Gossip

I just remembered a story that I must have heard on a TV show. It was powerful but didn’t get into my quote book. I have been too stressed to see aha’s when they come at me. I want to share it here and am sorry that I can’t tell you where I saw it.

A woman felt guilty about some gossip that she had passed on and went to ask her priest to confess and ask for forgiveness. He told her to go home and take a pillow from her bed and go to the roof of the building with scissors or a knife. She was to rip holes in the pillow and come back to him. She did what he asked and went back to see him. He asked her “what did you see?” She said “feathers flying everywhere.” He said “go back and find all those feathers.” She protested that it would be impossible.

He replied. “That is what happens to gossip.”

Help—things are out of hand!

It is easy to go insane with anything due to a medical issue today. My Dr ordered a med for me over a week ago. I am blessed to have have the benefit of being covered under a long-term military insurance and so have to use express scripts. For routine medications this is not a problems but when it is a new rx or something expensive then weird things happen. My med was ordered last week. The ES countered with a request for the doctor to approve mailing it. My DR called this in. Then they wanted something more which wasn’t listed. She called again and sent a partial fill to a local pharmacy. The pharmacy, while getting approval, was told that it couldn’t be filled until March 25th. I spoke with the pharmacy and they were going to call again for approval. I called Express Scripts and they told me the drug was shipped out today.

With my experiences in nursing I am at least able to attack the issues with some knowledge and find solutions. It is impossible for the general public to manage such complex systems.

It has also reached the point where if a person is in the hospital they need to have an advocate with them or things go wrong.

What are we going to do about this mess?

keep going

Here I am again having not written for a while. I don’t know what is wrong with me. These posts are my connection to others and I have to do better.

Recently I had a really bad episode of IBSD and it threw me into the most difficult panic I have had in a longtime. If I could just get past my unreasonable fear that stems from years ago I would get whatever I could do done and find something that will help this. Things that happened in the past really can come back to haunt us. I suffered for three months without edimy (then) doctor doing anything and when I finally got to the right person I was in the hospital for three weeks. This experience left me with unreasonable fear of repetition and brings on panic.

Years later I started this blog and it has helped me through a lot. I do so much better when I can express myself and push the problem away.

On the whole I am better but once in a while it comes to haunt me. Those times are less frequent and I know that the meditation, journaling, writing here and keeping busy have made a tremendous difference.

Not finding the right church has not helped but I will keep on trying.

I guess my thought for today is never give up. Just keep going.

Does anyone else remember?

Lately I have been thinking about things that happened in my lifetime that those younger would not know. Most of them a trivial but interesting. Some not trivial.

Before 1955 income tax was due on the Ides of March (the 15th).

“Under God” was not in the pledge of allegiance until 1954 when President Eisenhower signed it into law.

I remember watching some of the McCarthy hearings since we lived outside of Washington, D.C. They were not broadcast nationally in total. Even as a teenager I couldn’t believe the stupidity involved.

I remember the Hungarian uprising since we had a Hungarian student in our school who was a refugee.

Everyone was upset when the Russians launched Sputnik and beat us to space.

We had a telephone that was a party line. That meant that there were other people using it too. Each household had a separate ring. Our number was 237j. How long ago was that?? I have no idea.

Reflections on weird

Let me preface this post by saying that Austin Texas has a motto “keep Austin weird.” This probably came about since Austin is a liberal place. My son-in-law calls it “An island of liberals in a sea of conservatives.”

I have spent the last few weeks changing my apartment around and I can’t believe how much better it is. It is not only looking better but is it is so much more efficient. Now everything has its place and I can keep it neat. How is it that we find myself hunting misplaced objects more in this small space that when I lived in a much bigger house? How weird is that?

The days are getting longer and I find it easier to get up in the morning. I am so dependent on light. I will hate it when the time changes this month and we go to daylight savings. It makes no sense to continue to do this.

I have heard several reasons about how this came to be one of them says it was for farmers. This makes no sense since farmers get up regardless of daylight.

Oh well, another of those interesting decisions that government did. Living here in Texas I am finding a lot of those things. I have learned that Texans really love their state, know it can be wrong, but are passionate about it no matter what and that is one way to “keep Austin weird.”

Life is good?….yes

When you are getting older (actually we all are) the smallest things can throw your day off. It may be only me but I prefer consistency. I have learned that I do better following my plans. Lately several days have gone awry. Due to my problems with anxiety it can really set my IBSD off which sets the whole system (mine) to go downhill. I didn’t sleep one night and yesterday was a loss.

I did sleep well last night and will work on getting the rest of my issues under control. Life is always interesting.

Moments of sadness

While listening to a meditation today I realized that I will most likely never again have the love that there was between my husband and myself. The meditation asked me to focus on someone or something that incorporates love for me. I was sent into sadness as the home I loved dearly and the husband who was the love of my life are gone and I still feel that loss. I imagine that I always will.

Most of the time I don’t dwell on this but once in a while it crops up. Getting older has its challenges. I remind myself that it also is a blessing that I am still here and basically well.

My moment of sadness will pass and the day will move on. It is just part of life.

“Song of the Cell”

I have been reading the most amazing book called “The Song of the Cell.” It is non-fiction but extremely well written and the information gives me hope for my great grand children. I can see a future where most illnesses can be solved by understanding what is going on in the cell.

I have often wondered when or if we would ever be able to solve the mystery of cancer and other diseases that devastate the patient, family, and are so costly. There is hope.

Sometimes the changes that come in medicine seem so slow but this book helps the reader to understand the complexity of the research being done and why it is taking so much time.

A great read!

Who can fix it?

Does anything go well in medicine anymore? I have a friend whose granddaughter has been through a two or more month nightmare getting the right things done in hospitals. Yesterday I discovered that the people who supply my medicines had not sent me two medicines that I need regularly. I did finally get one but the other one is still a mess. Periodically the contracts for who does this work get moved to someone different (probably the lowest bidder) and they have not figured it out. The worst thing is that what shows up on my phone is not the correct provider so you don’t recognize them when they call or text.

I really wish I knew who to talk to about the phone thing because that causes major problems. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to know exactly the right person to call to get things corrected? That would be nirvana.

It has reached the point where we all need a patient advocate who knows what to do and they need to be with us all the time.

My friends the books

I have been cleaning out my bookshelf. We have a library here and I will donate some books. It is always hard to give books away. They have been my friends and companions my whole life. A few of them are that old. Many of them I have read multiple times and will read again. I have too many books on my Kindle and for some reason don’t enjoy reading there as with a book in my hand. It just feels right.

I will post about new books I loved another day. Peace and Love.