I’ve had food issues my whole life. Add in the fact that I’m a super picky eater, and eating is a challenge.
In the last few months I’ve been finding that more and more foods seem to make me sick. It’s not great when the list of foods that don’t make you sick is basically chicken, bone broth, yogurt, and crackers.
I’ve been tested for allergies before and everything has come back normal. I came to the assumption that it must be my anxiety causing food issues.
It has been suggested that maybe tomatoes are part of the problem. Initially, I shrugged this off, because I hate tomatoes. But then I realized that while I hate raw tomato, quite a lot of the things I eat have tomatoes in them.
So, now I’m trying to revamp my diet to avoid tomato. It does seem to be helping a bit. It’s a bit of a challenge, and I have messed up a few times. This past Sunday I decided to make Tika Masala with this kit that came with the sauce already made. It was as I was playing the food that I remembered what one of the ingredients in the sauce is.
That’s right.
Fortunately, I survived without getting too sick. But I do dream of a day when I can eat pizza again without spending the following night in agony.
If you were here in January 2020, you might remember me writing about an absolute nightmare experience at the pharmacy. Strap in, kids, it’s time for another round of “Malia has fun at the pharmacy.” Different pharmacy, same level of “fun.”
Earlier this spring, I went to the endocrinologist, and she decided she wanted me to start taking Farxiga along with my regular diabetes med. So, the script got sent to the pharmacy, and I waited. The first few days, the app showed me that filling the med was “In Process.”
Okay, sure. New med, needs time to get all the insurance cleared, etc…
Then the status changed to, “Contact the pharmacy to fill the prescription.”
I had a few other meds that had been filled, so when I went to pick them up, I asked about the Farxiga. I was informed that my insurance had declined to cover it, and was recommending a med called Jardiance. They offered to contact my doctor about this, and I gave them the go ahead.
A week passed and nothing changed. No new script was listed for the Jardiance, and I had heard nothing from my endo. So, I sent a message to the endo to find out what they wanted to do.
I received back a message from the nurse telling me to go to Farxiga’s website, and there should be coupons there. Now, the pharmacy had already told me that I was looking at well over a thousand dollars if I paid out of pocket. I received the message right as the fun with Tom’s kidney began, and so dealing with it fell by the wayside. Besides, I reasoned, I had another endo appointment coming up soon, I’d deal with it then.
Fast forward past the surgery, to the next endo appointment. The endo told me they had sent a script for the Jardiance to the pharmacy when they had been informed it was the recommended switch from the Farxiga. Since the script had never shown up in the pharmacy app, the endo resent it.
After the appointment, I checked the pharmacy app and saw that a script for Jardiance was there, listed as, “In Process.” I breathed a sigh of relief.
Which was a dumb thing to do.
The next day, I checked the app and found that “In Process” had changed to “Contact the pharmacy to fill.”
So, I called the pharmacy and asked what was going on. They informed me that Jardiance isn’t covered by my insurance.
So, I sent a message to the endo. Two hours later the doctor called me and told me that the person in their office who talks to the insurance people (there was a title for this person, but I’m blanking on it), had called and gotten the med approved for coverage. The doctor told me they’d contacted the pharmacy and the med should be filled by end of day.
Again, I breathed a sigh of relief way too soon.
At this point it was a Thursday. I watched the app and the fill status remained unchanged. And it stayed unchanged through the weekend.
The following Tuesday, I received a letter from my insurance showing that they were going to cover the med. I stupidly assumed this was going to mean my med was going to get filled.
I gave it two days, and then when nothing had changed, I went in to the pharmacy, clutching the letter from the insurance.
The pharmacy tech pulled up my info and after looking it over said, “Yup, I show we got approval for this last week.” Which he followed up with, “So did you want us to fill this?”
Yes, I contained my rage. Yes, I remained nice and polite. Yes, they finally filled it and I was able to pick it up and start taking it this last Tuesday. (Delay in pick-up was on me trying to conserve gas. I waited until my other diabetes med had been refilled to go pickup.)
