April 2025
Happy Birtrthday Sheldon
This month was Sheldon's 39th birthday, and I'm so grateful to have him in my life! We didn't do anything to celebrate. He's been stubborn and has hit that part of life where he doesn't want anything. He allowed me to buy a DNA test kit for us as "his gift" because it was something I wanted. So we are going to find out our history of where we both come from!
Adventures!
Juno:
We spent over four hours at the pet hospital, but when it was finally over, we got his proper medication, which helped him greatly. He did not want to be in there. He couldn't play with the other dogs, and his separation anxiety broke my heart every time they had to take him back to a room. He didn't want to go without me.
I was a little annoyed when they first brought him back from testing because they misplaced his leash and brought him back with a slip leash. We always use a harness with him and a retractable leash so we can control how far he goes from us. We never like to use his collar for a leash, let alone a slip leash! Juno is a very strong-pulling and hyperactive dog, so we never want to feel like we are choking him.
As stressful and irritating as the wait and process were, I'm happy that we were able to get him diagnosed and on medication in the end. The doctor was very kind and informative. We are pretty positive he caught it from the Jordan River when we take him on his trail walks. It turns out they have connected the sewage lines to the river, which isn't good or safe.
We also got back Juno's DNA test, which was super exciting! We now have a health history from this test, too, which has let us know there is nothing to worry about!
Friends & Family:
Sheldon and I had a lovely date night seeing "Cirque Du Soleil: Crystal." We bought our tickets months ago when they first announced it, not knowing I would have surgery that same week. I still didn't feel too well to be out and about, but I felt well enough to withstand a few hours for the night. I wore a mask, and unfortunately, the cold air caused a nose bleed however, it wasn't too serious, and I was able to manage it with no harm done to my healing process.
The show was held at the Maverick Center, and I think I've been going to the Delta Center too much recently because the Maverick Center is smaller inside than I remember it being. All in all, the show was amazing and did not disappoint! If you ever have a chance to see any Cirque Du Soleil show, I highly recommend it! The name is French and stands for "Circus of the Sun" and is basically a worldwide show with a variety of stories performed in circus acts. This one was exciting because it was all on ice! If you go to Vegas, most of the shows have stages built specifically for those story sets, and they're really neat to watch!
Language Learning:
I am on day 208 of Duolingo Spanish! That's all!
Gaming:
We made more progress in Enshrouded but decided to take a break to play the season 2 update of Last Epoch.
In my free time, I've been listening to audiobooks and playing some Coloring Pixels, which is a paint-by-numbers game. I've also found playing Power Wash Simulator is relaxing, to listening to audiobooks. Disney Dreamlight Valley had a free update that I jumped back into. They updated it so Alice in Wonderland is now in the game.
Reading:
Right now, I have gone through the first three books of The Wizard of Oz series. I watched Wicked and liked it more than I thought I would. It turns out the books are pretty dark and twisted compared to the movies. I grew up being traumatized by the Return to Oz movie. However, I have an appreciation for it now that I have listened to some of the book and can find small connections to where they tried to make most of them into one movie.
I accidentally started a book called "The Sun and the Star," which is a standalone book in the Percy Jackson series that takes place after a second series I didn't even know about called "The Heroes of Olympus". After I finish the final Percy Jackson book, I'll have to start those next. I still listened to the spoilers of this stand-alone book because it's super gay, and I really liked the story and knew at least one of the main characters.
Another book I started is called Bye Forever, I guess. It was indeed a page-turner and one of my new absolute favorites! It's about a girl who has extreme social anxiety, and her best friend at school is a really mean, popular girl. She decides to stand up for herself and cut off her friendship, and gains the support of her online MMORPG friends through this tough journey.
I started a new series called Flowers of Prophecy. I'm excited to listen to the final book in the series. I made it through the first two. The author has the characters occasionally speak in Spanish, and it was exciting to be able to understand some of the phrases they were using! The story in general is also pretty good; a girl was given no name to be a name bearer for her kingdom. One day, the flowers refused to name the queen's new baby because the king had borne a different child before his death. Now the girl must find this unnamed prince while running from the queen because it is seen as a betrayal.
I found the author's website where I can buy autographed books from the series. I plan to do that as soon as I have some for-fun money to spend.
I was able to get through the second book of the Uglies series. They for sure have held my interest in a "I want to know what happens next" kind of way!
Anime/K-Dramas:
I finished the series that I talked about in last month's blog. I've mostly been trying to get through every single Studio Ghibli Movie now. I have seen a good majority of the, but now all so it's been really neat to just get that Ghibli Magic into my life.
Concerts:
This year, a group called 8-Turn visited! They didn't have any VIP packages, but that's okay as long as we are showing that Utah has a big enough fan base for more to visit!
