I have 2000 miles left of my trip. I’ve done about 180 miles so far. Getting closer to France!

Tom notices a strange tingling sensation when he touches his legs. This could be diabetes, his thyroid, or both. In a couple of months or so, he’s going to see his own doctor and get a suspicious spot on his forehead looked at. It might be what I had and need to be sprayed with liquid nitrogen.

Right now, I’m more worried about my weight than anything else. I don’t know that I’m going to be able to stop from gaining let alone lose. But then I haven’t been able to control my weight since being over 35, like most people. To lose weight AND keep it off is the impossible dream unless I want to damn near starve myself and I don’t. Just gotta roll with the punches of aging. Unless you’re one of the few percent with great genes, this is just life for most of us.

During our 11th session, Helen and I discussed various things. We mostly focused on the world in general and how it impacts us. I’m not worried about war, but when I see more and more restrictions put on women’s reproductive rights and other things going on in this country, I know the craziness is getting closer to affecting all of us. Hearing about doctors fleeing states instead of treating women like they’re trained to do only adds to the problem. When you don’t take a stand against extremists and you let them run you out of wherever, you become part of the problem. At the same time, the only way to fix the problem going on in this country isn’t possible. That’s because we can’t expect every single one of these extremists that are in charge of things to drop dead. Even Helen feels that if things keep going as they have, the loss of freedom and life as we know it will really suck.

Some people are so obsessed with control that there’s no rhyme or reason for it. The control freaks control things just because they can. They enact crazy laws and restrictions just because they can. Because it makes them feel powerful. Nowadays, fewer women can control what happens to their lives and bodies. People can’t always read what they want to read. Harmless entertainment is now harmful.

I’m starting to wonder if we’re all going to be microchipped someday and controlled in the privacy of our own homes. Maybe there will be mandatory cameras all through our homes and we’ll be zapped or something if whoever’s in control feels we’re spending too much time in a certain room of our house or some crazy shit like that. When I see us step so far back into the Dark Ages in this day and age, I start to think anything may be possible no matter how horrible or off the wall it may seem.

You know you don't know what you're doing when playing Sims 4 if you can't keep a teenage girl from jumping into bed with her father. *beats head frustratedly*

My gallbladder now has an execution date of April 12th! That week will be a busy one with appointments three days in a row. New bridge on the 10th, pre-op testing on the 11th, and surgery on the 12th. For my pre-op appointment, they’re going to do x-rays, an EKG, and blood work. I’ll have a follow-up appointment three to four weeks after surgery. I hate the money it costs us but will be so glad to have the new bridge and gallbladder out. We forgot to ask if I’ll have stitches. I asked through the portal but didn’t get a reply. That’s exactly why I prefer Galileo over dealing with doctors that I see in person. It’s just that Galileo docs can’t reach through the phone and yank my gallbladder out.

The surgeon's waiting room was a bit crowded on our way out the other day. It was so funny when I was in the bathroom right off of it and I heard someone ask him if he came there that often as if it were a spa or a salon, LOL.

“This is a doctor you don’t want to have to see very often,” he told them. Then he waited for me outside the waiting room because they wanted to chat like they were all good buddies and Tom isn’t very sociable on or offline.

The surgeon did have an accent that was a little hard to understand and his mask muffled his voice, making it even harder. I was wondering if I was ever going to see a maskless doctor again but then my GI doc wasn’t wearing one.

The GI appointment was quick but the waste of time I expected it to be. It was nice to get out but it was to learn nothing new. The doctor agrees the gallbladder is most likely causing my problems. Gee, you think? Well, like I told him, two more weeks and it’s gone. Yeah, 13 days left to live, you crampy little bastard!

He mentioned the propofol they used to knock me out and how people love it, and no wonder Michael Jackson loved it, LOL. That was exactly what I was thinking.

We were out for about four hours today. Funny how things are greening up out there, even though we haven’t had much rain.

We stopped at Whole Foods for over an hour while the car charged. We ate at the buffet and sat at one of the tables where I took notes in my journal, and we also played on our phones and stuff like that. For the millionth time, why does nearly every store and restaurant I enter have to sound like a fucking concert hall? The music was loud and annoying. It was a nice day overall, though, and barely humid out.

Noticed the flags across the street were taken down yesterday and the golf cart is gone too. I was wondering when in April they’d leave. So I’m guessing the trailer will show up tomorrow, and they’ll leave on the first. That’s OK with me! I was a bit worried they’d stick around till mid-April or May, even though it’s not like they’re horrible neighbors.

Jess is one contradicting and confusing person! First, she had no problem on 100s, then no problem on 88s. Then she was glad to have fewer palpitations on 88s but complained she gained 3 pounds in a month, and why was her dose even lowered in the first place, she asks, since she was fine on 100s?

