(no subject)

I took a cab to UHS yesterday because it was raining. I took the bus home even though it was still raining (and raining harder). Part of that was that I wanted to get in a bit of a walk, even if it did mean getting wet.

Ingress is challenging right now because I no longer have the mid-range resonators that are hardest to get (at least for me). I can get lvl 1 and lvl 2, but 3-6 are harder.

( Medical stuff-- pain, fatigue, medication, and food )

(no subject)

The appointment with my psychiatrist went well. She's more on my side with regard to the supposed magic of medication to fix me than my primary care doctor is. I think it's that my pcp isn't used to dealing with people who've tried lots of psychoactives with no benefit and really thinks that throwing the right new medication at me will magically solve every single problem that interacts with my anxiety. So no on the tricyclics and SNRIs.

I've taken two tricyclics in the past. I'd forgotten about the second because I was using it off label for bladder problems. That was Tofranil which didn't change my anxiety and kept me from sleeping if I took it at night. Elavil lowered my blood pressure enough that I felt wobbly walking around the house and also didn't change my anxiety.

So we're going to try Lunesta and see if I can tolerate it and if it will let me sleep while Scott and Cordelia are still up. I'll be eating dinner at 5:00 and going to bed at 9:00. This, naturally, will make all the dietary adjustments much less likely to happen because I'm going to be preparing all of my own food with all of the restrictions that my lack of physical resources imposes.

I gave my psychiatrist an ordered list of my health priorities. I need to email it to my primary care doctor, too. It's as follows:

Being able to think.
Cordelia's needs (Yes, this isn't my health, but... It only comes in behind being able to think because I need that to be able to help her).
Headaches (which make it hard to think).
c-PAP/improved sleep.
Fatigue/energy levels (this and the sleep may relate/interact, but I suspect that they're separate enough to merit listing separately).
Exercise.
Anxiety (this and exercise are pretty much even).
Pain in general.
Reflux.
Blood sugar control.
IBS.

If my oncologist tells me to do something different or if I find another lump, all of this goes out the window, of course, but this is the order of importance because I can't do things farther down the list unless I handle the things higher up first. As my psychiatrist said, the things higher up are the fires that will burn down my house the fastest. The blood sugar could still potentially turn into a fire, but getting my sleep and exercise in order is almost certainly going to help that.

The IBS is inconvenient, yes, and sometimes means taking a cab to places instead of the bus, but, honestly, the things it's stopped me doing have generally been things that I didn't particularly want to do because I had something less officially urgent but more personally urgent that I needed to get done. If it gets worse, I'll reconsider the priority I'm willing to give it.