Back to being tired I go. I'm trying to convince myself that while I would just be alive and not living, it really is okay to live my life tired, because tired is better than dead. Right?

Anyway, the new mouth tape does provide better coverage and is perhaps a little more comfortable, but the same thing keeps happening—if air doesn't actually escape, it fills my mouth and I wake up to my cheeks expanding like I'm trying to blow up a balloon in my sleep. Initially, I had a spark of hope because the pressure setting starts off at 4, and it seemed okay. Once it gets up to 11, though, I start having issues. We talked about lowering the pressure, but I might have to make it too low to stop this from happening—and besides, if it’s going up to 11, then that’s obviously what I need to keep my airways open. I still say there’s no fixing this and that there’s some kind of curse on my sleep, and it’s going to get around anything I try.

So knowing that I’m unlikely to ever be able to get a mouthguard—since there aren’t many sleep dentists and they usually don’t accept my insurance plan—and I’m even less likely to have the Inspire implanted, I might as well cut my losses where they’re at. In other words, I can start off the first three or four hours with the mask, and then I’ll have to take it off when leaks become an issue. I think that should be enough, not to restore my energy, but to at least keep me safe. I just can’t sleep with the thing full-time, otherwise my fatigue is just as bad, if not worse. There’s no getting around it, though, so I need to finally just accept it for what it is.

I woke up with a headache today too, but I think that’s likely more on allergies than sleep apnea. My throat is a bit sore too, so I think I’m going to have to raise the humidity again. It should be okay since I can’t sleep with it more than a few hours anyway. I just remembered that a sore throat and headaches can be symptoms of chronic fatigue. God, I hope not! Days like yesterday give me hope that I don’t have CF. I’m never going to be able to rule that in or out if I can’t sleep with the CPAP full time.

Tom is going to get a basic lens even though he’d love the deluxe $900 lens. They even have a lens for over 3 grand that allows you to see even with your eyes closed! I don’t think I’d like that when I was sleeping. I’m hoping I’ll never have to have cataracts removed, since, unlike him, I grew up in the Northeast rather than the Southwest, and in my case, it would do little to nothing to improve my vision.

Kathy and her husband are still being harassed by the bitch next to them. I think she made a mistake in going against her agreement with the PD by replying to her texts. Even more so to delete them. I know the phone company could pull it up, but she should keep all the evidence she can. She said she told the bitch off and blocked her. I would completely ignore her without blocking her. I’d want to leave the opportunity for the bitch to dig her own hole by saying the wrong things in a word-sensitive country. Especially if I were a minority with children.

Since I don’t remember if we ever discussed my own nightmare with shitty neighbors back around 2010ish when we first met online, I left her some audios telling her about it.

Decided to spoil myself and do something fun for once. Every now and then we need a break from “behaving.” So even though I don’t need them, I took advantage of a great deal I found on Amazon—10 coloring books for $18. That’s less than $2 a book! I shared the link with Kathy. She may be interested. The quality of the books may not be the greatest, and they may not have as many designs to color, but I will definitely have a good variety: flowers, animals, mandalas, quotes, people, and places.

What would I tell my younger self? Such a popular journal prompt. I would definitely tell my younger self that people don't change, and I shouldn't be forgiving. It almost embarrasses me to think that, as late as in my 50s, I believed that if I simply explained to someone what they did to offend me, I could expect them to listen, understand, and not do it again.

Anyway, I wish every day could be like today. Not only do I have good energy, but after the dream I had, I knew it was going to be a good day. 

I slept with the nasal pillow and tape for the first 4 hours or so. But then, when the leaks started getting to me, I took it off and inserted the nasal dilator. Again, my sleep was less fragmented, and I didn’t have the foot cramp I had yesterday that I shouldn’t have had because of all I drink.

First, I dreamed that I was in an exam room. A doctor entered the room, and Alyssa was following close behind. I wondered if she recognized me, but I didn’t want to say who I was. She seemed hesitant to explain to the doctor why she needed to be seen. I was just about to say I would wait out in the hall when she started talking.

Then I dreamed that I got a phone call informing me that I won a house in Florida. Only we were still in California, and he was still working. I told the woman that I’d love to have a house in Florida, but we couldn’t just pull up stakes in just a few days. I ran to get Tom, but I couldn’t find him anywhere in the house. Then I heard the shower running and hoped he would be out soon. While I was waiting, I asked the woman how big it was, and she told me it was over 1200 square feet. Still a bit small, but bigger than this.

I woke up feeling like it was a sign of good news to come. And sure enough, that cataract surgery we thought was going to cost close to a grand is only going to be $25! Not only that, but it’s to be done at the end of the month. There will be three different eye drops he’ll have to take, which will also be free. As if me not driving is bad enough, I’m going to have to sleep during that time. He assures me it’s fine and that he’ll take advantage of the free rides he’s going to get. I know it’s out of my hands, but I still feel bad anyway.