After all that, turns out my body really doesn’t like the Jardiance. I gave it until today, and it’s just kept making me sicker. I was so baffled, because nothing I was experiencing was listed on the bottle as a side effect, so I had to go to Jardiance’s website, and I found that I’m having most of the uncommon side effects.
So, now I’m waiting to hear back from the endo since I’m fairly certain I probably should not be continuing to take this med.
Never ask a female if she’s acting a certain way because she’s hormonal. It’s just not a nice thing to do.
That said, I think I’m hormonal.
Why do I think this?
Right now, all I want to do is watch Jurassic Park and play Minecraft. That, in and of itself, isn’t a hormonal thing. I love Minecraft and I love disaster movies.
And I really love dinosaurs. Especially when they eat slimy lawyers.
The reason I think I’m hormonal is I just spent 25 minutes trying to get my phone to cast the movie from the Peacock app (it’s currently free to watch on the app) to the Chromecast, and it it’s refusing to work beyond streaming the first 25 seconds of the movie And then I started crying because I’m pretty sure I sold my DVD’s a few years back when we were really broke. So, now I can’t get the movie to work, and we’re super broke due to Tom having a really small paycheck from surgery week. How broke are we? Well, we need to make $10.86 last us until he receives a normal paycheck again a week from tomorrow…and I can’t refill my mental meds until then. It’s gonna be a bit of a long week.
I’m not saying any this to receive pity. We’re gonna be fine, things are just a bit tight right now. And it’s never super fun for anyone when things are tight. At least we don’t have to worry about taking care of kids. Also, if you’re in the same boat, please know you’re not alone. I really do understand how much it sucks.
So, I’m going to keep digging in my video game mine, and in a bit I’ll see if the Chromecast is going to decide to be nice and let me watch the dinosaurs hang out with Jeff Goldblum.
And I now realize that I probably am hormonal, but the fact I’m out of all my mental meds probably is contributing to me crying over something so dumb as a movie not wanting to stream correctly.
I realize that I am technically an adult and the only small children in my life are my nephews and niece. There are no children that live with me, unless you count my pets.
Confession: I LOVE Bluey!
Yes, I, at 36 and a half, am deeply in love with a show meant for preschoolers.
It’s just so adorable. A family of Australian dogs living life and learning lessons…how can you watch it and not fall in love?
I make no apologies for this, and it’s a bonus that my nephews and niece all love the show too.
That’s about it for me today. Have a fabulous Wednesday!
I’m starting this post with a Trigger Warning for suicidal ideation. I’ve been debating writing about this for the last few days, and decided to go ahead with it. As always when I write an out this stuff, I like to include the following reminder: Call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (Lifeline) at 1-800-273-TALK (8255), or text the Crisis Text Line (text HELLO to 741741).
Well, it’s been a full week since the official diagnosis of the Big C.
I wish the C stood for “Cookie” in this case.
It’s been a week of processing. I’ll admit, I’ve been very surprised by how much grief I’ve been experiencing. I know I mentioned the grief last week, but I’m still surprised by it. The worst part of processing grief? It’s not linear.
Everyday seems to come with a different feeling. I’ll have a day of sadness, followed by a day of anger and bargaining, followed by sadness, followed by acceptance, followed by sadness. Been feeling sad quite a lot of the time. However, I noticed something on Saturday.
Through all of this, I have not experienced a desire to unalive myself. Usually, when I’m going through high stress, my brain begins this attack of constantly telling me that it would be better if I wasn’t here. That the pain and stress would go away. I spent most of May 2020 through January 2021 dealing with my brain constantly harassing me to just be done with life. It was exhausting, and part of what ultimately led to me deciding not to return to my job.
I’m not saying that I’m cured. I don’t think I am. But I do take it as a positive sign that I am making progress with my mental health.
There is so much I should be doing right now. There are several laundry baskets full of clean clothes waiting to be put away. The sink is full of dishes that need to be dealt with. I have piles of pretty paper I need to slice up to become inserts for cards. I have a blanket that I’m crocheting.
