1 July 2023 Keeping Life Fresh

Hello to you. It’s 89 degrees here as I write to you. I was going to sit outside and write but it’s too hot!

My thoughts today turn to thinking about keeping life fresh. Lately my life has been feeling like Ground Hog Day. Very little deviation from routine. Sometimes I will be ready to do my daily sit ups and wonder if I already did them! Inside of me I am wanting more but my body is resisting. What keeps happening is I get this fullness in my ears and I will feel anxious and hypersensitive to my body. The Mal de Barque stuff. My lower back has not been my friend either. I try to walk and I feel like a weeble wobble huffing and puffing almost the whole walk in pain. The only thing that seems to help the hypersensitivity is taking the olanzapine right now. I will be starting to do the taper off of it starting tomorrow. My doctor wants to taper me off of it because it’s notorious, along with the Depakote, for causing weight gain. We are going to try Abilify (aripiprazole) instead of Olanzapine – I hope it works as well for anxiety, weight gain and hypersensitivity.

I try to stay in the understanding that I am blessed to have the life I have even with it’s short comings! As I keep saying it’s not what I can’t do but what I can. Hopefully with the medicine change I will feel stronger and like I can do more to keep my life fresh.

Psalm 147:3-5New International Version

3 He heals the brokenhearted
and binds up their wounds.
4 He determines the number of the stars
and calls them each by name.
5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power;
his understanding has no limit.

23 June 2023 Pharmacy Cocktails

Hello to you. How are you? I just got off the phone with the pharmacy through the VA. We decided to take me off the Metaformin as I’ve been having diarrhea taking it. She wants me to try Abilify and taper off of Olanzapine as the side effects of Olanzapine (Zyprexa) are weight gain and fatigue. Apparently Abilify is better about that. She is thinking may be of taking me off of Depakote eventually too – which would be nice. I’m so tired of this pharmaceutical cocktail business! In the end it will hopefully be worth it!

James 5:14-16 NIV

14 Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. 15 And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven.

11 January 2022 Finding Ways To Soothe Yourself

I’m live on Twitch – Watch me at https://twitch.tv/jwygant

Hello. How are you ? I’m doing better this morning – yesterday was really rough. I kept having panic attacks. I did a lot to try and soothe myself. I prayed, I went for several walks, blogged with a drawing, vlogged on Twitch a couple of times, even found a streamer that was streaming playing World of Warcraft. When evening rolled around I was starting to feel better. Talking to my cousin and a friend helped too.

I have an appointment with my therapist tomorrow and my medicine doctor on Thursday in person. The Zyprexa that is for anti-anxiety isn’t working for me. It has the opposite effect! This morning after I took lithium it seemed to help avert another day like yesterday. We will get this figured out!

Like I was talking about in my Twitch post yesterday, sometimes the things I used to have in my sanity toolkit aren’t there anymore or don’t work like they used to. Life changes. People change. So I sometimes have to use everything! This morning I found a deal on sketchbooks so I ordered them – drawing is definitely a tool in my toolkit!

Layers and messages

Right now something that is soothing me is writing and listening to a musical artist I’ve mentioned before named Astravert – he’s streaming right now. He’s getting quite a following. I don’t know of anybody that does what he does – an improv mystic rock: Check out Tuesday Bluesday | !spotify !youtube !bandcamp !twitter !merch https://www.twitch.tv/astravert

Something else that just soothed me was talking to my Aunt. She’s going to be having knee surgery on the 13th (I thought it was the 11th) and we both needed to have each other’s comfort and peace …to be instruments of Gods love for each other. Hearing her voice made my day brighter. I told her hearing her voice makes me feel at home.

I’m sorry if my post isn’t very cohesive today. Sharing all this with you in this way is helping me stay calm and centered. May be someone reading this will resonate with all this. Do you suffer from anxiety and panic attacks? What works best for restoring you to you? I’d love to hear from you.