it’s food. 

Heard someone drive by with loud music. It was the black person who lives a few houses down. Figures. I thought it would be the young guy who visits, but nope. It was actually the old lady that lives there. They just can’t drop their ghetto ways no matter where they go, can they?

I didn’t have an asthma attack, but sure enough, my heart raced me awake at 1:30 AM. Well, I’m not sure if it raced me awake on its own or if the dream I had caused it to do so where I was in a crowded mall or something in some strange place, and lost track of Tom. All I know is that I had to take a lorazepam for the first time since last spring to help me fall back asleep. 

I awoke slightly anxious and depressed but with no booming heart. I don’t feel jittery at all. I’m just frustrated because I don’t know for sure what’s causing what. Is it the dosage increase or is it just me? Every time I think I’m home free and I gain my confidence, something happens to pull my sense of security down a notch. Once again I am dealing with a kind of anxiety that I have never experienced before in my life and it gets to me at times. I usually feel confident and carefree, and hopefully I will be feeling that way soon enough and not progressively worsen. If I do then I will have to get to the labs so they can check my TSH, but especially my T4. 

It’s frustrating because when I’m not experiencing something bad I spend too much time worrying that I will. I have been anti-psych drugs due to the fact that they can be addicting as well as carry side effects. However, if this keeps up and they rule out my thyroid dose as being the culprit, I’m going to tell that shrink in December to just go ahead and give me a full-time prescription regardless of the possible risks and the fact that it may make me drowsy. I’m sure she’ll be more than happy to too, as that’s how they make their living. They’re licensed drug dealers, in a sense, only they spent time chatting with you while they’re at it. It’s still hard to believe that something that wasn’t normal for me in the past could now be normal for me, but I guess anything is possible. 

The good news is that my lungs are like they usually are, crystal clear and wide open. I had a little bit of congestion when I woke up and I worried I might have an attack, but I didn’t. Fortunately, Tom was still home but my mind still went “what-ifing” on me. What if I have a severe anxiety attack when he’s not home or what if I have a severe asthma attack? That attack was the worst I’d had in 10 years. I’m keeping track of everything I feel and experience for my doctors, but hopefully, I won’t have to get in to see them sooner than originally planned. 

I’ve lost a surprising 5 pounds in just 6 days. Fasting 8 hours a day may also be playing on my moods. Yesterday I felt both weak and shaky so I needed to eat a little earlier than usual.

So I survived the night without another asthma attack. Sure woke up a million times along the way, though, but I feel rested enough. 

It wasn't even 9 o'clock when sure enough, the weekday racket began. I heard a wood chipper running on and off somewhere. 

Not much else to report on this chilly morning that is supposed to turn into a 94° afternoon other than that I had a dream that the cops pulled up to where I was living in the dream, and that appeared to be a strip of one-story apartments or condos. I must have either done something bad or thought the cops might believe that I did something bad because I was definitely not happy to see them. I woke up trying to decide whether or not I should answer the door when they knocked or if I should go run and hide and hope for the best.