Beautiful but sad

Not the most cheerful of poems, but I accidentally came across this today and it really spoke to me. I'll have to read more by the author.

'The world is a beautiful place' from A Coney Island of the Mind, copyright © 1955 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

 The world is a beautiful place 
                                                           to be born into 
if you don’t mind happiness 
                                             not always being 
                                                                        so very much fun 
       if you don’t mind a touch of hell
                                                       now and then
                just when everything is fine
                                                             because even in heaven
                                they don’t sing 
                                                        all the time

             The world is a beautiful place
                                                           to be born into
       if you don’t mind some people dying
                                                                  all the time
                        or maybe only starving
                                                           some of the time
                 which isn’t half so bad
                                                      if it isn’t you

      Oh the world is a beautiful place
                                                          to be born into
               if you don’t much mind
                                                   a few dead minds
                    in the higher places
                                                    or a bomb or two
                            now and then
                                                  in your upturned faces
         or such other improprieties
                                                    as our Name Brand society
                                  is prey to
                                              with its men of distinction
             and its men of extinction
                                                   and its priests
                         and other patrolmen
                                                         and its various segregations
         and congressional investigations
                                                             and other constipations
                        that our fool flesh
                                                     is heir to

Yes the world is the best place of all
                                                           for a lot of such things as
         making the fun scene
                                                and making the love scene
and making the sad scene
                                         and singing low songs of having 
                                                                                      inspirations
and walking around 
                                looking at everything
                                                                  and smelling flowers
and goosing statues
                              and even thinking 
                                                         and kissing people and
     making babies and wearing pants
                                                         and waving hats and
                                     dancing
                                                and going swimming in rivers
                              on picnics
                                       in the middle of the summer
and just generally
                            ‘living it up’

Yes
   but then right in the middle of it
                                                    comes the smiling
                                                                                 mortician

I stayed home today to get some rest

I just woke up after sleeping three-and-a-half-hours. I needed it. I'd hoped to follow up with my primary care provider, but he didn't have anything till Thursday afternoon.

Long day in the emergency room

So I had to go to the University of Kentucky emergency department today.

I felt fine this morning, drove to work with no problem, blood sugar was normal, everything was fine. I got to the stadium lot and felt fuzzy in my head, and when I tried walking I was uncoordinated and listed to the side. I was carrying a small orchid and nearly dropped it repeatedly, even jerking at one point without meaning too, like those jerks you have when you're falling asleep, but I wasn't.

It continued when I went into work, and I nearly fell over, even with the cane, several times. Once I got to work I dropped an open drink twice on my keyboard (good I have an overlay), I was still fuzzy, and really slow in making the computer work. I went down to the employee health nurse. My blood pressure has been all over the place today, first high with her, then at one point really low. She got me in a wheelchair and she and my supervisor took me over to UK's ED, because some of my symptoms matched a TIA like I had in July.

So after the CT and EKG and other tests, there was no sign of a TIA (although they don't necessarily do that, being transient, after all). I spent a lot of time sitting and lying in bed and the fuzziness finally cleared for the most part. I'm dehydrated, but I wasn't enough to get fluids. I have orthostatic hypotension, but I'd figured that out some time ago (I am a medical librarian, after all, and I once knew someone who had it and they were the same symptoms, such as getting dizzy when standing up). But this wasn't really that...I was a little dizzy in the beginning but it was more unsteady, groggy, disoriented, that sort of thing.

Last night between 9 and 10 PM I'd taken a small dose, smaller than usual, of a muscle relaxant, tinzanidine. I've used it occasionally for years for neck and back spasms. I usually take 14 mg, again, PRN, just as needed, but I just took 8, thank goodness. It was over 12 hours by the time I went to the ED since I'd taken the medicine, which usually is short-lived.

I was still having unsteadiness almost 24 hours afterwards. My brain's just not in the same fuzzy mode it was before. Now (11:30 PM) I feel tired and overly-wrung out.