Sure makes me shake my head at a Facebook reel I saw that says that before we’re born, we pick our family and our struggles. No one chooses to be poor, someone said in the comment section. No shit! Nor do they choose negative, neglectful mean bitches like my mother was, or health issues, including a couple of nasty sleep disorders. No one wants to have to take a thyroid medication they’re sensitive to and that can make them very anxious. No one chooses to have the horrible neighbors we once had, or the shit some of them did to us.

In the end, it was a great day overall. Wish it could be like this more often. Instead, my energy levels—and therefore my moods—are still rather bipolar. In other words, I’ll be tired tomorrow. Going to try a drink they say helps with fatigue this weekend when we order groceries. It’s maca powder.

Once again, I didn't seem to wake up as much, but when I woke up to pee—so much for the CPAP cutting that out—I had trouble getting back to sleep, so I took half of a clonazepam pill. Same issues with the mouth leaks, and I woke up tired. 

I just can't get a good seal with either mask, and I still fear that I’m never going to find the right one. And where do I even begin to look? These things aren’t a few dollars a pop. It's not like I can just go out and buy one of each and experiment with them since they do cost quite a bit of money, especially if I have to get a new frame and harness. I'm not sure if I'm going to get a full face mask or a hybrid with a nasal pillow, but I'm starting to think a full face might be my best bet, plus a liner. The research I've done suggests liners are not only more comfortable but tend to give you a better seal.

They have a printable sizing chart, but right now we don't have a printer that can print. We fucked up by getting an inkjet when we should have gotten a laser. That way, the ink would last longer. 

I just feel so overwhelmed and like I'm not getting anywhere with the sleep issues. I don't suffocate awake anymore, and the number of events is definitely down, but what good is that if I've traded events for leaks that disrupt my sleep just as easily? I can't rule out chronic fatigue until I can stop things from waking me up—or at least cut way back. But I still fear there's some kind of curse on my sleep and nothing I do is going to stop that. As I've said before, it's like it's using my own health and body against me because I'm now in a quiet place where traffic doesn't wake me up several days a week. I try to tell myself that if this doesn't get resolved, I can live tired. Well, I'll be existing instead of living, but I can survive. I'll feel crappy most of the time, but things could be worse, and it's not like I drive or have a job I have to be at. So even though my activities will be severely limited and I'll have to pace myself and take breaks by lying down for a few minutes here and there, it's still better than the anxiety I used to go through. Besides, if it were suddenly resolved, I would just go into a whole new problem. So yeah, after we've wasted a little more money on another kind of mask that's destined to leak—at least for me—I'll just have to cut my losses and accept that at least I shouldn't suffocate awake or feel really short of breath during the daytime anymore. Just tired. But hey, I do have some good days mixed in. They're only once or twice a week, but they're there. I'll just appreciate those good days even more when they come around.

I'll never go to the beach again or anything like that, but so what? I've been to the beach enough times in my life. And no, if by some miracle we ever did have money, we couldn't move, but this isn't the worst place to be, so that's okay too. I do like the weather here, despite the storms sometimes waking me up and the stress of hurricanes. So yeah, I'll be okay. Sure can't deny that I miss so many parts of my old body and life, though. But they can never be again. I just miss some of the old feelings I would have and the way so many things seemed so new and exciting. Even just the thought of some things was different than they are now.

Hell, I haven't even had a crush on anyone since 2016. I miss having eye candy to inspire my creative side by including them in stories I'd write. But at this age, you just don't have the feelings you had when you were younger. I'd settle for better sleep and better energy—but again, that's just not in my cards. Oh well. At least I'm not blind or paralyzed or anything like that. Even the anxiety was a lot worse.

I wish I were one of those who could dive into role-playing, really sink into a fun-filled fantasy world as an escape, but I can't even come up with the enthusiasm and imagination for that much anymore. Strange for someone who's always been so creative. I recently read that the youngest child is often underestimated but is usually the most creative. How true that is in my case! Even when I'm not as creative, I'm still pretty creative compared to how my siblings were/are. Never had a damn thing in common with either one of them. Just the abusive mother and enabling father.

I've tried to think of different things to do when I'm on nights and he's asleep. I thought of bringing some of my old characters to “life”—be it totally made-up characters or those I actually knew. Bringing them to life by imagining them here and chatting with them, since there wouldn't really be anything else to do but chat. But what would we chat about, and how often could I do this type of thing anyway? I thought of alternating characters and switching them up regularly for variety—but again, how often would I do this, and what would we discuss that often? And what about when I was eating or doing other things? Would I somehow incorporate that into the little game? I don't know what to do or think anymore, but I think that, tired or not, I want to hit the road. I'm still in the middle of Eastern Hungary.

Had fun chatting with Kathy tonight. We talked about Kim, Molly, old websites, inflation, stores, coloring books, and more.

