It's been just about a year since Janice's stint in the hospital, arguably the most stressful time of our lives, including my daughter's. Janice has had to endure so much in the last year it would be fodder for a dark comedy. Just one thing after another. How much can one woman... or man for that matter... take??
Well let me tell you something: Remember those balloon thingies they had back in the day where kids could punch the clown or whatever it was, and it would stand back up? That's pretty much Janice. Hit her as hard as you can, she'll still get up. In fact, she's far stronger now than she was before all this happened. It inspired her to attack her health problems full-bore. Her body weight is down thirty pounds since last year, she walks relentlessly every day (with me, avec gummies), she feels a lot better and more mobile, and is just happier, from what I can tell.
The stick in the mud there is that she has ongoing heart questions. Covid attacked her in the ER when she was there to figure out she had E-coli to start with. All the talk you hear about "long covid" is definitely true to us. Not me, because I have a good immune system and had all my shots up to that point. Janice, on the other hand, had all her shots, but is still more vulnerable to the virus than most because of the immune suppressant medication she takes for her various illnesses. The trick here is, her most recent covid shot up to that point was nearing its end of efficacy and she was due for the next one, which wasn't out for another three weeks or so. She never would have contracted covid if she didn't wind up in the ER barfing her guts out from funky watermelon. Anyway, the newest strain took up shop in her body and wreaked havoc, thus, her current heart issues. Mind you, E-coli surely exacerbated the whole situation. I wouldn't want anyone to have to deal with a 1-2 punch like that.
Over the months that followed, she did lose her breath several times. It was most alarming in the summertime when I was mowing the lawn one day with that heavy-ass bag mower, when I had to stop every other minute it seemed to empty the friggin' thing. Janice volunteered to bag the grass I emptied while I mowed it. Something happened that day that nearly put her horizontal. Her breath got shallow, she heated up, cold sweats, all of it. So of course, we settled her down immediately and took note of the situation. Other encounters of similar nature happened, but not quite as bad as that one.
We do still go to the gym, but we don't overdue it by any means like I think we used to. For us, it's about a half hour cardio (brisk walking) with a half hour of weights and another half hour stretching. She was not going to let her heart threats keep her down for any length of time. She was told in January that she'd be going to Saint John for a better look at the heart issue, but we're still waiting on that. But in the meantime, she's put more miles on her shoes this summer than any other year. We go for our gummy walks, preferably around lots of trees, and practically feel the cortisol levels leak out of us. We did start meditations, but we've been lagging lately and need to get back into it. We've made a point this year to attack her inflammation issues, and walking and meditations are major benefits in this crusade. Things are looking up.
Then there's me. I did have a couple of flare-ups in the last year, but nothing that I couldn't deal with. Mind you, I do need Janice around me when I'm experiencing it, hence my disability. But I've learned not to take everything personally and more objectively. It's been a very freeing last couple of years. These 'flare-ups' that I speak of can be called "mantrums", as I think most guys flip out in frustration every so often. The problem with me is controlling it and de-escalating. If I can do that, then it keeps its "mantrum" status. Let it go, and it becomes an anxiety attack, one of which I had not too long ago. The very worst thing about all of it for me is when it's over, thinking back about what I just put Janice through. And that haunts my more somber moments. I want this all to improve so that she doesn't have to deal with this.
What I've chosen to do, with Janice's permission, is taper down my sertraline dosage very gradually, from 150 mg down to 100, then going to 75, and now 50. I want to get it to a point, with the help of cannabis for now, where I'm off it temporarily, until I can try psilocybin therapy. I've read lots of info that says it actually shows promise in restoring normal brain function, and I guess it always has. I just want to try it and see if I can do better than the drug therapy I'm on. Also being fully aware that if I start losing control, I'm right back on that sertraline, which I fully expect to be. This is a temporary trial measure that I have to be careful with. But I'm kind of desperate to try anything to normalize my headspace. In three weeks, I'll start with the psilocybin.
I talked to my doctor not long ago, and we discussed my taking sertraline since '96. I'd tried other drugs, and none had any real good effects, and I always wound up back on sertraline. My doctor didn't have a clue about psilocybin therapy. As for psychiatrists, the one I was referred me to upped and left recently, and others were booked solid and not taking any more patients. So I'm essentially on my own with this. Challenge accepted.
I look forward to getting to a place that's manageable, at least compared to what I've already experienced, by December. Things will turn out good one way or the other. We will make sure of it.
Looking ahead to December, when I'll be 60, if I know my family they want to do something, even if it's just the local tribe. I guess this blog is an open question to any friends that might read this.
I played drums in a band called Asylum in the late '80s doing cover songs of mostly bubblegum metal bands - that description might be up for debate. It was a lot of fun looking back. When the 90's hit, though, there was no call for that music anymore. But some of those shows were golden for us. We did a number of gigs around town, but none of my family witnessed any of it. When I formed YQM with a couple of friends and we put out an album of our own and sold a decent number of CDs locally, we did a solitary gig at University of Moncton, and that was pretty much it. A number of our friends did catch that show though. We were always way, way better live than our CD portrayed us.
Then it just kind of ... stopped. I wanted to keep doing something with somebody, but ultimately there wasn't any real opportunity to. Auditioning for being a member for somebody gave me the willies. I'm already damn good enough. Not great, I'll say that, but good enough. But it's getting past my bloody nerves that's the trick.
Alexandra, our kid, participated in a bit of a sham outfit around town called "Maritime Idol", where she thought she might get noticed. It was a poorly run outfit that often seemed to handpick certain singers, leaving her and other good voices overlooked. She would do coffee house performances, even performing one acapella when she discovered there was no background music for her selection. It turned out to be one of her best performances. I swear, there's something to her voice. I want people to hear her.
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