I’m Still Here! Let’s Bitch About American Healthcare!

Hi guys! I’m alive!

I’ve had a few weird moments, definitely a little up and down, but I have not relapsed. I’ve been hiding because I didn’t think I could trust myself going through med changes, but I’m not going to wait around any more. I’ve been nervous thinking the shit is going to hit the fan at any time, but I know that’s no way to live. I need to enjoy the good days and be grateful that I’m doing so well despite all the shit I’ve been through. 

Whew. It’s good to be back.

Now I need a moment to complain about the American healthcare system. While dealing with my mental health issues, I have also been dealing with physical issues. I’ve had knee pain for months. Some days are better than others, but it always hurts. 

After a few doctor’s appointments, I was referred to physical therapy even though we really didn’t know what was wrong. My health insurance made me go through several weeks of physical therapy before they would pay for an MRI. It was really painful. 

Three weeks ago I finally got the MRI and there are several things wrong with my knee including a meniscus tear. It felt like physical therapy made my problems worse and I was really angry that I had to jump through hoops just to get an MRI – to finally get answers. It just all felt unnecessary. Had my insurance covered an MRI earlier, I could have been feeling better by now. 

I have an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon on the 26th.

Dealing with insurance companies is absolute shit, and it’s not just my insurance company, my doctor said any insurance company would have made me go through the same thing. 

Are you up for a bitch fest? Tell me your American healthcare horror stories. I’m injured, I’m broke, I’m running out of patience, and I know I’m not alone. 

Medication Changes: A Rock and a Hard Place

I need to write this post while I’m still feeling good and have my wits about me.

I have schizoaffective disorder, and last summer, lithium, a medication that I had taken for nearly seventeen years, may have caused or contributed to kidney failure. I’m okay, but I had to stop taking the medication. When I quit taking lithium, I had a horrible relapse and it took me quite a while to recover.

My doctor put me on a new medication to replace the lithium. I have only been on it for about six months but I recently learned that it might be negatively affecting my liver enzymes, and now I have to stop taking this medication as well. I am currently weaning off of it.

If I relapse again, my husband and I feel a little more prepared this time, and thankfully I have a very understanding employer. I just wanted to let you all know what’s going on in case I disappear for a while or say something weird.

My blog is very important to me and I will post when I can. Medication changes can be really difficult when you have a mental illness. I just have to remind myself that this is temporary.

Proud Atheist Mom Moment

We’ve been having some pretty harsh wind chill advisories the past few days so schools have been closed. Yesterday I took my daughter to work with me. I was facilitating an art group so I thought she would have fun painting.

My daughter and I are a lot alike. We look alike. Our personalities are alike (which isn’t always a good thing). At some point, our likeness came up in conversation during the group and my daughter said, “Mommy made me.” 

I said, “Well, dad helped.”

Then a group participant chimed in, “No, GOD made you!” I was a little stunned and there was a slight moment of silence. I didn’t know what to say to my daughter or the participant.

My daughter then very enthusiastically exclaimed, “NO, Mommy made me! I came out of her private parts!” To which another participant said, “She knows too much.”

First of all, yay for my daughter for not falling for the god stuff. My daughter will occasionally talk about god or Jesus because she saw something on YouTube or TikTok or the little girl next door said something, but lately, she’s been totally shooting it down.

Second of all, my daughter is seven; I don’t think that’s too young to know where babies come from.

I thought the interaction was pretty funny and just wanted to share. Do you have any proud atheist parent moments? 

Do you know when you are dreaming?

I apologize for the lack of posts lately. I am dealing with some health issues and have zero energy. What little energy I do have has been given to my memoir and working my part-time job from home.

However, I had a bizarre dream last night and I couldn’t help but post about it. In my dream, I was supposed to attend a dinner party but I had somehow overslept and was still in my nightshirt with messy hair and no makeup. There were other people at my house, people I didn’t recognize, but I was telling everyone that I was dreaming and that’s why I wasn’t ready. I told them to please wake me up so I could get ready for the party.

Did I know that I was dreaming because I told people in my dream that I was dreaming? (Did that make sense?) Is that lucid dreaming? Does anyone have any experience with this?

I occasionally take Klonipin to help me sleep and that sometimes gives me really weird dreams, but I didn’t take any last night. 

Either way, I woke up this morning feeling a little uneasy and disoriented. So weird.

Has this ever happened to you? 

I would love to hear about some weird dreams you guys have had lately. 

Nostalgia and Feeling the Feels

I’ve spent the weekend mostly on the couch watching TV since my knee hurts. I feel rather stuck right now.

I watched a series called “Rewind the 90s” which was fun to remember everything they talked about. I grew up in the 90s and I think it was a fun and interesting decade. Seeing how the technology developed during the 90s led to everything we have today was amazing. Do you remember having a Nokia phone? My dad gave me my first cell phone when I started driving and it looked like a big gray brick. I didn’t get a Nokia until college. Do you remember your first cell phone?