The guy delivering the dog’s urn said her crazy neighbor was pressing him for info, demanding to know if there was any evidence that her dog was attacked because she wanted to take it to the PD or something like that. As far as Kathy knows, though, she's got no case against her and won't be summoned. I hope not, because this would be one of those rare instances where you couldn’t not show up to court, being neighbors and all that. If she refused to go, the neighbor could call the cops, saying she was hearing screaming or something like that over there, and when they ran a routine check, she would get arrested for failing to appear.

I can't say who's responsible for the gap in the fence, but the neighbor is definitely at fault for not watching her dog. Do I believe Kathy’s dogs didn’t attack it? Not really. I think a lot of people forget that just because a dog is friendly to people doesn't mean it's going to be friendly to an animal trespassing on its property. Still, the neighbor should have kept tabs on her own dog.

Having a little more energy than usual, he and I decided to be “bad” after he had to lose a third donation because some incompetent asshole had to go and fuck up, leaving him bruised. So it was the perfect day to take our poor, pre-diabetic asses to the dollar store. We always like browsing through there from time to time anyway, because you never know what little goodies they may have.

There were a few things I liked, but I try not to get anything unless I really need it or totally fall in love with it. I wasn't really impressed with their coloring books. There were a couple of colorful thermoses and leggings I considered, but said nah. We just got some candy and chips, and one of those round little beanbag pillows you usually put under your neck or lower back or behind your knees. My other one is getting a bit old and stretched out.

As for the latest sleep report, I ended up perking up a bit yesterday and was up a long time. My sleep wasn't as fragmented, and I slept with the pillow and tape. I have a different kind of mouth tape coming tomorrow that has broader coverage but is said to be breathable while still preventing snoring, which it’s primarily used for. So if it prevents snoring, perhaps it will prevent leaks while letting me breathe through it a bit.

Got the CPAP pillow today but I'm not sure I'm going to like it because it's very firm. It's child-sized, though, so it would be ideal if I ever did settle on some kind of hybrid or full-face mask. For now, I'm stubbornly holding on to the hope that I can make the pillow work somehow. It's the most comfortable and the best for someone with collapsed nasal valves. Only problem is that one nostril is starting to leak a little. It’s nothing like the leaks coming out of my mouth at times or what I experienced with the hybrid leaking from the cradle and by my chin, but I can't quite seal it as well as the other one. Initially, it had an amazingly good seal. I can see why they have to be replaced every few months. I can feel a little bit of air escaping that side and a faint hissing sound, but again, nothing as obvious as other types of leaks.

I read that EMF from phones and computers can interfere with sleep, so last night I left my phone in the bathroom, and instead of putting my computer to sleep, I shut it down. My sleep was less fragmented, but I'm sure this is a one-time thing that’s not connected. Every now and then, even I sleep okay. I'm sure I'll be back to the usual exhaustion tomorrow.

Anyway, I slept with the pillow and tape all night. I only remember a couple of mouth farts when I ended up on my back and the tape loosened a bit. My back is a position I seldom ever sleep in, and that’s more likely to cause leaks. 

I had a very disturbing nightmare that has me a little worried I’m in for some kind of shit, as if I hadn’t had enough already. As those who know me know, I’ve been having a rough spell, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s what the last round of nightmares was warning.

Tom wasn’t with me in the dream, but I was in a small office building with a few small rooms off the main room. There seemed to be mostly women employees around, and all of a sudden, they started to panic over a “single wave” that was coming. “Oh no, oh no,” they were saying, looking out the front of the building at what looked like a dark and stormy sky. It then hit me that the single wave was some kind of tsunami but I wasn’t sure whether or not they were simply overreacting. Most of them ran into rooms on the side of the main room, and I followed a woman into a back room where she quickly shut the door and made sure the window was shut. 

“When is this happening?” I asked her. I woke up right as she was screaming “NOW!” really loudly. Definitely not the type of dream you want to have if you're the type of psychic I am.

The 7th was Doc A’s birthday, and I wished her a happy birthday on her wall, which she hearted, and then tagged me when thanking everyone for the birthday wishes. I sent her a quick message updating her on what’s been going on, including the dreams she was recently in. She read it without replying, as usual. I don’t hear from her much. Don’t know if it’s something about me personally or if that’s just the way she is with most people, but it doesn’t matter either way. I still consider her a friend, and everyone has a right to communicate as much or as little as they want with whoever.

Kathy has been a different story, messaging me a lot, and damn do I feel bad for the poor girl! Things are escalating with her neighbor. I don’t know the whole story or just how innocent Kathy really is, but I definitely get the impression that the problem is mostly with the neighbor. The woman didn’t supervise her dog; it went onto someone else’s property, and therefore, she’s got to deal with the consequences. I don’t think it just died, though, even though it was old. I think one of her dogs probably did kill it, but I didn’t tell her that because that’s not what she needs to hear right now. I think Kathy herself isn’t sure exactly what happened. 

