I love the new Playtime Pink Palace that Ron built.

I just finished the dishes. It is 3:30. I started them about 12:30. Ron is back in bed where he has been for most of the day, he is very tired and not feeling well. I went through that for a few days, ending it seems with left over draggy feelings today.

So again why do I love the new place for me, well let me explain. Ron has painted it in colors I picked and like. I do spend most of my waking time in this room. Plus he put up shelving everywhere and anywhere I asked. But what makes it work so well for me doing dishes is the rather expensive monitor arms he not only agreed to but insisted I buy. These are the more expensive one than I was pushing for, but damn they work so well! So when I do dishes or other stuff in the kitchen, all I have to do is swivel the monitor arm towards the door and change the angle of the monitor by turning that. It is so simple and easy. With my headphones on and the 32-inch monitor on full screen, I can see everything as well as I could if I was in the room sitting at my chair.

Don’t tell him, but the expense was worth it, and I agree with and love his choice. He is determined this move will be what I want in every way. I can understand. Not only have I been … suffering from my past, but I was willing to give up everything to provide a space for James. Then as we worked on what James wanted, James found a relationship that did not include us and moved out. Sudden shift of plans.

It is OK, it allowed Ron and I to totally redesign what we had thought we wanted for the house, giving Ron a much larger living room and the place his “living room” stuff is now will become the new dining room, which made far more sense to begin with.

But Ron is not going to be happy until the new room for me is everything I ever could want. I admire him for his devotion to me, but I am not insisting on that level of satisfaction. But it is so grand he is wanting to do it. He is definitely a husband worth keeping as we start our 34th year together. Loves and hugs or best wishes. Scottie

My day so far

So I woke at 2 am to pee. With my new heart medications, I pee at night almost every hour. I also went to bed at 8 pm. I tend to go to bed early due to both my medications and insulin / food at supper making me very sleepy. So last night I went to bed at 8 pm.

Ron and I do not get tired normally at the same time. I go to bed early and he normally doesn’t come to bed until 10 pm or later. But we have a system. I put my pills in little paper cups. When I go to bed I set up and take my evening pills for that day, then set up my pills for morning and set it aside on the headboard, I then set up the 10 pm pain pills and set in a spicfic spot. I set the night ones in one place and the morning ones go next to the morning other pills I take. Then I set up my nighttime long acting Lantus insulin pen. I take 25 units at night around 10 pm. So I set the dial, put the needle on, but leave the cover and get the alcohol pad packet ready. Yes we use them for our blood sugar sticks and our shots because the teaching over the years spent in the hospital ICU systems still resonate in us. Then I go to bed.

Ron then comes down about 10 pm to wake me or remind me if I have not been sleeping to take the pills and shot. Often by then he will be ready to come to bed, but sometimes not. It is something that works well for us, as I get up much earlier in the morning than Ron does.

Back to today. I woke up at 2 am to pee, but couldn’t go back to sleep. So I figured it was a great time to get up and deal with all the open tabs I have on both computers. Also between 4:30 to 5:30 am I try to feed the two “outside cats”. I am normally up by 5 am and they are used to that. The outside cats are one feral distrustful female and one former inside cat that often spends days in our home to go back out at night. We wanted him to be out during the day and in all night, but after a month or two of fighting with him, he won. He comes in during the day and sleeps or what ever, and is out all night. So I fed them and made of him as he wandered around inside.

Later that morning when Ron got up.

Ron and I took the skirting off parts of the back and the side at the back of the house to inspect the old internet coaxial cable that was run for us in 2007. The current cable is a two part cable because when we first signed up with the internet company we got the entire package, TV, phone, and internet. We soon dropped phone for cells, then dropped cable for internet entertainment. So all we have is internet. And we are happy with that, if not the price. As I said before we use the max out of our internet. The company recently forced us to go through a week of on and off internet to double our speeds, which I am sure they will soon jack the price for. When I talk to others around the country about their internet speeds and costs a lot of people get far greater speeds for less cost, but what can we do? We really are dependent on our internet for everything from our TV, computers, to our security system.

