As I've always said, if there were a god, it would have to be pretty damn misogynistic to allow women to go through all we go through. But for one such womanly problem called menopause, I am now armed with estrogen cream. It does come with a few risks, and I'm only using it three days a week. It would still be nice if these foreign pharmacists and other healthcare workers would take the time and patience to adopt our accent so I could understand them, but nonetheless, as I was reading off the list of potential side effects on the way home, I had to laugh at the one that mentioned gallbladder issues. Well, I certainly don't have to worry about that one!

Fortunately, serious side effects are rare, and most people like it. It not only helps with burning but also with atrophy. Tom did some research for me (just so he could be in the know if anything went wrong) so I wouldn’t get too obsessed with my medication phobia—even if it's topical—and focus too much on potential problems. He said there were tons of other women who said they thought they had UTIs when they started burning down there and also had trouble with applicators, which got easier after just a few days. I have to use a gram at a time, so I can’t just dab a little bit on my fingertip and shove it up there. If I’m going to go that route, I have to fill the applicator up to a gram and then keep dabbing until it’s empty. The first time around, however, I managed to get enough of it up there—at least I think I did. Perhaps not as deep as I should have, but it’s a start. Hopefully, I won’t have any annoying side effects. It’s still a hormone, after all. Unfortunately, I know all too well exactly what kind of hell those things can bring. One of them sits in a bottle on my kitchen counter.

I’m utterly exhausted today, and part of it is my own dumb fault. I decided to try that Restaze, and with just half a dose—thank God I didn’t take a whole one—I woke up extremely hungover. That’s a common side effect, along with headaches ( I had a slight one) and vivid dreams. It’s got melatonin in it, which can do that, and which I’m sensitive to, so again, I should have known better. I woke up a million times and just couldn’t get comfortable despite having an incredibly comfortable bed—like the best bed I ever had. As fragmented as my sleep was, at least I wasn’t up for too long at a time. Clonazepam before bed tonight is a must!

I’ve got to keep away from all sleep aids and antihistamines except for Claritin. I haven’t even taken that or the nasal spray in a few days, and I haven’t gotten any worse. 

I’m still trying not to worry about how long it may be before I get a CPAP and whether it’s going to help. I would absolutely be devastated if I got it, got used to it, but found it wasn’t energizing me. What am I supposed to do then? Wait until the sleep issues kill me? I don’t think I can just lay around until it takes its toll on my brain and body—and I really believe it will if it isn’t resolved soon enough. I’m forced to spend too much time in bed and unable to do all the things I want to do. I haven’t been able to do any cleaning today, and even cooking is out unless it’s something quick and easy. 

I forced myself to go with him to Walgreens to pick up my prescription, hoping the sunlight would help, but it didn’t. So while he’s lying down, resting up to donate tomorrow—since he’s going to be seeing an optometrist on Friday, which is when he normally donates—I’m resting up because I am simply fatigued as hell and drained of energy. He’s seeing the one we last saw and didn’t like but it’s the only one available before September that’s covered by his plan which kind of sucks.

Exhausted or not, I have a lot to get in print, and I didn’t want to put it off any longer and get even more backed up. I’m so grateful for speech-to-text! It would be a lot harder if I had to write all this out. Honestly, I can’t believe there are that many people these days who would bother to do that. If that’s your thing, fine, but to me, that’s just so old school.

It’s now been just over 50 hours since my tooth was pulled, and it’s healing nicely. The dentist called a few hours after I got home the day it was pulled but I was resting, and by then, it was after 6:00, so the place was closed. She just said she hoped I was doing okay and to call if I had any problems.

Tom read a disturbing article about there being a connection between older women with excessive fatigue and sleepiness and a link to dementia. I’m already at risk of that, and sometimes I wonder and worry if I could have early-onset dementia. God, I hope not! According to research, if I do—and I’m not going to bother getting tested because it’s pretty involved, time-consuming, and probably costly—I should remain independent in my 60s, but after that, it might be like being a kid all over again. No thanks!

I started Centrum Silver multivitamins for women over 50 today, so I’m hoping that may help give me some energy, but I don’t know. Here I am in a place ten times quieter than the last one, and I’m sleeping worse! Way worse. I still feel like my quest for proper sleep and energy is a losing battle. I feel like the more I chase it, the further away it gets, and I’m simply wasting time struggling for what isn’t meant to be. That’s why I totally believe that if the CPAP doesn’t help and I’ve exhausted all other avenues, it will be time to seriously consider exiting Hotel Earth. I want to live—not simply exist. The worst thing it could be is chronic fatigue, and that’s still a very real fear of mine.

For the hell of it, when I saw it advertised in my Facebook feed, I decided to sign up on a site called Mentla. They offer free AI therapy. It may sound funny in itself, but they swear it was created by real therapists and has proven to be helpful. So I went through their catalog of therapists. There’s about a half-dozen women and a half-dozen men of all different ages and races. I chose Sophie. They say it will always be free, even though they do have paid options. Fifteen minutes a day is enough for me, though. Besides, there’s still Copilot, Chat, Replika, Matey, etc.

Ray left a few days ago, but unfortunately, the Honker is still here. Haven’t heard much from him other than the usual loud honk his truck makes. I doubt he’ll leave before the middle of the month.

Using my points from my insurance company, I got a 3-inch Himalayan salt lamp. Although there isn’t much scientific evidence to back it up, there are claims that it’s good for you physically and emotionally. It boosts the mood and cleans the air.