Had a dream I ran into Chris and he was a doctor of all things. We were about to move and I asked if I could see him if the move didn’t work out and we returned. He agreed and started to write me a prescription for my medication when I told him I didn’t need any at the moment.

Then I told him that while I hadn’t told Tom yet, I discovered blood on the tampon I was wearing. Why I was wearing one at this age is beyond me. He looked worried and disappointed. I assured him I would talk to Tom soon but was busy with other things.

It's going to suck not going to the beach this summer since he’s going to be working. Maybe I’ll go to the pool more often instead.

Just got an email saying I have to pre-register on the hospital site for surgery. Health work, health work, health work! Imagine if I could spend the time on other things that I spend working on my health. I’m so sick of practically making a career out of it.

My urine analysis came back negative. So the antibiotics did their job after all. I do feel much better. Just slight burning every now and then.

Random thought: My foster mother never would have cried for me if I’d died the way I cried for her when I learned of her death.

After waiting for the better part of an hour, I met with the surgeon this morning. He was in a complex that included a hospital and emergency room. A guy was driving a six-seat golf cart around the parking lot that took us directly to the building I needed to go to.

The waiting room was small and comfortable, but a bit chilly. Wearing just a tank top, I wished I had brought my cardigan with me. Anyway, we each used the bathroom off of the waiting room and settled into our seats to play games on our phones when I whispered in his ear, “Someone smells like a smoker."

A second later, a youngish guy sitting with a youngish woman said he was trying to quit.

Oops! LOL, so I apologized and he said it was no problem. The woman even seemed amused. Maybe him hearing me say that will influence him to quit just like I influenced Andy to give up the pot when he read in my blog that I thought he sounded high all those years ago when he left me a voice message.

So the doctor is going to remove the gallbladder, explaining just about everything I was able to Google about the subject of low-functioning gallbladders. It’s going to be 4 incisions, though, and not 5. They’ll be across my lower stomach. They need the other ports for “hands” to lift the liver out of the way and insert tools. I let him know that my TSH was a few points elevated and about the UTI and he said that would be no problem. I didn’t think it would be, though.

They will call to set up a date/time which should be within the next few weeks. Really hope I’m on days when they call! We let them know the 10th was out of the question. The only thing that worries me about having it done before the 10th is whether or not it would throw off my schedule for the dentist but Tom doesn’t think it will.

At the end of today, I take the last Nitrofurantoin and while it seemed to work great at first, the burning is picking up again and I'm not sure the UTI is gone. There are a couple of other things as well. For one, I noticed a slightly greenish tint to my pee when it's usually pretty clear, and I had lower left back pain (a dull ache that would come and go) for a couple of days. Today it hasn't been as noticeable but yesterday and the day before it was. I don't know if there's a connection, though. It could have been a pulled muscle or something. Maybe it's time to do a urine culture?

I updated my docs on all this, and we’ll see what they say.

I’m down 2 pounds since beginning the IF diet, but I know my stubborn dumbass body. It’ll lose 2-3 more pounds and then automatically reset itself to where it was, even if I keep doing what I’ve been doing.

For the last couple of days, I’ve been having a dull, intermittent ache in my lower left back and really hoping to hell that my next problem isn’t going to be kidney stones. Tomorrow is the last day of the nitrofurantoin. It’s also surgeon meeting day. I worry that the UTI, gastritis, and hernia may delay gallbladder surgery. Basically, I’m just wondering how many more appointments I’m going to have before I can finally get a break from them and I’m worried about money as well.

We ran out to Twistee Treat and got ice cream. I’ve noticed after I eat, no matter what the quantity, I feel not just unusually full, but also a bit short of breath and bloated. I guess I’ll find out more about that on Thursday.

We went to the dollar store before going for ice cream to get some Vienna’s and OMFG. This bastard was getting ready to blaze out on his motorcycle and I was trying to hurry across the parking lot so the sound wouldn’t blow up my eardrums but I couldn’t get across fast enough because a couple of cars were in the way. Why is this shit legal? Why don’t we use the technology we have today to limit the volume of these damn things?! I’m so sick of this fucked up world at times and its twisted laws. Why is it more important to regulate women’s bodies and what people read than deal with how insanely loud and disruptive people can be?

Then when we got home, the loud motorcycle that visits Toni on occasion came and went. Yesterday was the bitch down the street, gunning and running hers with her little friend.

I understand that planes have a way to go before batteries can be made to quiet those down. But there’s no excuse left for anything on the ground. Not many commercial planes today, but a small plane was zooming back and forth and being a little annoying for a while. They don’t seem to share the air space, even though the commercials are up higher. Yet when they’re not around as much the small plains take the stage.

