Written yesterday:

Another tired day. No breathing issues in my sleep, but it was very fragmented and included a nightmare. After dreaming we were in a hotel vacationing somewhere (at least we can travel in my dreams), I dreamed I was walking down a busy street. A semi suddenly lost control and was heading toward me. I had nowhere to run because I was walking alongside a steep mountainside. I was 100% sure the truck would hit and crush me, but by some miracle, it didn’t.

Despite being tired, I managed to see Rhonda without feeling like I was going to fall asleep on her. I like her way better than Arteaga. She’s friendlier and doesn’t deny that levothyroxine can cause anxiety. What she said scared me, but it’s something I already know and definitely worry about. She said, if I don’t get my sleep squared away, it’s eventually going to affect my health. That’s exactly what I’m worried about, too. I would literally rather die than face additional health issues. But I live in the fear that it’s going to force me into a heart attack or stroke that may be even more debilitating than the sleep issues already are.

She couldn’t do much about the breathing issues, which will hopefully be dealt with—or at least begun to be dealt with—in 6 days. But as for the fragmented sleep, she recommended I try what her husband does. He takes 10 mg of melatonin in addition to his clonazepam, which she confirmed is safe to continue taking the way I’ve been taking it. She even called in a 90-day supply. As I told her, I almost never take a whole one, and not every day. I take half two to three times a week. She said to start with 5 mg of melatonin, and if that isn’t enough, increase it to 10. I have a feeling this isn’t going to help, but hopefully I’ll be surprised.

Sometimes I still feel cursed. But if I am, would it really want to kill me? You can’t curse someone if they’re dead, after all.

Anyway, I’ll see her again virtually in 6 months, and will go to the lab before that as well. It won’t be a fasting lab because she won’t be testing cholesterol, but she will be testing my cortisol levels. I’m also going for CAC testing and a mammogram on the same day at the same nearby imaging center I went to for my gallbladder ultrasound. I haven’t scheduled it yet. I’ll wait till after the ENT, since it’s not critical. I guess the CAC test looks for hard calcified plaque, but it's the soft plaque that can be more dangerous. She'll probably order an angiogram if she thinks that's necessary.

When I mentioned the ENT might have to give me a referral to a surgeon, she said they have those there. That will definitely make it more convenient. Hopefully, if I need surgery, I can go to Brooksville, where I had gallbladder surgery, because then we won’t need to stop and charge.

Written today.

Pre-allergy testing “detox” is not going well at all. I’m more tired than ever. Thank God I wasn’t this tired yesterday when I had to go out—not that I believe there’s a God. Yeah, I’m quickly going from agnostic to atheist. What the fuck kind of God would let someone suffer the way I have, let alone so many others? Is it funny to him or something? Well, unless he’s pure evil, he doesn’t exist. He’s just a coping mechanism passed down from generation to generation, and some use it as a weapon of control. Sometimes I wish I could delude myself too, if it would help.

Anyway, I was too wound up to sleep, but of course I couldn’t take anything. I only slept 3.5 hours, and it seemed like I woke up every other minute. I’m not sure I trust Fitbit’s accuracy, though, as to just how much I was awake. I usually drink lactose-free milk, but I’m going to get whole milk today and have warm milk before I crash, and see if it helps. I’m kind of in a catch-22. If I lie around too much, that can affect my sleep, but I don’t have the energy to do much else.

Because I’m now sleeping on the large wedge pillow until this is resolved, I may have to see if I can seal the hybrid mask better and use that (Tom will help me), because I tend to chipmunk more with the nasal mask when elevated for some reason.

Tom, who got an amazing $50 bonus doing AI jobs, killed the bedroom ceiling light so I can use that fan again and not have to worry about power outages and the thing lighting up like the Fourth of July when the power returns. It wasn’t a regular bulb. It was just a round disk of lots of little LED lights that he unplugged.

The Hospital Diaries. That’s the title of the next story idea I came up with, only I don’t have the energy to put it into fruition. I thought I’d do a story where a woman is in the hospital and is a suspect in perhaps a murder investigation, and a cop poses as a therapist to cheer patients up, and gives her a diary to write in while she’s there. This is checked when she’s out of the room for physical therapy to see if it yields any clues.