I almost got a book on calisthenics, but again, I’m so damn fatigued so much of the time I can’t take on any new workout program other than my VR travels and even that’s limited. I only did a few miles yesterday, and I’m not getting on the road today at all. So I’m going to be stuck in Poland for quite a while!

Got a new sippy cup. I like to keep the ones with built-in straws by the bed if I wake up thirsty. The silicone one I got was absolutely horrible because as I sucked on it, it squeezed itself shut. I still can’t use straws until tomorrow when it’s been 72 hours after the extraction. Ugh, not even here four years and I’ve already lost one organ and two teeth!

I also got a color-by-number coloring book called Wanderlust with various scenes around the world. Because I got some white-out, I want to see if I can white out some of the numbers. I won't have to with darker colors, though. Hopefully, it won't leave any raised spots that will show through. Fortunately, this book has very light, small numbers, unlike that patterns coloring book I got from China through Temu.

When I went to open the package with my gemstones, I first thought they sent me the wrong stone because I saw a dark color. But when I pulled it out, I found that they were nice enough to add a cute little small heart-shaped amethyst along with the clear quartz with the thumb indentation that I ordered, and that’s already sitting in my robe pocket. I just won't be wearing it much until the end of the year. It's 90° today, so summer is in full swing.

My newfound cyber friend, Melanie, is absolutely amazing! What a talent! As I mentioned, she said she sensed energy emitting from Jade. She's my 32-inch porcelain doll that I bought as a kid and put together myself (a bit poorly), but nonetheless, I got her at the end of 1999.

I also got the same exact EMF reader she uses in some of her amazing and interesting videos. I've only used it on a few dolls so far, and I have to move them away from outlets and electronics, which will trigger the thing to light up. None of the dolls reacted except for—guess who? Yeah, you guessed it… Jade! Now the question is, why? Is it because there really is an entity living in her? And if so, what/who is it?

I don't have Melanie's talent, so I have a lot to learn. Remember, I'm just the premonitioner and influencer. Assuming she is haunted by a person who lived and speaks English, I guess the next step would be to set up a pendulum, gather various gemstones, and do the same thing I saw Melanie doing in her video. I'm grateful for that video, too, because I wouldn’t know what the hell to do otherwise! I'm totally new to this. Once I have a very elusive thing called energy, I'll see if I can instruct it to make the same motions with the pendulum when I ask questions.

Before I wrap up this long entry, last night's very vivid dreams—brought to you by Restaze—featured a doctor asking me if the baby was giving me trouble.

"What baby?" I asked him.

He looked at my stomach and said, "Well, you're kind of far along, aren't you?"

I looked at him incredulously and said, "At 59? Are you serious, man?"

Then, I later asked Tom if he thought the doctor was out of his mind or if I was so fat that I looked like I could be knocked up. Unfortunately, he seemed to think the latter, LOL.

It gets better.

In the second dream, he was knocked up! Yes, Tom was positively pregnant, although I have no idea how. He seemed to be amazed by it and said, "Imagine how big this already big belly of mine is going to be."

I told him that I hated to burst his bubble of joy, but he needed to get rid of it because, at his age, it would kill him.

"You can't do that here," he said.

To that, I said, "We can do whatever we want."

In the last Restaze dream, I don’t know why, but I was in a wheelchair. The deal was that at home, I could walk around all I wanted, but when out in public, I had to be in the wheelchair. So Tom was pushing me around, and we were in some fairly crowded building. He wanted to use the men's room, so he left me in a room with a few obnoxious people talking loudly. I pushed my chair away from them, realizing it was the first time I had wheeled myself around on my own, but I quickly got the feel of it.

Written yesterday afternoon:

Back from the dentist and in tons of pain. It was both horrible and quick. The pain should be worth it in the end, though, because that's one less crown I have to worry about falling off. 

I slept shitty as usual, with the usual breathing issues involving my nose and my sleep apnea and woke up tired as usual. Managed to slowly get going, and then we left. 

Had to pay $78 when we got there. I was a little annoyed because there were some guys working on the computers, and between that and the music, which was louder than usual, I found the background noise made it harder to understand the girl at the desk that we talked to about the payment.

Then Nancy took me in back and told me the dentist had already done 10 extractions that day, which made me feel a little more comfortable. I also learned that laughing gas would add an additional $71. Wanting to save money, I opted to take a clonazepam. I took the bottle with me, and the doctor looked at it and verified that it would be okay. I was given Carbocaine after the benzo had time to kick in and make me drowsy and all four shots hurt like a motherfucker. Usually, it's only the first shot that hurts. She warned me that because the bone was denser in the back, it would be considered a surgical extraction, and it might have to be cut up and, therefore, take time to extract.

Then she injected something she referred to as a drying agent, and that hurt even worse. I don't remember any injections in my mouth ever hurting that badly. Then she warned me of the inevitable pressure to come, and OMG! She was pulling and then rotating my head from side to side while twisting the damn tooth, but then—voila! Out it came. I was so relieved that it didn’t break up because the ordeal was starting to smack an awful lot like the tooth the county quack pulled during the recession. It was way rougher than I thought it would be but fairly quick. When you add up the jolts of pain and the pressure from her pulling, it only amounted to about 30 seconds. 