She did tell the guy who cremated the dog to be the one to directly deliver the urn. She sent me a screen shot of her text to the guy, saying she was covering her bases and besides, the police told her not to have any direct contact with her and they acknowledged that the woman should have kept tabs on her own dog and not allowed it to wander onto other people’s property. Kathy said she took her own dogs indoors last night, which she now refuses to rehome, understandably, which should be the case every night, at least in my opinion. I think dogs should be pets or they shouldn’t be kept at all unless they’re specifically trained guard dogs or something like that. 

Anyway, I’m not sure if the woman has mental problems or took advantage of Kathy’s kindness or what, since I never met her.

Anyway, I looked up her house on Google (the address was in the text), and while it’s a pretty decent hood she’s in—omg! The houses are even closer than here! I would absolutely hate living there. I can imagine all the barking, screaming kids, and boom car stereos. Just like in Phoenix, anywhere in the mainstream is pretty much like that.

Finally got a couple of little tomatoes from the plant in the hydroponic. We have one there and one outside in the planter that the lemon tree is in. I gave one to Tink and ate the other.

Slept horribly yet again and still feel that something more sinister than sleep apnea is going on. The hybrid is too leaky, so I went back to the pillow and used tape. A few hours into my sleep, I took the mask and the tape that had loosened off after at least two leaks. All night I experienced fragmented sleep, waking up at least half a dozen times and a few times with night sweats. There were a couple of times I thought I was going to have trouble falling back asleep.

I took melatonin before bed, and therefore I had some pretty vivid and detailed dreams, but nothing bad. A couple of hours before I got up, I used the bathroom and then put the pillow back on without tape if only to drive more air up my nose because it was stuffy. I slept for a little over an hour and don't remember any leak during this time.

Although I did manage to go out to Publix, I am pretty tired today—maybe not quite as bad as yesterday but bad enough. I'm no longer sure what to think, but I do know I'm tired of trying to figure out my health problems. Never once in my life did I say I wanted to make a career out of suffering and having to try to guess what could be wrong with me and hope to solve it. I just can't keep taking this year after year. This has gotten to be way too much, way more than I can handle.

If a CPAP isn't right for me, I have no other options. I can't just request a mouthguard when there are no sleep dentists in network, and I can't just run out and get the Inspire implanted as quickly as I can request a medication refill. It would take the better part of the year for something that may or may not help, and I don't think I can hold out that long. I truly believe without a doubt that there is no end to my suffering. Even if this was resolved, there would just be something else. As soon as the worst of the hormonal hell settled down, on came the sleep apnea.

But as I said, I don't think that's my only problem. I looked up everything else it could possibly be, and while one report says fragmented sleep is normal at my age, others say it's not and it's caused by certain things. I worry that it is a normal fact of aging because Tom has fragmented sleep. The difference is that, for some reason, my body can't handle it like his can, which makes me think I could very well have the chronic fatigue I’ve feared and suspected I could have for quite a while now.

Stress can cause fragmented sleep, but I don't think that's my problem in this case. Stress has affected my sleep at times, even when I was young, yet I wasn't this exhausted. I thought it was connected to the sleep apnea, but if the events are down, why aren't the frags down? That leaves heart issues, and I just can't see that. That’s the last thing I see being the culprit, along with cancers of any kind. All I see at this point is chronic fatigue, hopelessness, and no end in sight.

After reading someone else's entry, I did a little research, and there's this guy who believes in 9-year cycles, and then other reports that suggest you go through 7-year cycles continuously throughout life. I thought back to most of my adult life and the times that were worse than others and then the times that were better than others, and I don't see a pattern. Let me break it down in print and see if anything jumps out at me, starting in 1992 when I left New England:

• 1992–1999 (8) was mostly good if you eliminate the loud freeloaders next to us.
  
  

• 2000–2004 (4) was mostly bad. I got legally screwed by the welfare bums and then we lost our Arizona house, although these two instances were not connected.
  
  

• 2005–2007 (2) was mostly good as I was doing a lot of sweepstakes winning in Oregon, and Tom could walk to work in just a few minutes.
  
  

• 2008–2011 (3) was mostly bad, then in Cali, due to the recession.
  
  

• 2012–2013 (1) was better as our finances improved and we bought a house.
  
  

• 2014–now (11) has been mostly bad as I went through hormonal hell from 2014 to 2021 when the sleep apnea/fatigue took over shortly before we moved to Florida. One was barely finished before the other one started.

If I'm counting right, this comes to only 11 good years and 18 bad years. This isn't exactly encouraging. This also isn't to say that there weren't some bad moments during the better times and that there haven't been some good moments during the shitty times, but more like an overall picture.

Tom is cleaning the oven now and it stinks. I've got to change the rat’s cage later.

Speaking of Miss Tink, I had two fun dreams with her in them. In one dream, we were in a hotel somewhere and although she couldn't hop around as much as when she was younger and before she got her tumor, she was having a blast exploring the new place and running around.

