Saving up Dopamine

A Bitmori cartoon of me, a fair-skinned,
green-eyed, ponytailed brunette-with-grey
person wearing a blue tee with a progress-
flag heart and exhibiting heart-shaped fireworks.

Look, anyone who has been reading my blog - any of my several blogs - knows a few things about us. I'm a widowed mom of two, one of them 20 and the other 15. The 15 (Lizzy) is AuDHD (that's autistic and ADHD for people who don't sling that particular lingo), I probably am as well, and the 20 (Abby) is almost certainly dyslexic and possibly ADHD (theater is a socially acceptable way of channeling that). 

You know that I'm fat, that I hurt my knee a few months ago and I'm in physical therapy for it, and that I loathe the hypocrisy of so-called patriots. You know that Lizzy is not a great student, although she's hyperlexic and an avid learner if she can do it her own way. You know that Abby is a bit shy unless she's bursting into song and dance or telling you about anime characters.

In general, we are an anxious bunch, really.

And - as with Thanksgiving - we try not to be hypocritical assholes around other national holidays.

This isn't easy, you know. I'm not feeling super patriotic in our oligarchy-that-is-headed-toward theocracy; it's not safe to be anything but a cishet white dude. I disapprove of fireworks that are illegal, super noisy boomy ones, and/or are let off by amateurs outside of the hours approved by law (and by extension, a sheriff's office that won't enforce those hours any more than it enforced mask mandates). I kind of despise the sort of folks who think it's their God-given right to BSU just for funsies, and f*ck the pets, veterans, or others who just want to feel safe in their own homes. 

Unkindness pisses me off.

You'll have to excuse my tone; my fitness apps are unhappy with the amount of sleep (very little) that I've gotten in the past two nights. And I suspect tonight as well.

But here's the thing: I don't really want to celebrate the big ol' US of A right now because a lot of folks I love are not safe here, but I do want to celebrate summer and hanging out with friendly neighbors and healthy kiddos. And as in that Thanksgiving link above, I think it's important to celebrate the small things, even if I really hate most of the big things right now.

And I like the pretty lights, if not the booms and whistles.

So here's what we did. We went to the safe-n-sane fireworks shop and got small things - ground bloom flowers, sparklers, a couple little fountains, and a bigger fountain or two. Nothing that sends flaming balls into the trees, nothing that makes us flinch away from the sound, and nothing that shakes the ground. We'll be setting those off (sparklers just before dark), with our neighbors across the street, as we have done for years. It's the sort of thing we even did at the height of the pandemic because it was outside. I'll keep a mask on me because the smoke is usually too much for the asthma.

But we are an anxious bunch, so I've also been running the sprinkler on my lawn for three days and nights straight, and the first step when we actually go out to light things is to fill up the kiddie pool with water. And...

And we have spent the day doing comfort activities - playing video games, reading, making cookies, even folding laundry, having spaghetti for dinner, etc - so as to be as calm as possible this evening because we feel safe.

So we're saving up dopamine by doing the familiar and comfortable. It helps us enjoy the peopleing and flashing lights, and even helps us tolerate the house-shaking thuds of the illegal stuff. 

And enjoying a celebration - even if I'm celebrating something a little off on a tangent - is important.

Death of a Thousand Paper Cuts

Lizzy is sick.

A photo of a curly-top toddler asleep on a
blue-striped couch and a green pillow.

It's nothing serious; she has the sniffles, a scratchy throat, a stuffy nose, fatigue, and a little bit of a headache. She has no fever and her covid test was negative.

She is, of course, absolutely wretched and miserable.

I mean, it's not the flu or covid or a bacterial infection of any sort. Those would cause a fever and/or a positive covid test. It's just a summer cold (yeah, yeah, it's not summer yet; there are three days to go).

But it's the first time she's been sick-sick since before covid started. She's had hay fever symptoms or an earache a couple of times, mild reactions to medications or vaccines, and only the Woodinville Evergreen Urgent Care knows how many injuries, the little Mad Scientist.