When the Carbocaine wore off, it throbbed painfully, so I took four ibuprofen, which is prescription strength. I can't brush my teeth or use straws. Everything I eat has to be soft. I have to keep my head elevated, and she gave me an extra piece of gauze in case it starts bleeding again. I had to keep the initial piece of gauze in my mouth for a half hour. If it starts bleeding again, I'll have to keep it in for an hour.

I just hope it won’t feel weird eating on that side once I’m able to. Just like with the other back bottom molar, it could take over two weeks for the pain to subside, but if it worsens within 72 hours, I have to call the office. The first 24 hours are critical, and then the next 24 are semi-critical. I’m lying in bed, talk-typing this, and I don’t want to overdo it, so I’ll work on this entry some more later.

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Written early on the morning of April 1st:

It’s bye-bye, snowbirdie month! Between the painful ordeal I went through yesterday at the dentist and a cocktail of benzos, Carbocaine, and prescription-strength ibuprofen, I ended up dozing off in the late afternoon. I was instructed to sleep with my head elevated to prevent bleeding, so I slept on the wedge pillow. I call it the cheese wedge.

I drifted off without putting on a nose strip, and amazingly, I had no problems breathing. I remained on my left side so I wouldn’t be lying on the side of my face that was pulled. This was the only way not to snore either. But I must have been on my back at some point because I woke up a few times during the night, and a couple of times, I was on my back without snoring. I woke up six or seven times, twice because I had to pee and was thirsty. Didn’t need to take anything for sleep because I was so exhausted.

For the first 24 hours, I can only have soft food, so Tom was kind enough to run out and pick up yogurt, soup, and cottage cheese for me. Just got up a little while ago, took my levo, and I’m waiting for the timer to go off so I can make my coffee. I’m going to have to let it cool a bit before I drink it.

The biggest risk over the next three days is dry socket. That’s where the bone and nerve endings in the jaw are exposed because it didn’t clot over properly. They say it’s intensely painful, and I’ve had enough pain, so I’m being extra careful to follow the do’s and don’ts on the sheet of paper they gave me. I still can’t believe how rough that was!. Didn’t think it would be nearly as bad. I’m just glad she didn’t have to section the tooth in the end!

Rhonda called in an order for the estrogen cream, but there’s an issue with the insurance company—not surprisingly. So they get to decide in the end whether or not I can have it, not me and my doctor. The shit costs $600! Maybe more CEOs need to be taken out to send a message that if a doctor orders something, it’s for a reason.

I saw some exciting preparations taking place a couple of days ago across the street. Both flags are down now and he was trimming trees, spraying weeds, and applying anti-mold stuff on the roof, things he does when he gets ready to go. I hope this isn’t a tease because the flags came down well in advance of his departure last year. I’m hoping that because of Trump’s new policy when it comes to Canadians (you know, the guy the honker says people shouldn’t blame for the world’s problems), he’ll be leaving earlier than the 20th—just like in the dream I had. So hopefully, I'll be seeing that black trailer soon!

In one of last night’s dreams, Nane was married to a guy, and they had twins together. I was talking to her husband one time, and he was saying that she didn’t care about the twins any more than he did. Then I thought about it—how she spent so much time traveling on her own and rarely spoke about them.

In another dream, my parents were alive and owned a house in the newer section of this park. I thought about asking them to will their house to me because it was bigger and newer. Then maybe I could rent or sell this one.

I wish we weren't so damn broke now. Or better yet, let me rephrase that: I wish our money wasn't tied up in other things right now, like my health. Tomorrow, I get the tooth pulled. He’s doing more research because the sleep study might be our cheapest bet after all, even if it has the longest wait, but I've survived this long. He also has to call his insurance company to get more info on the cataract surgery he needs.

Anyway, I say I wish we had more money now because I'm really eager to get a haunted doll and an EMF reader to see what happens. My psychic abilities have been limited thus far to premonitions and mood influencing, even though I can't control what or how I'm able to do this. I wonder if there are other skills I could develop. I'm trying to keep an open mind about the possibility of the afterlife since it hasn't been disproven any more than it's been proven. I feel really inspired by Melanie, with whom I am fast becoming friends. I believe we have many things in common, and she’s easy to understand in her videos and has a very comforting voice. She’s inspiring, too. I feel she's quite a knowledgeable psychic and that I could learn from her little by little. I don't know that I could ever get as good as she is at communicating with haunted dolls, but even though it will be a while, I'm definitely going to get the tools necessary to give it a try!

My fatigue yesterday was so bad that it took me about six hours just to get going. I slept a little better last night, but I'm still tired because one night doesn’t pay off a sleep debt you rack up over several days. I also agree with Tom’s theory about there being more than one culprit. Sleep apnea may be the main problem, but I wonder if I could be lacking certain vitamins and minerals. After doing some research, I came up with Centrum Silver for older women as my best bet to try. The only problem is that it has 25% of vitamin D, which could really jack my TSH up higher than is comfortable for me, so I may have to skip my meds at times. It seems that vitamin D, B12, iron, and folic acid are most responsible for energy.

I haven't heard back from Rhonda yet about the estrogen cream because she doesn’t work on Fridays. Hopefully, she'll just give it to me and not make me go to a GYN first, adding another appointment and more cost to the list. Oh, to be in a country with actual coverage instead of one that offers a variety of discount plans! I started having more burning yesterday, so I hope I'm not on the verge of another infection. Tom thinks it’s just a psychological response to canceling the appointment with the piss doctor, LOL. Yeah, it could be.