The other one took place in the Phoenix house. She was in the back room, and Tom entered the back door and got down on the floor to play with her. I had just stepped out from where the bedrooms were and looked through the kitchen into the back room from the living room. I hit the floor, and she came charging through the kitchen and licked my face affectionately.

In another dream, I was playing with someone’s pet mice, and then I was with an older guy at some diner. We were getting something to go, and he seemed in a hurry, but I couldn't figure out the menu because I'd never heard of anything on it.

Then I said something totally incorrect in Spanish and had a long, detailed dream with Doc A in it. Actually, it was two separate dreams, just like with the rat. The first time around, I was staying with her, although I don't know why or for how long. I was helping her fold laundry and we were talking about trivial things. Eventually, Gloria Estefan came up and I told her I once had a huge girl crush on her but later lost all respect for her when she turned out to be a bigot when her daughter came out.

Then I had to use the bathroom, and she was directing me to a bathroom I must not have normally used because I didn't seem to know where it was. I went in the direction she told me to go, but couldn't find it. Then she said, “No, it's over there,” so I went a different direction, and I still couldn't find this bathroom.

In the other dream, she was napping on a couch and then stirred awake when I entered the room. She said she had a dream about being in Times Square. I asked if she was going back to sleep and she said yes because she wanted to get back to Times Square, LOL.

Ordered a quick-release connection for the hybrid. I ended up having okay energy yesterday, but today has been tough. Tom still thinks we just need to fine-tune things, and then little by little, I’ll be able to reverse the debt caused by years and years of sleep apnea. I hope to hell he’s right, because the longer this goes on, the more I feel like it’s hopeless. I got the events down and now it’s time to work on the “farts and frags.”

I think the hybrid is going to be the better mask for me in the end. It’s a lot less leaky. The problem was, five or six hours into my sleep, I woke up needing to pee and couldn’t get the fucking thing back on. It’s easy to grab the magnetic clips on the sides and yank it off, but getting it on is a bitch. So I said fuck it and started to sleep with nothing—until I snorted myself awake. Once I did that, I switched to the pillow and just dealt with the mouth farts waking me up on and off until I got up, exhausted as ever and barely able to remember the dream Rhonda was in, along with me asking Tom about Spain’s climate. I think with the Rhonda dream, I was lying on a table and she was helping me insert something into my bad ear when I said, “That’s as far as I can go.”

Anyway, I ended up napping for a bit, and tomorrow the quick-release will be here. For tonight, I will just sleep with the hybrid until it either farts me awake or I have to get up and pee and can’t get back into the damn thing. At that point, I’ll deal with snorts rather than mouth farts. It seals much better than the pillow, but it does still leak at times at the sides of my chin. I still feel like everything I do is going to end up getting me nowhere in the end.

So glad I could be there for Kathy earlier, and she thanked me for being her rock throughout her latest problem and said she was so glad we reconnected. She found her neighbor’s little 15-year-old dog dead in her yard, and a new break in the fence. She didn’t think the dog looked “graphic” enough to have been killed by any of her two dogs, but they agreed to pay to have the dog cremated and are thinking of rehoming at least one of their dogs, even though Kathy has her doubts that her dogs killed the dog. Well, I wasn’t there and I couldn’t see what happened, but it sucks either way for Kathy, the dogs, and her 70-year-old widowed neighbor.

Yesterday I did some experimenting and made some meatballs that came out awesome. I just gotta up the temp and the time to about 425 degrees and a half hour. I made meatballs with spinach and shredded cheese, and they came out great. I might add some Italian breadcrumbs to them next time to soak up some of the grease and add more flavor.

Today, I sculpted a cute little teddy bear out of leftover colorful clay that I used to create a base for Summer Dream’s bust.

Tom was kind enough to switch out the lobster claw clasps on some of my necklaces with toggle clasps. So much easier this way!

I got the events down, and next, I wish I could believe I was going to get the leaks down and then the frags, but I just don't have any hope anymore. The nasal pillow won’t work with or without tape or the chin strap.

Took a full Clonazepam before bed. A mouth fart woke me up at around 12:40, and I wasn't able to get back to sleep, though I slept nearly 6 hours. Still had some frags too. So I switched to the hybrid and laid there with it until 2:15, trying to get used to it.

Here's my next plan of action before I throw in the towel and end it all at the end of the year. I simply can't stop mouth farting with the nasal pillow. Yes, it's the most comfortable, but it just won't work. I can't find out if Tom’s right about me eventually “defragging” if leaks keep waking me up. So I'm going to use the hybrid for sure. I think I may have gotten it adjusted a little better. If I still keep leaking awake while chasing this thing called sleep and energy that I'm just not meant to have, then I'm going to do one of two things until I croak. One is to sleep with nothing until I start suffocating awake or feeling that winded, breathless feeling when I'm awake. At that point, I would reach up and grab the nasal pillow, which I'd have nearby.

