Now having the other knee replaced, she's on the road to recovery once again. It was a little bit rough, but nothing very serious. We were kind of aghast at the nurses offering regular strength Tylenol to my wife AFTER JUST HAVING HER LEG SAWED IN FREAKIN' HALF. They gave her Dilaudid but that doesn't work for Janice (or me when I had kidney stones once), so she got her Traumacet, which she's already prescribed for. But no, this is not adequate for this type of pain. We went to the drug store to get her prescriptions before going home, but this time she bit off a bit more than she could chew, and I regret letting it go. Coming out of the store, the pain was so intense that she was sick about 20 minutes later at home. She has Percs to get things back to manageable status, but that's going to take some time to get to now. But overall, things are going quite well. She's been in bed horizontal today, obviously, and we'll be taking it day by day. But she's determined to get going and to be her best.
You know what? It's not having to stay in the hospital that scares me as much as the food they serve. Lord, time after time they'd be giving Janice meals that honestly looked like something that was regurgitated. I did what I did last time and got her a chicken salad sandwich and a donut, with Pepsi Zero. Later at suppertime I brought her Greek salad that Lexy had made us. She wasn't fussy about supper, salmon with dill sauce. I nearly barfed just when she lifted the lid to show me.
Now that I've addressed that, because I felt it deserved immediate attention, I'll talk about other stuff...
I realize I haven't been very active on social media and even on the blog page here. I spend minute amounts of time online, usually just a check-in at bedtime in fact. I don't really engage with anyone, because that just leads to having to spend more time online, and not being on facebook or whatever has helped me make great strides in the mental health department.
March 22, 2024 was my last breakdown event, but it was the only one in the last year and a half, so I've made serious strides. In my downtime, which there's quite a bit of, I've actually chosen to take up reading books. I'm a desperately slow reader, though, it'll take me a long time to get through a title. But I've become perfectly okay with that. Who do I have to impress with how fast I can read? The true impressive thing is that you're reading at all. It's not a race or something. In the past couple of years, I've read a small amount of books and enjoyed all of them. Perhaps my favorite author is Whitley Strieber, author of "Communion", about alien abduction.... although he prefers to refer to what we usually call "aliens" as "visitors", because they could be from space, another dimension, a different reality, etc. Anyway, Whitley's now-deceased wife, Anne, was with him for decades before she passed in '15, and she was integral to keeping him grounded and focused. He claims she communicates with him regularly, and imparts her words via a book he published called "The Afterlife Revolution". The things that are written in that book really made me look at everything differently, and changed my outlook and attitude. Or helped to, anyway. Certain things stuck with me... that ego is something that needs to be abandoned, laughter is the music of the soul, and love and compassion are desperately needed if we are to survive as a species. That just made me stop and think things through.... 'Ego'. It makes sense, doesn't it? Admitting you're wrong, when you are, is ego's worst enemy. Bragging about one's self is all ego, as you're elevating yourself above others. Even not being happy for someone else's fortune is ego, a 'they have something I don't' kind of thing, when you really should never, ever measure what is success to you against someone else's version of it. Each of us lives our own unique reality.
So with all this circulating in my head now, I pause whenever I form an opinion about something, and try not to let hatred, jealousy or ego interfere in my impressions. It brings about a lot of peace, because you're not competing with anything and there's no pressure. Competition and pressure are fuels thrown on the fires of anxiety, and I'm just not interested anymore. It's actually made me realize, also, that it's been a blessing to not be working, because I've come more face to face with what I'm dealing with. Anxiety does still surface from time to time, but I've come to reason with it. Seeing it for what it objectively is certainly helps. I ask myself, in time - what will situation 'x' mean a year from now? And why do I give it such importance today?
I've also come to know that I can't change what other people think of me. I can only be the best I can be, just like everyone else, and leave it up to the interpretation of others. I also have to recognize where views and opinions come from. What is the person's history like that shaped the way they form opinions and criteria? Where hatred exists, in any way at all, don't let it spread. It's never good for anybody. If anything, laugh at it, and see the smallness of what it really is.
Anyway, that's my current outlook. And I think it's pretty optimistic, given the current events.