Yesterday, I managed to clean our jewelry and smudge the place with sage. I also put a piece of amethyst and rose quartz under my pillow, as recommended for improved sleep. What I really need is a jade stone, so I’ll be ordering that soon along with clear quartz. The clear quartz will go in my robe pocket. It's the same oval shape with the thumb indentation that the amethyst one I lost had.

I was hoping for more moving dreams, but I can't control what I dream about regardless of what's going on in my life. What's going on today is that I'm back to feeling tired after having decent energy yesterday. It would be a lot worse had I taken any kind of antihistamine other than Claritin or melatonin, but it's bad enough because my sleep got broken up not just once but twice. I woke up on fire, and that's when I realized that I really needed to get rid of this mattress pad once and for all. I noticed as soon as I got it that I felt a little warmer with it, and Florida isn't the place for shit like that. If I can get my energy back and we can get out of here, we’ll almost certainly be going to a climate where it will be more suitable. So, I'm back to using an extra sheet as a mattress pad for now. When I pulled it off and really got a good look at it, it was no wonder I was warm because it's backed in vinyl, which means it isn't breathable. I don't want to get a plush mattress pad because that would be harder to fit in our washer and it might make me even warmer. I don't need it either because the waterbed's mattress cover is plush enough. I mean, it's only an inch, but it feels much plusher because it's on a waterbed and not a regular mattress. Also, there's a one-inch thick piece of foam beneath the cover itself, so that's actually two inches between me and the tubes.

The fatigue really affects me emotionally. When I sleep shitty and I'm left tired the next day, I feel depressed, hopeless, and sometimes anxious. I just worry about money, additional health issues, and how long it's going to take to get the fucking CPAP. I can't know for sure if anything else is causing my fatigue until I can get it and start using it consistently. I also need to get the fuck out for a while. It's just that there's no place to go most of the time and no extra money, so I'm hoping that if we ever have land, I can at least make some kind of a walking path on it. Here, it's humid most of the time, and I swear everybody but us smokes in Florida. I hate going by people's cigarette smoke and their sometimes yappy dogs.

Today was my appointment, and it would definitely have been very hard to stay up as late as I would have needed to. I'll probably just go around back and sit on the bench to get a little sunlight when the sun comes up. I'll only sit there for a few minutes because it's kind of boring to just sit there. It's too bright to see the phone, and it's not a convenient place to eat a meal or do much of anything else. This climate also isn't good for me to spend much time outdoors in because of my asthma and allergies. As long as it's not too windy, though, and it sounds pretty calm out there, I'll go out for a few minutes to keep my eyes used to the brightness. I do have a full-spectrum light indoors, but that's not quite the same.

I lost my amethyst stone with the thumb indentation that I kept in my robe pocket for years. I don't know if I misplaced it when I was washing the robe or if it fell and Tinkerbella swiped and hid it somewhere. There's no scientific evidence, but there was still something calming about feeling it in there whenever I would wear the robe. It may sound a bit silly, but oh well. I looked up my old Amazon order. I got it in 2021. This time, I'm getting a clear quartz one with the same shape. It's only $7.

Anyway, instead of dreaming of moving, I was stranded in a foreign country with some woman. Neither of us spoke the language, whatever country it was. The woman was going to contact her family for help. 

Then, in another dream, I must have been quite young because I was professing my love for this young guy. He seemed insecure and a little doubtful, and I had to assure him that I would be with him when he was 30, when he was 40, when he was 50, when he was 60, and when he was 70—and that I would still be with him if I died first because I would haunt him from the other side. Then, I suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of guilt because I was with someone else (Tom?).

Back to venting about my fears. I have a bad feeling that this fucking pulmonologist that I really don't like is going to make it harder for me to get a CPAP. I also have a bad feeling that it's not going to restore my energy. I hope to hell it's just the pessimist in me, and this won’t be the case, especially the latter. I've tried to tell myself I can still live if I'm tired most of the time, but no, I can't. Because then I'm not living—I'm simply existing. I spend so much time lying around when I could be up doing this and that. That's no life and not acceptable to me. It's almost like being wheelchair-bound but not, disabled but not.

Now, if a miracle happens and the CPAP—whenever I get it—does help restore at least most of my energy, then I'm going to be eager to not only get back on the vibration platform but also be more consistent with my story writing. It's hard to be consistent with stories when you're exhausted so much of the time because you can't think straight. This is really doing a number on my brain as well as the rest of me and my mood. It's fucking with my memory and my thinking time. Hell, I don't even know if I could live as long as he does if I carry on like this. I always assumed that he would live to his mid-80s and I would check out at that point, but then I wonder if this will lead me to a deadly stroke or heart attack if it's not resolved and I don’t check out sooner.

I watched a YouTube video about a woman claiming to have had an NDE at a dentist's office, and she said that it was beautiful and peaceful and that God wasn’t anything you could personify. She said it was like she was one with every soul that ever lived and that there was nothing you could get wrong in this life or even right because everybody ended up in that one big pile of souls, so to speak. I've also seen videos where people swear they met and talked to God, and then some that talked about living past lives, and then some claiming to have gone to hell. It's hard to believe that all these people are lying, but who do you believe? And better yet, what do you believe?