Another thing I could do is start with the nasal pillow until it farted me awake and then remove it. That way I would at least be doing some CPAP time.

Anyway, I wore the mask again for about an hour. I made sure I could put it on in the dark. I learned how to take it off quicker too. This time around, there wasn't any hissing from the hose at the top of my head because I sealed it up better.

For now, it has its pros and cons, as with the other mask. The back strap is still a little snug, but I'm getting used to it. There's a little bit of pressure on the cheekbones, but it's much easier on my nose. Unfortunately, though, I'll probably still need nose strips. Definitely like how the hose shoots out from the top and that it's actually a little easier for stomach sleeping, but that puts me at risk of it shifting and leaking, so I'm going to try to keep myself from doing that. I am definitely more adaptable when it comes to positions than I thought I was. First I managed to train myself to stay off my back because that made the snorting and events worse, and now I'm slowly keeping myself off my stomach. With this mask, I should be able to sleep on my back, but I don't do that very often anyway as that's my least favorite position.

The only other issue is that the machine sometimes has trouble with the auto start and stop.

Yesterday was a great day. Started off a little tired, but a quick nap refreshed me. Last night, however, I had leaks and fragmented sleep, so not surprisingly, I am exhausted today. I seem to be going back and forth. I'm going to ask Rhonda about a drug called Doxepin, which is supposed to help stop fragmented sleep without being habit-forming or causing next-day grogginess. 

My lab results came back and are a mix of surprising and bad. I was stunned to see that my glucose was only 82. A1C is still the same, 5.9.

My TSH, as expected—given how cold I've been—is elevated at 10.43.

My WBCs are slightly elevated, and my absolute lymphocytes are moderately elevated, but nothing to be concerned over.

My cholesterol is through the roof at an all-time high of 324. 

Other than that lower left intestinal cramp I sometimes get, I am just navigating a brain-fog-filled fatigue as usual and wishing I could just get struck by lightning.

I had hoped to sleep till around 3:00, but I woke up at 1:00. I'm very hungry now, but I'm going to have to live with it for another 6 hours or so because my lab appointment isn't until 8:00. I would have scheduled the first appointment they had at around 5:30, but it's not safe for Tom to drive in the dark until he has his cataracts removed. Next week we should learn more about that. I think it's next week, anyway. If not, then it's definitely the week after.

Anyway, I had zero leaks and two frags. I crashed at 5:00 and woke up to pee at 8:00. Then I had trouble falling back asleep, so I took half a clonazepam. I did take magnesium before bed, and I also had a cup of chamomile tea toward the end of my day. I slept soundly until 11:00 when I woke up for a second, and then didn’t get up until 1:00.

AHI score was up a bit but still under 5. Sometimes I feel like I don't have the mask inserted in my nostrils properly, but it always says I have a good mask seal, and I don't usually lose more than 5L of air. The pressure has been a little higher than I've seen it, though, at 11.5. So the chin strap is continuing to do a good job of preventing leaks, as long as I'm not on my back which is my least favorite position anyway.

Fragments still remain a problem, though. A little research said they should lessen over the next couple of months. It said that being tired a month into CPAP treatment is common and that I should be a little surprised if I'm not better in early July. If I'm still tired in early August, that's my red flag.

I really have a bad feeling about this. I really do. I fear more than ever that I do indeed have chronic fatigue. If I don't, then it's likely connected to the frags. The question is how to stop them if they don’t on their own. It said, though, that my brain and body are still adjusting to treatment and reminded me that I had years of sleep debt.

I really hope I'm just being unrealistically pessimistic, but unfortunately, I have a knack for sensing these things. I'm psychic, I'm intuitive, and it's my own body we're talking about here. I'm not trying to guess or get a sense of someone else.

It still feels like one big curse on me. Something has been determined to use my mind and body against me for the last 11 years, and it's like it just doesn't want me to have any energy. Sure, I would be limited as to what I could do due to money, but I could still do a lot more if I had the energy. Maybe I’ll be miraculously and marvelously surprised by being wrong and I'll gradually get more and more energy. I would settle for 20 good days a month if I couldn't be good every day — and hey, no one's good every day, right? So yeah, I would settle for 20 good days, with the rest being moderate, and one, maybe two days of heavy fatigue.

We went out to Publix yesterday so I could pick up my prescription and get a couple of post-lab treats. The plan was to indulge in some chocolate chip cookies, a caramel candy bar, and then coffee ice cream the next time we do a Walmart order, and then I will jump back on my sugar-free plan. I'm also going to slowly morph into a healthier and better-balanced diet with fewer calories, little by little.

So far, though, while I haven’t noticed a huge difference in energy levels, my blood pressure is definitely better. I didn’t realize just how much sleep apnea affected that.