As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t diet because I hate being hungry. I have to bring my calories to an unsustainably low amount which means a lot of hunger for very little results. I don’t want to work so hard for so little. But I’ve really got to try to stop from gaining any more weight. So Tom and I decided to do intermittent fasting and only eat during an 8-hour window. This means I’m going to wait until I’ve been up for 4 hours before I start eating. I know I won’t lose weight since I can pack in more than 1000 calories in 8 hours but I’m hoping I’ll at least stop gaining.

If I understood the news brief Alexa gave me, some top official in Kansas is going to fight to ban abortion there, even though the majority of the people voted against bans and enshrined reproductive rights into their constitution. What’s the point of the people voting and enshrining things into constitutions if whoever is running the show is just going to undo it all and what they personally want?

No problems with resuming the nitrofurantoin. I wish I hadn’t let my stupid PTSD scare me off of it. Especially since the amoxicillin didn’t work. Things are definitely feeling better where the sun doesn’t shine. I’m still trying to figure out how the hell I got the UTI to begin with since having a bidet means a cleaner booty. Read an article saying that some UTIs are contracted from tainted meat. I cook all my meat except for the Vienna’s.

Had a horrible nightmare. Tom and I owned some land somewhere and recent rain left lots of puddles around the land, most of which were barely an inch deep. One of the puddles was a little wider than Tom, who stepped on its edge. Then he slipped down into it and at first we were surprised to see him sink down to his hips. Then a second later, he was up to his neck. The same instant he told me to call 911, I knew we weren’t going to be able to get him out ourselves. That’s when I woke up from the nightmare.

Two more days till I find out if I’m having gallbladder surgery or not and hopefully, also when, if I am.

Took the 88 that would have been a 75 today. Yesterday was one of those wonderfully unusual days where I had energy. Today, I’m back to the usual fatigue, but I expected it. This is what my body is used to, though. Who knows how many days it will be before I have energy again?

My day started off a bit emotional yesterday thanks to all the stress I’m under. Helen made me feel a lot better when we were done talking. Next week is when we’re gonna do the EMDR.

I have three appointments next week, counting Helen. I swear it never ends! I gotta make sure the GI appointment doesn’t spawn another appointment. Hopefully Monday, I’ll find out what’s going on with the surgery.

Continuing with this entry after taking a nap and doing other things…

Sure enough, I’m still having UTI symptoms. I was warned, after all, that it can be resistant to amoxicillin. I’m going to finish the nitrofurantoin. I have 7 left. They said the drowsiness and warm flushing are OK as long as I don’t get hives, stomach pain, or trouble breathing or anything like that. If I still have symptoms after Monday, then we’ll do a urine culture.

I called Margaret yesterday thinking she just had a few tech questions and it was horrible. The woman babbled non-stop for 45 minutes, mostly about Dixie and Diane. Dixie was like that too, and I had to wonder how they could have been friends for over a decade. I mean, how could they have gotten a word in edgewise? I know I barely could. I don’t understand why there are so many people like this in the world. I get that she’s 93 and lonely and that her kids don’t live anywhere near her, but it’s not like she’s alone all the time. She does have a large group of friends. There seem to be a lot of people of all different ages and walks of life like her that can’t shut up.

Not once did she ask what was going on with me. I will admit that a part of me was hoping that as long as she agreed to let us pay her back, she would help get us out of debt since she’s supposed to be wealthy. But it was all about her past friendship with Dixie and how she only hung on to that friendship for Diane’s sake. She said Dixie had 1.4 million dollars before she died and was so obsessed with money that she would do things like not eat at expensive restaurants and would find old clothes to sell and do whatever it took to make and save money. Margaret still doesn’t know what became of the money.

Then she talked a little bit about the 4000-square-foot home she and her husband used to have in Loomis on 17 acres. She’s now in a 3-bedroom house outside of Sacramento.

So yeah, it was all about her. I politely listened but I’m sorry I gave her my number. I could have hung up on her rambling away as she did and she wouldn’t have known it for a half hour. I’ve always hated one-sided relationships of any kind. I hate it when a person wants to know all about me and won't let me in on what's going on in their life, and I hate it when everything is all about them only.

And yet again I continue this entry. This time I’m determined to finish it! We ran out to CVS and got some treats. I’m sipping pink Moscato that should be mostly out of my system by the time I take my antibiotic, though it’s not on the list of ones they say you shouldn’t have alcohol with. Even so, now that I’m going to begin treatment again, I won’t drink anymore until after I’m done.

I also got some cranberry pills enriched with vitamin C and probiotics.

Saw a pest control truck at Ray’s earlier.

Finished the latest VZ challenge! It took me about two weeks to do it and there’s a little more than a month left.