The concert for 8Turn was pretty fun! They are considered a 5th generation of K-Pop, which made me realize how old I am in the scene. My favorite band is SHINee, which is a 2nd generation group. Don't worry about it, I'm just speaking weeb talk.
Mental Health Status:
This month has been progressive but a little slow. My psychologist keeps getting sick because it's that season if you have kids in school. My autism test came back as ONE point off from being on the spectrum. Because of that, she said she won't close the book on evaluating me further, but she for sure saw my high ADHD and Anxiety traits through it.
Little by little, I'm learning about myself. How to handle situations better and why I think, feel, and act the way that I do. I just want to be happy overall and make Sheldon and Juno Happy. They are my world and my life, and I want to be the best that I can be so we can enjoy it together.
Physical Health Status:
Colonoscopy:
My first ever colonoscopy went as well as you could expect it to. The prep was not fun, but considering I once had the stomach flu so bad that it gave me temporary IBS once, this felt a little easier. I still wouldn't want to do it again.
My results were good, and I was told that with my family genetics, I don't need to do it again until another five years!
The only downside to it all is that the prep left me with my first-ever hemorrhoid, which hasn't been fun to deal with. My fissure just healed, and now this happens. It sounds like my luck of the draw. It is what it is, right?
I guess they did what is called twilight anesthesia, where they don't put you to sleep with a tube in your mouth. They give you medicine in your IV bag and have a little nasal tube in your nose. The only thing I remember was the medicine burning down my arm and the nurse patting at my arm to let it flow. I took some deep breaths and was out.
I woke up to them wheeling me into my room, and I told them I thought they were my dog jumping on my bed to wake me up. I then told the nurse I would show her a picture of my dog. They went and got my mom and brought her into the room. I drank some ice water to wake up, and during that time, I had forgotten my mom coming into the room, and the nurse had to remind me about showing her the picture of my dog.
Fun fact: my work insurance paid for the entire thing! I guess it's covered under a preventive care section of my plan. I'm pretty relieved because my MRI/MRA and my surgery have me in a little bit of debt at the moment. It's a good thing I have good credit, at least.
Nasal Surgery:
My nasal surgery was a roller coaster. It will take up to six weeks for me to fully recover and have my breathing results from it. I had my deviated septum straightened, as well as my swollen turbinates shaved down.
We checked in at 1:30 PM, and Sheldon's mom was so sweet to sit and talk with me until they took me back about 3 PM. It eased up my anxiety; we got to know each other by talking about how we grew up and planning my wedding, and so on. I'm really glad I got a mother-in-law who adores me versus a horrible one.
They got me back into the surgery room and started putting so many things on me that it was a blur. I remember them putting the face mask on me and telling me to take deep breaths, but it was really hard to breathe out with the pressure of the mask. My arm felt cold rather than the burning feeling I had last time.
I woke up to them transferring me from the table to the bed, and I again said I thought my dog was on the bed, waking me up. The staff giggled and said No, I'm in surgery. I immediately apologized and asked them if I had upset them. They told me I was all done and did great.
They brought me to a room to make sure that I didn't have any side effects from the anesthesia. It was about 6 PM on the clock. I could hardly read it because I didn't have my glasses on, so everything was blurry. I had a massive headache, and I could feel the pain in my top teeth.
I let them know I had to use the bathroom, and they offered a bedpan, but I said I was shy and would wait. They told me I could fall back asleep, but Sheldon's parents had been waiting for me for so long that my anxiety kept me as awake as I could be so they could take me back to my room. I felt like a giant toddler at that moment. Feeling sick and tired, I just wanted Sheldon there so I could hug him and cry.
The ice chip and ice water made my throat hurt more due to the anesthesia tube. I had to request room-temperature water to soothe it. They gave me an oxycodone, which I absolutely did not like. It made me sleep more, and it was hard to sleep that first night.
After they brought me to my room with Sheldon's mom and dad, I was finally able to use the bathroom. My nose started bleeding to drain out, and I had to constantly change the gauze all night long. It finally slowed down the next morning.
On the way out to get my prescription, my total came to $0.49. Sheldon's mom said she had cash to pay for it, even though I had my card out and was ready to pay. Turns out his mom only had $0.21, so the nurse was kind and had a bottle of leftover change and paid for the rest. They didn't have to do so, but it was a nice gesture.
The rest of the healing process was just a day-by-day roller coaster. The first night, I hardly slept. I couldn't breathe through my nose and couldn't sleep because my throat hurt. Talking and breathing through it made it worse. Not to mention the tube left a bump in my mouth that took a while to go down.
My not sleeping in bed and being awake so late had Juno anxious. I could only sleep upright on the couch, and sleeping the first few nights was in intervals of waking up and getting warm water every one to two hours. The warm water soothed my throat, and so did tea. But mouth breathing had my mouth and throat dry as well as feeling like it was swollen, and I couldn't swallow well. I've had so much tea and chicken soup that I'm tired of both.