Instead of doing any of that, I’m sitting here contemplating why the majority of humans decided to live in houses, rather than in caves.
I would love to live in either a cave or an abandoned missile silo that’s been refurbished. Maybe I’ve just lived through way too many tornados. Houses just seems so fragile.
Anyway, not much else to report on this end. Hopefully everyone is having a pleasant, disease-free weekend!
I hadn’t been in a few months, and I realized on Monday, after getting Tom’s official cancer diagnosis from the doctor, that I really needed a session.
I’m just so overwhelmed by my feelings at present. Since I have a really bad habit of refusing to acknowledge what I’m feeling and just squashing them down deep inside, I’m trying to break that.
Here’s the thing about therapy. I appreciate it. It’s been amazingly helpful. It is not fun. I don’t walk out and immediately feel better. But there’s something about sitting in a judgement free zone, talking about what I’m thinking that really makes a difference.
I’m learning that it’s okay to feel all the feelings. It’s okay to be sad or angry or frustrated or any other emotion that sweeps over me. It’s okay to acknowledge those feelings and give name to them. The important thing is what I do with those feelings.
I think it’s important to point out that just because I’m facing some dark feelings, that doesn’t mean I’ve lost hope or my faith. I’m still reeling from feeling blindsided by all this, plus I’m grieving right now. I’m still dealing with some grief over my old job. I’m grieving my lost babies. I’m grieving putting dreams on hold. And I’m grieving Tom’s kidney. I’m sure that sounds absurd, but that’s just how things are right now.
So, what about Tom? He’s always been incredibly supportive of me getting mental health help. He knows that I’m equally supportive of him seeking help. But doing so is a very personal choice. So, I check in on him regularly, and the door is open if he decides he does want to talk to a professional.
I’m spending today binge watching Buzzfeed Unsolved. I just finished the available true crime episodes, and now I’m jumping into the paranormal episodes. I feel slightly bad for Tom, because the only reason I’m doing it today is because he’s home, and sitting within arm’s reach
See, I have a super overactive imagination, and I’ve found watching these sorts of things alone tends to be a super bad idea. So, watching creepy stuff with the level headed, super skeptic helps me not get completely freaked out.
Not sure why, but I’ve always been fascinated by this kind of stuff. I don’t like horror movies, but I’m genuinely fascinated by ghost stories, cryptids, and the unexplainable.
It’s probably good that Tom is such a skeptic, it brings balance.
I have an appointment with the endocrinologist today, and I am dreading it.
They asked that I turn in my blood sugar numbers from the last two weeks. Since I currently wear a Continuous Glucose Monitor (CGM) that means what they have is every single blood sugar number my cgm has reported every five minutes for the last 14 days, and it ain’t pretty.
To be fair, I’ve spent the last two weeks in high stress mode. First, I was waiting for Tom’s surgery, and then there was the surgery, followed by days of waiting for results and caring for him. Then there’s the whole official cancer diagnosis. To top it off, I’m trying to compose an appeal letter to the insurance company because they determined that the necessary CT scan Tom had to have of his kidney is only necessary but not medically necessary (I’m still trying to wrap my head around that). And while I know things could be so much worse, and I am grateful that things have gone relatively well, it’s all been very high stress.
If you don’t have to deal with blood sugar monitoring, then you may not be aware of how stress messes with blood sugar. Even if I exercise and eat correctly, my numbers are all over the place. For example, on Saturday my numbers yo-yo’d all day. I went from 108 to 165 to 124 to 230 to 140 and so on. It was exhausting and frustrating.
I’m hoping they just give me a pass at the appointment since I’m currently going through this life experience. I’m genuinely trying to make positive changes in my health, but I’m also trying to keep myself from falling into a depression spiral. I’m just doing the best I can.
P.S. I’m running a giveaway on my Facebook page for some of my greeting cards. Check it out: In A Pinch Grab Bag Giveaway
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