Wow, that’s interesting. Margaret sent an email asking that I call her. Could it possibly have to do with what’s going on with us here? I did mention the health issues and that he would likely be returning to work but I certainly didn’t ask for anything either. I told her that was simply life. I think she just wants me to call to help test her phone and internet. She’s been having a lot of problems with AT&T. I remember how horrible they were. She said she was in the middle of replying to my message when it all disappeared. Same thing when she was on the phone with a friend.

Part of me is sorry we didn’t get to meet before we left Cali. She’s such a nice lady and we do love most of her jokes. She’s in her 90s now, so as she says, she could be here today and gone tomorrow. I’ll call her after my meeting with Helen.

Yesterday, I ended up a bit tearful over the stress of all the health issues and the debt we’re racking up. We both know it’s not my fault and that I didn’t ask for these problems, but I still feel bad anyway. These concerns are now spilling over into my dreams. I don’t know if he was getting retirement money in the dream I had but he had just gotten a job and I was thinking that it was just in the nick of time. But the very next day they fired him for his essential tremor and I said, “I knew that job was too good to be true.” I had a bad feeling that we would be forced to end it all if we didn’t want to end up on the streets.

At least there’s certainly no risk of that happening in real life! Unlike when the recession went to hell, we do have a steady income. It’s just not much. The medical part of what’s going on is harder on me than the financial part. I think I ran into Jessie in the dream too, and was about to tell her that I may never see her again, but couldn’t bring myself to do it.

My doctors are acting like my TSH of 7 is really 77. I was told by more than one doctor that being under 10 isn’t dangerous. They’re also aware of the side effects I have from the medication. So we’re going to go extra slow at titrating the dose. I still don’t think I’m ever going to be able to handle being in the normal range but I’m going to get as close as I can comfortably get. So for the next six weeks, I’ll be taking six 88s every other week. I think it’s 50/50 as to whether or not I can handle six 88s every single week but seven is too much for me.

What I don’t get is why they asked if my surgeon asked for clearance and if he feels comfortable operating on someone with an elevated TSH. Again, I didn’t think 7 was that high. And secondly, how can it be dangerous? I’ll discuss it with him next week, and as I reminded them, I don’t have a surgery date yet. I meet with the surgeon next week.

I still have to see an endo but as my docs and I discussed, I’m going to wait and schedule one closer to home after what’s going on now is dealt with because I’m overwhelmed as it is. They understood too. As I said before, I don’t know what an endo can do that the last two didn’t but they can’t hurt either and will make my docs happy. I really hope to hell they never want to check my cholesterol. They'd go ballistic over that.

I was shocked to learn that the endoscopy I had cost $19,000! We paid $236 of it. Almost 20K just to shove a camera down my throat for 12 minutes. The cost of the HIDA must have been insane too.

Today I finished the last of the amoxicillin and I’m not sure that the infection is gone. So that’s another thing stressing me out right there on top of the three grand the new bridge just cost us. I had the temporary bridge put on yesterday and it wasn’t a rough appointment at all. Triazolam is good stuff and so is this dentist. I love her. I think she’s the best of the three I’ve had between California and Florida. Despite the money it cost, it’s nice not to have stinging in that area when the root was exposed. It looks better already and this is just with the temp bridge.

Handling the amoxicillin well. Most of the infection seems to be gone. I was a little alarmed for a minute when I started to get a rash in the groin area, realizing it wasn’t the right spot for an allergic reaction to amoxicillin, which I’ve never gotten from it before, and a little late in the game for it to be because of the UTI. But then I realized it was just a heat rash. Those are common in these kinds of climates, even though it was surprisingly cold last night. Got all the way down to 39. 30 freakin 9 degrees in March in Florida! Anyway, a little hydrocortisone helped clear it up.

Got my results after getting up this evening. No results on whatever that liver test was for yet but my T4 is 1.3, and my TSH is 7.12. So right about what I was expecting.

A part of me wants to do nothing because I’ve felt so much better emotionally. But because I've been having so much fatigue and even mild hypothyroidism can cause issues with fatigue and weight - fatigue being debilitating - here's what I'd like to do and I ran this by my docs too.

First, I can't stress enough just how sensitive I am to this medication and how much of a fine line it has between helpful and hurtful for me personally. If I'm not really careful, I have epic anxiety, a booming heart,  insomnia, the runs, and I feel like I'm on fire. Therefore, I’d like to add just one 88 a week, but ONLY EVERY OTHER WEEK and do this for SIX weeks. The last time we did the slow titration method I only did each step for four weeks and then realized that wasn’t enough time for it to fully build up and that’s why I struggled for a while.

My calculations say I should be at 5 if I can ever stand to take six 88s a week every week. But there's no way I can stand to get to around 3. Way too many side effects there. And again, I know people say they have anxiety when they're low on thyroid, but I'm actually the other way around for some reason. The closer the numbers get to the normal range, I have off-the-charts anxiety. So it's important that I take it extra slow, especially since he may have to go back to work, which means I'll be alone more. It once took me several tries to tolerate 75.

