I don't know how the heck I am

I always look forward to Sundays because it's blog day -- I like writing these blog posts. But often I don't have a lot to say, because not much happens in our lives.

As you can see from the photo, my incision is healing. The swelling is almost gone. A few more weeks and it will start disappearing into my neck wrinkles. I have a tele-health appointment with my surgeon on Thursday, just a normal follow-up -- except that nobody told me there would be such an appointment until his assistant called to schedule it. It's fine. I'll tell him all about my complications and he'll tell me everything is fine.

Everything is basically fine, but I'm continuing to have a few issues. I think the main problem right now is calcium! In the beginning I was very good, taking my calcium three times a day, just like the post-op instructions said. But as things got messy the second week, with my UTI and Teen B's problems and all our antibiotics and appointments, I started skipping calcium. I also was having trouble swallowing the big pills, and that was freaking me out (what if I choke on a pill, who will save me?) so I stopped taking them altogether while I searched for the "petite" form (finally found a bottle at Target, tucked back on a low shelf where it was hard to see). And even the "petites" are big, so I found myself avoiding them too. 

But this weekend I noticed that my hands were shaking. Why, I wondered. I normally associate being shaky with low blood sugar. But I'm eating plenty -- in fact, I'm eating more than before, because my nausea has improved greatly since the surgery. So, what, maybe high blood sugar because I'm eating too much? But the main symptom I associate with high blood sugar is this feeling like my eyes are filling up with sugar. I'm not having that at all. Then I remembered that low calcium is associated with a tingling feeling. Here's what one website lists as symptoms: "tingling in hands, feet, or lips; muscle spasms or weakness, or facial twitching; shaking or loss of body control"... Yeah, I think shaking hands probably fits in there somewhere.

So, anyway, I've taken my calcium three times today! Maybe I should take a fourth dose too, like they say to do right after surgery if you're feeling tingly. I also googled how long I'm supposed to take supplemental calcium after parathyroid surgery, and one website advises six months. Guess I'd better get more serious about this.

Low calcium is also associated with depression and anxiety -- just like high calcium, how fun! One major change I've noticed since the surgery is an improvement in anxiety, really a significant difference. I feel like I've gone back to being me, the me I was afraid was gone, replaced by a super anxious me who was annoying to be. I also thought I saw an improvement in depression, but that's gotten worse again this past week. And I thought, well, I'm a depressed person, can't expect calcium to fix that. But now I'm wondering whether calcium is involved again. I'm going to be really really good about calcium this week and then we'll see how I'm doing next Sunday.

Other changes: definitely the nausea is improved. And here I thought that was all caused by Metformin! Maybe it was at first, because I definitely experienced more nausea after I started taking Met. But maybe the last six months the calcium/parathyroid problem has been getting worse and it also worsened the nausea? I just don't know. All I know is that I'm much less nauseated, have more of an appetite, and have less heartburn. And although I haven't gained weight yet, I know I will unless I'm more careful about what I eat, so that's something I'm thinking about. If I just remember to eat like a diabetic and keep taking my evening walks, I think I should be OK. We'll see.

Here's something different: I go to a support group once a month -- I won't say what it's for, because it's the only one like it anywhere around here. Suffice it to say, the people who attend are sad and need comfort. I was a mess at the July meeting, cried the whole time, told them all about my problems (most of which had nothing to do with the group), and generally took up a lot of space. This month (yesterday) I wasn't sure if I wanted to go -- the air was bad, didn't want to drive, didn't feel like I had much to say. Then I thought, maybe there's someone there I need to listen to. So I went. And like before, I cried through much of it -- but I was crying because other people's stories were sad. I contributed various remarks, but I mainly listened to other people. 

Afterwards I thought, wow -- I think I am better. I had the energy to think outside myself.

So, on we go. I did some of the things I planned to do this week, or started to, but one big thing I ignored was our stinging insect problem. The yellow jacket nest is still in the back gate (despite all the peppermint I sprayed at it) and then there's the big hornet nest on the back patio. I've been putting off calling an exterminator because I'm afraid they'll end up exterminating native bees and other nice creatures too. Anyway, one night this week there was some noise on the patio, to which I responded by closing the kitchen curtains. I didn't know what it was, it sounded like a person, so my one thought was that I didn't want to see it. Makes a lot of sense.