The first thing we did after breakfast was go out and remove panels of the skirting on the back of the house and the side near the back. The intent was to see where and how I had split it off when it was first put in on the beginning of 2007. Because we had signed up for Phone, cable, and internet they ran a large two-sided cable from their box at the back of the yard which they then split a distance under the home to send one half to and hooked into the home, then I split the internet part off to several rooms in the house. Over the years we got rid of landline phone service and then cable. So the old cable stayed only with the second part cut off at the boxes at the end of the home.

Since I hope this is the last office change and both Ron and I want to get it as perfect as we can we have decided to replace the existing large two-sided cable with a new modern upgraded coaxial cable just for the internet to the spot we plan to put the modem and router.

Which saw Ron and me outside at 10 am in the Florida sun / heat taking the skirting off spots in the back and side of the house to determine what we needed to do to run new coaxial cable. Ron insisted on taking the side panels at the south side of the home off while we were in the direct sun because he was sure the answers we needed were further up the house. I knew how the cables were run because I was deeply involved with them when they were being done back in 2007, but I also know enough after 33 years of living together to just let Ron do what he is sure is right until he is proven wrong. Then if I know what is good for my future affections for a while I never let on that I was “damn well right in the first place”

So to make the longest story shorter after taking off the back panels I had seen the place their orange cable came in and our double cable was hooked to and ran under the home, split off to a now cut line, and ran the rest of the way under the home. So the solution was clear and simple. So simple it leads to an argument until Ron and I got on the same page and he understood what I was saying. So we measured the length of the back of the house to the corner and then up to where we thought roughly that the wall from the new office to the current office room. Leaving room for “stuff” we came up with 45 feet. So Ron then decided to add to that length of the rest of the home. He came up with 70 feet.

At this point I felt the need to remind Ron that the official length of our home was 56.5 feet long. He was not happy and insisted we needed a new 70 foot cable in case we ever wanted to move the modem from my office to another part of the house like the planned for new living room. I knew when trying to fight a point was not worth doing so, and agreed to look the cable length up at either Home Depot or Lowes.

That is when things got a bit tense. First let me say I have made many cables, both coaxial and Ethernet. I did it for years. I have all the tools and supplies. But I just don’t want to do it now. I want this to be the last time we do it, open the skirting which is a bitch to open and harder to close and then run this cable. I trust the manufactured cables more than my ability these days. Ron was angry I did not want to do it because at the stores we could only get 50 feet or 100 feet in the lengths we needed. Ron wanted to buy 70 feet which both stores will sell the cables by the foot with out ends and have me put the ends on. I told him to get the 50 foot for about 30 dollars or the 100 foot for 40 dollars. I am not sure which he will get. He finally gave in. I just don’t want to do it anymore, even though I am sure I can.

Then after being outside and kneeling in the grass, my allergies were in full bloom. My hands that were in the grass to look under the house and help me get back on my feet were turning red and itching. I stayed out with Ron while he closed up the skirting, which is a true bitch, then I came in and took a shower while he mowed the lawn with the new 6.5 amp 18 volt batteries we bought for the mower. Now let’s move on to the rest of the day.

One of the great things of my new Scotties Playtime Pink Palace is that I can swivel the video monitor and put on headphones and do the dishes while watching the video screen from the kitchen sink / counters! Those video monitor arms are awesome. So I did the dishes. Now I want people to understand, we have a very fancy expensive dishwasher that has not worked correctly since Ian. We paid a repair company $110 to come in, run it for 10 minutes, hear it run, see it had a bit of water and leave saying nothing wrong with it. So after it wouldn’t fill or run, Ron replaced a bunch of parts, including the pump. Then he gave up and we just continued doing dishes by hand in the sink using the dishwasher racks to drain the dishes. The problem is to replace the dishwasher will cost about $700 dollars and I need new glasses as mine have a chip out of them and my eyes have gotten worse. The glasses I get have always been around $700 dollars at the least expensive place. The one time Ron and I tried a different place, they wanted 1,400 dollars for the same glasses. Screw that.

