Weekend Update and Holidays Survived - 12/24/17

Weekend Update and Holidays Survived - 12/24/17 Tis’ the season to be …………depressed. A lot of bad things have happened to me in the weeks surrounding Xmas. Death has been my special Xmas friend since I was 12 years old. I know I am not the only one who has lost a loved one in the Xmas season but it is hurting this year. Just a note to say I once again have a deeper understanding of the words “practicing medicine”. More blood work and I will have another ‘in and out’ procedure the second week of January. This one is called a RUS (Rectal Endoscopic Ultrasound) which is a procedure that enables the doctor to examine the col………. well enough of that. I do hope this will be the last time for the foreseeable future that any anal procedures are done on me. Who knows, maybe they will find the Grail up there. Some of the medical bills have come just in time for Xmas….oh the joy! I am feeling that sinking feeling once again as I sink slowly deeper into debt. I am also reflecting on this past year and the significant changes which have taken place in my life. I had to surrender my home of 18 years. A necessary but sad event. A positive event for my stress level. I will say the following in the vernacular….. I can no longer eat away, drink away, smoke away, drug away, or sex away my feelings. Although the ‘sex away’ part has been present for the past three plus years (since THAT operation). Needless to say this has created a lot of free time for me to sit around and think about life, the universe, and everything. Due to financial realities and my bowel issues I am very limited in where and when I can go do anything. And at the present time I cannot plan much until I find out more specifics about my health status. So life does go on… and I need to say this for me. - FUCK cancer - ………and Fuck depression too. the following from John Pavlovitz says more than I can right now… There is no good time to be mentally ill. I mean, it’s never convenient to carry that invisible heaviness around with you; to have to martial every bit of energy to keep the persistent demons at bay, to muster up enough functional positivity to attend to the menial tasks in front of you on a given day. There simply isn’t an ideal spot on the calendar for such things. Most any time of the year on any nondescript day, depression makes you feel out of step with the world around you. You sense that you’re an oddity, a foreigner, an alien. You look in the eyes of people across the cafeteria or the cubicle or the living room and they all seem perfectly fine— as if they aren’t regularly sucker punched with sudden and debilitating doubts of irrational darkness, as if they don’t feel fully frustrated by a steady pain they feel but can’t name, as if a despair with no reasonable cause, isn’t a frequent presence inside their heads.  Regardless of the date, with mental illness as an internal companion you’re always aware that you’re different than most people—but this realization is never more clear or profound than in a season when everyone seems to be singing; when effusive joy is the expected default response. More than any other time, you feel the pressure to be well, to pull it together, to don now your gay apparel and to be appropriately jolly. Most people don’t understand depression and other mental illness, believing that it can be cured with tangible things, with measurable data, with accurate information. They think that you can choose to not be afflicted with sadness. They mistakenly believe, that placed in the right exterior conditions—you can just “cheer up.” It makes sense to these well-meaning but misinformed people, that with enough ugly sweaters and twinkling lights and tinsel strands and yuletide carols—that you can catch happiness like you do a seasonal cold. It would great be if that’s how it worked. It would be nice if mental illness took a break for the holidays.
It doesn’t. We try like hell to take a vacation from it though, I can promise you that. We don’t want to be the people who weigh down these days for those around us who easily revel in the lightness of the season. We put on the ugly sweaters and string the lights and do our best to  “fake it ’till we make it”—and yes, sometimes the trappings of the season do help, often they are a source of rest, they can be a welcome distraction. Sometimes songs or rituals or smells, trigger the muscle memory of a day in the past when joy wasn’t such work, when peace was easy, when wonder was plentiful. Sometimes the holidays are medicinal. Yet just as often, those songs and rituals and smells become ropes tied around our waists, that without warning yank us back into the dark places, back into the persistent heaviness, back into the isolation of being sad and song-less people in a crowd of willing carolers.  Those of us afflicted with depression know that if you love us, you are forced to spend the holidays with mental illness. We know how difficult our unpredictability is, how draining our mood swings are, how tenuous your sense of peace is because of us. Just know how much we appreciate you working so hard to overcome our darkness with your brightness. Even if it doesn’t help, it matters. Even if it doesn’t result in a visible change in us, we see what you’re trying to do and we are grateful. And know too that right now we are trying—as much as in April or August, we are trying to hold back the demons and kindle the flickering light inside us. We are, in this season as in every season, seeking a joy that does not need to be manufactured and is not easily stolen. We know how difficult it is for your to be spending your holidays with our mental illness. Believe me, we know. If you keep holding on, we will too. Please take good care of yourselves. You never know what the fuck will happen. Please read my blog (link below) from the beginning for a complete picture of how I ended up right here right now. It has, and continues to be, one hell of a journey. Feel free to copy, borrow, share this blog anywhere and everywhere. riksjourney.blogspot.com

Weekend Update - 12/07/17

It has been a while since I have published anything I have written. I can now say that this too is a part of this journey. This is the third anniversary of my big cancer operation. I have found that no matter how I might try to distract myself from reality, reality continues to show up and bite me in the ass. Over the past several months the effects of my journey with cancer have continued to take a toll. I find myself limited in what I can do and where and when I can go. Also the number of doctor visits has grown exponentially with a couple of new docs added to the mix with all the tests that come with. One part of this are the issues with my bowels. I have some control but at times very little and inspire of my efforts to figure this out by diet, eating times, medications, and exercise my “issues” remain. Part two of this is the fatigue associated with my anemia and my thyroid levels being off. This too is being actively treated by diet, exercise, medications, and anything else I can think of…..which is not much. The undercurrent of all of this is I am currently waiting to see if my blood work improves (no anemia, etc) which I should find out around the end of this month. The jury is still out. The possibilities of what might happen have exacerbated symptoms of my depression as well as my physical health. If my blood work improves then all will be normal. The thyroid issues, bowel issues, diabetes issues, and physical deterioration issues will continue but that is just part of my normal. What has me concerned and feeling unsettled is the possibility that if my blood work does not improve then it will be time for a bone marrow biopsy. That is just what it is. This brings up a conversation I had with my doctors prior to my big cancer operation when I was terminal and my operation was a “hope this works” kind of deal. I was told that the operation would buy me some time. That time being around three to five years. Well it’s three years now and another five months will be the the third anniversary of my radiation treatments. So yes, I am in my head and it has gotten pretty scary. Now, once again, I am left with what do I do now. One thing I am doing is vomiting all of this out into the ether to get it out of me and look at it. I am so very grateful to the folks who are standing by me and who are sharing their experience, strength, and hope with me. I am reminded for the 4,876 time that I do not know what is going to happen, I am not alone, and I am not the only cancer patient going thru this…..so chill the fuck out. Good advice which I plan to exercise as much as possible. Probably be good to start that now. Please read my blog (link below) from the beginning for a complete picture of how I ended up right here right now. It has, and continues to be, one hell of a journey. Feel free to copy, borrow, share this blog anywhere and everywhere. riksjourney.blogspot.com