Anyway, the next morning the nest looked like this! There are bits of it all over the ground. The "something" had probably been a bear, and it took a big handful of the nest! I had read that bears like to eat the larvae in hornet nests. I really hoped the bear would come back and finish the job, but it hasn't, and the queen must still be there, because the hornets are still using the nest, just as though it were intact. Darn.

Another thing on my list for last week was setting up my new phone, which I did not do, so that moves along to this coming week's list. At some point my old phone is not going to work anymore at all, at which point I'll have to do something. I just don't understand how to transfer the information from my old phone to my new phone. All my photos, my texts, my contacts. That's the problem. If someone would explain to me how to do that, maybe I could do it.

Another thing on the list was working on the files, which I did spend a little time doing. When Rocket Boy was here he finally went through our four big file cabinets and labeled each drawer as either yellow or red. Red means don't touch; yellow means go for it. So then I went through the files myself and decided what to do about each drawer that I was allowed to touch. Today I finally started working on the third drawer down in the first cabinet on the left. See the yellow sticker? It had one folder in it that belonged in the second drawer of the second cabinet, and then the rest is basically junk, but I am working my way through it, looking for any hidden treasures. I feel kind of bad, throwing away old articles clipped from the Daily Camera in the 1980s, but the articles are things like "Are electric fields harmful to our brains?" and "Ways to eliminate fat from your diet," and I think they don't need to be saved any longer. 

Last week I started reading a book I've had lying around for a while, Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity by David Allen. Someone recommended it to me once. I was reading through it and it had some good ideas, a change from my endless to-do lists anyway, so I was going to try out this guy's methods. The only problem was, the first thing you were supposed to do was set up a place to work, a clean desk with an inbox and a file cabinet (which you would then proceed to fill with all your plans and undone projects). And I thought, well, I can't do that until I clean out the files! So I've got Getting Things Done on hold until I can get this very big thing done, the file cabinets -- which I can already see is going to take a long, long time. No wonder I couldn't get started on it earlier this year. It's an enormous task that I will have to just work on step by step, drawer by drawer, file by file, on and on. Rocket Boy spent 40 or 50 years accumulating these files -- I won't be able to get rid of them in an afternoon.

Another thing I did this week -- I guess it's been kind of a busy week -- was reconnect with an old friend from high school. An old boyfriend from high school, to be more specific. He found me on LinkedIn, which I guess is as good a use for LinkedIn as anything. We started chatting, this progressed to texting, and then we moved on to email. I was nervous about the whole thing because it seemed like something out of Dear Abby (as soon as possible I told Rocket Boy all about it, in case he wanted to be jealous -- he wasn't). The old boyfriend and I broke up 42 years ago, in February 1979. I remember it well. He's been married for 31 years, me for almost 19 (as of this Tuesday), we have two children each. But he said he just wanted to talk to people from his past. So we've been talking. And it's exhausting. He was silent today, after several message-filled days. I appreciated the break. I can only take so much Memory Lane, I guess.

OK, enough -- time to think a little more about the week ahead. I haven't taken the kids anywhere fun in forever, it seems like. I thought we would do something fun this past week, but we just sat around. Now we've got one full week left until the week when school starts and it's full of not-fun things like doctor appointments. I'd like to try to do a few fun things: swimming, a trip to the mall, a movie. Or whatever they want to do. I'll see. I told them to choose one thing for tomorrow, so we'll see what it's going to be. As long as it's inside, away from the heat and the bad air from the California fires.

And yes, I know, I haven't done a resolution round-up in a while, and I'm not going to do one now either. School is about to start, our lives are about to be up-ended, the summer's been weird. Maybe in September I'll look at my resolutions again and make plans. Right now I just want to get through the days, end summer in a positive way, and look ahead to school. After that, who knows?