Month: May 2019

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“Cost” And “Worth” Are Two Different Things

Yesterday I went to an appointment to check in with one of my crazy head docs. I see Dr. Day sporadically, for meds maintenance and talk therapy. I see her probably a half-dozen times per year. My last appointment with her was a couple of months ago, before I began the TMS. In fact, she is the one who told me– months ago– about a number of brain therapies for bipolar drepression which I might want to check into, one of which was TMS. She hasn’t been involved in any aspect of the TMS itself.

Anyhoo… The last time I visited with Dr. Day, I was flat and affectless as could be. Of course, that’s the reason she brought up TMS in the first place. But yesterday, before I could sit my butt down on the couch in her office, she said, “You have some life in you today! You’re looking alive!” I said, “I only have two TMS sessions left.” And then she said, “Oh my gosh! I forgot you went forward with the TMS. Do you feel like it’s helping?” It must be working if she noticed a difference in me. That was exactly what I needed to hear.

The truth is I haven’t been sure TMS is working. I don’t know how I’m supposed to be feeling while I’m going through the treatments. I do know that whatever’s going on (or isn’t going on) is happening gradually. It’s like that pesky ten pounds that somehow makes its way to your gut: It creeps on. You don’t see every tiny blob of fat as it decides to make its home on you, but one day you go to button your shorts and you finally notice ten pounds somehow showed up under your very eyes.

My potential brain change, however, would be a welcome change. But mostly, I think I’m too close to my situation to really notice TMS effects. I’m with me 24/7. I’m looking so closely at every little thing I do, every thought I have, and every hint of emotion that I don’t know if I’ve improved or not. Is my depression really improving? Am I starting to feel authentic things deeply? Or is it just my wishful thinking that I see some progress?

But Dr. Day’s reaction to my simply walking into her office yesterday eased my worries of TMS failure immensely. Her reaction makes it pretty clear to me that I’m probably doing noticeably better than I was before the TMS.

When Suzanne and I first discussed the possibility of me trying TMS to combat my evil bipolar depression, one of the minuses of going ahead with treatment was the high cost. Insurance covers only a wee bit of it, and that’s after the Treatment Resistant Mood Disorder Clinic @ UNI did much begging with the insurance company on my behalf. I think I’ve been trying to see more bang for my buck, so to speak. If I’m payin’ bigly bucks, I expect to see bigly positive change. But I’ve decided it’s kinda selfish and demanding of me to think that way. The desired outcome would be one enormous emotional change, but I’m thinking the non-flashy, simpler, thousands of tiny changes might add up to a longer-lasting, more thorough mental change.

If you think about it, you’ll see that’s how most change happens. Need a cinderblock fence around your yard? That’ll happen one cinderblock at a time. Teaching your kid how to walk? That’ll be one step at a time. Teaching someone to drive a car? That’ll be one driving skill upon another. Need a doctor to hack out 2/3 of your stoopid pancreas? The hours-long surgery officially begins with one cut. And then the next thing happens, and then the next, next thing happens. And so on.

It’ll probably take some time for me to truly analyze how effective the TMS has been. Patience is better than fretting about it. Since Suzanne is the person I’m around most, she’s the one whose opinion on the treatment’s success or failure is most crucial. She’s not ready to offer up her vote yet.

When we talked about cost and time commitment for the required 36 TMS treatments, I asked Suzanne, “If, after the boatloads of money and eons of time spent, TMS ends up helping my loony head improve only 1 percent, will it be worth it to you that it cost us our emergency fund?”

Suzanne is famous for being silent while she completely thinks through every word of her answers to even the simplest questions before she speaks. (Sometimes it’s annoying.) But she wasn’t silent at all after I asked her that question. Her head cogs didn’t turn. They didn’t even creak. She just immediately said, “Yes. It’ll be worth it.”

See why I agreed to give it a try?

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Another Of My Weird Theories

Hmmm. I blame JFK. “Delta red” Bow Tie o’ the Day and I have been chatting, and I may have figured out why I’m bipolar. I’ve always tried to get to the bottom of this mystery, and I’ve come up with theory after theory– none of which I can prove. The other culprits I have theorized are responsible for my crazy head range from universal fate, to luck, to the birth of a stone baby that was supposed to be me. (Long story.)

But I think I have hit on a probable suspect. And I guess it’s not so much JFK as it is Lee Harvey Oswald who caused my brain chemicals to be wacky. I was still growing my brain in Mom’s womb when JFK was assassinated. That’s where I was when Kennedy was shot.

