I'm reading "All The Light We Cannot See", and I'm crying, reading about World War Two and all the terrible, horrible things that happened,.  And I realize that our world right now is not so different from Europe in the 1930's and I get scared and sad.

And I wonder why we humans, as a species, have learned nothing from the past, and keep repeating the same horrible actions, the hatred, the killing, the blind eye.

Why can't we practice compassion and kindness?  Why can't we see that "other" people are no different than us?  Why do we believe there is an other?  There is only us, only we.  And when we hurt another, we hurt ourselves and the whole world suffers.

A doc I used to work with killed herself.   She was only 46.  The world too much for her.

Jack struggles with the anger of others, fearful, remorseful,  afraid that he will no longer be loved and I want to hit Gracie and understand that I am no different than anyone else who can hurt other people. 

And I'm so tired.  Tired of rhetoric,  tired of hatred, tired of bullshit.

It's been a tough week, so many new patients,  so much pain and suffering.  People hoping for miracles where none exist.

I know this will pass but right now, it's painful. 

We're all good here.  I've just been tired and busy.  We took Jack and the dogs to the Beaver Hills Biosphere today for a lovely walk.  The weather here remains mild which is a boon.

We go back to court at the end of November.  Gracie hasn't had much contact with Jack, which seems to suit him.  Last time she called, he refused to talk to her.  

Today I don't think he ever stopped talked, which would explain why I'm so tired:)

Bagheera continues to enjoy the sunshine.  She's too old to get over the fence which means we know where she is when she's outside.
 

This was my kitchen this morning, a mess and I don't cope well with messes.  I got it all cleaned up, not nearly as bad as my mind thinks it is but I find it overwhelming to look at.  I've also made an appointment for dog training, for Charlie.  Last week, he and Heidi were fighting over a stick in the back yard and Heidi ended up with the two black eyes, bleeding into the whites of her eyes.  She was yelping, I didn't hear her because I had the vacuum on, but the neighbor came over to tell me that Heidi was being hurt.  Heidi was afraid of Charlie for the rest of the day and avoided him.  Charlie has also got into fights over sticks at the dog park.  I was talking to a co worker yesterday and she had concerns about Charlie's aggression and I realized I need to take it seriously.  When I contacted the rescue society that we got him from, they sent me a link for surrendering him back to them, which is not something I'm ready to do right now.  Charlie's a smart dog and I'm hoping training will help him.

I also had a zoom meeting with Katie's psychiatrist this morning. I couldn't get my camera or microphone to work but I troubleshooted the problem and fixed it (turned the computer off and on).  I got to see Katie, haven't seen her in a few weeks because of covid.  She looked good and I told her I'd see her on Sunday.  The psychiatrist also suggested we try less stimulation, rather than more, because of her autism, so we'll work on that.  Noise in particular is a trigger for her.  I'm still concerned about her head banging but the group home is going to focus on looking at triggers for the head banging.  I think it's usually frustration for her, or attention seeking.

Jack dressed up as an astronaut last night and had a good time.  My husband said Jack just announced at one point that he was done and wanted to go home.  I like this photo because you can see Charlie peeking around the corner.  I put the vacuum there to keep him from coming to the door; it works better than a fence.

 Interview with Matthew Perry.  Quite an interesting listen about drug and alcohol abuse, and fame.  It's so sad that he died when he did.  The interview made me cry and I tried so hard to be empathetic with Gracie, but it's hard and I failed.

 Actual patient left in the bathroom:)

I made it back to work today, feeling sorry for myself because I'm still tired and bloated.  Then I found out that one co worker was diagnosed with cancer, another co worker's five year old daughter was diagnosed with a brain tumour and a third co worker went home last week to find her dog dead in the house.  I pulled my head out of my ass and got on with the job.

Jack's excited because it's Halloween tomorrow night.  He wanted to know who was giving out the candy (me) and who was taking him trick or treating (poppa).  He's happy.

