A Not So Average Life

Mariah, if you read this, I am so sorry I haven't written you back yet. I haven't written a letter in so long, I forgot I need stamps, and I haven't had a chance to go get any just yet.

Anyway.

It has been a boring day. I couldn't sleep last night, so I decided to go through all my clothes. Then my mom popped her head in my room and asked if I wanted some coffee around 6 am because she couldn't sleep either. But she got tired around 10, and I didn't want to bother her by cleaning to keep myself up, so I just went back to bed. Yep. Now she's asleep in my bed, and I am sitting around watching The Office because I don't have cable. So that's my day.

So every spring, this bird nests in the dryer vent in the back of our apartment. It's really cute, getting to hear the baby birds chirping everytime the mother leaves. Oh! And there are alot of canadian geese around here, and we discovered two of them that were nesting in small shrub gardens in the shopping center down the road. One was in front of the Hallmark store, and it's mate would stand beside her day and night. The other was in front of Elder Beerman. We check on them every day, and sometimes bring bread. But the other day, we went to see them and they had both abandoned their eggs, and their nests had trash all around them. Someone had chased them off. I was more upset than I probably should have been. I just can't understand how someone could be so cruel.

So yeah. I'm just rambling.

Yay! Thanks to Manda's husband Scott, I have my laptop back!

SO much has happened since my last post. Well, not really that much, but it seems like alot to me.

Daisy passed away, and instead of the expected sadness I just felt relief. She was in such poor health, I'm just glad she's not hurting anymore. I'm single again, and I'd rather not elaborate. I will say however, that I'm really glad that I have time to focus on myself and my health for the time being. What else, my seizures have gotten worse because I had to stop taking my anti-seizure meds due to lack of funds. I'm trying to eat better and exercise more, and that seems to be keeping the worst at bay for now.

I just want to elaborate on the seizure condition for a moment. I have to go back a few years. When I was about 12, I was diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder. It's a relatively common thing. It causes frequent and uncontrollable "anxiety attacks" and "nervous breakdowns". The way it has been explained to me, it's just a chemical imbalance in the brain, the can be helped with cognitive behavioral therapy and medication. My anxiety attacks vary in strength, and I have them multiple times a day. They basically consist of lightheadedness and dizziness, heart palpitations, shakiness, tunnel vision, cold sweats and ect. They are also accompanied by an unreasonable fear of immediate death. The best way to explain it is this : Imagine you're being chased by a crazy axe murderer. Your mind is racing, you're scared like you've never been scared before, and shaking, your heart is pumping and you're terrified he's going to kill you. Lol, I know that's weird, but that's how it feels. Anyway! The seizures started about a year ago. I go into something like a severe anxiety attack, and I really don't remember much after that. I end up in convulsions, blacking out, and being conscious but not coherent. I go into a deep, sleep I guess you'd call it, for about 2-4 hours. That's about it.

I've had every test you could imagine. EEGs, which is where you have wires attached to your head, wrapped in gauze, and you get to carry around the monitor in a nice fanny pack. I've had MRI's and CT scans, bloodwork and X-rays, apparently all to no avail. So everyone is stumped. I just get so frustrated because my family is low income and before all of this, I was the primary breadwinner. I lost my job over this and I can't work because odds are, I'll just get fired again. Sorry, I'm just venting.

Yep.

In lighter news, I think I've figured out what I'd like to study in college. I think I want to be a high school english teacher. Did you know english teachers have to take anthropology? Weird. I'm also keeping my hopes high that I can figure out all this medical mess, and get it taken care of so I can drive again, and maybe get a part time job. I really do miss working. This summer, I may travel to Tennessee to visit my grandmother (she's nearly 80, but meaner than a snake!) and my aunt Carole, who just purchased a house with alot of land. I've heard talk about a go-cart track. ^.^ Katelyn just had a birthday, I can't believe she's 15 already! She is so beautiful, she looks nothing like me. She has hair worthy of a Pantene shampoo commercial, and she is always tan. She's way taller than me too, I'm 5'8, and she's nearly 5'11. Lol.

I'm sorry this post is so long, and if you read it thank you. I hope everyone is doing well!

Here are some sites I just discovered thanks to Manda. They are alot of fun if you're bored, sad, mad, or just want to feel better about your day. I'm addicted!



givesmehope.com

a sweet website with stories about everyday people and extraordinary kindness.


lovegivesmehope.com

a site that had hundreds of short stories about compassion and love.


mylifeisaverage.com

a really fun site about everyday living and fun things that happen to normal people.


fmylife.com

a site where people share embarrassing moments, it's really quite funny.

I've got a thing for cute bunny pictures, and thought you may like some of these! (From icanhascheezburger.com )

I just got my laptop back from the manufacturer, they repaired my broken screen. Now, it has a virus and the restart disk I sent in with the computer was wiped. So I had to take it to Manda's husband to see if he can't have a look at it. I'm writing from the library now. I hate being on the Internet at the library, I always feel like someone is reading over my shoulder 0.O

So let's see, not much going on really. Single again, but I'm happy about it. Gives me time to center and focus on myself. I like it. I do miss the company though. But that's what kitties are for :) Daisy isn't doing too well, I don't know if I mentioned it before but the thing I thought was a tumor was actually an infection. Well, I thought I got it cleared up pretty nice, used peroxide and a little antibiotic ointment. But last night I heard her breathing funny, and when I checked on her, she was bleeding, bright red blood. I know that's not a good thing, so I took her into the sink and washed it off as best I could, cleaned the wound and applied as much pressure as she'd let me. I'm afraid is a flesh eating bacteria, so I called the Humane Society that I used to volunteer for and asked how much they'd charge to put her down. I looked up home euthanasia on Google, but it involved CO2, and I'm pretty sure I'd end up euthanizing myself in the process. :/

Today I had to go have a mental evaluation for the Medical I'm applying for. I don't really understand why I needed a mental evaluation for seizures, but whatever gets me help I guess. The lady was really weird, she kept making crazy long eye contact with me, and I didn't know what to do. I had to do some word association stuff. Like, "What do an apple and banana have in common?" I said fruit. "What do an anchor and a fence have in common?" I said....uhhhhhh...? I had to say the months in backwards order, I missed October and march..lol. Anyway, I hope I never have to do that again.

