[Friday 9/14/18] Sorry it's so long...
♥Hi guys!♥
I'm doing much better...thanks!
I guess it's just old age creeping up on me. (But I'm at a dead run away from it as much as possible)!
Fleur wrote: ↑Mon Sep 10, 2018 2:03 am
Hopefully pain continues subsiding Honeybera. If necessary, please see Dr as s/he could have options too.
I'm losing all faith in doctors to be perfectly honest. My back pain is still there, but now like a sort of more a shadowy background instead of an attention-demanding PAIN. This I can accept. I was even able to get out into the garden and water a bit today. PROGRESS!!!!
I actually think that my problems are due to my mattress (as I've said before) and I have ordered a new cushy [2½" memory foam-gel under a down-stuffed pad] mattress topper for it. I have a feeling that this should help greatly, and it should be delivered within a few days. Let's hope it works! I had one in my RV at work and loved it! And that was on an RV cheap-o mattress over plywood!
Fleur wrote: ↑Mon Sep 10, 2018 2:03 am
I dislike using pharmacy's stock but when I had gout, the tablets worked overnight ... Keto friendly is great to match with chosen lifestyle. Counterintuitively, adding a splash of apple cider vinegar in glasses of room temperature water with a pinch of Epsom salt was more effective for me than plain water to ease pain - it was a long time ago and i had forgotten
My gout pain has been lessening, too. Like I said, I was able to slip on my rubber clogs today and get out into the garden to water because the swelling and intense pain in my right foot (big toe) has lessened considerably! (YAY!!
) It's been several weeks since I simply have not been able to shove my swollen, red, hot, and incredibly painful feet into shoes at all. Not fun!
And walking any distance, even barefoot, was next to impossible. I was lucky to be able to get from my bed or chair into the bathroom, and showers were pure torture. I had DS bringing home rotisserie chickens to eat since they are so easy to prep. No, not fun at all.
But we made it! I am beyond happy (
AND GRATEFUL!!!) now that the pain is subsiding!! Me being me, I have thoroughly researched all things GOUT on the internet. I have already drunk the ACV in water, but will try it with the pinch of Epsom salts (which are not a true "salt", like table salt, but rather a magnesium salt - I found that interesting). I wish I had paid more attention in Chemistry class in college!!
But at least I'm learning now. Also, I make all my mayo with ACV (organic + with the mother). DS and I like the taste better than using lemon juice as the acidifier.
One thing that has really gotten to me during all of this struggle has been the conflicting views/opinions on the internet. They ALL agree that eating any kind of fish (especially sardines) or liver or kidneys or brains or anything like that (UGH!!! - NO PROBLEM!)
or sugars is definitely not good for gout, whereas some say the keto diet is ok (and some agree slightly with moderations), others say to EAT LOTS OF grains and ELIMINATE eating cauliflower, broccoli, ANY cruciferous veggie (cabbage, Brussels sprouts, the WORKS!), AND LOW FAT EVERYTHING!!!
Plus
IF I can "lose weight, too", GREAT! SO what does that leave me
TO EAT???
Also listed in the "strict" eliminate category is turkey, chicken, in fact, ALL MEATS (pork, beef) - add all of the above listed veggies, so how can you eat the keto WOE that way????!! All agree that I can drink water, but one fellow stipulated, "Not in the middle of the night. You MIGHT wake up to go to the bathroom and begin to overeat." WHAT???!!!
===================================================================(Saturday evening)
What I
am doing AFTER all this supposedly sage advice is to fast as usual (a 20-24 hr. fast per day) and WATCH what I eat and how I am affected (or not) by ingesting it. Sardines and liver and ALL sweetbreads,
anything with sugar in it, and GRAINS of any kind continue to be safe with me as I will NOT EAT THEM EVER ANYWAY, but I just ordered some more tart cherry + celery seed capsules (I understand that combo is good) and some tart cherry juice. Tart cherry is really helping me with the gout. The juice has only 6 gms of natural sugar (net carbs) and the capsules have none, but I understand that the juice is better and works quicker, so I'm trying it. I'm also using ACV in my cooking as much as is possible (in my mayo, in my salads, anywhere else I can use organic apple cider vinegar "with the Mother"). I'm cautiously adding a sliced apple a day (with full fat smoked Gouda ZERO carb cheese sliced thin - SO GOOD!) and more veggies (YES,
cruciferous, too, and even SPINACH!