If worse comes to worst, we know I can handle 88 five times a week and that it doesn't put my TSH in those dangerous double digits. But I’d like to try this every other week for six weeks. I'm just tired of being tired, even though I don't know for sure that my thyroid is to blame.

Downloaded Sims 4 to my desktop and a mobile version as well. I want to like the game because it looks like it could be fun if I could just understand it. Some of it I get, but it’s such a complex game that I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to figure out the mechanics of how everything works. There are just so many controls and options.

Robert added some new songs to the playlist, but I’m not liking them so far. They’re not bad. They’re just boring. Half of them are by people I’ve never even heard of. At least he got rid of three of the five Pitbull songs.

I took triazolam before bed, but I can’t say that it helped me sleep better. Maybe just a little. I didn’t sleep as long as I thought I would. Just like yesterday, I awoke tired and ended up going down for a nap shortly after. The second and last pill will be taken an hour before this morning’s bridge replacement.

I had this dream I was riding this little scooter that was shaped sort of like an upside-down T. You place your feet on the sides and hold the stick in the middle. I was riding up a dirt driveway in a wooded area, hoping no dogs would jump out and chase me.

The house I entered had a back door as well. But once I stepped inside and into the living room, it looked like this place. I could see Tom out in the lanai with the bitch revving her motorcycle beyond the window as he gathered some old stuff. Some of it contained old vinyl records that were only a few inches wide. I insisted he sell them, saying he could get good money for them. But he said all he could get for them was $10.

I just want to cry right now. I am so frustrated and overwhelmed with all the health issues and appointments that it’s really getting me down. I feel so much older than my years at times. I kind of wish I could magically make Helen appear on my cam right now. I hate to say it, but I can see how Aly sometimes wished she would get something that would just kill her. I’m kinda wishing that myself right now only I don’t see myself getting that wish like she did, even though she didn’t really want that deep down. Far from it. She wanted to live. She just wanted to do it without constantly suffering. I would like to live without the regular suffering as well, even if I don’t have the zest for life that she did.

The nitrofurantoin proved to be too strong for me so I was switched to amoxicillin. I looked back in my journal and found that I last took it for a sinus affection back in the 90s and had no side effects. I can take penicillin, but it gives me the runs. They gave me that a few years ago when I had a tooth infection. The only problem is that some resistance has been reported when it comes to amoxicillin and UTIs. That’s what my doctors told me anyway. But the other stuff was way too powerful. It was making me very drowsy and I would have these scary warm flushes come over me that weren’t like a regular hot flash. I think most of the infection is gone, but not all of it.

Went to the lab bright and early in the morning, but there was no urine test ordered for me. Just the thyroid and something else. I wonder if they canceled the pee test because the home testing kit showed I have a UTI. I did notice another test I don’t think I ever had before called a PSC. I guess it has to do with the liver.

I’m just really stressed out not just over all the appointments, but the constant fatigue that rarely seems to give me a break. I don’t know what to think at times because there are so many possible causes. Maybe something else is going on with me that hasn’t been diagnosed, but I doubt it. I just feel really overwhelmed, and I know that today I’m going to be told my TSH is shitty. The question is how shitty?

I’m having one of those days when I’m wondering if there’s something up there that’s punishing me, or if this is just random. I just feel like I shouldn’t be having this many health problems until I’m over 65.

I started my day - or night, I should say - off on the warm side and my heart started racing before I took the amoxicillin but after I finished eating a frozen dinner. Hopefully, that was just because there was too much sodium in it. Every now and then I take a break from healthy stuff and get pre-made stuff, especially when I don’t feel well. I’m hoping some of the fatigue will lift once the infection is cured, but it’s been really bad the last couple of years, and I certainly haven’t been infected that long.

The honker left at 4:30 yesterday morning and I thought they were going on a road trip or something but nope, they were back a few hours later.

Tomorrow’s dental bridge replacement day. Ughhh… They said it was OK to take the triazolam with the amoxicillin, though. I can’t say whether or not the amoxicillin is making me drowsy because of the fatigue, but it doesn’t seem to be as noticeable as with the other stuff. So hopefully, if I take it before bed I’ll sleep better because I definitely haven’t been sleeping well, which doesn’t help.

Can’t believe how cold it is here, and it’s almost April in Florida.

Finished my painting of a candle in a window with raindrops on a rainy night. It came out okay, but not nearly as good as the tutorial. The flame seems to glow in dim light. I had trouble getting solid, even coverage over the color that was already there. The background color bled through so I had to throw on a few coats.

They gave me an antibiotic specially made for UTIs called Nitrofurantoin. I’m so glad they called in the stuff when they saw the results of my home test! That way I don’t have to suffer until they get the lab results sometime next week.