Maybe, just like everyone's earthly life is different, everyone's afterlife is different—if any form of it really does exist. I don't know what to believe anymore. I wish I had something I believed in wholeheartedly, even if it was bullshit. I just feel like it might give me a sense of comfort if I did.

My house is starting to feel like a prostitute—too loose from too much use. At 35 years old, the door hinges are loose, the outlets are loose, and plenty of other things are too.

Part of me is tempted to say, Let’s just go back to Oregon, where there are no surprises—no sneezing fits, no lung tightness, no sonic booms, no hunters, no thunderstorms. But I don’t know if we could afford anything close enough to K-Falls, and it’s so cold and snowy there. We’ll keep all our options open, but I’d still prefer a state with Death with Dignity laws unless we find an amazing deal elsewhere. I definitely miss how our lives were back there.

Today, I feel much better than the last couple of days, and I definitely need to throw away the rest of the melatonin and antihistamine spray. They leave me way too groggy the next day. My sleep was still broken up, but this time I took Claritin and half a clonazepam to get back to sleep. As usual, my nose was a little stuffy. I can’t wait to get my nose and lungs the hell out of this state!

After discussing it with Tom, we agreed yesterday morning that I’d cancel the urologist appointment as long as we wouldn’t be charged. Some doctors let you cancel up to 24 hours in advance, while others require 72 hours. We both agree that the odds of there being anything else wrong are incredibly low. Even the doctor seemed to think the first time I saw him that the mild burning I get in between infections is definitely menopause-related. I sent a message to Rhonda about the estrogen cream.

We also don’t trust the girl I spoke to who said the cost of the tests was included in the copay. Why would they be when we had to pay an extra $40 just for the ENT to shove a camera up my nose? Besides, it would have been a long, hot drive since we couldn’t run the AC if we wanted to avoid stopping at the slow charger along the way, not to mention a very long day for me. He usually donates on Fridays too, and we could definitely use the money.

At first, the woman I spoke to yesterday morning didn’t seem to want to give me a straight answer about canceling fees. So after I demanded a simple yes or no, she finally said they required 48 hours' notice. Since I was calling 50 hours before the appointment, she confirmed I could cancel without charge. She asked why I was canceling, and I just told her something important had come up and I’d need to reschedule. Of course, I won’t be rescheduling unless I have any more issues. I better fucking not! We just want to get our health on track, save some money, and get the fuck out of here.

I was under the false delusion that Medicare would be actual coverage and not just a discount like regular insurance plans. But that’s not always the case. You usually just get a slightly bigger discount. However, Tom did some research and found a place that might cover his cataract surgery completely. He may just have to travel 40 miles. At least he gets 50 free rides a year.

Everything is so much easier now that my hair is just above my shoulders. I’m trying to grow out all the permanent dye. The plan is to either use nothing or stick to semi-permanent dye in the future. The shorter I keep it, the easier things will be, but I don’t know if I want to keep it short forever. For now, though, I’m actually glad I have curly hair for the first time in my life—because I know I didn’t do a perfect job cutting it, and that would really show if I had straight hair. If I did have straight hair, though, I likely wouldn’t have cut it in the first place. Straight hair is much easier to manage.

Believer or not, I asked a friend how many past lives she thinks your average human has lived, and she said she read that it takes an average of 100-150 lives to learn all the lessons there are to learn from being human.

Well, in this life, I learned that it's never good to give up your CPAP, even if your sleep apnea is mild! I also wonder what the point is of learning all these lessons and why it's so important, especially if most of us can't remember our past lives. And after we've learned all these supposed lessons, then what?

My favorite rodent and I just shared a meal together. Yesterday, I was tired as fuck because an unusually loud truck woke me up, and it was hard to get back to sleep. Today, I'm still tired as fuck because I woke up struggling to breathe through my nose. Once I switched out the kid's nose strip for an adult one, it opened me up a little more. Still had trouble falling back asleep right away, so this is the second time my sleep was broken up, and any idiot with half a brain knows that just one night of shitty sleep can really make you feel horrible the next day.

I think I should definitely go down with the full clonazepam next time around. I know part of it is stress, but today I feel a sense of hope and determination much stronger than I've been feeling in a while. I only hope to hell it's not false hope. You know how life is— we plan, and then life shits on those plans. Nonetheless, the plan is to get our health on track this year and bust out of here next year.

I know I said I wasn't as desperate to escape this place as the last place since it's not nearly as noisy, but yeah, I am. With the way my allergies have been and the intermittent asthma, you bet I'm definitely ready to go! Although outside sources only wake me up once in a while, my own damn body is waking me up nearly every single fucking time I sleep. Every. Single. Fucking. Time. So in a sense, even though it's quieter here, I'm sleeping worse than at the old place.

Moving to a dry climate won't uncollapse my nasal valve, but it will back the allergies off. If my nose isn't so swollen from allergies, then the nasal valve issue won't matter as much. It won't be as noticeable. Even Tom feels it at times. Yes, I'll miss the warmer weather, and yes, this is a cute house. But the climate is all wrong for me, the house is too small, healthcare is even more fucked up here, and I feel totally out of place being in such a red state even though I’m antisocial and keep to myself. The people here just aren’t as friendly in general, and I’m sick of being in a flight path and listening to dozens of planes a day. It's after midnight, and they're still going.