Sheldon was a sweetie and stayed home the first day after my surgery to help care for me and Juno. I couldn't blow my nose for one week, but I could do some nasal rinses each day, which helped a lot. It was rough at first, especially the congestion, but they got easier, and day by day, I felt a little better. I did lose my sense of taste and smell. It all felt like one huge head cold.
After one week, I was able to get the stitches and stints out of my nose, which made a HUGE difference in my ability to breathe. They said it will take six full weeks for the swelling to go down and for my nose to fully heal. I can't wait to see how much better I'll breathe in the end! The healing process was rough and uncomfortable, but for the fact that I can breathe and no longer feel that my nose is stuffed all the time like it used to be, it's well worth the surgery!
Going back to work has been rough. I can feel my nose pulsate, and it lightly bleeds on and off. Not to a point that I need to go back, but my body isn't liking the movement. It's been causing some pressure headaches and exhaustion as if I've run a marathon! I'm taking it little by little, and I'm really happy that my coworkers are encouraging me to take the time to rest.
My work ethic will always have me feeling guilty for calling out or leaving early, but I think some of that is from having toxic jobs that made me go back to work the same day of some surgeries. It's also a survival instinct. I'd rather save my PTO for vacation time. I never want to be the person who's seen as always calling out or being paycheck to paycheck and never having any PTO. I don't know how people can live on the edge without a safety cushion like that.
I got my wisdom teeth out when I was 17, so I was in school and had to take the week off. My top wisdom teeth came out on my 21st birthday, and I remember coming home right after surgery, to my boss begging me to come into work. I caved and said yes, and he picked me up. However, my fellow managers there were pissed that he brought me in just so he could go home. He was the GM of Jungle Jim's Playland, and I was the AGM at the time so one of us had to be there. He was aware I just got home from surgery. Right after he left, our kitchen manager took me home and took over for the night with the other team leads holding the fort for me.
I also had a mouth surgery a few years ago, where my tongue ring caused a divot behind my front teeth over time. They had to go in and cut some tissue from the roof of my mouth to stitch it up and encourage the tissue to grow and heal the wound. I went to work that same night after that surgery and regretted it. I had my reasons; it was my Friday shift, and a grave shift, so I knew the front desk at the hotel wouldn't be too busy that night. I also knew we had no one to cover my shift because I was the temporary grave cover. I was working days, Swings, and graves every week for three months until I snapped and said I couldn't physically or mentally do it anymore. I should have taken it off so I could heal and made my managers manage, but I didn't have the self-respect to do so. I always put my job before myself, and I know it's time to change that mindset.
I do have to do some rethinking and mind re-framing. I missed way too many birthdays and funerals in the past because I didn't take work off for them. My life at home with Sheldon and Juno is all I really care about now. I still have a good grasp of my nieces and nephews, and I want to be there for them as I can as well, but that's about it. I can't be there for them if I can't be there for me first.
I also had a lot of anxiety being at home, thinking about how I couldn't be productive. I couldn't take Juno outside for any walk, and he needs and depends on me for that. I couldn't go to work and provide help to earn money at home. I couldn't do any cleaning at home or anything too rigorous, that is. That was also a struggle for me. I was able to open a craft kit and make small crafts as I listened to an audiobook. That was one productive win at least.
We went over some new exercises to help with my knee and foot pain, but we will go in-depth next month. For now, the main focus has been on my neck and back pain. I'm still doing my exercises for my arm pain, even though I'm seeing a different physical therapist now. I don't want to go back to having the same pain that I was having before making all of this progress.
I still want to try to continue my weight loss journey and get all my steps in by taking Juno on walks, etc. I just have to baby step it. day by day and allow myself the mental and physical time to heal.
Health Wrap Up:
I'm honestly really proud of myself this year. I took a big leap into my health journey! I've been getting my chronic pain diagnosed. I've been getting my mental health diagnosed. I got my ESA dog. I've been going to physical therapy and getting quality of life changes. I got my medical cannabis card, which was a progress because it allowed me to learn that CBG and CBD are the main things to look for in terms of helping my chronic pain. I also learned about terpenes and how they're also found in different everyday herbs to better help our overall health.
All I have left is hopefully making progress with my gynecology problems and maybe Lasik eye surgery. I need to get my credit from my recent surgery paid off first, though. I know I said I'm not sure if I could handle it, but after this last surgery, I think I'll be okay.
Final Thoughts:
Life is short, and that's why they say to live like it's your last. I need to take my own advice here. If we spend our time sitting and festering in unnecessary emotions for too long, then we are just wasting time that we could be spending being happy and making memories. Sometimes we have to feel to heal, but we also forget to look at the bigger picture. Things can feel big in the moment and become so small as time passes by. Life is ever changing, and people are constantly evolving. Change is inevitable. Embrace it and take it in!