I’m also going to make sure I have foods and drinks that contain probiotics.

Even though I take children’s vitamins due to my sensitivity to things, I’m starting to wonder if they could have a hand in some of the fatigue I’ve experienced. I noticed that in the days following when I forget to take them, I seem to have a little more energy. Vitamins make Tom tired. I think the antibiotics might have made me a little tired too, so I can’t really experiment with that just yet. There are 10 pills that I’m going to take twice a day for 5 days.

I was worried thunder might wake me up but instead, a nightmare of having bees on me woke me up. I woke up literally slapping my chest to get them off, LOL. Despite the scary dream, I fell back asleep and woke up with good energy.

I also had a dream that we bought our old beach cottage in Old Lyme, Connecticut that we used to go to during the summers when I was a kid. The cottage that was in front of us toward the right was closer than it was in real life. I could see the guy who moved into it recently inside the place. I could see into all the rooms from back to front, including him sawing away on his front porch and driving me crazy.

Then he was in our place sitting at our kitchen table with us where I dropped enough hints without being rude to let him know it was annoying and he didn’t seem to give a shit like most people. I was surprised to learn he was remodeling the place because I thought it had already been done.

Finally, everyone from the surrounding cottages was at the table. Eventually, I stood up and explained the history of the lot on which the 7 cottages sat, and how my family and their friends owned the cottages back in the 70s. Tom, for some reason, didn’t seem happy with me letting people in on this.

Galileo didn’t forget the lab after all and I’m glad they didn’t because I definitely have a UTI. I asked them if they could include that in the lab order and they told me about at-home UTI testing strips as well. I didn’t even know there was such a thing. Tom also found that there are OTC pills you can take but I’m guessing Galileo is going to want to prescribe antibiotics. I still have to get tested at the lab so that they know what kind of infection I have. I just can’t believe I got it from shit since we have bidets. I’m thinking it could have come from excess moisture that produces yeast. These bidets with their wider streams definitely leave me wetter so I got thin liners to help absorb moisture.

I had to sleep today, but Tom went out and got the testing kit along with the Halcion for Wednesday’s appointment. I peed on a strip with two little squares that test for different things. The one that remained clear was for your white blood cell count. The other one turned red right away, which indicates a UTI. I would have been genuinely worried if it showed that I didn’t have one because that could mean I had much bigger problems.

I enjoyed having better energy yesterday for the first time in days, but now I’m back to being tired despite sleeping a decent amount of time and getting a good sleep score. I did wake up a few times due to weird dreams, as usual... Me running from a couple that was pissed at me in a hotel and being unable to find my room. Then there was a rat in another dream. Rats have been showing up in my dreams a lot lately.

Anyway, I have an appointment at the lab at 5:40 Monday morning.

I’m definitely not in a good mood right now. I was so excited to finally be able to let my body wake up on its own after having to set alarms for so many days and being exhausted. Yet I’m still exhausted! And I’m still trying to figure out why. Low thyroid? Sleep apnea? Depression? Well, with my sensitivity to medication, I can’t treat these things any more than I already have. I’m not going to increase my thyroid dose, of course, but maybe bringing 45 minutes to an hour of waiting time might help. I doubt it, but it's worth a try.

He gets free stuff every few months because he’s on Medicare. So I had him get me a pillbox since there wasn’t anything he really needed this time around. Now I don’t have to get up and try to remember if I’m supposed to take a 75 or an 88 that day.

Anyway, I was out front for a bit while he filled the planter that was left here with dirt, and we planted a mix of cosmos seeds in it. The sunlight seemed to perk me up, but it was very short-lived. I ended up napping shortly after.

Right now, I’m frustratedly working on a painting. I just don’t have the knack for this! Things really do change with age. Just because I was a little artistic when I was young, doesn’t mean I still am. They make it look so easy in their tutorials yet I’m having a hell of a time doing even the simpler parts, which is the background. I just can’t always get my colors right and when I do, I still don’t get it to look like it’s supposed to. I’m working on one that shows a lit candle reflecting on a window full of raindrops with a stormy evening sky behind it. It's supposed to be right as the sun is setting. I stepped back and compared mine with theirs and my sunset didn’t quite glow as yellowy as theirs does. Also, my sky and ground look more like splotches of color than anything else.

I regret spending all this money on painting supplies and the witchcraft kit. Complete waste of money. I might even undo the paper and oil pastels if I could. Coloring and diamond painting is all I can really do.

Anyway, I got the background done and I’ll attempt to get the candles and raindrops on later or tomorrow.

Because I complained that there are too many Pitbull songs on the modern radio station in the VZ app and that his crap comes up every time I play it, one person decided I was rude and don't know anything about music. Before they blocked me, of course. This is exactly why I’m not very active in any of the groups I'm involved in. I'm never allowed a right to my own fucking opinion if others don't agree with it. 

