Personal blog - January '24, round 2

If cognitive behavioral therapy is a thing, I need to find a way to engage with it.  Without paying hundreds of bucks a month to a therapist.  My anxiety issues have ebbed a fair bit since I blogged last time, though.  Still, there's some inner mechanics to dealing with post TBI issues that I think is beyond the do-it-yourself route.

I don't expect everyone to understand what I'm dealing with.  Truthfully, I think some who've been close to me actually do understand, and that's why they've chosen to stay away.  But I won't assume too much.  I need to interject as well, I'm not the type to reach out too much either.  I'm actually more guilty of being out of touch than anyone else.  I know my issues might seem like an excuse to many, or even most, to keep me from going forward.  For me today, moving forward means one more day that I haven't self-harmed.  And the last time was August 2, 2022.  This is the longest I've gone in not hurting myself since I can remember.  That's progress to me.

Now what I have to get in order is my sleeping habits.  Or lack of them, maybe.  As I write this, I'm awake at 4:47am on a Tuesday morning.  My wife is sleeping beside me right now, and MMH is on my lap snoozing too.  I'm waiting for the inspiration to shut my friggin' eyes here.  I've just taken my cannabis oil and Elovil, to try to expedite this matter.  If the oil doesn't make me sleepy enough to sleep, though, it still leaves me feeling pretty damn content.  That's the difference between this oil and booze, is alcohol is a depressant, leaving one vulnerable to bouts of sadness, especially if they're compromised like me.  But cannabis just makes you so .... happy.  Worries slip away.  Focus on the positive and happiness are greatly amplified.  My wife will vouch for this.  She's given up many narcotics like Tylenol 3 and Percocet in favor of cannabis, and it's left her with a much greater sense of control over things.  And in comparison to booze, it's cheap.

Anyway, my biggest qualm these days is my troubles with sleep.  I do get my eight hours in, it's just I can't seem to align my sleep with the darkness outside.  Even on these long-ass Canadian nights.  

The month has been going pretty good, pretty steady.  We got ourselves a 65" 4K OLED television at Costco, where they had them for Boxing Day.  It actually just sat around the living room for a while, because we wanted to mount it on the wall, so we got the bracket for it.  I asked my brother Rick if he'd come give me a hand, and he was willing to help.  Thing is, I'd seen it sitting on the floor too long, and I'm tired of being stonewalled by things that I should be able to friggin' do.  So I rallied Janice with me to put our heads together, and we'll both do it.  This was a test for my patience issues.  A big one.  Because I ran into some serious puzzle pieces that I had no idea how they fit at times.  But I had the presence of mind to separate myself from whatever issue it was, collect myself and then go at it with the wife.  It took awhile, but we got the mount up and the TV on it, and hooking it up was a breeze... except we needed a new 4K receiver from Bell, so we did have to wait till that came in.  Anyway, this is one hell of a way to watch TV!  Everything is new again.  But now we have to get a 4K player for the 4K discs we have.  I'm a staunch fan of blu-ray, but 4K is that next step up.  Just this past weekend we had Natalie over to watch our 'Avatar: Way of Water' blu-ray, the first one we'd watch on this TV.  Holy crap, it's almost 3D.  This made me wonder what a lot of movies must look on this screen.  I've got a pretty big collection of blu-rays, so we've got a lot of re-watching to do now.  TV is kind of important to us in the winter, because neither of us likes the cold at all.  Especially Janice, where she has that terrible arthritis.  To me, winter is all accidents and illness.  People crash their cars and get in accidents with all the ice and snow, and people get sick left right and center.  And Lord, was I sick in December.  It's because I broke my ribs then that I had to stay away from the gym until only last week.  And still, I have to be careful.

Speaking of going back to the gym, the first couple of workouts have been ass whippers for the two of us.  You can lose a lot of your conditioning in just a one month layoff.  The muscles come back fairly quick, it's just getting the energy to use them.  We don't really have any goals at the gym, other than to keep our bodies primed for living life.  At the age we're at now, it gets to be use-it-or-lose-it territory.  I can see a time though, at least, that we might have to move to a bungalow or something, if it was possible.  Janice is having her knee replaced in two weeks, and the other knee isn't far behind.  So stairs are going to be an issue sometime, but in the meantime, our bathroom is upstairs here.  I think she'll be spending a fair bit of time upstairs for a while during her early recoup.  

