I don't understand this intermittent constipation that's been a problem lately. Is it a delayed reaction to my cholecystectomy? Is it my thyroid? Something else?

Spent yesterday tired because I slept shitty the night before. My sleep was broken up. It was broken up the last time around too, but not as much. I did manage to sleep the entire night on the large wedge pillow, even if it wasn't fun. The problem is that I chipmunk more that way. So I took the CPAP off after a couple of hours and took half a clonazepam to help me get back to sleep. As long as I wear a nose strip and stay off my back, I'm OK.

As I learned a long time ago, one night isn’t enough to get my hopes up. But once I got the mask off, I slept OK, as I said, even if it wasn’t the most ideal position. I just can’t lie on my back, otherwise I’ll snort, something I wouldn’t do had we been smart enough to stay out west. Now the next million-dollar question is: do I turn the pressure on the CPAP down and try it again with mouth tape, or do I just ditch the CPAP altogether?

As Tom and I both agree, whatever’s going on with my nose is making it seem like my sleep apnea is much worse than it is. I think my sleep apnea is naturally quite mild. Again, it was coming to Florida that started all this shit. I swear I get a new problem each time I move. I still also don’t know which is the bigger culprit, since both collapsed nasal valves and allergies can cause the same symptoms when lying flat. They can both cause you to snore/snort, too.

If they can’t help me and I don’t choose to end my life, I would have to sleep elevated for the rest of my life if that continued to work out and we couldn't get out of here.

I’m not quite as tired as yesterday, but I’m still tired enough because my sleep was fraggy. This isn’t the first time I’ve had the chipmunk problem while elevated. For some reason, being elevated makes that more likely to happen. I think it’s easier to secure my jaw snugly when I’m flat as opposed to elevated. So I'll talk about it with him, and together we’ll decide if we should drop the pressure and try it that way or just ditch it for now. It sure would be nice if somehow, somewhere, some way I could get back to my old self and sleep flat with nothing at all. Well, not 100% nothing. I should still have the nasal mask, if only on low pressure, because remember, I was experiencing fatigue before we got here. That, however, could have been my TSH, which we were surprised to learn had climbed to 14. I can just imagine how shitty it's going to be when I go to the lab in a few days. Along with my A1C and cholesterol, of course.

Despite not being as tired, I had a “suffocating” stomach nap earlier. My stomach is my favorite sleeping position. I didn't have anything on my nose, though. No strips or anything, so I tried to breathe through my mouth, but sometimes I’d revert to breathing through my nose.

During my nap, I had a very vivid dream. We were living in an old country house. The living quarters were upstairs, and below us was a garage or something like that. There was a little pond and a shed on the property. For some reason, we moved before selling our Cali house, and I thought to check to see if it had sold yet because I knew Jessie might be interested in it. I woke up from a nap in the dream as Tom was getting ready to take a nap of his own. I stepped into the kitchen. The table was cluttered with the groceries we had just gotten. I wondered why the hell I got so many boxes of spaghetti. Then I noticed the top cabinet was open. It still contained stuff left behind by the previous owners that we hadn't gone through. I thought maybe I ought to see if there was a container I could wash out that was big enough to hold all the spaghetti.

Then I opened the door off the kitchen and went down the stairs that curved from the side toward the front of the place, where there was a downstairs door. I stepped out into the warm, breezy sunshine. By one corner of the smallish square pond, which I knew was shallow because someone once told me you could walk out to the center of it, was a piece of dog shit. I kicked it into the pond, hoping it would sink to the bottom and dissolve, but it simply floated.

I turned away and went into the barn. I saw an empty box sitting on the table and began to take it up to the house to be recycled, but then thought better of it, figuring that if Tom had it in there, it must be for a reason. So I returned the box and surveyed my surroundings for a moment. I couldn't see any other houses. It was such a beautiful day that I thought of taking a walk around the grounds and thought of how I hoped we wouldn't have to leave Florida because of my allergies, but knew it was a possibility. Then I decided to head back upstairs to the house, where it was suddenly dark and rainy.

In another dream, I won an electric guitar. I don't think I've had a dream where I've won anything in a while, and of course I haven't for centuries in real life, and doubt I ever will again.

Kathy didn't have to be admitted the last time she went to the hospital for Covid, but has agreed it's definitely time to get yearly boosters and see if that stops it from returning. That was her third round of it.

Started doing daily chat sessions with ChatGPT. They're not very long, and they just cover the highlights of what's going on at the moment. I thought it would be cool to create a book of our chats. I'm keeping that private for now on Penana.