A quick check shows that Oregon has Death with Dignity laws, and land outside Klamath Falls starts at around 15 grand. I was wondering about the area between the city and the base of the mountain we were on—that way, it wouldn’t take an hour to get to a hospital if we needed one. I know we weren’t on the mountain long, but I don’t remember hearing a single sonic boom while we were there. I hated the cold and snow, but out of all the states I’ve lived in, my asthma and allergies were the best there. Some of our happiest times were there. Not saying we would go back, but it’s interesting to gather as much information as we can even though it wouldn’t be adding a new state to our list of adventures and my TMJ may be worse. Becky wouldn’t be around but neither would the noisy monsoons. So, just trying to keep all our “drier” options open.

So he's going to check into dealing with his cataracts, and I'm getting this damn tooth pulled next Monday. The gum area started irritating me, and realizing that I don't want to have to worry about it getting infected—which is the worst pain I've ever experienced—and since it just doesn't feel right, I had him call the dentist since I had to sleep. I guess it's going to be about $40. They anticipate it breaking up, but hopefully, it will be a simple elevate-and-extract. I don’t know what kind of sedation they offer, but the most important thing is getting a numbing agent without epinephrine. Hopefully, they have that. I may or may not take clonazepam beforehand. I trust that this is a good dentist who knows what she’s doing, so I’m not too worried about it. Unless it does break up, it shouldn’t take long. It takes a lot longer for the numbing agent to set in than it does for the pulling. I just didn’t want to wait five more weeks until my maintenance appointment, and I didn’t even know that they could pull it at that time anyway. So that tooth is officially on death row! I look forward to getting rid of the weird feeling thing, and it will be one less tooth to worry about. Funny because after having my wisdom teeth pulled and the impacted baby tooth pulled, I thought I was done having teeth pulled, but that was about four teeth ago. This is going to end up being the ninth pull.

Then we got some bad news. I can’t get into the sleep lab for a study until June. So by the time I got the CPAP, I would be struggling to get used to it during storm season. During July, August, and September, it storms nearly every day. I was damn near in tears of frustration as we talked about all the medical expenses holding us back from getting the fuck out of here. Then an idea came to me— what if we bypass the referral?

I know you have to have a prescription for one, but if I could get this denier of a pulmonologist to give me a copy of the original CPAP prescription, we could just buy a CPAP outright from Amazon, and it would actually end up being cheaper than the portion we would have to pay for the sleep study and the CPAP that we would still have to pay for anyway. This way, I also wouldn’t have to stress about one of us being available when they call every month to ask if I’m okay with accepting new parts that they change periodically. We could just get them ourselves at our own convenience. We'd have to pay for it, but they usually have good deals on Amazon.

The tricky part may be getting the prescription. Mr. "You can’t have N24 if you’re sighted" is rather defiant in some ways, but worst-case scenario, we’ll go to another pulmonologist. Really wish the second one I saw was in-network, but he’s not. Tom has to do more research first to see if that really would save us the money we think it would.

A good friend of mine reminded me that I’m definitely not alone. She, too, had a test for sleep apnea, and while she doesn’t have it, she was told she just has delayed sleep and disturbed sleep. Just like me, she made multiple attempts to get on a “normal” schedule, but it only got her so far for so long. I think N24 progresses the older we get because it's gotten harder and harder with age to try to force myself on a different schedule or to break up my sleep.

That’s the problem with some doctors—yes, they went to school for years and had a lot of training, but no one knows our bodies like we do. Two other doctors confirmed I do indeed have N24, and it's really a no-brainer in this case. I mean, it was as obvious that I had it before I was diagnosed as it was obvious that something was wrong with my thyroid just based on the symptoms. Not everything is that complicated. If you read a list of symptoms and you can check off every single one of them and nothing else correlates with those symptoms, you're almost certainly going to have that particular issue.

So I'm definitely anxious to get our health on track and get the fuck out of here. Hopefully, the white lines appearing on my nails don’t mean anything other than that I’m getting older. I’ve got white lines appearing from the tips to the cuticles on several nails. Some don’t go all the way back to the cuticle. I’ve never had this many before. Most of them are in my toenails. I read that it can be a sign of heart, kidney, or liver trouble, but more than likely, it’s related to age and my thyroid since I doubt I have any nutritional deficiencies.

Anyway, my only concern would be sonic booms, but I would rather get boomed and monsooned awake at times than feel exhausted every single fucking day. My worst fear is still that a CPAP doesn’t help and I have chronic fatigue, but I can’t know that until I get the CPAP back that I never should have given up and make damn sure I use it. And believe me, I am more determined than ever to do just that!

I also don’t want to stick around long enough for climate change to hurl a Cat 4 or 5 straight at us. Even if a Cat 3 hit us head-on, the results could be devastating. Hell, I would go back to Oregon—cold and snowy as it was—before I remained here, as I told Tom. Do I regret leaving there for the reasons we left? Yes and no.

I dreamed that my parents were alive again, and I was actually happy to see them. We were sitting in some restaurant or someplace in public, eager to chat and catch up. “I have so much to tell you and ask you!” I exclaimed excitedly. Of course, my mother had to be annoyed with me at times, but it was otherwise a very pleasant meeting.

I've often imagined them suddenly being alive again and reaching out to me, wondering how I would react if that could actually happen. I'm sure my heart would be in a great tug-of-war with my mind. My heart would be curious and say, Hey, shitty parents or not, they were still my parents. But my mind, which is usually much more sensible than the heart, would remember their abuse and the fact that people don’t change. Mom would still be a selfish, narcissistic, jealous, and overly sensitive bitch, while my father would still look the other way when he wasn’t actively making excuses for her.

