challenge accepted

My doctor has challenged me to cut 500 calories from my daily total. This should be a cinch since I already can't eat 80% of what I'd love to be able to if I could, right? Guys, for me this means cutting those giant salads in half. I'm not kidding.

Anyway, very thrilled with the awesome hepatic panel coming back all super normal. Now the biggie is cutting down my blood pressure med, whaaaa?

I've been on blood pressure meds since my 20's because of a rhythm problem that was eventually corrected (years later, so like eventually eventually), and leading up to the procedure that fixed it saw me on the absolute fullest possible dose anyone can go with a beta blocker for a couple of years. I had started out on a calcium channel blocker, and as compliant as I tried to be, that stuff only made other things worse, so I found the beta blocker much more tolerable. I was supposed to be getting off it after the procedure, but my blood pressure shot up for some unknown reason and taunted me until we all assumed I'd just be on it the rest of my life.

Cut to years later, I'm old enough to actually be on a blood pressure med, my blood pressure started spiking wildly out of control, and I went up and down and in and out with this beta blocker. My doctor's been trying to get me off it since 2011 and my heart goes nuts on everything else. One of the most miserable months I've ever been through was switching off blood pressure meds every week until we were forced to go back to the beta blocker. And then suddenly in 2012 we figured out it was the birth control I'd been on all that time. Dumped the birth control, boom, blood pressure went down, I was able to cut the beta blocker dose in half again, and everything was wonderful. It was the lowest dose I'd been on since I started blood pressure meds.

And since then it has very slowly been bumped back up. My body's had enough of this beta blocker and fights it. It's done. I'm getting weird symptoms like super Raynaud's (suddenly freezing in the middle of summer isn't always thyroid, apparently) and now my doctor thinks me going so scatterbrained again (I'm at the Scott having to tie one scene in a show over to the next level of stupid) is the beta blocker. He added a different calcium channel blocker during the big allergy thing in April, I finally broke through the noncompliance and just stuck with it, and NOW I'm being instructed to slowly cut down the beta blocker.

I've been through some hefty med withdrawals through the years, but this one has truly been the hardest. It's an awful thing to be so sensitized to every little bitty thing your heart does that most people never feel, thanx to living with that arrhythmia for so long, and after March sucking for being the worst arm pain I've ever come through in physical therapy and April sucking for being the toughest allergy season I've ever come through on the inhaler and May sucking for the ongoing therapy that is bringing more main nerve trunk back online (referred pain is a bitch and a half, but it's better than losing function over nerve compression death), I get to spend June sucking now for what I hope does NOT become a noteworthy month. I've pretty much already been through the blood pressure and rhythm problems from hell over a series of years, so the only way this could be worse is if I have an actual heart attack or something, but I'm pretty sure it'll still play hell with my anxiety.

So I'm going to focus on cutting 500 calories from a healthy diet that is already so restricted by food allergies and diabetes that most of y'all would think you were in some kind of boot camp, and I'm going to suck it up because hopefully I'm this close to becoming Madonna, and all this crap I've gone through getting my life back after years of literal crippling pain will have been worth it.

I've asked in past posts on various blogs what a person would be willing to go through to get what they want, and the evil villain commitment it takes to focus and do what it takes no matter how hard it gets and how alone one feels doing it. It gets weird sometimes...


And this is what you get when you put Lady Gaga and Benedict Cumberbatch into the youtube search bar together. Oh, nothing, just psyching up for more physical therapy in a few hours.


Aaaaand we're going there. Subtextually speaking, this is all metaphorical for me. Pinky Robot needs to own the webs. My driven passion has been underground all spring conquering multiplayer, need to get it back out here in the open. You guys have no idea how much behind the scenes stuff I've been juggling, as it were. I mean, besides what I just told you. Time to run.

let's talk options while my twitchy eye holds the bazooka

This is a writing prompt to help me focus in between doing stuffs. It's actually helping. Now go away.

Took a couple of months of conscious effort to stop chewing my lips up while I work, which I've done for many years and I'm surprised I have lips left at all. I'm noticing this week after a long lipcation that I'm doing it again, rather mercilessly. Then waking up to already doing pressure points on the back of my skull in my sleep, it's probably time to admit I'm having a headache.

So I quickly review the pros and cons of powering through- extra meds or no? Bunny never did come over yesterday, but she's definitely coming today, so, extra meds. I have a super limited selection. Super. Limited. Made the executive decision to increase my morning xanax dose by a quarter pill. (That is huge in my world.) My left eyelid twitched madly in agreement. Nerve flare across my face would look like awesome galaxy colored wallpaper if it were an art form. Too bad we can't set our faces to screensaver wallpaper. Everyone going with galaxy hair, yeah, I'm totally on galaxy face...

yes of course, click for awesome

And before anyone rises up with protracted withdrawal probs, I'm the queen of benzo addiction and withdrawing (my doctor laughs, my psychiatrist doesn't) and I know, K? Iz my thang, yo. Anyway, so that raises my morning dose to .1875 (I hear laughing across the fruited plain) (I know, right, not even a whole .25 tab). Unless you've been through actual DTs and real protracted withdrawal, you have no idea how good this will feel. Spiking it with a teaspoon of 41% real vanilla in my hot chocolate protein drink is heaven. (I hear more laughing. You guys will laugh when your livers swell up, I'm telling ya.)