I rode my bike to the library (bad idea) I forgot how many steep hills are on this street. AND I almost got hit at an intersection. I waited for the cars to turn, I had the signal to walk, and the guy in the wrong turn lane all of the sudden decides he wants to turn over the crosswalk as I am crossing. He's on his cell phone, almost hits me, and then yells profanities out his window. Come on, will it kill you to wait fifteen seconds for me to get out of the way? Oh well. I just smiled and waved.

Mom and I took a walk by the river today, saw some geese and ducks. They had really pretty tulips and I think they're called hyacynths? They're purple and look like little beads strung along the stem. But it was nice. Oh by the way, I live by the Great Miami River. Grown up around it. It's icky in some spots with all the runoff from factories and stuff. Other spots though, are really clean and fun to play and fish in.

OH OH OH! I got to ride on a motorcycle for the first time! It was soooooo much fun. We went to my Mom's friends house and her boyfriend asked if I wanted to go. He's a really big guy, and it was super hard to try to hold onto him lol. He went really fast, and somewhere along the way my phone fell out of my pocket. I had to go back and look for it, and when we found it, it was in pieces. I got it all back together, and it works fine. It's got a few chips in it but I think that gives my cheap little phone character.

So yeah, that's about all I can think of. I'll try to post as often as I can until I get my laptop back (not sure when that will be, may have to send it back to Toshiba). But as always, thanks for reading! Hoping you're days are going smooth :)

Yesterday night I came home from hiking and went to give Daisy (my rat) a treat when I noticed she had a large lump on the left side her of face, right under her ear. It was really big. I've had rodents in the past that have developed tumors so I assumed that's what it was. I cried, because I knew that this might be the end of her long life. I tried to make her as comfortable as possible and went to sleep, hoping that she would go peacefully in her sleep. She was still alive this morning, and I could tell she was uncomfortable, she kept falling over and wouldn't wake up when I petted her. So I put her in her small cage, gave her a bunch of bedding fluff, and made her a bowl of veggies. I noticed she was scratching the lesion with her foot, and then licking it. So I looked closer and realized that there was some really gross stuff coming out of it. I wont go into great detail because it's really nasty and I'm eating ramen noodles right now. hehe. It looks like she cut herself somehow and it got infected. So anyway, I did my best to remove the gross stuff, cleaned out her ear and eyes. I'm going tomorrow to get some peroxide and antibiotic ointment. I hope she'll be ok for the night.

In other news, I haven't had a seizure for about 3 days now. I'm still having the shaking and near fainting episodes but I'll settle for that. Oh oh oh! I made my first meal all by myself today! This is kind of a big deal for me because my cooking expertise ends at the microwave. I made Onion baked chicken, and lemon zest asparagus. I put a little too much lemon and olive oil and the asparagus but other than that, it was reeeeaaaallllyyy good. I'm pretty smug about it :)

Tomorrow I'm going to go see Kick-Ass (hopefully). It looks pretty good. I'll post a whole movie review about it tomorrow night. I'm sure you're all so excited. :P Manda broke her trim and tire today when she jumped a curb on the way home from work. I love that girl so much, but I've given up, and decided if we crash, the doctors will find a way to save me. Haha! (I love you Manda.) Cory bought me the first edition of this comic book, its called The Guild. It originally started as an independent YouTube channel, and evolved into this big thing. If you're into gaming, you should really check it out.

Well, that's it for now. Gonna finish my ramen and surf the web a little before bed. Hope everyone had a really great day!

Okay, so my life derailed for a moment but as of now it's back on track. I'm sorry I keep missing posting everyday, mostly sorry to myself because that is something I really wanted to do. But my laptop has a virus, and even when I try to wipe the hard drive with the restart disk, it creates an administrator account with a password that I don't know. I think I'm going to have to send it back to the manufacturer and see if they'll fix it. Hopefully so since my laptop is still under warranty. (Thanks Dad!)










Anywho, today was a good day. I'm trying to eat healthier and exercise more, in the hopes that maybe it will improve my health and I won't have to rely on medication. I have to admit that I am getting sick of salads. If anyone knows of any low calorie/sodium recipes, let me know, I would really appreciate it :)










I went for a hike today with Cory and Precious. It was alot of fun. We got Precious to play in the river, she only lasted a little while though. The water was freezing and the current was really fast, it nearly knocked me off me feet. Then, I came back to Cory's and gave Precious a bath, she was filthy.










So yesterday I went to the Job Center (government benefits office) to see what was going on with my application for Medicaid. I feel bad having to rely on government assisted health care, but you would not believe how expensive some of the stuff is that I have to do. Anyway, they said it would take six months to a year for me to even be considered because of my application for social security benefits. How messed up is that? I mean by that time I was hoping to have found a solution and be in school and working.










So yeah. Here are some pictures from today I thought I would share. Hope everyone had a great day!

Cory and I being goofy

My puppy in a bunch of clover and yellow flowers