How did this make me bipolar? The whole event was a cultural shock. It rattled the country in a way that not many events do. My theory of what made me bipolar is that while I was stretching and kicking in Mom, she was so overcome emotionally by the tragedy that it jolted my embryonic brain chemistry into a massive upheaval that was part of me from the moment I emerged into the world. Thus, I was born with the switch that so quickly takes me from deeply manic to deeply depressed.

Of course I’m being facetious about this. Although it’s fun to speculate about it, I seriously doubt my theory is correct. But still…. It makes as much sense as anything else I can theorize. On the other hand, sometimes things just are what they are– for no real reason at all. Honestly, in the end, the cause of my bipolarity doesn’t matter. Finding strategies to deal with it is what matters. I will, however, keep sleuthing for answers as to my bipolarity’s origin– the sillier, the better.

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Hairs Thursday #14: Almost Crossing The Hairy Finish Line

Bow Tie o’ the Day and I spent our afternoon practicing the art of walking while balancing a stack of 16 ball caps on my head. We decided such a sight might helpfully distract people from looking at my sorry hairs. Sadly, I don’t own enough hats to sufficiently cover each of the out-of-order hairs on my noggin. Nobody owns enough hats to handle such a massive task.

On June 1st, my hairs horror assault on the eyes will end, as soon as Miss Tiffany and her scissors are available. But I intend to always retain the skill of masterfully balancing 16 ball caps on my head while I proudly skip with Skitter around our neighborhood. No hairscuttin’ of any type can take my newly-acquired balance talent away from me. Just sayin’.

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TMS Is The Happiest Place On Earth. Not. But Sorta.

Be ye not afraid. Askew wood Bow Tie o’ the Day is here to assure you that Hairs Thursday #14 will post this afternoon.

In these photos, you see me and Bow Tie and my TMS technician, Tenzin. Tenzin has made the treatments almost a pleasure to go through. She gets my humor and my fashion. And she is a hoot, herself. I will actually miss her.

One day at treatment, I noticed that if you turn my electromagnetic TMS coil on its side, it resembles Mickey Mouse ears– even more so when placed atop my TMS beanie. Tenzin humored me when I asked if she’d take the apparatus apart, so I could get a TIE O’ THE DAY selfie with the “ears.” She was ecstatic to do so. I handed her a prop bow tie I always carry with me in The Saddle Purse, in case I need it. She loved the whole set-up and was proud I thought enough of her to let her pose with her own borrowed Bow Tie o’ the Day.

Y’all know how I find significance and humor in coincidences. Of course, it’s happened again. I should have known the TMS equipment would have a component which resembles Mickey Mouse ears. My TMS doctor’s name? Dr. Mickey. How did I not notice this connection earlier? Coincidence? I think not.

34 TMS treatments down, 2 to go. Both are next week.

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Another BONUS: Hairs Wednesday, Still

Same day, same shirt, different Tie o’ the Day. This morning’s post got me in the hairs mood, so I’ve been tinkering around with my mop, on-and-off, throughout the day. I don’t usually give much thought to my head hairs, but I suppose the thought of chopping off my current crop has made me a bit nostalgic. I might even miss the hellish hairs when they’re gone. Thus, me and my head hairs had a playdate today, in honor of my hairs’ service. I can appreciate how hard they have worked to amuse us all for an entire year. I am a grateful gal. I can find a blessing to be thankful for just about anywhere I am.

Gratitude is a skill. It doesn’t always come from out of nowhere as some huge, soul-stirring feeling. We have to practice our gratitude. We have to actually cultivate a grateful attitude. Maybe you don’t have to work on it, but I do sometimes. When I’m in a “poor-me” mood, I look around and can’t find one darn thing worthy of my gratitude. (Seriously, we all do it on occasion.) That means I’m out of practice. It means I haven’t been flexing my gratitude enough. My thankfulness has lost its muscle tone.

Fortunately, I catch myself pretty early in the process. And when I do catch myself, I give my gratitude a good work-out by looking around wherever I am and finding something to be grateful for–in the stupidest, most insignificant object I can see. Right now, for example, I’m looking around and I can see a small pile of dirty laundry on the floor. It’s mostly dog blankets, and they are stinky. And one blanket has dog spit-up and dog urp on it. What’s to be thankful for about a pile of yucky dog blankets?

