Great Googly Moogly

I’m here, typing on one computer while listening to a webinar on my phone and watching the same webinar on yet a second computer while sitting on my bed wearing pajamas. The webinar itself is on the topic of workplace violence.  Today, my risk of workplace violence is “slim to none”.  In fact, based on what I am currently learning–any of y’all in Health Care are WAY more likely to encounter violence today than pretty much anyone else out there.  Be careful medical folk, cause dang.   Important learning point:  apparently if you are mentally ill AND addicted to drugs you are much more likely to attack people than if you are just mentally ill.  Okay, makes sense.  Important learning point:  Emergency departments are 4.2 times more likely to be attacked at work.  Nursing Homes are 2.6 more likely to be attacked and lastly Psychiatric Depts are 2.0 times more likely to be attacked at work.  This apparently increases stress factors–well, thank you very much; who’d a thunk it?

To continue the description of my day:  Herbert is sacked out in the closet he loves so much on the bed I put in there last night.  He looks extra comfy.  Life is on her baby mattress  and Teak remains on the cold hard floor (per his choice).  It just started raining outside and at this moment I think I win at life.  I’m learning, I’m comfortable, I feel safe, and the sound of rain on my roof is incredibly soothing.

I fought myself out of a panic attack earlier (for.the.win.) after reading a communication from my lawyer regarding my former house going into foreclosure.  I knew this was going to happen; I did.  But reading it was soooo extra whooshing dropping belly freaky.   A close friend of mine to whom I reached out for help sent me back a reminder that I will climb out of this with a shitty credit rating.  The reminder that I *will* climb out of this.  He also said my ex really did a good job at fucking me over.   His support felt good but my Service Dog in Training Herbert really gets the credit for me not completely losing my shit.  When I started crying he jumped up onto the bed and laid behind me providing physical contact.  Prior to last week I was training him to nibble my fingers to keep me focused into the here and now rather than getting lost into my own brain…alas, the other day when I was laughing really hard he triggered to try to make me feel better and the nibbling led to more hilariousness and then there was a big puppy pile of laughing and nibbling.  While funny at the time; I did further research into the training behavior behind this and it was recommended to me to not train him to use teeth because if he reacts to someone else in an emotional state the same way he could be perceived as aggressive.  Okay, this led to a new approach–physical contact.  After I replied to the attorney’s email and could take a quick break I turned around and focused on petting him.  And because of this I didn’t get to the lip tingling leading to face numbing leading to full on panic attack and vomiting.

(Gods help me–I swear I am not crazy crazy; just anxiety-riddled)

  I spent more than half of my day on saturday developing a budget.  This website (http://www.budgetsimple.com/) was intensely helpful.  So, once the budget was set up I had to work towards a checking account register.  I spent quite some time attempting to track down a missing 5 cents.  It is still annoying the crap out of me, I have no idea where it is. 😦

So, that’s about it in regards to the past few hours. Nothing too exciting, nothing too good–but hopefully, nothing too bad either.

*kisses*

-H.

…and it is morning

Well, get up, slacker.
Up.
Get. Up.

Okay, I know I am awake, but I am (lamely) sore due to actually walking places rather than drive (shut up! If you say it like it is a concious “healthy choice” rather than  “completely broke and don’t have a car” it sounds better).  So I want to lay here on my comfy comfy bed.

It is truly amazing how much more comfortable my bed becomes when I have to get up. If I think of my bed as a weird passive aggressive entity it makes this process more understandable.  For some reason my imaginary bed entity has a bad french accent a’ la’ peppy la pue, “huh, huh, huh…you want to get up?  Well, try *dis* level of comfy…isn’t it nice. You know you don’t want to leave me.  Oh, you can sleep in this day?  Well, are my spikes comfy now?  I didn’t sink so…”

Alright, maybe I need to get up now.  ^sigh^
Have a good day folks.
^kisses & hugs^

Dear world.

Im too tired to be alive.  And im 97% certain my exhaustion is inversly proportional to the amount of money i have; example- sobbed at my desk for a solid 15 minutes due to lack of money and then walked home and crashed for an hour.
The game of life, not my best work. 
Maybe my next round?