She's always had Really Big Problems with head colds, though, and this is no exception.

Part of the problem is that she has a number of sensory issues as an autism quirk, and evidently a stuffy nose is a really big one for her. Always has been, as noted above, even before she was diagnosed.

Like since she was a baby.

But the time I remember most clearly was when she was nearly four, at Grandma's house for the day because it's bad form to attend preschool or daycare with a head cold, and Grandma made her blueberry tea (nothing fancy; just True Blueberry from Celestial Seasonings and honey). 

You would've thought someone handed her the moon.

We generally keep it on hand, even though it isn't available at our local grocery stores on its own; it's only there in the mixed fruit teas box.

But we didn't have any today and we were out of honey (we have agave nectar but it's "just not the same"), and we didn't have any of her homemade chicken-veggie soup,  and she couldn't find any tissues, and since she couldn't sleep it all cascaded into her more-or-less devolving into that coldy toddler-that-was. Death of a thousand papercuts.

She's doing okay now that Grandma and Abby and I between us have provided the proper soup, blueberry tea (only four bags because locally they come in the multi-flavor pack only), extra blueberry herbal tea from Stash instead of Celestial Seasonings to see if it's a viable substitute (verdict is that yes! It is!), tissues, and a raspberry-filled donut.

And we're taking it easy today. We have the whole (three-day) weekend to machete the blackberry bush and plant the tomatoes and tidy up the yard.

Today is for comfort food and TV and books and tea and video games.

Random Thoughts Around Neurospiciness

A rainbow "color-picker" infinity symbol with the phrase
Why light it up blue... when we have a whole spectrum?

I was responding to a Facebook post about infantilizing autistic people and the evidently obsessive need of some adults to label autism (and other neuro stuff) with functioning or mental-age labels for ease of categorization.

I ended up writing a small novel on the topic, so I am copy-and-pasting it below:

I have a 15yo AuDHD daughter (I probably am as well, but they weren't calling it that in 1983 when I was tested).

She loves chaotic characters in her fantasy fiction, magnets, Minecraft, beading, knowing ridiculous amounts of FNaF lore, acrylic paint, her older sister, shucking corn, and showing off her encyclopedic knowledge of random trivia.

She hates being infantilized, people expecting her to keep up "because she doesn't look autistic," unrealistic expectations, adults not explaining why, and bigotry.

Are these because she's autistic? Or ADHD? Or fifteen years old? Or because we lost her father when she was eight? Or is she just a child of the 21st century? Who knows?

It's silly (and ableist) to put people in tiny little boxes to make it easier to categorize them, as though they were so many left-handed socket wrenches or something.

My motto - and that of her best teachers, thank goodness - is "Meet the kid where they are."

And also, please let them speak for themselves when they can. I mean, you can help them, support them, advocate for them... but it's about them, not about you.

This is Too Much

I am perhaps a bit on edge today because I just got a call that clearly came from my kid's high school and I actually started to cry. 

Out of sheer worry.

Because, you know, the world is falling apart and a bunch of people are more worried about whether a drag queen is reading Doctor Seuss to kids than whether the whole school gets shot up by a former student with a gun and a grudge.

"Hi, Ms. Kirkland, this is TeacherName from the SchoolName Social Studies department, and I have your name on a list of theme readers (note: folks who help teachers grade papers) and wondered if you have availability."

I don't, right now, but a simple call from a number I recognize should not inspire dread. He was very apologetic, and said he should have led with everything-is-fine, but he didn't know I was a parent for that school too.

The fact that they even think they should have to worry about that phrasing - I mean, he's not the school nurse in charge of my anaphylactic kiddo - being the first thing when they call a helper, is terribly disheartening.

Six Weeks Later (Knee)

A pale arm giving a thumbs-up

Knees with soft-tissue injuries are reputed to take four-to-six weeks to heal.

