It's only the 2nd of January and I am already on a slippery slope of not wanting to write. I woke up late, (for me) and had physical therapy early, so my morning routine was all discombobulated.  And, truth be told, I am not all that interesting a person.  In other words, I ain't got much to say.

However, a goal is a goal, and I aim to make this one a habit.  I have heard conflicting info about how long it takes to form a habit- anywhere from five days to several weeks, but regardless of how long it takes, it won't happen unless it happens!
Since I am out of ideas, I think I will just talk about my new years goal of figuring out my career goal.

I love being a therapist.  I love connecting with people.  I love getting into their heads with them and sharing feeling and thought.  Sometimes, when I tell people what I do, they say,"Don't you get tired of listening to people's problems?"  Listening to people's problems is really the smallest part of what happens in a good therapeutic session.  A good session is so much more about relationship and empathy and unconditional positive regard.  Of course, it is also bout listening and knowing what questions to ask, and understanding human psyche.  A smaller part is understanding psychological theories and systems and how to use them.  Even though our whole system is geared toward treating a particular diagnosis, and you can even find books that tell you EXACTLY what to do for particular problems, it will never be effective if there is no real relationship with real empathy and genuine connection.  Of all the things that a good therapist needs, the ability connect and form a relationship is the most important.  This is the piece that cam't really be taught.  You either got it or you don't.

I am a pretty good communicator.  I'm a good student.  I can memorize and spit out all kinds of crap (except math).  I like to learn new information and I am fairly open minded about new stuff.  All of those thing help me a good therapist, too.

What I am not good at, it marketing.  I am not organized enough to keep track of billing crap and other things you need to be good at to run a successful business.  This is the stuff that I told me ex-business partner from the start.  This what I trusted her to manage.  This is the stuff she got mad at me for not doing.  Go figure...

Now I am at true crossroads. I love being a therapist.  I hate bushiness crapola.  I have a chronic illness that makes me tired keeps me from being able to maintain a public sector mental health job.  (Not to mention the fact that I wouldn't necessarily want to back to a 9-5 type job anyway.)

So right now, I am maintaining my tiny private practice in my smallish office, If there comes a time when no one wants to come any more, I will have to figure out what to do from there.  Then I will have to figure out what to do with what I am good at doing.  Until then, I will have to keep figuring out what that is, and trust that I will be able to make the best of whatever the future holds

Happy new year morning

It is frigid outside, but at least the sun is shining!

I have decided that I am not making any new year's resolution  (Resolution defined::a firm decision to do or not to do something.)  That seems too harsh and extravagant. .
Instead of making firm resolutions, I am setting goals (Goal defined;  the object of a person's ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.) That seems more manageable to me.

So here are my goals:

!.  To write something everyday- (you already knew that one) 

2. To be more organized by being more mindful and focused (Zen)

3.  Maintain my exercise routine  (Personal trainer on Monday until my sessions run out,gym on Tues, Yoga (since I found a class I love) on Wed., gym in tha a.m. on Thurs and yoga on Thurs night, physical therapy on Fri, rest on Sat, and Yoga on Sunday.  Seems like a lot, but I want to stay on my feet and out of a wheelchair as long as possible.  Not scraping my knuckles on the ground is also appealing.

4.Go digital with my calendar since I still use a date book.  Hello 21st century

5.  Do a Spanish lesson on Duolingo or Babble for at least 15 minutes a day.  I got through high school and college without ever taking a foreign language.  I would like to be able to say more than, "mi casa es su casa".

6.  Figure out what I am doing with my career.  Commit to it or get off the pot!

There are zero other-focused goals on this list, so I need to add one about service or giving or something.  Since my attempt at volunteering was cut off by the shingles, I want to figure out some other way to give back.  

I think I would really like to speak to people about something inspirational or informative, but I would have to make sure my body is up to it.  I really miss speaking to an audience.  Does that make me a little odd?


Anyway, I will try to keep you informed of how I am doimg with reaching my goals!

Have a very happy day

Happy new year!

I'v'e decided not to make New Year resolutions.  Instead, I am setting goals.  The goal for this blog is to write something every day to make this a true blog.
That means that you will be reading a lot of brain drool/free association.

In the mean time, here is something I started a few weeks ago.  It is a good rundown of my year

I want to be present and creative.  I want to share and connect.  I think, at my best, being able to make connections  is my genius and being able to inspire is my calling.
However, at my worst I am lazy and whiny and a little self-centered.  I am working on being more self-aware and less paralyzed by my own pity parties.