The saga of Mr. Herbert and delicious turkey.

Today I made a turkey. This involved thawing, rinsing, throwing into Dutch oven, and baking.  Really, making a turkey is way easier than I ever thought.  When I cut into it and was eating I dealt with the following watchful, hopeful eyes:

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“can’t you tell I’m starving to DEATH food lady?  Look at Doodle for goodness sake! He was abused before you got him, ya know? We need turkey to soldier on.”

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I finished my meal and began work on puppy-food.  Herbert, despite his obvious starvation, managed to drag himself into the kitchen to lay on the floor in the hope of a spare morsel of deliciousness. 

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The poor little bastard can barely hold his head up. 

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The rice and turkey are cooking for you little Herbert. Stay strong!

I’m home! I’m employed! I’m wary! I’m emphatic!

My trip to Ohio ended in a fairly uneventful plane ride home.  I ended up not sleeping for a good 48 hours and after having EMOTIONS I finally got some rest.  Things have taken on a fairly simple routine again.  The dogs are happy to have me home and I am enjoying my new job; although to be fair all I have had to do thus far is review documentation and learn ‘the ropes’.  Anyhow, here is some rambling info for your reading enjoyment:

So, a long long time ago (~10 years) in a far far away place (Southern Illinois) I was working and grumpy.  And then I met someone I had to train and she was SO. DAMN. POSITIVE. I wanted to 1. be her and 2. smack her.  It was an interesting situation.  Eventually her innate happiness won me over and I embraced her happy to be working attitude.  I had to come to the realization that there is only one person in charge of my happiness, and that is me.  Here I am over a decade later trying to channel that happy again.  However, it is weird–I’m scared as hell to let myself be happy.  Everything is going fairly well and I find myself approaching life with the sceptisism and wariness of a soldier with full-on PTSD.  Whenever something awesome happens I feel I need to creep toward the awesome in a slow and well planned maneuver; never enjoying it fully–just waiting for some fresh hell to smack me in the face.  This is probably NOT the healthiest attitude.  So, I am going to *try* to embrace some of my happy–fully and with hope and event though while typing that I felt the need to duck and cover I really am going to TRY. 

My newest happy is that I have an office very near my house–5 minutes by vehicle; 30 minutes by foot.  I’m usually by myself; although I am flying to another island next week to ‘meet the team’.  I’m kind of excited about that part–I have never been to any of the other islands. 🙂  Today, I walked to lunch at my favorite deli (Turtles), picked up a salad and sandwich (half for lunch; half for dinner), walked back to my office and ate.  It was a freaking great day.  I was even productive as hell.  The office is beautiful and next to a church and mini-cemetary.  The neighborhood is a wee bit shady BUT this totally gives me the excuse to drag a dog with me every now and again. 🙂

So.  I am excited.  I am fairly hopeful.  Wish me luck island hopping next week; I will try to keep y’all updated. 

*kisses*

well. hell.

I’m screwed.  My life is a Rubik’s cube of stupid at the moment.  I am quite literally on hold with the unemployment office trying to explain to them that although I was supposed to have been getting some form of money from them for the past month; I have yet to receive anything.  Additionally, I am now employed so I am expected to be at work during the hours that the unemployment office is open to go and try to get the paperwork sorted out.  My father, bless his heart, sent me a check for a sum of money that would help me get through until my first pay check–but here is where it gets awesome.  His check doesn’t arrive until Monday, but early Monday morning (well before the post gets here) I am being sent on my first Caribbean business trip to the island of St. Thomas.  I have to get a prescription before I go…the co-pay for that is $30.00.  I have $46.00 cash left to me.  The unemployment office is unable to find my file, so they are going to call me back.

I know I am supposed to be grateful for all of the love and support I have.

I know I am supposed to be an adult and support myself.

I know I am lucky to be alive and have a new job and I need to be AM excited about everything.