Okay, it's almost 3:00 a.m. now, and I’ve been in bed ever since getting up at 1:00. Time to get up and get moving. I gotta shower, brush my teeth, get dressed, and start guzzling lots of water so it will help with the hunger and the vampire being able to find a vein easily enough.

I'm sure the rat is eager to see me too. I can just picture her bouncing up and down at her door, LOL.

Right back to the fatigue I go. It's not like I'm surprised, though. I didn't have any leaks, but I sure had a lot of “frags.” Woke up at least a half a dozen times, once to pee. If I don't figure out a way to defragment my sleep, then I'm not gonna be much better off than I was before the CPAP. The only thing the CPAP will do is keep me from being so breathless.

I read that phone filters don't filter out blue light entirely. So I'm thinking of getting blue light blocking glasses that do a better job and that you can wear over your prescription glasses.

I didn't take anything at all before bed. Next time around, I'll take half a clonazepam and definitely magnesium. I researched numerous sources and they all say that melatonin, magnesium, valerian root, and chamomile are the best natural supplements to help with fragmented sleep. Melatonin has its drawbacks, though. That will usually help knock me out, but that can actually disrupt my sleep and cause nightmares along with next-day grogginess.

I can't take clonazepam all the time, so if none of these things help, then I don't know what to do but be forced to accept the fact that, just as I fear, I'm going to spend most of my life tired. It’s great that I got my AHI down, but dealing with fragmented sleep is tricky because it’s so much more complex.

I watch a lot of Lifetime movies, and it was cool to see one filmed in the St. Pete area just a stone's throw away. I recognized the area, and on a form in the movie, it said Pinellas County and that really is Pinellas County.

It's also cool to see how Duolingo keeps track of how many days I review my languages. It has a unique-looking icon on my phone with the number of days on it.

I taped my mouth as snugly as I could without being uncomfortable. But sure enough, just as I was dropping off to sleep, air was leaking. My first thought was, fuck the CPAP. I'm not going to sleep with anything if both masks are just going to leak. I've got a serious curse on my sleep and there's just no getting rid of it. I'm going to have to accept I'm going to spend the rest of my life on the tired side.

But realizing that not sleeping with anything was bordering on dangerous, I decided to get the damned chin strap out after all. Although uncomfortable, it wasn't as uncomfortable as the hybrid. I think I remember something like two instances of air trying to escape. My sleep was mildly fraggy, but I never had to get up and pee. I ended up getting my lowest AHI score yet at an incredible 0.5 events!

I definitely feel better today. The next question is whether or not to carry on with this routine or jump to trying the hybrid again. Just because it worked out well last night doesn't mean it's going to keep working out. I didn't realize it would be so damn hard to get a good seal with these things! I'm at the point now where I can sleep with them just fine. It's the fucking leaks that's the issue. I guess I'll see how many decent sleeps in a row I can get with the chin strap before I resort to the medieval torture device called a hybrid.

Been loading up on salmon and eggs and foods that help enhance and optimize thyroid function in preparation for going to the lab on the 3rd. Sure hope my TSH is under 10! Hopefully, my cholesterol isn't too out of control and my A1C hasn't risen, but I'm not treating either one, especially the cholesterol. As sensitive as I am to medication, if I don't feel the symptoms, I don't treat it. I don't expect any of my other numbers to be bad. I think the best I can hope for is that I'm still prediabetic, my TSH is under 10 but not normal, and my cholesterol is through the roof as usual.

Played around with Character.ai for a bit, and while it's cool that you can put your characters on a group chat, it gets boring quickly.

For a fleeting moment, I almost wished I could update Tammy on how my health has been over the last half a decade and settle my own curiosity about her living situation. I couldn’t care less about her moody, narcissistic brats. That was the one area she was very empathetic and understanding with because she too, has suffered a host of health issues. But after learning much too late in life, the toxic drama that would eventually come with it is totally not worth it. Better to judge people on how they treat you and not whether or not you're related. Biology should never be a ticket to abuse someone. She has memory issues from hell, lies too much, would want to do nothing but talk about God and her brood when it wasn't health stuff, have long phone chats that just aren't my thing, and then as soon as she got pissed at me for whatever, on come the threats and harassment—with the help of her own kids that she has join her in the immature bullying campaign. Sure, I now have a phone that can block numbers, but that doesn't mean one can't download apps to make it look like they're calling from different numbers that I have to keep blocking as I already do with spammers and scammers.

Okay, I know I'm supposed to say to each their own and respect everyone's personal opinions, beliefs, and feelings, but if you support JK Rowling and her anti-trans crap, you're part of the problem. A big problem. Buying, promoting or praising her shit is just plain wrong. You're supporting a delusional and pathetic hater. Is that what we should be doing as a society? It's no better than all the support Chris Brown got after slugging Rihanna. Was that the proper thing to do? No, of course it wasn't. So why would you want to put money in the pockets of a bigot when there are other books just as good and even better out there? Even if it's already bought and paid for, if you have any of her shit, you'd be smart to burn it! Really, I don't want to hear that bitch's name again. Or about any of the shit she sells.