The doctor thinks I may have a hypersensitivity or allergy to tizanidine and I shouldn't take it, but she never said it definitely caused the symptoms today. I also found in my own research that despite having a relatively short half-life, it is heavily metabolised by the liver, and since I have fatty liver disease, I wonder if that affected things.

The nurse brought me home (thank you Kathryn) just before 5 PM, and I went straight to bed for a rest. She's going to come get me in the morning as my car is at the stadium.

So it was a big maybe on what all happened, but I'm just hoping I'm back to my normal self tomorrow.

UPDATE: Thinking back through things, I find it interesting that I didn't have symptoms for about two hours when I woke up, before I to to work. If it were some strange carryover from the tizanidine, you would expect me to be impaired from the moment I woke up. The only reason I even thought of the tizanidine was before I also had some, and the last time I had some, the night before my TIA in July, (and none of them thought it should be it either time, as it does clear fairly quickly out of the body, but it seemed oddly beyond coincidental not to mention). All the symptoms I had today were symptoms I had that morning in July as well.

It also reminded me of a time I went to another hospital for weakness on one side, headache, and chest pains. They decided it was a hemiplegic migraine with a panic attack because nothing showed up on the scans. But I'm beginning to wonder if that was also a transient ischemic issue as well. The chest pains may have been a panic attack, I do get them. I rarely get migraines, but I have not had a hemiplegic migraine, either before or since.

I think I'm going to talk to my PCP. In addition to being an expert with decades of experience in internal medicine, he has worked in both neurology and emergency medicine. He's also Canadian, and so maybe the training he received might give him another perspective.

Twenty-four

Citation: 24. Get That Job: Interviews--How to Keep Your Head and Get Your Ideal Job. London: Bloomsbury Business, 97 pp. 2022. ISBN: 978-1-4729-9329-8.

This was an easy one (number twenty-three)

23. To-Do List Formula: A Stress-Free Guide to Creating To-Do Lists That Work by Damon Zahariades. 2016. ASIN: B01JJ5CURW.

Twenty-one and twenty-two

Citations: 

21. Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine, & a Miracle by Major Brian Dennis, Mary Netherly, and Kirby Larson. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009, 70 pp. ISBN:  978-0316053181.

22. Watercolour Lessons: How to Paint and Unwind with Tutorials by Emma Lefebvre. Coral Gables, FL: Pear Tree Press, 2022, 256 pp. ISBN: 978-1684810079.

My goal for this year is 36 books. I got behind over the summer, so I'm only at 61%. I need to step up my game. I've got one I'm about a third of the way through but I don't know if I'll finish it; it's rather slowly-paced, plus three I'd like to go ahead and read or re-read that are fiction, and one non-fiction guide.

So, here those are:

1. What the River Knows by Isabel Ibañez (this is the slow one)

2. Flying Too High by Kerry Greenwood

3. Re-reading Storm Front by Jim Butcher

4. Re-reading The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross

and also a non-fiction one:

5. Knee Replacement Surgery: A Patient's Guide Before, During, & After by  Chris Easton

By 1 PM

1. Studied Duolingo
2. Went through bed cubbies
3. Went through library books
4. Charged earbuds
5. Charged continuous glucose monitor receiver
6. Charged razor
7. Set up SAD light for seasonal depression
8. Got rid of honey, oil, and moss*
9. Cleaned out the bags from the utility room
10. Consolidated bills/opened all the envelopes
11. Took midday insulin
12. Ate lunch

By 3 PM:

1. Took the books to the library
2. Got more soda
3. Took reusable bags to the car
4. Took my religious items to the car to go to storage
5. Threw away items on the refrigerator, got rid of the soda bottles, threw away moss*

Still need to:

1. Fold laundry and put it away
2. Help my friend write out his bills
3. Take a shower tonight
4. Eat dinner
5. Take evening meds
6. Change my CPAP mask, etc. 

*It's orchid potting moss. I have two packages. One was still unopened. The other, when I re-potted fifteen orchids years ago because the kitten was digging out and playing with the fir bark, had engendered fungous gnats and I just wanted to make sure it was gone so I wouldn't confuse the two. There may be eggs, and I took awhile to get rid of it, but it's gone now.