Next option, if things still go out of control later today, will be a 7.5 mobic, and that actually doesn't touch the pain, just tones down the yelling a little for awhile. That is the only thing left I can do unless I get desperate enough to risk another reaction on another med I haven't tried yet after being a guinea pig for 2 decades. Anyway, if I take it every day I get the crazy watery auras across everything I look at. That's bad, something about high blood pressure and optic nerve involvement. If I wind up on pred because another out of the blue reaction on top of auras, we're talking defcon dizzy and that's super bad. You don't play around with brains like that when you're autoimmune. That means at ~*most*~ I take it every other day, and I try to hold it down to every 3-4 days. Yes, iz my only pain med option at this point. You people who can toss back pain pills, thank your deities and mother earth you have it so good. You people who keep bringing up medical marijuana- 1- I said I had a reaction (yes, people can be allergic to cannibas), and 2- that's still not a thing in Missouri. We grow it here. I.l.l.e.g.a.l.l.y. For you guys. I know things about the 'medical marijuana' *cough*industry*cough* that you hipsters don't wanna know. Yeah, I know some of you get regulated organic, isn't that sweet. You other dweebs suggesting street drugs to me in DMs, #btchplz. I like having what health I've scraped back together, so back off. This isn't funny to me any more. If you're still using those to cope, you haven't hit the ultra rock bottom I have.

I know, right, what is this doing in a 'bitch please' search
click to find out. or don't, I don't care
I told you to go away

The goal is to feel more comfortable feeling every bony structure in my skull and face. Many times through the years I have pondered how weird it is to feel like the real me is a walking skeleton, and especially to envision my face as just a skull, because every muscle ligament and tendon attachment to anything bony is an inflammation point. I've lived my entire adult life very aware of my skeleton. I used to feel freaked out about how people love skeleton art, because I felt so weird feeling like a skull looking around at everyone. Can people not see I am a walking talking skull? Because I sure feel like I am.

click. go get lost. run free. you're welcome.

Terry Pratchett helped a lot with embracing my skeleton as part of the whole me experience. One of my fave characters is Death, not because he's spooky or mystical or whatever, but because he has problems. He's just this non-corporeal anthropomorphized local event phenomenon wrestling with being audited, losing his job, and staying on top of an aspie-like obsession with cataloging and organizing timers going off. CAN YOU IMAGINE IF HE BLOGGED? Haha. You have to read the books to get that.

you foodies realize you can do stuff with colored sugar and funnels, right?
I've played....

Meanwhile, @bonenado comes back in for breakfast and several deer magically show up in the yard. He's trying to get pix. They're like teenagers, little nubs where antlers go. This is the best one I got. You can see a butt on the left and a head popping up just over the deck railing. That's the neighbor's garden.

My thoughts on the France attacks (good article) since I've been asked by several people sprinkled around the world- I think we will eventually reluctantly wind up in a world war over whether religious and political beliefs can continue to target innocents, which means new world order with world citizenry and all the nations agreeing to uphold laws already put in place by the United Nations. (Some countries adamantly resist in order to retain autonomy and control over their citizens, including the right to torture, kill, and even retain legal slavery.) I could be wrong, yes, but if I'm right, it will be the first war in world history that is about actual human rights and not assets and boundaries. It will end with the world agreeing on basic human rights. Those who are afraid of political and religious tethering and perceived loss of particular freedoms (the U.S. is not alone in this) will continue to enjoy shopping and traveling. I'm not looking forward to the war part, but I do hold high hopes for a future (however distant) of the human race becoming better. A few might think this is a belief system sellout, it is not. It is stepping off the dizzy merry-go-round of fear. I believe fear is a tool, and keeping people fearful via belief systems holds them hostage. This is not a social phenomenon created by a deity, but by a pyramid power structure. It's been going on for nearly 3000 years, and it's time we stop being duped by the process and look at how we're all going to survive each other. And, for those of you into conspiracy theories, sure why not, the militants trying to usher in the end of the world are in league with the antichrist, and we are in the age where the whole world will witness according to Revelations because of internet yada yada blahblahblah. Living at that level of hyper readiness all my life has burned me out pretty badly. ALL. MY. LIFE. Letting fear saturate 'beliefs' to the point of nonstop anxiety is only playing us into big pharm, so cut it out. Enjoy the moments, guys. Remember, holographic universe, gaming system, we're just a buncha avatars going through motions, and we are the ones who beget meaning in our own lives. Find your meaning.

If I can say all that calmly with a fairly rough headache, y'all can, too. Calm down, stop the bipolar yelling for simultaneous #killallthe____ and #faithinhumanityrestored and take a chill pill. They're working on it, ok? Takes a little patience to figure big probs out.

Nearly breaking the coffee pot because carpal tunnel brings the world back into focus, right? Whew, nearly had to run to Walmart for a new carafe.

clicks to cute 'Momnesia' blog

Also, if I have an enemy somewhere out there poking pins in my effigy and wishing plagues upon me, I'm seriously done with the ladybugs, you can stop now. Send the ladybugs to the terrorists.

This one is my fave. I can't get a click through, maybe you'll have better luck if you click on the ladybug meme collection pic up there.

NOT A COASTER. >=l

We're getting ready for a Bunny. See ya.