First, the dog blankets are here because we have Skitter, and I’m grateful as heck for her. Second, Suzanne made the blankets, and I am certainly thankful for that. Third, I appreciate that Skitter’s spit-up and urp were caught by one of her blankets instead of by the leather couch. Fourth, I’m grateful we have a washer and dryer to deal with Skitter’s mess. I could continue, but I won’t. You get the idea.

Practicing the gratitude attitude means we have to learn how to see what’s been given to us, but isn’t always visible. For example, throughout my TMS treatments, many of y’all have expressed concern and support. There have even been some prayers sent my way. Similar things happened with my surgery last summer. None of this caring has been lost on me. I have heard it, read it, felt it. It is mostly invisible, but it exists. And I am grateful for it all.

Practicing gratitude also means we have to learn to re-see things that are so visible we tend to not notice them anymore– like the people in our families. They are so present we start treating them like they’re part of the furniture. We just expect them to be there– in their usual places, doing their usual things. And they are the ones we should most appreciate.

So do that. Go be grateful to someone right now. I, on the other hand, am going upstairs to do Skitter’s laundry– knowing she won’t even say THANKS.

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BONUS: Hairs Wednesday

Tie o’ the Day and I are so dang exuberant at the thought of the impending end of The Dreaded 12- month Hair Saga. June 1st will find us knocking at Miss Tiffany’s GREAT CLIPS door before the door is even unlocked. We are elated. Miss Tiffany, who also cuts Suzanne’s hair, has told Suzanne at more than one of her cuts that she has missed wrangling my hair this year. I know it has nothing to do with missing my hair. Miss Tiffany has simply missed my neckwear.

Who could actually miss my thin, straight hairs? No one. This photo is evidence that not only did I not cut my hair for a year, I didn’t even get it trimmed. Scraggly, shaggy, mangy, and unbecoming. Yup, that’s my hair. (Unfortunately, it’s kinda like that even after I get it cut.)

I had originally agreed to grow out my hairs for however long it took until they were long, flowing locks. But I caved a bit from what some of you voted for. Suzanne started threatening to boot me and my hairs around the fourth month of growth, and I finally lost patience with them around the six-month mark. If I didn’t need to look in the mirror occasionally to make sure my eyebrows and nose hairs are combed, I would have quit looking in the mirror at my scary head hairs sometime around Halloween. So I set the goal of 1 year of head fur growth. An actual time limit for the venture has helped me survive my head hairs horrifying aura.

Our last Hairs Thursday will be tomorrow.

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In Utah-speak, It’s Pronounced “EvINGston”

In the extra weird state of my head over the weekend, I thought a drive might assist me in my effort to get some of the air out of my skull. I said to Suzanne, “Hey, let’s go to Evanston for Sunday brunch.” I could say that to her every weekend and she’d be game for it. In Evanston, we eat only at the Gateway Grille at the Purple Sage Golf Course. Suzanne’s brother, James, is owner and chef at the restaurant, which is in the course’s clubhouse.

James is a swell chap, and he always gives me permission to steal pastries on the way out the door. This time, in fact, James’ son, MacGregor (who works for his dad there), came out of the kitchen with a “doggie box” full of pastries for me to take back home. I didn’t have to steal ’em! And you know what? The pastries I was so freely given were almost as yummy as when I steal them. (Forbidden fruit, forbidden pastries– you know what I’m saying.)

Buckin’ bronco Tie o’ the Day was a fitting choice to wear for a day-trip to Wyoming. And of course, when you’re in Evanston (even on the Sabbath), one really must make a stop at a liquor store to buy a few lottery tickets.

It’s not a problem for me (drunk that I used to be) to saunter into a liquor store. It doesn’t tempt me. To me, liquor stores are just more sights to see. I would not want to miss the treasures that haunt any and every liquor store, anywhere. For example, my life would be less full if I had not seen this amazing bottle of SILVER SPUR JALAPENO BACON FLAVORED VODKA. I’m sure your life is also fuller now that you’ve merely seen the photo of it. I bet you’ll tell at least one person about its hideous flavor, and you’ll both have a chuckle. Everybody’ll be better off, just cuz I walked into a liquor store. This post will have done its job for the day.

The ABSENTE absinthe box decked out with Van Gogh’s likeness is a dandy gem too. Yup, it made my life fuller just to gaze upon it, just like seeing the vodka flavor. I liked the fancy box so much I’ll probably visit it next time I steal pastries from my brother-in law’s dining establishment.

