I love warblers and these old Jazz and Blues more and more each day. But I gotta say, I feel less and less like the lyrics apply to me. Nobody doing me wrong. The people in my life seem to love me just the same with or without money. So I have been trying to break up with these great bass lines, dance inducing strings and bubbly brass, but I just can’t call the whole thing off, so one more time Ella and Satchmo are getting me through another evening at home. So with their help…..time for an update.

Actually my site statistics tell me that I a past due for an update and once I am done here I will be heading over to my GoFundMe and updating there as well.  life

Making an updates isn’t easy, I have now typed and deleted a half-dozen starts.  Everyone has been very kind to me, as always. My rent is paid, I have food, clothes, friends and lots of time to enjoy how good my life is right now. The GoFundMe got me through to my first insurance temporary disability check and now we are working as a team, my doctors and I, to see if there is anyway to keep this a temporary disability, even while preparing for the fact it might be permanent retirement.

Cardiologist placed my new Medtronic friend a week and a day ago and I am healing well. I am continuing to follow-up with VA Mental Health because not only are all these changes the kind of stress that triggers my PTSD and depression, but also some of the symptoms can be the result of or exacerbated by anxiety. We don’t have a definite answer as to what is causing the fainting, the falling, the expressive aphasia or memory issues,  and I am all for ruling out anything that might be treatable along the way. We are not unaware of the un-treatable options, but as long as I am still able to write this blog, I still have enough of my cognition left to make a contribution, and so gonna keep checking for other things. But what we are aiming at is more of holding my own than getting it all back.

What do I mean by “all back”, well I haven’t made a single 100 point word in Words With Friends in 3 months, I used to make them about once a month. I saved them for the games I played all out with Kevin and Cathy and Matt or I could have made more a month. I only win games now when the letters are all in my favor and my words are under fifty points, find myself smiling at thirty point words.

What else do I mean by “all back”, directions have never really been my forte, but I  have to use GPS ALLLLLL the time now, putting in where I am going before I leave and when I am supposed to be there.

Sometimes it takes me a few minutes holding a semi-familiar object to remember what it is and why I am holding it, and of course the old familiar, “now why did I come into this room?”

But the worst two parts are swallowing and talking issues. I can’t find words or say the wrong one, and soft foods and soups are my very best food friends.

Yes, hard to believe this I am sure, but I do my share of bouncing between catastrophising and ignoring reality. I have some awesome work sheets I do when I already have myself drooling in a nursing home or thinking that I just need to find the right magic thing to make it all go back to my old normal. The writing helps me back to reality. I still some very flat, beige days and lots of inconvenient crying when someone asks how I am doing with all this. But all in all, I think I am doing good.

So short summary,  I am not dead yet, in fact I feel happy.   I think I will go for a walk now…..