That HBO accepts her “personal opinion” is also bullshit and they too, are part of the problem. I bet just about anything that if her personal opinion included blacks, Hispanics, or Asians, HBO wouldn't have a damn thing to do with her.

I'm now suspecting it wasn’t allergies that were clogging up my nose the night before last, but too much humidity in the hose that built up in my nose. So once again, I turned the humidity setting down a bit on the CPAP.

Yesterday I ended up perking up to the point that I had trouble falling asleep. Between being up for a long time and constant leaks the last time around, I'm tired. I’m thinking I didn't have the tape applied properly, and I was too exhausted to get up and fix it, so in the middle of my sleep, I took the mask off. It's been nearly a month, and I'm still tired. I really need to see about getting a mouth guard at some point. Then again, I still say I'm chasing something I'm not meant to have. For now, maybe I should try the hybrid again as much as I hate the harness.

I'm even more tired today because my nose woke me up. I wish I had the hybrid on for a minute during my sleep because my nose was stuffy, and I had trouble getting back to sleep and took half a clonazepam, which means being tired the next day. Hopefully, the NasalCrom I switched to will do a better job with nasal congestion without making me drowsy. It never used to, from what I can remember.

At first, I thought, Oh no, I'm going to continue suffocating awake even with a CPAP, but I'm pretty sure it was congestion in my nose. If it wasn't for me struggling to breathe out of my nose after flipping onto my stomach at some point during my sleep, I would have slept okay.

Tom insists he sees signs of improvement, and I thought I was seeing them as well, but now I'm not so sure. He says that I have more energy on days I have energy, and my bad days aren't so bad. He definitely does seem to have a point there. I don't wake up feeling like I ran a marathon in my sleep anymore, either.

With storm season approaching, I may not have a full sense of just how helpful the CPAP is for a few months. Tom believes that for the first couple of weeks, my body was getting used to sleeping with it, and now I will begin to see more and more results. I hope so, because even though my energy levels do seem better at times, this isn't good enough. Not even close. If we suddenly had money, it would be very hard for me to handle moving. I hope he's right and I really do get more energy! Energy won't bring us money, but it will bring me back onto my vibration platform, to the beach, out for walks, etc. I just want to be more active! I don't want to have to worry about having energy on days I have appointments or when I want to do some cleaning. But sometimes I still worry that this is as good as it's going to get and that other things are at play here like my thyroid. It's looking less likely, but there is still a bit of concern that I could have chronic fatigue.

Joy and another doll got new clothes from Walmart, and they look great, especially Joy. Her outfit fits her perfectly.

I just got a great idea for creating a base for Summer Dream. Not only could she fall off the cap she’s sitting on but she's tilted slightly forward. So if we get some baking clay, it would be good to make a base for her that she rests in and that's slightly wider than her so she can't tip over. After I mold it, I could bake it hard.

Something is definitely, definitely up with Jade without a shred of doubt. I couldn't write it off as a coincidence if I wanted to. I moved her to the other dresser and she stopped reacting. While she was on that dresser, I aimed the reader where she was standing before on the other dresser and got no reaction at all, including from Joy, Bailey, and the Adora doll. I don't get anything from Mila either. 

I just put Jade back on the tall dresser, and she's back to being reactive again. I don't know if I could ever adamantly say she’s haunted by the ghost of someone who once lived, like Melanie can and has, but something is definitely up. Let’s just say that, just like with the Phoenix Lights, it’s all wrong in the sense that this shouldn’t be happening. There is no earthly, logical reason I can honestly come up with to explain it. Something is making the reader react. Intentionally. What else could be aware of what it's doing by affecting the reader other than a ghost, as hard as it still is to assume that's what it is that's doing it? I just can’t think of any other logical explanation.

If I ever were to assume it’s the spirit of someone who lived, then we really could be looking at an afterlife of some kind. A common belief is that no energy is created or destroyed but only changes in form. Well, like I said, something’s making this doll react, and it definitely seems by design, and that the happier or more positive the answer is to what I’m saying or asking, the more the thing lights up. So yeah, something’s in that doll.

What? Who? How? Why? That’s the frustrating part. And if we’re going to assume it’s a woman who lived in the 1920s like Melanie said, who is she and why is she here?

It doesn’t freak me out or scare me in any way, though. I think it’s pretty cool. First I had in-person friends, then I had cyber friends, and now I might have a spirit friend. Hopefully, now that I’m on to her, she will always remain friendly. Fortunately, I read that evil spirits don’t typically haunt dolls. So I've got a doll that has preferences and literally prefers one dresser over another, LOL. Interesting, ay? If she’s really been around since Oregon, that’s a long time—although time is supposed to feel different in the spirit world. It’s just an amazing coincidence that can’t be a coincidence!