This series made me feel a little nostalgic about my childhood, but the decade had its downside, too. Something that sticks out to me about the 90s was homophobia. I don’t know if it’s because I was raised in Middle America, but the way kids talked then is not the way kids talk now. It’s quite incredible the things that came out of our mouths that were considered acceptable, maybe even encouraged. Fast forward ten years and I learned that I had many scared friends and family hiding in the closet in the 90s. I can’t even imagine how horrible that must have felt. I know we still have a long way to go but it’s good to look back and see that progress has been made. 

Argue with me all you want; I still think the 90s was the best decade for music. 

Then after that series, I watched “1989: The Year That Made Us”. I thought this documentary was interesting because the first big news story I remember as a kid was the Berlin Wall coming down. Of course, I was a little kid and didn’t know what it all meant, but I remember watching it on TV. What big news stories do you remember from your childhood? Could you make sense of it?

I like to binge-watch documentaries when I’m not feeling well, especially history and true crime. My husband thinks they’re depressing but sometimes I like it when shows make me emotional. One show that makes me emotional is Intervention. I’ve seen every episode – some of them multiple times. I cry every time but I continue to watch it. Do you ever feel that way? What show gives you the feels?

What are you guys watching this weekend? 

Random Acts of Kindness

My family went grocery shopping tonight, and as we entered the store, a man approached me and said, “This is for you.” He handed me a forty-dollar gift card for groceries. I just stood there with my mouth open for a second before finally exclaiming, “Thank you!” I had no idea who this guy was. He just smiled and left. My husband and I looked at each other in disbelief. I really wonder what this guy’s story was and why he did it. There’s no way he could have known how much my family has been struggling and how much a gift card for groceries meant to us. It really made our day.

One day, if I ever have enough money, I think I will also pass out gift cards for groceries to random strangers. We all need to eat, so if you want to help people out, that’s a great way to do it.

Have you ever had something like that happen to you? Did it motivate you to want to do the same? Let’s hear some feel-good stories!

Consume

When I sit in the quiet
because I didn’t pay my cable bill
I realize I truly have
everything I need
but it feels like nothing at all.

My belly is full,
my house is warm,
and tomorrow is another day at work.

I’m riding in the last car
of a rickety old rollercoaster
barely hanging on
with the whitest knuckles.
The track goes nowhere
and we’ll never come to a complete stop.

Payday is never promised
but we’ll continue the ride
til darkness swallows us whole.

My daughter says all the flowers I draw look sad so I thought I would put this with my sad poem.

I think my guinea pigs know more than I think they do.

Tonight we visited my husband’s aunt. We hung out on her back deck because for some reason on December 26th in Northern Ohio it’s sixty degrees. It’s really strange.

Anyway, she has an adorable dog named Lucy. Lucy is a mutt; she’s small but not a little yappy thing either. She was bouncing around everywhere and playing with my daughter. For the few moments she would sit still I would pet her, but there was this one moment when she jumped on my lap and we locked eyes for a few seconds. She tilted her head a bit and I felt like we connected. 

I’m an animal lover and if we ever get a dog, I would want one like Lucy. The other night, I even had a dream that we got a dog, but it was just a dream. Our 950-square-foot house is already packed with five cats, three humans, and two guinea pigs. I have no idea where a dog would go.

I feel a connection when my guinea pigs and kitties look at me, too. I just wish I knew what they were thinking. I’ve posted about this before, but I am just so curious; do you think animals know more about us than we think they do? 

It seems like all my guinea pigs do is eat. Every time I step into the kitchen I hear “wheek, wheek, wheek!” from their cage. Their favorite snack is organic carrots with the greens still on them. I pick some up every time we go to the store. My husband, of course, makes fun of me when I tell him that I’m wondering what they’re thinking. He claims all they say is “Feed me, feed me, feed me!” I talk to them a lot; I wonder what they’re hearing.

I just hope all my pets are happy and that I’m giving them a good life. I wish there were more ways to communicate with them or to know what they are thinking. 

Maybe this is too much to ask of any living thing. It’s not like you can know what other humans are thinking either. I can communicate with other humans, but humans lie and steal and cheat; I just feel like animals would be more honest. 

Are an animal’s needs basic? Maybe they’re more complicated than we think they are. How would we ever know?

Am I giving them a good life? Do they know that they are giving me a better life? I’ve always had animals around me — for as long as I can remember. I couldn’t imagine living without them.

Do you ever wonder about this? Do you have a deep connection with your pets? Do you wonder what your pets think? Are they happy? Do they think they have a good life? Do they know more about us than we think they do?

 

Also, if you want to see something really cute, search “guinea pigs popcorning” on YouTube. It’s their little happy dance. My piggies do this when I put them in their playpen in the living room.

Happy Holidays and a Weird Flower Drawing

At work the other day there was a discussion on whether you should say, “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. Ugh. Christians here will never understand what it feels like to be in a religious minority. Apparently, it’s too much to ask them to be respectful of everyone.

I didn’t say anything. I know I should speak out more but I also really like my job and want to keep it.

Why are we still having this discussion? Your imaginary “War on Christmas” isn’t real. No one is telling you to stop celebrating Christmas; we are simply asking you to acknowledge that there are other holidays and that not everyone is Christian.

Anyway, it was slow at work today so I made another weird flower drawing:

Happy holidays if or however you celebrate!