Just finished Week Six and it's considerably better, but it still has a ways to go. I'm off crutches, wearing the knee brace except in bed, and using a cane (and I have gotten quite good with the cane, actually). Still meeting my daily fitness goals per my Apple Watch, just hit my first hundred-day streak, and am now experienced enough with the thing to get irritated that it doesn't allow for things like knee injuries. Not in and of itself, anyway; I need to find an app for that.

Anyway, a follow-up appointment for my knee today. My blood pressure is down (yay!) even though I went off the extra BP medication earlier this week (I do not need a side effect of cough in the springtime when there's already asthma and alder pollen and all the covidness of it out there), and it appears that naproxen (Aleve) causes my BP to spike as well. So I went off both of those of my own volition (informed my doctor) and my BP is still okay. It's possible it was just quite high when I went in six weeks ago because of pain and white coat syndrome and my unreasoning-but-understandable hatred of Totem Lake near the hospital.

The knee is still swollen (doc called it an "effusion") more than it should be. This may be any number of things, but none of them are immediately or urgently harmful. So we're going to do about six weeks of physical therapy and recheck then to see how it's going. In the meantime, try this other NSAID, if it makes my BP spike then I go back to ibuprofen. Less of it than I'm taking now, by preference. Oh, and alternate ice and damp heat instead of just ice.

In other (related) news, my doc is very pleased with how much physical movement I'm getting in, even with the ouchie knee, and quite pleased with my adherence to protocols for things like meds and vitamins and the CPAP machine (and that I have quit coffee and cut way back on dairy and sodium). I am a compliant patient, enough so that when I nope out of something because of its particular side effects (:koff:lisinopril:koff: - literally) she pays attention. That's a mark of a good doctor, in my opinion; they don't just assume that Doctor Knows Best.

So, next steps: get a physical therapist (if my mom's PT takes my insurance I'll go there), get the Rx for the new NSAID (should be ready tomorrow), and find a gamified fitness app that focuses more on general movement than actual buffing or weight loss. If I can lose weight and/or buff up, fine, but for me the point here is to Move My Body.

Or, as my doctor put it, "Movement is Medicine."

Not... Completely Random

Bitmoji cartoon of a chubby woman
wearing a blue shirt, with her brunette/grey
hair up in a topknot, hands on hips, and looking
confused. There is a large blue question mark.

But mostly random.

Every time one of my kids sneezes, I remember to order a new batch of free Covid tests. And then, evidently, I start a blog post.

People are such asshats about things they don't understand. Why do they even care enough to comment? Why do they say things like "this ***** ***** ********* keeps showing up in my feed and I don't know why?" Why is because you keep engaging by posting comments like that one!

And why do they as a group not read hashtags stating clearly that something is actually a joke?

Yeah, yeah. #NotAllAsshats. Whatever.

I have been informed by my 15yo (the one who's sneezing and has an earache, triggering my order-new-tests impulse) that I shouldn't use GenZ slang, even when I'm using it correctly. And yet she objects when I say 'awesomesauce.' How is a GenXer meant to cope with this?

On the other hand, I used a word yesterday - ululate - that made said 15yo stare at me dumbfounded, demand a definition, and then roll her eyes and leave the room.

My knee is much better. I can walk without crutches as long as I wear the brace. Not for long, and not carrying much, but it's fine for moving around the house. I hope to get a letter from my doc to the doc my employer uses, saying that I'm compliant with treatments (high blood pressure and stuff) today, so I can then go to the work doc and be cleared to drive for another year. 

Though I'll probably have to start slow; a trip to the library and then to dinner at our local sushi place was more than enough action for the knee for one day.

The sushi place has a robot serving drinks. When something got in its way it stopped and a little tear appeared on its digital face. Lizzy squealed with such glee! Maybe that's why her ear aches. 

Nah, it's more likely hay fever or a slight cold plugging up the whole upper respiratory system. If it was a full-blown infection, she'd have a fever.

And it's not Covid, we checked, which is why I ordered more tests, and around it goes.