) and NOT the dreaded "low fat" or sugar or GRAIN anything!!! Butter? YES! Lard? YES! Olive oil? You bet! And I do believe that tomorrow I will ABLE to walk enough to go to the store ALONE to pick up some
fresh veggies, avocados, and pork chops! I will be rice-ing and/or bagging my cauliflower and broccoli pieces IMMEDIATELY upon my return. My fridges are nicely cleaned out and awaiting this arrival.
I am happy about how this is going!!!!
IN ADDITION, I have been clearing out my rolltop desk for sale. IT WAS LOADED! I may not have used it since around 2006 or 2007, but I had used it constantly from 2001 when I bought my house to 2007. (Hence, "The Computer Room" is where the desk is, but will be used as a storage room or guest room now.) And OMG, the MEMORIES in those drawers!
TRIGGERS GALORE!!! I had forgotten that
DS was only 14 when we moved in here, but only 7 months later (he was exactly 15½ on that day coincidentally), he took a test (
ONE TEST!!!) and was suddenly OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL! (Such a long story!) So that left me, a single working mom
whose job was 100 miles away, with a tweaky, bouncing, flapping, and IMMATURE son UNSUPERVISED in a brand new (and unpacked) house while I worked! I took a swing shift and drove the 3 hour, 200 mile round trip to work DAILY so I could at least be home with him as much as possible. I was on Weight Watcher's at the time, too, so took my lunch with me. And
NO ONE from my family even
offered to help me!!!
In 2003, I had managed to buy myself a nice BRAND NEW car! It was the first of the Honda Hybrids ever produced. I was so proud of that car! I was "pitted", ie, hit in the rear panel by another car on the freeway in a huge downpour and spun around to crash into the center divide, taking out both the regular engine and the hybrid one, too. My sweet little ride was totaled.
It was only 10 months old.
Going through all of the receipts and court records of that incident - and many others, too - was very triggering! I was so banged up that I spent the best part of 4 months in bed recovering. My biceps tendon was ruptured and I could not move my upper left arm and shoulder. I really hit the center divide
hard!! Not a good thing for a person who pulled a huge bus steering wheel all day long for a living! Before I was completely recovered (at 5½ months), my job wanted me back to work - or else! So I went back. A few weeks later, one of the other drivers started horsing around in the driver's room and re-hurt my shoulder.
None of this was easy for me.
Maybe this was why I am putting all this sorting off? It is difficult to go back "in time" and relive all that I have been through (and it's a LOT!). This recent sorting I've been doing is mostly stuff that took place WAY back, some of it even into my childhood. There were a LOT of reminders of just how unwelcome I was to my own mother, Mommy Dearest. She was mean to me throughout my life, though, not just in my childhood. She kept me around for show, but if (WITHOUT RIDICULE) she could have traded me for Shelley Fabares (the daughter of
The Donna Reed Show), I never would have heard from MD again! I am, at the ripe old age of 71, beginning to see the deluded and twisted fantasy life that MD had in her head and insisted on living compared to the reality of her intelligent, cute tomboy daughter in REAL LIFE, not REEL LIFE!
MD had this fantasy festering in her brain of the perfect 1940S-1950s family...and it was US. It HAD to be US!!! But in MY role, I had to be picture perfect! It's why she picked out my clothes and dressed me, combing my hair with "wave set" (that smelly slimy stuff! UGH!!!) so "not a hair is out of place". She did this until I was 12 yrs old and my father finally complained about it. "LET
HER DO IT!" But by then I didn't know how and was timid to try. I just did NOT fit in with her fantasy!!!!!!!!!!