And the moving idea peaks my interest a bit because Moncton is getting so very busy in the city.  Taller buildings and condos and apartments are happening, bringing more of a metro vibe to the city.  That's all well and good, but the neighborhood we live in right now was pretty easygoing.  But with all the building going on, mice and rats are exploding in numbers, and where there's more city, there's more crime.  Downtown is just down the road from us.  The huge hurdles there are really the housing market and our ability to even do it.  I actually don't think our finances are suited for it, but who knows what the future holds.  I do have a 649 ticket I forgot to check.

It's been a notably calm winter in these parts up to this point.  We still haven't had a real snowstorm by Moncton standards.  Temps are a little more sharply colder here and there, but nothing that ever lasts.  

And that's pretty much all there is to report for now.  Thanks for droppin' in!

Personal Blog: January '24, Round 1

The New Year's off to a good start.  Nobody's sick anyway, we wound up ending '23 in a rather opposite way there.  Man, Janice and me got knocked around pretty bad.  Christmas was nice, but extremely quiet.  It took me weeks to recover from noro, but we just kind of rearranged the holiday schedule a bit, in that we shifted Christmas dinner to New Year's Eve.  And that was pretty great, really.  Alexandra and Cole came over, and I made honey glazed ham, seasoned panfried potatoes, corn, and turnips mashed with carrots.  I love ham, but I'm not crazy about eating pork, because it's probably the dirtiest meat there is.  Still, we do it once a year, and give the piggies the rest of the year off.  We had our traditional bacon and eggs breakfast around Christmas Day very late, and that bacon I'd bought last Christmas; I'd gotten two packs of it at Costco and froze one of them.  Now we've got all this leftover ham, but the great thing about that is we can freeze it, and we make mac & cheese and cut up ham in chunks and mix it up with that.  It's quite great, really.  Unfortunately though, when we had our Christmas/NYE dinner, I had to retire almost immediately because of the repercussions of my illness before.  Thus, we wound up sleeping through New Year's Eve.  Hopefully next year will turn out a little better.  It's okay, though, we're safe, sound and healthy today.

So, it's January 6 as I type this, Friday night/Saturday morning, and all is pretty much calm.  I'm just about at 100%.  Maybe more than the virus I had, getting knocked out twice in that day might've had more of an effect in my get up and go than I realized.  The busted rib I have from that day is still making itself known, no question there.  That's not aiding in my sleep, that's for sure.  We started back to the gym after a monthlong layoff because of being sick and the whole holiday buzz.  To my surprise, even walking hurts.  I knew it would, but more than I expected.  Still, we went twice this week for an hour each day and put in around four and a half miles each.  No weights, because my busted rib will just not let me.  You don't realize how important supporting muscle groups are until you deal with that.  Sleep is still an issue.  I just can't seem to sleep at night, and it's quite frustrating.  Janice is beside me in bed while I watch whatever on TV or surf the net or read.  Most times I only get to sleep maybe around eight in the morning, or later even.  Good 'ol Marvelous Marbles Hagler is always right there with me though.  I don't know what I'd do without that little guy.

Up to now in this first week of the year, the weather is very mild and stable, with no real precip.  In fact, we haven't had a real snowfall yet this season, just dust-ups.  We've had a lot more rain than snow so far.  I guess El Nino is to blame for that, and climate change of course.

We've binge-watched the two existing seasons of 'Yellowjackets' on Showtime on Crave - pretty good show, but not for everyone.  It's somewhat comparable to 'Euphoria' in its edginess and is female driven; kind of like Lord of the Flies if it was all girls stuck in the snowy Canadian wilderness.  It's pretty gross at times, where it involves cannibalism, so take it from there.  Like I said, not for everyone.  I think Janice liked it more than I did.  It stars a rather unrecognizable Christina Ricci and Juliette Lewis, and Lauren Ambrose (Clair from 'Six Feet Under') shows up halfway through season 2, playing a very different kind of role.  We'll give 'True Detective' a shot next, that show has five independent seasons so far, with the newest one getting a lot of attention starring Jodie Foster.