But while there was not really a large amount of dishes, only about 24 hours worth for two people, it took me 2 and a half hours. Yes sorry but I struggle to stand, move, work with my arms and shoulders. So those dishes took me that long. During it I needed to take pain medications. While I was doing dishes, Ron took a well deserved break. He offered to dry the dishes but I really felt he deserved more of a break. The man is 68, has his own health issues, and was out in the Florida sun / heat mowing our lawn. I wanted him to sit in his recliner after he took his shower, watch his TV, and relax. And tonight he is going to make supper of burgers and salads.

A few hours later: Ron made two burgers each and two small salads. Small salads for us means a regular size bowl and a large salad which is what I normally have is a very large pasta bowl full of salad. So I made two burgers the way I like and took them to my new office along with my salad. But I soon realized I wouldn’t be able to eat both burgers and the salad. As I was finishing my first burger, Ron opened the door and asked if I needed anything and I offered him my second burger. He smiled. He knew that was coming. I wish I did. He told me he had not made his second burger because he figured when he saw me take both of mine I wouldn’t be able to finish them. He asked and I explained what was on them. He ate my second burger and I finished my salad. He then told me he loved it, the way I make a burger on a bun is great, but I only put salts, lettuce, pickle slices, and a tad bit of both mustard and A1 steak sauce. But it worked out, I did not over eat and he got a great burger along with putting in the fridge the leftover burger which he will eat later. He loves cold hamburgers, which I find abhorrent. It is sad in a way, in the old days we would both eat two or three burgers and a whole bag of store bought french fries. These days when Ron asks I don’t have him make fries. No way I can eat that much. If I am going to have fries I can only have at most one burger. Or instead of the burgers I will just have fries which is horrible for my blood sugar.

So everything I normally do at the end of the day is done. The cats have been fed, Odie has been fed, and will get his shot closer to 8 pm. I am going to bed with my muscles aching and my body pain starting to rise. Ron has already popped in to ask if I want a back rub or something before I go to sleep. Gods he is wonderful. But I told him we will cuddle when he comes to bed many hours from now.

So that was / is the highlights of my day. I am sure I forgot some stuff. If you ask me questions I might remember what I forgot. Otherwise I love you all, and wish those that like hugs many warm ones and those that don’t want hugs I extend best wishes. Good night. Scottie

My day

I spent most of the day in bed. Not sleeping but desperately wanting to. I wanted my mind to stop, my thoughts to stop. I wanted the sweet release of oblivion, yet in my sleep I rarely get that. Ron did keep trying to get me to eat, and I did eat this morning, and had popcorn for supper. I simply can not stomach anything else. Tomorrow I have a doctor’s appointment at 10:10 for my allergy shots, but they are pretty loose with the times. Yet after spending the day in bed trying to sleep now when I should … I struggle to stay up.

Ron has been very attentive today, which makes me think I have not been hiding my problems and issues as well as I thought I was. Since I got up this afternoon he keeps coming into the “Scotties Playtime Pink Palace” to ask me if I need anything, If I want something to eat, how I am doing. I know he is concerned but I don’t know what to say to him. This just has to pass, as it has before in my life. For me, for him, for all of us.

On the plus side I got a couple of things posted. One I couldn’t remember if I posted before but it was still in my open tabs so I cleared one window. Tomorrow I realize I will have to start another with the last few days of stuff … yet still have not addressed the older stuff. I changed the fonts and size on the blog, did anyone notice, and how is it for you guys?

I am needing to go to bed. I have to get up in the morning early. The outside cats like to be fed between 4:30 and 5:30. I normally wake up by then so it is not normally a problem. But tonight I need to go to bed. Weird I was in bed most of the day … maybe hiding. But now I am fighting it, I don’t want to go, yet I know I must. Damn how often that feeling has been something I have felt in my past. Knowing I must but really, desperately not wanting to. If I go to bed and manage to sleep, the dreams will come. I will relive things I … hated and feared the first times I experienced them. If I struggle to stay up, I won’t be able to go to my allergist office and get my shots. The adult in me is demanding one thing, but the child, that small tender child is begging me to do another.