So this returning blog is to be purge of demons keeping me safely mired in my worst traits. There are two things that have left me wrung out, angry and self-absorbed. First off, my health has been just awful this year.  In addition to the obvious chronic and subtly progressing MS, there was the Shingles and more recently, arthritis in my shoulders.  This may seem to be no big deal, but is makes my biceps ache all the time and disrupts my sleep even more than in the past.  Sleep is highly underrated!

Did you know that scientist can't explain why our bodies need to sleep?  Recently, an experiment on mice suggested that certain cleansing chemical in their brains were released during the deepest sleep stages, carrying away toxins which developed during the day.  So it is likely that this same process occurs in human. (My scientific knowledge comes from National Public Radio, so it may be a little slow and only partially correct, but deal with it).  So, to me, the question is: which came first?  Poor sleep habits, leading to disease, or the disease disrupting sleep keeping the brain from cleaning itself out thus creating more disease?  I guess I don't give two hoot in reality.  I just know I hate not sleeping.

Most recently I had acute appendicitis (that is acute not a cute) so ended up in the hospital AGAIN for an emergency appendectomy. Fortunately, I was able to have the surgery laproscopic-ly so I didn't have a huge recovery.  I have been told that this was REALLY fortunate since a could have been sliced wide open and had, like a month of recovery.  The worst things were:

1).  I despise being a hospital patient, just like every other sane person I know
2)  I hadn't eaten anything for 12 hours before I went to the ER and was whisked to the OR.  After any surgery, one is not aloud to eat until they have passed gas.  I have never yelled "I farted!"  with such glee since I was in the first grade and was trying to get a rise out of my sister,

The only thing that made my stay a little interesting, was when I pulled out my IV,  I guess my appendix gave my surgeon a hard time and got all stiff and ready to blow and didn't wan to come out.
Consequently, due to how long I had to be in surgery, they put me on massive quantities of  IV antibiotics.  I was getting fairly adept at making the IV pole another appendage, but I guess I got a little over-confident.  I reached for something, heard a pop, and watched as blood began to gush from the hole in my wrist where a needle had been.  I drug my self to the bathroom and pulled the panic cord and prayed I wouldn't bleed out in the meantime.  It looked like pints of blood were pouring from that tiny hole!  The nurse came and got me cleaned up, but there was blood everywhere!  They sent up housekeeping, and the sweet Latino lady who was stuck with the job, just kept looking at me and saying :Bloo-da!  I thought she might have been calling me a bruja (witch).
The nurse on the next shift ask me how I was doing and said she heard it looked like a murder scene in my room.


The other thing that has been bothering me much more than my poor health even (if that's possible) is the derailment of my career and the role of my ex-business partner in the situation.  She really knocked me off course!

When I was at Lifelink years ago, one of my child clients went home to her foster mom and told her I had "touched her privates".  Even though the family knew me pretty well and did not feel this was something I would do, the statement was taken seriously and soon I found myself being reported to child protective services.  I was suspended from seeing children in therapy even though no one ever thought this was a credible report.  Fortunately, the investigators were very responsive and expunged the report as soon as possible.  At the time, I thought this was the worst thing that could ever happen to me. After all was said and done I had a delayed physical reaction and couldn't physically function for a couple of days.  I think I didn't really let myself feel the full extent of how stressful this situation was until after the fact.

I think the situation with my ex-partner has been impacting on me that way.

I was going to run through the whole situation, but I think I just want to move on and leave all that stuff behind in the new year.

So you WILL hear from e tomorrow.  I am (sorta) confident that the new year will be smooth sailing...at least until it isn't!


 Happy new year everybody!

It continues...

When I was discharged from the hospital, the doctor gave me a referral for an opthamologist.  I told him I already have one who understand neurological issues.

I want to digress for a moment so I can give a shout out to my various physicians. I have a great group of doctors.  They all look out for me and talk to me as if I can actually think. ( I was going to say that they treat me as if I have a brain that works, but clearly, my brain is not working all the way.  But the thinking part is still pretty intact , so I appreciate some acknowledgement of that.)

Anyway, the hospital doc gave me a referral to an opthamologist even though I told him I had one.  That opthamologist's office actually called me to schedule a follow-up.  Usually I would think this was nice, but when I said I had an appointment with my opthamologist, the lady acted sort of annoyed that she had wasted her time calling me. Some people...