But those in her fantasy were groomed and clothed by the studios! They were not speaking; they were READING LINES from a script! It was WRONG of her to expect that of me. I had my OWN gifts. And she was conflicted as to whether she wanted me to be "pretty like her" (which she said to me NUMEROUS times throughout my life, usually pinching my entire face in her hand and shoving my face up to the mirror so I could SEE for myself just how "UGLY" I was) or whether she wanted me "punished" for some twisted reason of NOT fulfilling her fantasy of perfection, MD style, hence the beatings.
Funny. I went to decades of therapy when it was always her who needed it so desperately. But she adamantly INSISTS that she needs none. (I have recommended it.) For IF she admits that she OR her past was anything but perfection and that it DID NOT affect her in any way, she opens that little crack of sunlight and truth in, and that would destroy her and her fictitious bubble. Even now, nearly 90 yrs. old, she claims that a single private room, just a bath and a bedroom (without a bed in it even, just a reclining couch she sleeps on), and that it is costing $15,000/month. That includes meals. And I don't believe it. It's just a nursing home, for Pete's sake!
But what I wish is that I am
SHED OF HER!! As I reorganize my home and my life, grinding up useless papers in my micro-shredder, never to see them again (THANK GOD!!), I am shedding her...
AND "N"...and all the other hurtful, harmful people in my life! I am going to the bank on Monday and taking N's name off everything! I'm depositing all the cash he ever gave me (as repayment of some of his college expenses that I'd covered for him, but that I'd sentimentally saved "because he gave it to me" and didn't stiff me for the loan
) and paying my car insurance up for the entire year so that I can begin to add to my savings again.
Fleur wrote: ↑Mon Sep 10, 2018 2:03 am
Pain tends to make a "short fuse" for me. I arc up over the proverbial last straw, which is generally way out of proportion. From this distance, I can empathise with both you and son - it isn't easy to watch a loved one hurting, neither is being the patient
Even tonight when DS was rushing me and being slightly rude to me as I was trying to keep up on Amazon and buy him a kit to make a keto friendly Japanese musubi, I just stopped ordering what he wanted and quit being "too nice". He later apologized to me for "rushing me" and we had a nice talk and set up some boundaries for each of us. Extremely good way to communicate!
======================================(Monday 4:15am)
Ohh, another trigger!! Back to when I was divorcing my first husband (1969?). We'd just been to court for the divorce and he was there at the house with a U-Haul truck "to pick up a few things". He told me that he wanted to take a BIG bunch of stuff that he had on a court order but that he'd written in his own handwriting, including the blender and
all the beds, including mine and my oldest son's who was about 2 yrs. old then, and I'd told him no. He broke a heavy broomstick in half over his knee to make a smaller stick, like a hand-held club to beat me with (not my first beating at his hands by a long shot) and he'd hit me across the knees and I'd bend down in pain, and then he'd hit me in the forehead and I'd stand up again. He did this repeatedly and I kept going up and then down as he struck me over and over again.
At this moment my parents showed up. My dress was torn and I was bruised, bleeding, and obviously beaten. I was screaming for them to get my ex out of the house, but instead they decided to keep me locked in the kitchen while my ex walked through the house at his leisure and taking EVERYTHING that he could find. My parents held me in the kitchen, chastising and scolding me "for causing a scene". They even asked me angrily WHY my dress that I'd worn to court was "ripped like that". I showed them the broken broomstick and told them what had happened, but my more clever ex just oozed sweetness and cooperation to their faces and so my parents sent the cops away. In the meantime, my ex took ALL that he wanted, including the light bar for our movie camera (full of huge light bulbs) and pulled every drawer in my dresser out and dumped the clothes into a big pile in the middle of the floor where our bed
had been, threw the individual bulbs into the clothes, and smashed them, grinding broken glass all into my clothing and carpet. He had totally trashed my house as my PARENTS held me in the kitchen! Then he left
after shaking my father's hand. When I realized what they had allowed him to do to me, then they left, too.