That is a lot in eight hours, and I've only paused to eat and take my meds. I haven't doomscrolled. Just the blog posts. So...I'm going to nap now.  In fact, I'll put that on my list.

1. Take nap.

By 11 AM I had:

1. Run the dishwasher
2. Washed one big load of laundry and put it in the dryer
3. Listened to music
4. Eaten breakfast
5. Organised my crafting supplies (mainly beads and watercolour materials)
6. Organised my home gym items (handheld weights, ankle weights, balls, bands--small stuff I use for PT and exercise sometimes)
7. Charged my earbuds
8. Charged my glucose monitor receiver
9. Tweaked the pumpkin diorama
10. Blogged
11. Go through a shelf next to the power station I charged the other day
12. Cleaned out the drawers of both nightstands
13. Let the dogs out and fed the animals
14. Organised the herb cabinet I keep dishes and my own non-refrigerated foods in
15. Taken all of my morning medications

Still on my list:

1. Organise the bed cubbies (there are two in the footboard)(
2. Study Duolingo
3. Go through the library books
4. Start re-reading Jim Butcher's Storm Front
5. Help my friend write out his bills
6. Take a shower (tonight)

Whew! I am really thinking of lying down for a bit. :)

Feeling better after 10 days of Covid leave

Tomorrow I get to go back to work. I'm feeling much better. I was lucky to 1) have something more like bad flu than full-blown, concerning illness and 2) no one else I knew got it from me [I'd played the game with friends the day I started getting feeling bad, sharing snacks, etc., so it was a concern, and also, of course, I live with someone. Four years of pandemic and I never had it, and then bam. I did get vaccinated (my 7th shot overall), but unfortunately, I got sick before the full protection came through (it takes a bit). It may have mitigated it somewhat, though. And my roommate had his back in early September, so that helped. At this point, I just have the same runny nose I've had with allergies over the last five months.

Two observances...except when I was the sickest (including the night I slept 14 hours), I woke up by 6:30-7:00 AM every morning (when I should be for work). This was at first frustrating, because hey, I'm off, I'm sick, I'm supposed to sleep in. But it's because I've been going to bed at 10-11 PM and not my normal midnight AM. So there's a change to try to implement. The other is my room is the absolute cleanest it has been in years. I was bored and I cleaned. I am only neat at work. My desk has to be in order. I feel better when my living space is, but I struggle because I was messy even as a kid, and it was the main battle I had with my parents in an otherwise 'good girl' childhood. Behold! [I do need to take the little air conditioner to storage (and get my cold-weather clothes), but that's for this weekend. And of course, the pumpkin diorama is sitting on the cedar chest for the next 24 hours. I'll take it in tomorrow. I really should find a different spot for my medicine cart (it also has lotions, toiletries, etc.) because it's right in the window and that's not good for medications (although they are in sunlight-blocking bottles, the bamboo has to go somewhere in the light. And of course, it's all about the plants, right? Maybe I need one of those little tower tables. :)

Thought it might be good to do one or two of these since it's been awhile

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II, V.

For not observing the state of another man's soul, scarce was ever any man known to be unhappy. Tell whosoever they be that intend not, and guide not by reason and discretion the motions of their own souls, they must of necessity be unhappy.

This one, I think, calls for the individual to focus on their own soul, conscience, thoughts, life, rather than observing (and judging) that of others, because of course, we can't really know another person's throughts and feelings.  It would be better to master one's own self than try to master that of others, or try to assign motivations to others when we don't have all the data.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book II, VI.

These things thou must always have in mind: What is the nature of the universe, and what is mine—in particular: This unto that what relation it hath: what kind of part, of what kind of universe it is: And that there is nobody that can hinder thee, but that thou mayest always both do and speak those things which are agreeable to that nature, whereof thou art a part.

The connexion between us as humans and the greater natural world is not adversarial or separate.  We are a part of the universe around us, and as such we should try to learn as much about it all as possible, while recognising that our interactions with it are in our control, and only those.  We cannot control the rest of creation, but rather our own actions within it.