My opthamologist, however, was great as usual.  My first neurologist actually referred me to him because  he understood optic neuritis which is something that happens in MS. I makes your optic nerve pale, which I totally don't understand, but I do  know that having a pale optic nerve makes  your vision wonky.

One of the reasons I was eager to see him, was because of the invisible hot poker being shoved in my eye. The poker feeling had happened at least six more times.  Once in a therapy session with a kid!  Dr. Stiles looked in my eye and said I had Iritis.  My iris was swollen!  How how on earth does that happen?  My neurologist had noticed that one of my pupils was smaller than the other, and he was worried that this was an MS brain involved thing, but Dr. Stiles said it was the swollen iris that was making my pupil appear smaller. How weird is that?!!

He also told me that the hot poker pain was actually caused by my iris having spasms. Thank goodness he knew what is was! However, he didn't have any advice about stopping it from happening.  I can honestly say that the spasm were the worst pain I have ever felt in my life.  They definitely trumped childbirth.  And I had a C-section!  Plus after the pain of childbirth, you actually get a child out of it.  Nothing good came from the spasms!

Basically,  Dr. Stiles said the spasm would stop when my iris got un-swollen and the anti-viral med should, well... un-swollen it.  He increased my run of the anti-virus med for two more weeks.  Although I had several  more spasm after that, the invisible hot poker man has finally left the building!

This saga continue, but I'm gonna make you wait some more

Shingles # 3 The saga continues


So after finally getting the meds and charging my cell phone and Kindle, I settled down for an overnight stay in the hospital.  At least this round I wasn't labeled a falling risk so I could get up to go to the bathroom on my own.

The charge nurse for this round was a cheerful young blond who was trying her best to infuse me with optimism.  Although  am generally a cheerful optimist myself, I wasn't feeling it so much.  I am sure I was being more of a cynical obnoxious know-it-all.  Nurse Cheerful tried her darnedest  saying thing like, "at least you finally got your anti-viral, " and "Aren't you glad you got one of our newly redecorated room?" and "Well, you just have to make the best of things."  Well, no, Nurse cheerful, I am still pissed that I had to wait so long for the med.  I'm not all that thrilled with my nicely re-decorated room since it is very firmly inside a hospital rather than my house, plus, I would rather my insurance pay for a pager system that works rather than the lovey wall sconces and nicely upholstered visitor chair.  And finally, I absolutely don't have to make the best of things if I don't want to!!

Poor Nurse Cheerful.  Fortunately for her, the attending doctor came to see me at about 10:30 with his own entourage of shot-coat interns  The doctor said I could leave, and he gave me scrip for oral, meds.  Then he said the most astounding thing. He said, " these eds work better orally, anyway."  So that mean my doctor could have sent me home with a prescription and I could have gotten on the meds sooner and not had to deal wit the hospital?!!

The other thing that is rather ironic, is that I was admitted to the hospital on March 31st, and on April first, I was finally enrolled in Medicare.

So I was sent home with oral medication and an increasingly swollen face

Lovely!

Fortunately, I had no clients scheduled since I was supposed to be out of town.  My whole face hurt even though the actual infection was only on one side.  If that wasn't bad enough, another new development about sent me over the edge.   

There I was, minding my own business, when suddenly an invisible intruder took a hot poker, ran it down the side of my nose, shoved it into my eye and stirred my brains around for what felt like several minutes.  

The pain stopped, but I was thoroughly freaked out.  What was this?  Would it happen again?  

Stay tuned for the next installment of ...whatever this is to find out.

Shingles #2

As you recall from yesterday, I was on my way to the urgent care clinic rather than to Missouri to checkout if my self-diagnosis of the shingles was accurate...

My appointment was at ten.  It happened that my doctor was actually on rotation at the clinic that day.  I was glad I didn't have to explain my history of MS and all that happy crappy to her.  She basically took one look and confirmed the shingles diagnosis.  She also looked a little scared at the location.  Apparently, people lose their sight when the shingles get in their eyes.  My compromised immune system made me a prime candidate for a really nasty shingle battle.

So she sent me to the emergency room so I could get on meds right away.  The doctor's office I go to is right across the street from the hospital.  I thought again about going home to get my phone charger but, naw, it was out of the way.