Janice's surgically repaired knee is acting up again, and she's once more forced to use a cane to get around.  She was told she was on the waiting list for knee replacement surgery, but when she called the other day, she found out she wasn't on that list at all, so now she has to push for it again.  She'd already signed the papers for the surgery, and then apparently just got forgotten about.  It's hard seeing her in pain all the time around this.  She's quite adamant about going to the gym though.  She does such a good job at work and built up the business for her post office kiosk, that she doesn't really like to be away too long, though Alexandra, who's her right-hand lady, does exceptional as her second in charge.  Alexandra, herself, has stubborn health issues that doctors can't seem to get a handle on.  It almost feels like they've given up on her.  But this is common across the country right now, with our healthcare in ruins, more or less, especially with Covid/flu/RSV wreaking havoc everywhere.  And noro, of course.  Janice and me got our shots for the flu and Covid, as we do every year.  It's at the point for me that I'm actually afraid to go to the hospital now.  Not because I'm afraid of treatment or anything, but that I'd have to wait 12-24 hours or more to just be seen, and be among all the flu and Covid infected people that cram the ERs.  I remember the days when you waited maybe an hour tops, but that's twenty years ago or more now.  Covid, in particular, has changed everything.  For the worse.

We decided that we should be pro-active in getting a new TV, because the one we've got is a 15 year old plasma Panasonic Viera that's likely on its last legs.  We got a brand new 65 inch 4K 'Smart' Samsung that was a Boxing Day sale item at Costco, now we just have to mount it, so I had to get a wall mount bracket on Amazon, which is in transit.  We love our TV, especially in the wintertime, because we both hate snow and the cold.

Other than that, we're both pretty much okay.  I got the doc to check on my cracked rib when it happened and had bloodwork done, and everything is top notch all around, sleeping issues aside.  One thing I want to do about my health regimen is find some kind of vitamin mix that'll take care of all the stuff I take now.  Which is, an Omega 3 capsule, a multivitamin, vitamin D, a prostate supplement, a zinc caplet and a probiotic supplement.  It's tricky, because I have to take my Sertraline meds away from them to retain effectiveness.  If I take them together, I wind up with nausea.  With my multivitamin bottle starting to get shallow, I'm going to have to look up what's best.  It'd be nice to just take a drink and be done with it earlier in the day.  I've been doing this vitamin regimen for decades, and my bloodwork always comes out great in checkups.

I'm thinking this is going to be a wild year, generally.  The U.S. election happens in November, and democracy and freedom are actually hanging in the balance down there.  Which is important to Canada, because as I've always said, what happens down there all too often winds up happening up here.  I worry about the Ukraine war and conservatives down there that are refusing to help.  Then there's the middle east war with Israel and Gaza.  I worry that more countries are going to get involved.  I feel like it's almost a certainty.  And I fear this year will be the year China invades Taiwan, which could be a world war catalyst.  

Something I'm looking forward to, though, is Bob Lazar's documentary 'Project Gravitaur', which centers around Lazar - having worked as a scientist at area 51 in reverse engineering flying saucers that are in government possession, which is now a known fact.  But what might be revealed in this doc is quite tantalizing to say the least.

Up to this point, for friends and family, I've only seen Natalie, who's coming over tomorrow to see us as I make my seasoned wings.  I gotta get out more.  Just going to the store and the gym doesn't really cut it.  I may have to make an effort to leave my comfort zone more often.  My cannabis oil helps my anxiety greatly, but I can't drive while I have it.  But boy, what a Godsend that stuff is.  I actually alternate between the oil and these gummies that we get, which I only need half of one to take the edge off and often help me sleep.  And I keep hearing about the benefits of cannabis.  The THC type is even shown to fight dementia.  And I ain't getting any younger.  I encourage anyone who drinks to give cannabis a try - and you don't have to smoke it.  I can't!  I tried and wound up nearly coughing up a lung, for frig's sake.  Plus, the oil and gummies I use have a much more sustained effect.  An alcohol buzz and a cannabis buzz are two different things altogether.  For one, you won't get a hangover.  For another, cannabis is a relaxant while alcohol is a depressant.  You won't find anyone picking fights who's on THC.  Alcohol, on the other hand......

Keeping my nose out of Facebook business has proven to be beneficial to me, too.  I was just going to stay off it until the holidays are over, but I'm reluctant to go back on, because things are so peaceful when you get away from it.  There are those who don't want to know my comments on politics or social issues, and there are those who do... but the more I thought about it, before Facebook, no one obsessed over that stuff like they do since social media hit.  I've found my view of people has altered for the positive since I've abstained.  That goes for all social media, really.  Anyway, as I've pointed out before, I do check my Facebook messenger, but I'm not terribly active there either.  I'll answer anyone who talks to me there, though.  Aside from spam-type stuff.

That's all I got for now.  I appreciate any interest folks take checking in on my humble Ragnar Station here.  God bless all of you.