Working my way through the 48-day challenge. Went through Vancouver, and then London, and now I'm in rural Australia. There are only two more rides in the challenge after this, and that's in Daytona and Ireland I think. They’ll be kind of long, though, at about 62 miles each. 

The heating element on our hot water tank broke, but fortunately, it didn't cost much to fix and although the job was harder and took longer than expected, Tom did a great job on it. He said it took a lot out of him just getting up and down off the floor and that he needs to get in better shape before he gets a job. 

I have mixed emotions about him going back to work. I don't mind a little more alone time as long as I'm not feeling bad but it also sucks that his program didn’t work out (though no surprise) and we're no longer going to have the flexibility to do things any day as long as my schedule and energy levels are good for it. It's going to be harder to schedule appointments and trips to the beach and whatnot. There have been reports of algae blooming at some of the beaches and I don't know how safe it will be to swim regardless. At least we've got the pool to go to even if I may have to listen to unwanted music and planes and dodge through ants. 

It was great to be able to catch up on my sleep, even if that sleep wasn't of the greatest quality and I still woke up a million times along the way. I slept over 9 hours. Tom said Toni had her yard seeded. 

Had my 9^th session with Helen. As I told her, I don't want to rush things but I don't want there to be too many more sessions either, since we don't have a lot of extra money right now. So we're going to be beginning the EMDR therapy. We kind of started the preliminaries today.

I woke up feeling batshit tired that I could barely think straight. Knowing I couldn’t make my Thursday appointment being crazy tired like this, I went online to see if there was an option to cancel it, figuring it wasn’t necessary anyway. I really believe all they’re going to tell me is that I should avoid certain foods and lose weight, the latter of which isn’t doable. But then I found that there was not only an option to cancel but an option to reschedule. So I filled out a quick form providing my preferred times and opted for my communication preference to be email rather than the phone. I thought they would call anyway as a lot of places do but nope, they rescheduled me online for the 30th. So that’s a huge weight lifted from my shoulders!

So I went back to sleep for a couple of hours and then went to pick up the images an hour after I got up. He was surprised he wasn’t charged for them because they’re supposed to be $5 a disc.

Then, before we left their parking lot, we ordered Dominoes. Once we got home, I was so hungry that I ate my entire pasta bowl at once. Plus, I had a mini lava cake for dessert.

I’m not having as much burning, so that’s a good sign. It’s still not 100% cured, though.

When I got up the second time, I thought I was back at the old place. The water was off. Literally! Then Tom said he got a text from Tabatha saying that there was a problem down the street and the water would be back on in a half hour, and it was; it’s just kind of brownish and yucky. I remember that shit all too well from the old place!

During my nap, I dreamt the gastro place did call instead of emailing me and a woman left a voice message in which all I could hear was my name being spoken in a foreign accent. Then my phone died altogether before moving on to the next dream of some kind of large rat or other critter living in the closet of one of the bedrooms. I went to clean when I noticed these large turds, and then saw it quickly slither into the closet.

So the honker isn’t married after all. I didn’t realize this at first until I got to see more pics/posts and get to know a little more about who’s who but the bride he’s pictured with in his profile picture isn’t Kari but one of his daughters. He has two daughters that I know of. Hanna and Kayla. It’s Kayla he’s pictured with. She recently visited and he shared pictures of them kayaking on the river. Plus, we saw her hanging out at his place and noticed that it didn’t look like the woman that lived there. At first I thought Kari simply lightened her hair. That explains why we both thought she looked so different and young in the wedding picture. Way too young for this place. Don’t know if Kari’s their mother, but I’m guessing yes because there is a bit of a resemblance.

Why didn’t the honker correct me, though, when I congratulated him on his wedding when I first messaged him after he added me?

Ray next door has been too good to be true. I’m just waiting for the noisy projects to begin. He doesn’t seem to hang out in the lanai. I’m kind of hoping he’ll use it as a storeroom if he isn’t planning to put new furniture in there. Either way, it’s too soon to write him off as a quiet neighbor.

Still checking and publishing old entries on MD little by little. I had them public before but realized they probably had typos so I’m going through them one at a time.

Up until yesterday, I was thinking that aiming my schedule for my Thursday appointment wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. But today, I’ve been so tired that I’ve had to nap twice. Starting to wonder if I’ll make it, but if I have to cancel tomorrow, it won’t be the end of the world because it’s a stupid waste of time appointment. It’s all information I can look up online or they could have told me over the phone or in an email.

Doing the latest VZ challenge. They’re calling it the lion and lamb challenge since February is supposed to go out like a lion while March comes in like a lamb. They chose rides that have statues of lions and lambs. So I went through a dumpy place in Texas called San Angelo, then Chicago which seems to be a classy-looking city. Right now I’m going through the countryside of Lockerbie which is straight out of a postcard. It’s very green in the summertime and I love the flowering trees. It sometimes grabs images from the fall, spring, or winter. Definitely not as pretty in the winter.

