Monday, January 16, 2006

rough moments and angels

after friday’s rain, a huge weather system came through saturday, bringing 25 – 30 mile an hour winds, with gusts of – well, i’m not sure how bad the gusts were, but the wind was flinging trashcans half a mile down the road, bringing down trees and power lines.

our power went out saturday morning (luckily after i had made breakfast.) duckie and i landed at buffy’s that night, brian and skipper at a local motel. skipper has been feeling pretty lousy the last few days so he needed some company. not that he would ever say so.

had some rough moments over the weekend, due to circumstances beyond our control, a different environment for duckie and for me, lack of sleep, my own disappointment at not being able to nest in the house over the weekend, and an unfortunately ill-timed attempt to step down my lexapro dosage. who would have thought that two and a half milligrams of anything would make such a difference? i suppose with all the other things going on, it would.

i had help from really good people, though – buffy, brett and the girls first and foremost. on sunday, buffy kept a keen eye on duckie to let me take a shower, and brian stepped in for several hours to let me get in a solid nap. good thing, too, because duck had been up since five in the morning. and i get pretty cranky when i’m short on sleep. (“pretty cranky,” by the way, is a euphemism for “borderline psychotic.”)

the last two days have felt like a week. but being back at work and highly caffeinated has helped a lot in regaining a sense of stability. knowing that i have all the makings for homemade chicken soup in the fridge here helps even more. knowing that tonight i can go return to my own house (messy though it probably is) helps the most.

and once again, my friend james has found some perfectly-timed wisdom to share. i’ll link to it, but it’s well worth taking ten minutes to read it in its entirety. it’s a an excerpt from a magazine one of his sangha members loaned him, and pema chodron is a contributor to the article. (i wrote about one of her books a few months back.) there are some very appropriate insights. as usual. there's one section on compassion to one's self that seems especially meaningful to me.

my dad’s health seems to have stablilized over the last few days, which is a comfort. he’s back into his workshop – the best sign i’ve seen in several months. (i’m already drafting my next project request for him.)

i’m hoping skipper is feeling better, too – and if not, maybe some chicken soup will help.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

A revelation to share ...
On Monday, January 16th at about
9:30 PM as I was conditioned to do,
took my blood pressure reading before preparing for bed. It registered at a whopping 185/96. 15 minutes later after I tried to relax and do some deep breathing exercises re-checked BP and got 186/101....not good..... 45 minutes and 3 trips to empty bladder later checked it again and got 211/117.... Now I'm in a raging panic-anxiety-depression episode...emergency room here I come again for the 3rd time in 3 weeks.
The nice nurse at the ER checked my BP at 188/104, bummer....she waited some time and rechecked at 161/96....After this check the nurse, named Kim, shared some of her life experiences as she had pegged me for a highly nervous, agitated individual. Her advice was to relax and take a day at a time and do not worry about things I cannot change but rather work on that which I could affect. Namely my BP which in my case seems to be affected most by emotion. At the end of the ER visit I asked Kim to check BP again at wonder of wonders it came in at 139/89.
As Kim talked about her own experiences as an EMT for 8 years and her duties as a nurse and the cumulative effect that has had on her body the lightbulb came on in my head......
The next day I hade a visit to my PC(primary care doctor)at 10:30am.
Before leaving home, I did some streching and breathing exercises from "controlling stress" handout Kim gave me upon leaving the ER the previous night. Did the exercises at home and in the car on way to PC visit. When I got to the nursing station to have BP and weight checked it registered 153/93, which is slightly high due to my "white coat syndrome".
The doctor was very pleased that they got a clinic BP this low, for on all previous visits it had registered in the 186/104 range.
I told her about my previous night's episode and the epipheny
I had concerning who's in control of my BP and what affects it the most. It appears that I have apparently been obsessing over my whole health situation since the prostate surgery. I have decided to stop the obsessive behavior of checking BP 5-6 times a day and keeping a log of every little thing I do, when I piss, how much I piss, how many pad changes I have and other things I've gotten myself into.
I'll take the prescribed meds, eat the right foods(Judy makes sure of that) and to hell with what I can't change, namely worrying about the future.
I got up this morning , took my meds, ate breakfast, dressed to go for a walk(raining when I looked out the door), so I went into the den and did 45 minutes on my bike.
Cooled down from ride and checked BP...low and behold..115/72.......
guess it was all in my mind,eh?

andi said...

YAY DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!


(did you hear that in Roxboro???)



YAY DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!


you ROCK!!!!!


thank you so much for sharing here. it is terribly cool to start a day off with such a lovely post from you.

love you, dad. i'll talk to you soon.