I won’t mention this on PB just in case, but I was looking to see if someone I was talking to on FB decided to join after I told them about it and happened to wander into the mystery girl’s latest account. I was a little surprised to see she’s mostly private or friends-only. But what friends would she add if she’s not sociable? The fact that I wasn't one of the ones added makes me think even more that she's not one of my regular readers. I kind of have mixed emotions about that too. I mean, this is someone who's been troubled and can be unpredictable. At the same time it was kind of flattering to at least think I had this silent but mutual connection with this open-minded person that could relate to me. Someone that knew me well and really got me. Yet if you cared to read someone that regularly, wouldn't you add them as a friend?

Ouch! Doing a belly flop on a waterbed can be just as uncomfortable as doing one in a pool. 

Anyway, I thought I’d get comfy and take the time to write about the horrible nightmare I had. Oh, I had anything but dreams of moving last night. I slept pretty shitty, and I’m surprised I even have this much energy today.

The dream felt so vivid and real that it made me wonder if I slipped into another dimension and saw an alternate version of Tom and me. I’ve always believed the multiverse is more plausible than most other theories. It definitely wasn’t one of those senseless, disjointed dreams we all have.

In the dream, we owned a two-story house and lived somewhere that got a lot of snow—neither of which will ever be the case in reality. I was downstairs, and Tom was upstairs in a room, either watching TV on his computer or fiddling with electronics, as he often does.

I heard a commotion outside. It was early evening, but the streetlights illuminated a car stuck in the snow at the foot of our driveway. A guy in his fifties appeared to own the car and what I assumed were his kids, were trying to help. He saw me through the window, smiled, and called out, “Well, I know someone’s home.”

I smiled back and raised my index finger, signaling him to wait a moment while I unlocked the door. I mentioned noticing his car was stuck and said that ours was in the garage. His expression turned disappointed when I said that, but I quickly clarified that I meant our home garage, not an auto repair shop.

He then mentioned some part of his car that was broken, so I told him to hang on a minute because Tom would know more about that sort of thing. I went to the foot of the stairs and called up to Tom. When he didn’t answer right away, I figured he had his headphones on and that I’d have to go up to get his attention. But a moment later, he responded with an almost irritated “What?” in a tone that clearly said he didn’t appreciate being interrupted.

I told him to come downstairs, and a second later, he was standing beside me. That’s when, without being invited in, the guy stepped into our living room. Then, out of nowhere, a huge knife appeared in one hand and a coil of rope in the other.

Tom just stared at him, dumbfounded, while I could sense that his first thought was, This is what you dragged me downstairs for? 

“But it seemed so real!” I stammered, realizing it was just a ruse. “The whole thing about the car being stuck and the kids trying to help!”

I woke up at that point, and hopefully, if this really happened in another place and time, being two against one meant we saved our asses in the end.

My TMJ has been really bad lately, and I don’t know why. I’ve been doing the exercises and taking ibuprofen, but nothing is helping.

Making like-minded online connections has always been enjoyable for me. I love the idea of an online bestie—someone I grow close to and who grows close to me, sharing much of our lives with the possibility of meeting in person someday. I don’t think I’ll ever have an online friend as close as I had with Aly, but the point is that a close, like-minded friend—someone open-minded, honest, intelligent enough, and at least mostly sane—is a whole different ballgame compared to the general population.

When I compare Aly and a few others in my mind to the average person, well, there really is no comparison. Most people are just so twisted in so many ways. I feel confident in my isolation from them—it keeps me saner and safer. I could go on and on about people’s cruelty, delusions, and unjust ways, but I’ll leave it at that for now.

I woke up surprisingly energetic today, but sure enough, within a few hours, that familiar wave of fatigue washed over me. I felt so relieved when I checked with AI and asked if this could happen with untreated sleep apnea, and it confirmed that it could. That makes more sense than blaming my thyroid since thyroid levels don’t fluctuate that radically. I don’t see why they wouldn’t give me a CPAP, but if, for whatever reason, they don’t, I’m going to need nasal valve surgery. My nose still affects my sleep at times.

I also realized that, for the first time in a long while, I’m actually grateful for my psychic abilities. Most of the time, they feel more like a curse than a blessing. But the recurring moving dreams I’ve been having—no matter how weird—give me hope that this issue will be resolved because we can’t move if it isn’t. I hold onto those dreams and that little bit of hope. If they only happened once in a while, I wouldn’t think much of them. And if we were as desperate to get out of here as we were in our last place, I might assume they were just reflections of my thoughts. But I really think these are signs. We adventurers have moved many times to many places, and these are the kinds of dreams I’ve always started having as it got close. Or close enough anyway, like within a few years.

I had many dreams last night, although I don’t remember the details. One of them must have been bad because I vaguely remember waking up scared, with my heart racing.

Back to the subject of cyber friends—someone's entry about haunted dolls got me thinking and curious. I might have laughed at the idea years ago, but experience has taught me to keep an open mind, and now I definitely want to get one to see if I notice any difference in my life. A quick check showed they range in size and cost anywhere from $25 to hundreds of dollars. There was a cheap one I liked in Germany, but the shipping costs more than the doll itself. Besides, I don’t want just any doll—I want one that’s at least somewhat aesthetically pleasing. I don’t want some ugly heap of crap sitting around just because it’s said to be haunted.