Wow, no health work to do today. Tomorrow’s health work will be the paperwork for the surgeon since he doesn’t let his patients do this online for some reason. I have until I see him, though.

Monday’s health work will be picking up the images.

Actually, there is health work today. Fighting what I’m guessing is a UTI that is flaring up again. I’m having more burning. It doesn’t burn when I pee, but there’s burning around that area. I realized I got the wrong cranberry juice. This is just cranberry-flavored water. So I ordered 100% cranberry juice and yogurt as well. It seems yogurt doesn’t just have probiotics that are good for oral health but for UT health as well. I haven’t had much yogurt because it’s not the greatest thing for me because of my gallbladder, being lactose intolerant, and due to the cholesterol in it. I grabbed a handful of Yoplait yogurts to be delivered tomorrow along with garlic powder, which is supposed to be a natural antibiotic. The yogurts are small and shouldn’t aggravate my stomach in any way.

My weight is up a little more even though my eating habits haven’t changed. If it isn’t connected to my thyroid, then it’s likely age. Tom stopped gaining weight about a decade ago at 55 which is about when men stop. Women keep gaining until around 65. So I’m likely to do a slow gain until then with little to no control over it. Better get used to it because I’ve got a long way to go to reach 65!

Love the new colored pencils. Being soft-cored, they give you a much more vivid and even distribution of color. I’m back to coloring again. Why not? I don’t seem to have much talent for painting and drawing these days. It might help to wait until I get new glasses for that anyway as these are getting harder to see out of.

The Upside Town golf course was released and it’s super weird. It’s set in New York City and the graphics are fantastic. What’s weird about it is you’re not just hitting the ball on the floor, but off of walls and ceilings as well. So it’s like there’s no up or down. It kinda takes you a minute, for example, to get your bearings on a fire escape with pigeons fluttering about and then hitting your ball onto the roof while a subway appears to climb the opposite wall.

Today’s health work consisted of requesting online to pick up copies of my imaging scans at the imaging place tomorrow.

I totally feel like we’re at a dead-end in life and like life is over for us, in a sense. Of course, he says we have options, but believe me, those options aren’t very good. He’s going to have to realize that his program is a dream but it will never be for lack of trying. From here on out, the only way we can ever have extra money is if he returns to work.

As horrible as COVID was, I’ve come to have mixed emotions about the timing. At first, it seemed like a blessing for us while the recession was a nightmare. Because he was laid off when few jobs were available because of the COVID outbreak, he was more or less forced into retirement. By retiring early, it prevented us from having a more comfortable retirement later on. I swear it’s like there’s always something determined to cheat us out of money. We never seem to get as much as I know we could have be it his pay, inheritances, pensions, etc. I’m amazed we even got to have the decade we had where we didn’t have to worry about money. I still don’t think we’ll ever be as broke as we were before the recession ended, but I don’t see us very comfortable at all. Especially when big expenses come up. I’m starting to wonder if he’s going to have to work until he's simply too old to or dead.

I used to like setting goals to look forward to, but after a while, I get tired of seeing most of my plans not work out or work out in a way I didn’t expect. I think it would be cheaper and safer to just stay here. This is far from a bad place. No, I don’t literally love it here because I’ve seen nicer places in nicer areas. But I do like it a lot. I don’t think I was meant to have a place that I really, really love. If I did, I would just spend my time worrying that we would lose it. Either way, I think it’s going to be our only option anyway, and I don’t think we’re going to be able to do any upgrades either. Life is about settling, and I can easily make do with the lack of kitchen counter/cabinet space and not having a spacious living room.

Finally caught a glimpse of the guy next door. Yeah, I’d say he is in his 60s. I just hope he doesn’t turn that lanai into a workshop but the place doesn’t need to be remodeled so if he does any sawing it would be to make stuff to give away or sell.

Went to BK earlier and I’m stuffed to the gills.

I slept better last night because I took hydroxyzine and melatonin. My schedule seems to be averaging a jump of one hour and 22 minutes versus one hour and 15 minutes, according to his calculations. So we’re going to have to adjust the schedule program. I don’t know why it’s sped up over time. Daylight savings doesn’t help at all. The next week is going to be incredibly hard. God, I can’t wait for these appointments to back off! I just want a month off for once. If it weren’t for my sleep issues and money, I wouldn’t mind as much but as soon as I can squeeze a foot in the middle of all these appointments, I’ve got to put that foot down and stop them. It’s just that right now I’ve got too much invested in what’s going on for me to put a stop to it now. If I cancel the GI or the surgeon, the time and money spent on imaging will be a waste.