So I landed in the crowded ER at about 11.  Even though my doc had called ahead, the ER staff still didn't really understand why I needed to be there.  I wasn't bleeding profusely or projectile vomiting.  Most people with shingles-even in the eye- don't get sent to the ER.   Even after explaining why I was there, I still had o wait for the screaming kids and the groaning older folks to be cleared out before they put me in an examining room.  There was, however, the caveat that all the docs were occupied so my wait was not actually over...

My turn finally came at 2 pm when the ER doc, the on-call opthamologist and about 45 short-coat interns came in to see the MS/shingles specimen. The opthamologist confirmed that there was shingles virus in my eye, and after all 45 interns got an opportunity to see it , too, I was told I would be admitted for observation and IV medication. I was hooked up to am IV pole and started me on fluids for no apparent reason other than in case they needed to find a nice juicy, bloated vein to poke...or to see if my bladder worked.

At 3:15, I was wheeled up to a room.  I had nothing other than what I put on that morning, my keys, a dying cell phone and a wallet with my ID, insurance cards and about $14.82 in cash. No kindle, no phone charger, no clean underwear or even a tube of Chapstick!  God, I hate hospitals!  Did I tell you that my husband was driving my son to Rolla, Mo so there was no one home to bring me any of the things I just listed.

But I was glad that I was going to get the IV anti-viral medicine to keep the Shingles from getting worse.  So I waited...and waited..and waited.  My husband got back from Rolla ( a twelve our round trip) at about 7:30 and I happily accepted the things on my list, but still no meds were in sight.

One of the short-coat docs came in to tell me all about the differences between IV meds and oral med, because, apparently, He believed that IQ points were the first thing to go when you have MS.  I looked at him and asked,  "So what meds am I on right now?"  He left quickly.

At 9 pm after almost 11 hours after being seen by my doc, I finally received the Acyclovair ant-viral IV meds.  The hold up? No one could get a signature from an attending physician! His pager wasn't working...

That's round 2.  More about the hospital tomorrow, and as a special treat,I'll put up some lovely pics of me with the Shingles

Shingles #1  Canceled trip

Hello poor old neglected blog

Why was I gone so long?  Thanks for asking.  I go a lot to say about that.  Fasten your seat belt again...

So my son's Spring break ended on April 1st.  I had every intention of riding to Rolla, Mo to take him back to school.  The plan was, to then stay with my parents for a week.  My father had recently lost a toe (long story) and I was going to help with doctor's appointments and alleviate some of my Mom's stress.  I was also going o get some vaca time for myself, Of course.  We were leaving on Sunday the 30th of March.  I told my clients I'd be gone, got my train tickets home and looked forward to the week off.

On Friday, I noted a rash on my forehead.  It was a little odd, but, I just covered it with makeup and figured it woulds be gone in a day or two.  On Saturday the rash looked a tiny bit worse, but still not anything Max Factor couldn't erase.  But I also noticed that I had some pain in my eye that was beyond dryness or just too hard of a rubbing.  That evening, I start to be a little concerned and worried out loud.  "I wonder if I should figure out what this rash is before we leave town." My husband responded, "Maybe it's the single"  To this day, I don't know why I felt worried about it, and I have no idea why Dana suggested that it could be singles.  But as soon as he said it, I light bulb went off and I said, "Shit on a shingle! It IS the shingles!"

I called my mom to tell her that I wasn't going to be able to come, and I called my doctor's office.   The on-call physician was concerned because the rash was so close to my eye.   He said I probably didn't need to go to the emergency room, but set up an appointment for me at the urgent care clinic for 10 am the next morning.

On Sunday, I said goodbye to my son and husband and got ready for my appointment.

When I was pregnant in 1995, I was confined to bed rest (theoretically) for the last month due to pre-clampsia.  I woke from a sound sleep one night, thinking "I should get up and pack a bag"  My reasonable mind said "Don't be ridiculous.  This baby isn't due til August, and it only July 11th!" And I went back to sleep.
The next day, I went to my doctor's appointment the and the OBgyn said "Your baby is in distress and must come out now!"   As my husband drove me to the hospital for an emergency C-section, I thought, "Crap! I shoulda packed a bag!"  Well, before I left for the urgent care clinic, I thought, "I should take my phone charger and my Kindle."  Wouldn't you think I would learn to listen to myself?

Okay, I think I will keep you in suspense and tell this story in installment.  So tune in tomorrow for the continuing saga of "Shingles"

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