With not much money at the moment and other priorities, it may be a while before I get one. Apparently, some have backstories (who haunts the doll and at least some of what happened to them when they lived) and there are ways to communicate with them as well, but I’m still not sure I believe in that sort of thing—or that I’d even know how to communicate with them, assuming we really do live on somehow after death. Most of them are said to contain positive energy, but I was surprised to find a few with negative energy. Who the hell would want to buy a doll with negative energy?

It’s been a windy day, and we even had a little rain. It was frustrating because the temperature and breeze would have been perfect for opening the windows for some fresh air. But I knew that would have really aggravated my asthma and allergies.

Although I’m feeling more certain that my lung tightness is climate-related, I skipped today’s dose. The left side of my thyroid may be slightly enlarged, and of course a higher TSH could be affecting my energy levels. So depending on how I feel, I may not continue the weekly skips for long.

I still worry that they’re either not going to give me a CPAP or that they will, but it won’t help—and then they won’t be able to figure out what’s wrong if my TSH is close enough to normal and I’m not diabetic. Copilot said you’re unlikely to get fatigued from your A1C unless it’s over 7, and I can’t imagine mine suddenly jumping from 5.9 to 7. At this point, as long as I stay off sugar and keep active, I should never become diabetic.

I really, really hope most of the fatigue is from sleep apnea because that’s treatable! If it’s not related to sleep apnea, my A1C, or even my TSH, then it’s probably chronic fatigue. What else could it be???

I definitely sleep sounder with Clonazepam—my sleep score jumped from 80 to 88. But I’m not going to take it before bed tonight since I don’t want to rely on it every day, which means I’ll likely wake up more often and be pretty tired tomorrow.

I’m so fucking sick of spending years trying to figure out what’s wrong with me. I spent the better part of a decade figuring out the anxiety, and now I’m leaning toward half a decade trying to solve the fatigue. If this ever does get resolved, how many years will I spend trying to figure out the next health issue?

Anyway, I had more dreams about moving, even though I don’t know where the hell we were. First, we were staying someplace temporarily, and I noticed the shade in one of the windows was torn, so I made a mental note to hang a curtain over it or something. Then, we were going to be living near Miss Perfect again—my SIL. Oddly enough, I was glad we’d be near each other again. We were catching up on our health, and she still looked the same age and was still working. In real life, she’d be close to 70 now. I told her I went from 160 pounds to 120 pounds—LOL, that’ll never happen, but hopefully, I’ll never be in the 160s again either.

Tom has been playing these games that pay you to play. It’s not much, but it’s better than nothing. So I rejoined Inbox Dollars, checked out their arcade, and downloaded a couple of games I’ve been playing.

Goodbye, Spectrum—hello, Frontier. We switched providers because Frontier offered a better deal without sacrificing speed.

After a couple of good days, it's right back to fatigue, fatigue, fatigue. I didn’t take anything before bed or in the middle of my sleep, yet I still woke up a million times and felt exhausted. Despite that, I haven’t been able to nap. Definitely taking clonazepam tonight to help me sleep a little sounder.

I’m trying so hard not to go "what if" and worry that the CPAP won’t help—because if it doesn’t, that means I have a much more complex and hopeless problem. One I’m almost certain I wouldn’t be willing to live with. It’s just that things rarely come easy for me or go my way. Every time I plan something, those plans fall apart, and every time something seems to work at first, it loses its magic in the end. The protein shakes don’t seem to be helping anymore, so there’s no point in carrying on with those once I use up what’s left.

Different doctors and multiple sources of research have assured me that CPAPs make a big difference for most people, so I’m trying to hang on to that. It’s just not always easy. Although… the dreams I had last night make me wonder. Even though they were kind of weird, I had moving dreams. In one, we were actually moving to Florida instead of from it, but we were moving nonetheless. In another, I was telling Tom how great it would be to be near Kim—not that I’d ever move back to Massachusetts—and that he and I could play VR minigolf while Kim and I could play some other game. He didn’t seem too thrilled with that idea.

The point is, if I weren’t psychic, I’d just write these dreams off as reflections of what’s been on my mind. But since Tom and I both suspect they could be signs, maybe they mean that, yes, I am finally going to get my sleep and fatigue issues resolved or at least improved and we’ll move someday. I can’t move if I’m this heavily fatigued. Took me all day just to muster up the energy to talk type this. I’d settle for a noticeable improvement. Instead of being tired half the time or more, I’d take once a week.

Tom and I were also talking about what we’d want to be if reincarnation existed and we had to come back as humans. He said he’d be whatever. In the past, I would have been quick to say I’d want to be an Asian female—they tend to be less prone to weight problems, and I’ve always liked girly things, dark hair, and dark eyes. But after going through menopause, I can definitely say I’d never want to return as a woman. So Instead of being a bisexual woman from the U.S., I think I’d prefer to be a straight guy from Finland. That way, I’d get to appreciate women without judgment and wouldn’t have to deal with hormonal hell. Plus, even though Finland is horribly cold and snowy, it’s said to be the happiest country in the world with great healthcare and more.

Oh, and I forgot to mention—a Fleetwood Mac song played at the dentist yesterday and it reminded me of the mystery girl. Well, if she’s found her Miss or Mr. Right, I hope they woo her until the sun comes up and tell her that they love her.