I'm still not feeling great, nausea, bloating and fatigue.  Everything smells weird, almost like when you're pregnant and all the smells are overwhelming, puts me off eating and cooking.  This morning I went back to bed after I got up and slept until 1pm.  I never sleep like that.  I'm supposed to go back to work next week so I'm hoping I'm feeling better by then.

I watched a movie yesterday, which I quite enjoyed.  It was called "Moving On" with Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin.  It was about friendship, trauma, aging and secrets, worth the time to watch it.

Today my goal is to get outside and go for a short walk.  That's it, that's all I got.

It snowed for a good part of yesterday.  Jack stayed home sick with me, both of us had covid and diarrhea.  I didn't realize that children often have more GI symptoms with covid and I didn't appreciate having diarrhea after coughing my lungs up for a week, but there you have it.  It's just an all around shitty virus to get.  

Jack went back to daycare today, no diarrhea and children only have to isolate for three days here.  Tomorrow I go back to work.  My abdominal muscles still hurt when I cough but not as much as they did.  

We had court today and everybody showed up.  My son was sober and polite.  He brought his emotional support person with him which is good; an older friend who is letting my son live with him right now.  My son is working in construction, staying out of trouble and there are no drugs allowed in the house.  All good.  You can tell there has been some brain damage done by all the drugs and alcohol though, my son didn't know his own age.  We're also going to set up a visit with him for Jack.

Gracie on the other hand showed up stoned on ativan.  Everybody has agreed to a JDR (judicial dispute resolution) which is good, that happens next month.  In the mean time, Jack continues to live with us and can only see his mom if she is supervised by her sister or mom, which is what we wanted to begin with.

Otherwise, nothing much going on here.  It's cold and slippery but it's supposed to be above freezing for Halloween which is nice.  I hate cold Halloween.  

Disclaimer

Anything that doesn't make sense, is entirely the fault of covid.

Still home, vomiting and diarrhea today.  Oh joy.

I've been sick all week with covid.  The fever has gone which is nice; I was tired of the whole "I'm freezing", "I'm boiling" aspect of a fever.  The worst part of covid for me, has been the coughing and the copious amounts of phlegm.  I've pulled a muscle in my abdomen from coughing and my ribs are killing me.  Coughing has become very painful and I have to cough to get the phlegm out of my lungs, because if it lingers there, I'm at increased risk of pneumonia.  I had pneumonia once when I was twleve years old and it was the sickest I've ever been in my life.

Yesterday I dragged the humidifier out of the basement and turned that on to help thin out the mucous in my chest.  Last night I turned my bedroom into a sauna apparently, and I was able to sleep, propped up and drugged.  It was wonderful but I scared poor Jack.  When Jack woke up this morning, poppa was in the garage smoking and Jack couldn't open my bedroom door because it was swollen shut from the humidity.  That freaked him out a little.

I'm thankful my lungs were healthy to begin with when I got this virus.  I can imagine the havoc wrecked upon already damaged lungs.  I read a very interesting article this morning about the phlegm produced by patients with covid,  Gummy Phlegm and Covid 19. It's strange that Covid 19 causes this overreaction in our body, too much hyaluronan, when normally, hyaluronan is a good thing.  Is it similar to the cytokine storm that can be so deadly to Covid patients?  Some cytokine is a good thing, too much is deadly.  I guess it's like anything, some is good, too much of something can be deadly.  I know, I'm a science nerd and in another life I would have gone into microbiology, my all time favorite course.

I'm also thankful I'm still strong enough to cough up all this phlegm.  Again, I can imagine how awful it is for the very young and the very old, or the very out of shape, to cough this much and this hard.  Coughing is how we clear out lungs, get rid of irritants and in this case, get rid of phlegm, which if it was to build up, would put me at high risk for pneumonia.  I'm trying to embrace my coughing, in fact, now I'm embracing a pillow when I cough because it helps with the pain in my chest and abdomen.

I'm thankful the big guy has taken on so much care of Jack.  I'm trying to stay away from both of them.  I mask when they're at home and wipe down all the surfaces that I can with cavi wipes, before they come home.  

Hopefully I'll be back to my normal self before much longer.  I'm not a fan of sick.  I'm off to hydrate and do some deep breathing exercises.