BTW The Saddle Purse was with me all the way to and from Evanston. How could I not take a saddle of any ilk to Wyoming?

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The Return O’ The Posts

TIE O’ THE DAY is on its knees, begging your forgiveness. We shirked our entertainment duties, and we know how y’all get when you don’t get your daily dosage of neckwear and too much information about me. Bad tblog!

So today I found my redneck Hat o’ the Day and paired it with a lovely argyle Bow Tie o’ the Day. We figured the look would help us get back into our readers’ good graces.

Here’s our true excuse for our absence: I went to my TMS appointment early Friday morning. Now remember, last week was my first week of tapering the TMS from 5 to 2 sessions per week. After I got home, I wrote the day’s first post. Immediately after I posted, my crazy head went weird on me. Now, I know you’re saying to yourself, “This dame is bipolar, so she always has a weird head. What’s the big deal?” Well, this was a brand new territory of weird head. My head had never before been in this particular zone of crazy. For three days, I was forced to explore the new universe spinning in my noggin. That’s how I spent my Memorial Day weekend– with a new kind of weird head.

I’m sure it had something to do with tapering off the TMS. I suppose that at least shows TMS has done SOMETHING to me. I wish I could tell you whether or not my weekend crazy head was positive or negative. I’m not sure. I think my noggin was more level, but I’m still too mystified about the experience to make a judgment, myself. One thing I do know is that I wasn’t in a frame of mind to write posts, and that’s an odd thing.

I tried to describe to Suzanne how my head’s soul felt, and the best I could do was the following: I felt like the “dumb blonde” in the dumb blonde jokes. Oh, I felt intelligent as ever, but I felt like if you put a tire gauge up to my eardrum, you could test the air pressure in my skull. And it would be high. See why I can’t tell if the feeling was positive or negative?

After TMS this morning, I felt a little more like my abnormal normal self. Not to worry, folks.

33 TMS treatments down, 3 to go.

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Try, Try, Try

Paw prints are almost as fashionably interesting as paisley or polka dots. Stick ’em on a jumbo Bow Tie o’ the Day and the dapper-ness is undeniable.

This morning, Bow Tie was yet another hit at the TMS clinic. I guess my neckwear has been the talk of the clinic. My treatment is at 7AM, and at 6:55 some of the nurses, technicians, and office assistants make a beeline to the waiting room to see what neckwear I’ve got going on. One technician told me I am not allowed to ever be finished with my TMS treatments, unless I promise to stop in daily to show off the neckwear I’m wearing that day. I’ve said it time and time again: Bow ties make people jolly up a bit. It’s my purpose in life to wear the neck happiness.

Bow Tie and I talked it over. We were so disappointed about the non-dying o’ the hairs yesterday, and we just couldn’t let it go. We got ourselves so worked up about the whole thing that we decided it was our obligation to try to color the hairs again. That’s what we did this morning after I got back from TMS. Let me just say this: The second time was not the charm.

It’s true that my sideburn hairs took a bit of the VIXEN VIOLET. But overall, our trying was for naught. I’m still glad I tried dying my hairs a second time though. Trying and failing, and then trying again– those are valuable actions. I recommend we all do more of that, with both bigly and insignificant things. Find your passions– bigly and small– and grab ’em. Hold on to your passions like they’re your children. They kind of are. You’ll succeed. You’ll fail. Again and again. But only if you keep trying.

Except for the dozen or so sorta purple hairs, I’m stuck with my stoopid hairs and their natural color. I don’t have an opinion about whether I like my natural hairs hues, but I like my patches and streaks of gray. I will honestly be pleased if/when I am all gray. I think gray hair is gorgeous. I think it’s quite becoming to most faces. I’ve earned my gray hairs anyway, and I’m not alone. Just sayin’.

BTW I don’t know why I’ve been sermon-ing lately. Has TMS turned me into a priestess whose goal is to pontificate? Well, I doubt that. I’m probably just in a bossy mood.

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Hairs Thursday #13. Part 2.

I was chatting with yet another purple Bow Tie o’ the Day this afternoon, and we decided we’d try to snap a better photo of my stubborn, unviolet hairs. To stage the photo, we tried bigly to find lighting in which the hairs could best express whatever purple hues they might have accidentally held onto. Apparently, the VIOLET VIXEN hair coloring is visible mostly on my scalp. It’s to dye for!