I am well aware of all of that; but right this moment I am so far past freaked out about money I cannot see straight. I think for the rest of the evening I shall work myself into a stressed out ball of stress, sob for a while, potentially vomit, then listen to an audiobook until I’m numb.  

ah, friday nights.  good times. ~sigh~

Correction: screw that.  I had awesome leftovers for dinner along with a can of tomato soup.  It was SO good. We are talking a roast beef with horseradish sandwich on roasted garlic bread served with a hot bowl of tomato soup.  I cannot describe how good this was.     Additionally, I came to the conclusion that I have a stupid infection and that is what is making me all emotionally volatile and beating the hell out of my blood sugars.  So, sorry for the desperate woe of earlier.  Sometimes, we all feel like absolute shit and I tend to write about it.  I need to spend my energy on focusing on the good things, like the perfect half a sandwich with some soup.  🙂

I am spending the evening relaxing after my first week of work; embracing my pillow as the true love of my life. 🙂 🙂 🙂

Sometimes I forget…

Do you know I forget?  I really do.  Even though I was raised in a home literally surrounded by this disease (mother, neighbors, friends) sometimes I don’t even think about it. Most days it doesn’t even occur to me that I am a diabetic.  But I am.  Sometimes people ask me if I am “the good kind” or “the bad kind”.  I always want to scream when I hear that.  There is NO good kind.  Some people are even so helpful as to suggest “oh, type 2?  Well THAT can be fixed by diet and exercise.” (FUCK THEM—they mean *I* did this to myself)  Although, I feel it important to note that if I don’t eat—I am not diabetic.  I don’t mean if I only eat healthily—I mean No Fucking Food.   But the second a piece of anything with any caloric content whatsoever (lettuce, chocolate, popcorn, beef, whatever) my body (without medication) throws the sugar into my blood and my body cannot use it.  This causes my body to send panicked signals to my brain saying “HELP, BITCH—WE ARE STARVING HERE—THERE IS NO FUEL IN OUR BODY—WTF ARE YOU DOING UP THERE?!?!”  Brain replies, “DAMN BODY—GIVE US A FEW SECONDS HERE, I’M TELLING THIS PAIN IN THE ASS TO EAT!”   The body can’t figure out why the fuck it feels like shit and why it is HUNGRY all of the time—even when it is so full there is physical pain.  With proper medication my body works just fine, food turns into sugar, sugar fuels my body, food is an afterthought not an all consuming IMMEDIATE NEED, and I go through life happily forgetting. 

Until I do something stupid like forgetting to eat.  Now, if you read that sentence and thought—who the fuck has ever forgotten to eat?!?!  Get tested for diabetes.  But given that my sugars are under control believe it or not; sometimes that shit happens and I forget to eat.  Or sometimes my pancreas and/or liver gets all excited and spits out extra insulin and combining that with my medications make me “go low”.  The term LOW was something I learned as early as age 4 and I knew I had to put sugar into my mother, my neighbor, or my friend before they went SO low they would end up in the hospital.  What I NEVER understood until I was a diagnosed diabetic almost 25 years later and went through my first low was how much the idea of any food at all makes you want to vomit.  Or how you are soaked through with so much sweat you have to shower and change your clothes when it’s all over.  Or lastly, how incredibly weak and sick you feel , standing up is almost impossible, and the nausea makes you want to die.  

(Hopefully) You have all seen those stupid flyers in doctors’ offices telling you the symptoms of potential diabetes.  Below is not my attempt to recreate that list (thirsty, lots of urination, etc.) nor give you any personal medical advice; it is however shit I noticed a HUGE difference in and wished I had been treated at the very young age of 13 when I couldn’t stop eating and everyone treated me as a leper.   

*MY* Warning Signs of Diabetes

  • NEVER FORGETTING FOOD – if you cannot stop thinking of food.  I mean—never forgetting a meal ever.  Feeling hungry while *knowing* in your rational mind and aching belly that you are full. 
  • LOOK LIKE A DAMN CHICKEN – you know what I mean; big torso—scrawny legs.  Definitive belly?  Come on, if you have a big belly and widdle iddy biddy scrawny legs.  Yup, that is a big ass sign of “the diabetes”.  It is a fun little genetic trick that allows us folk to still run from predators by having normal sized legs and arms and a fat belly to live in feast and famine.   However, since our running away from predators AND famine “time” has been limited here in the first world—this has just led to us feeling hungrier, getting bigger bellies, and feeling worse and worse.