My ex was not supposed to take our guns, either, but some months later I came home from work to find my front door standing wide open and muddy hand prints smeared all the way down my hallway. My ex was in the hospital at the moment (or so he claimed) - but the guns were GONE. He later laughed and told me that he'd had his cousin burgle my house while I was at work so he could get the guns, yet have an alibi, too. It worked. I've been through so much at his hands, both physically and emotionally. "Domestic Violence" and women's rights were nonexistent in those days. It was the time when bra-burning was taking place, the first awakening since the 1920s and the right to vote for women. Women still couldn't even OWN a bank account in their own name. Their husbands could take it all out at will without her permission or knowledge. We've come such a long way!
This is in my memory, though...VIVIDLY! And the feeling of
INTENSE betrayal that I felt from my own parents is still fresh (once I'd remembered it). I hadn't thought of this particular incident in years.
I leave this all here with you, my friends. I'm SICK OF BEING A VICTIM!!! I am more of a SURVIVOR!!! I am proud of who I am and what I've accomplished in my life. None of it was easy. But I'm glad that it's worked out this way.
THAT WHICH DOESN'T KILL ME ONLY SERVES TO MAKE ME STRONGER!!!
It is so hard to "sort" out my life like this. This is a decades old thing with me. I've been trying to "sort out" my life and how all this has happened to me through counselors, Ts, and self help books, etc. for what seems forever. No wonder I'm so methodical and slow at it. No wonder I avoid it whenever possible. BUT IT IS GETTING DONE! Gout and back pain and all.
I wish you all could SEE my house and the
progress that I have made. No guilt, no shame, just
PROGRESS!
And even DS (who is a worse hoarder than me by far) is slowly coming around, too. He is, of all my children, the most like me: autism and the problems that go with it (especially SOCIALIZATION with others!!!) and even his looks. He's made the statements lately that WE can clean up this house. It doesn't look like the disastrously messed up places on TV, junk piled up to the ceiling in room after room and rat feces and dead roaches in a non-working fridge. That is NOT my house at all. But I guess coming from and judged by MD's spotless (and uncomfortably so) house, mine is simply Messy (capital M deliberately placed). I'd like to get it to a place where I've actually MOVED IN, sorted all boxes and organized shelves for use with CURRENTLY useful items. I want to feel proud to invite people over. DS says he's more than willing to start with his own room first and to help me do whatever I can't physically do. GREAT WITH ME!! That sounds like a plan!
LET ME BE AN EXAMPLE to him! My room is virtually clean already AND my new furniture and lamp make it look very nice. I still bring in a SMALL MANAGEABLE project or two (like now: I'm cleaning out the files from the rolltop desk so we can sell it) to my room to sort it out, but that chore is nearly done now. It's now Fall (or nearly so) so the garage is next on my list! Much of the "mess" in my bathroom (bags of granular fertilizers, each one for a different purpose) is GARAGE stuff, not bathroom stuff! Same with the hobby room and its cabinets that are FULL of garage stuff. It's just where people left it (for me to clean up - and now's the time!) I will have so much more room in the house once the garage shelves are cleaned off and most of it is donations anyway. DS and I are chomping at the bit to get at it - and DS can set up his workout area out there. I will sort out there, too. I have my 6' long folding table in the hallway, just waiting for the cooler weather to get here, and we only have a couple of 90s or near 90s in the forecast. AND I have space heaters for when it gets TOO cold. YAY!!!
DS is getting off work soon. I'm going to wrap this up. I am so grateful that I have a place to FINALLY DUMP all the old crappy memories! This is where they stay. I DO NOT NEED THEM ANYMORE! I have recognized them, analyzed them, scrutinized them, even dissected and autopsied them...and now I need to LET GO of them! None of it will change. EVER!!!!!!!!!! No matter how badly I wish that I could WISH IT AWAY. I am the ONLY one that I can change, so that is precisely what I'm doing, one room at a time, one box at a time, even if it's hard and triggering to do.
{{{{{{{{{{{{♥♥♥ALL OF YOU!!!!!!!!!!♥♥♥}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
Honeybera
That explained why they hadn't been answering or returning my calls to them. They were a couple of hundred miles away at the hospice. 