Category Archives: cardiomyopathy

So many reasons to worry…

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This week is about worrying. When dealing with a serious condition there are so many opportunities to worry, if you’re that type, and I am. “I am staying active, but was I too active and now wore my heart down even more? Was I too lenient with the amount of salt I allowed in the food? My sleep is crappy, which leads to wear on my body which is wear on the heart, right?” You get it. It can just spiral into insanity. Which also wears on my heart!!!

Anyway, we all have to be cautious about different things in life, ill or not, and I guess the challenge is to find the right balance…

(fade up nature shot with some idiotic acoustic guitar plunking…) (no offense to the performer)

 

Making up food

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Hello again.

It’s Friday today instead of Thursday. What happened? I blame traveling, time zones, packing and un-packing.

I have been traveling again and it all went well without any snafu’s, not counting the on-set of jet-lags. The lag going East is definitely giving me a hard time as  I am reaching old age (or is it just having kids as traveling companions???). All I know is that we were up playing soccer at 5 am just to pass the time.

Also got to ride a bunch of trains, which I LOVE! It’s by far my favorite mode of transportation.

This week keeps on harping about the no salt diet. It will probably occupy a few more weeks since it was a central part of my life at the time. Translating dishes I wanted that were too salty to no-salt was a challenge but actually fun and interesting, and most of the time I was really happy with the outcome. Thai food was one thing I craved back then and I tried to crack the coconut soup (Thom Ka?) and the curries. The best result I probably got was a barbecue sauce from a guy in Kentucky. It is simply fun to make more of your foods.

Anyway, hope you’re into this week’s installment and that you’re all doing reasonably well.

Dad dreams & realities

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Sometimes I have high-flying ideas of who I am and how I will deal with certain situations, should they show up. Then life happens and I learn something about myself that is not so high-flying. It’s good to see how human and “imperfect” I am. It also makes me more understanding of other people and maybe I’ll be able to hold back one of those knee jerk Pollyanna pieces of advice next time I hear someone suffering from something.

The will to seem “normal” has turned out to be stronger with me than I thought it would be and it’s not something I am proud of. If anything it’s a good reality check against my previous relatively problem free life. Having special needs feels uncomfortable sometimes, and jeebus knows my special needs are very mild, but I don’t want to come across as weak. It’s easy to tell other people to just be straight forward an honest about whatever needs and conditions they have and things will be fine, but as always they tune is different when it’s about myself.

I hope you all have a good week and thanks for stopping by!

Hugs.

 

Hospitals, Lake Merritt and more…

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This week deals with the large number of hours I’ve spent in the Emergency Room. There are two things in my life that I did not expect to do so much of: spending time in airports and spending time in hospitals. One, due to my choice of where to live and the other came crashing into me straight out of left field. Btw, I am a lefty and I feel like “left” in general gets a bad rap. “Out of left field” is often used when talking about a sudden, often negative, surprise. I guess the use as description of a surprise element is cool. Worst is the snowboarding community: The way you stand on the board when you’re left footed is called “Goofy”! If that’s not a slur I don’t know what is. Anyway, so, way more time spent in hospitals than I could ever imagine. My mom used to be a nurse and she seemed to have a great time at work. As a result I always felt like the health care route was a possible career I could imagine if my tap dancing career didn’t work out. However, after being so much in the hospital, being poked by needles and god knows what, I felt like I never wanted to set foot in one ever again. That feeling has now dissipated and I, again, feel like health care would be a great field to work in. I mean, who doesn’t need a cartoon artists…

Hospitals, Lake Merritt

Photo by Vagabond Urges.

On a different note, riding our bikes around Lake Merritt in Oakland at dusk last night, seeing the diverse crowd that lives in this city being out for a walk, run, pic-nic’ing or having dinner was so great. In the midst of the struggle and hardship that is erupting in this nation now (#Black Lives Matter), it felt like a celebration of the diversity in this place.

Hope you all have a great week!