Fuck my life. I am going to do the adult thing. I am going to bed. I will trust Ron who now knows and understand so much more than he did 33 years ago when he moved in to my home. If I get thrashing, crying, shouting, begging, or other signs of distress, he will wake me and comfort me.

Hugs and good night. I hope your night is better than I fear mine will be. Scottie

I have tried, I really did. I hope that shouldn’t be again.

Ron made a great meal of baked Ziti and garlic bread. It was what I asked for, and he seemed to understand even though I was hiding it from him, I was very upset. I ate two small plates full, even though that was a lot for me.

But now I must go to bed. Not only is the food and emotional upset screaming through my body, but I can not deal with anything else. I can not deal with the 180 web pages, tabs I have opened on two different computers. I simply can’t deal with any of them. So I must close it all down. Go to bed, and try desperately to sleep. That again will be with some help from Ron.

Often when one or the other of us can not sleep cuddling with the other does the trick, the only thing is who cuddles who and for how long. Sometimes cuddles turn into sexy time. But often it is simply a way to go to sleep when one is upset over the day’s news. Plus we never go to bed at the same time, so if I am to wait for Ron to come to bed to feel better, I would have to ask him before heading to the bedroom. Anyway today and the posts I have made have exhausted me, and I simply must stop. So all those tabs will go into the cue for morning. Hugs and loves to all.

My last post about my childhood

Hello readers and followers. In my last post I put in the line I needed to go clear my mind of the post. That was because I had to go over and over what I wrote to correct it. However I do not want people to take that as I might not want comments on the post. If you have a comment to make, please feel free to do so. And I will respond. I belong to a survivor’s forum and talking about the abuse and feed back from others can be helpful. That is why all the therapist I have seen in the past recommending writing it out even if it was only in a letter I wouldn’t ever send. It is just a way to get it out of my mind and body and try to let it go away. If you try to ignore it or deny it, if you do what I did for so very long and bury it as deep as possible never letting on why you are hurting it leads to consequences such as self harm. Thank you. Hugs

My horrible summer in Canada

I have been distracted and unable to really function online the past week or more of days. I have unfortunately been thinking / remembering / dwelling / reliving the summer of abuse I had when I was shipped off to Canada. I guess the goal was to “make a man of me”. I had a song I had recently learned and sang it to my self constantly along with “Lean on me”, “Bridge over troubled waters”, and a few others. Songs about helping hands or someone willing to help. But the song “Day is done” held a special meaning I created in my head as a small and tiny 12 year old boy desperate for help.

I sent a request to Jill asking her to play the song without mentioning why. She was kind enough to do so. I had hoped the song being given Jill’s loving treatment of songs when she posts them would stop the intrusion of the memories of that summer from invading my life. It did not. So I wrote to Jill and explained why the song meant so much to me. She was very gracious and we had conversations about it. Again I hoped it would stop the memories. It has not. They are interfering with my interactions on the computer, I can not focus on stuff. I get lost in my memories and emotions. I want to hide in videos but I can’t even remember what I am seeing / hearing.

I had mentioned to Jill that before on my other blog I use to talk a lot about my abuse when I felt the need to and that it helped me deal with it. I also mentioned that I got attacked there for sharing my abuse on my blog because a couple of complainers felt it was upsetting, disturbing, and they got too upset reading it. They complained it was turning off my readers but only a coubple said anything to me about not making the posts. I think someone on this blog commented almost something similar when I wrote about the angry hurt rape I experienced by my teenage hell spawn sibling. I asked Jill if I could share parts of the letter I wrote her detailing some of that summer. She agreed and offered me comfort but also warned me of what I had told her of the complainters. I think she did not want that to happen and upset me further.

I took her advice and gave it a lot of thought. Jill is a very smart compassionate woman who I admire. But the memories won’t stop. I even mentioned some of it to Ron in hopes that expressing that small amount would make the memories stop. I try not to tell Ron too much of my abuse. He is a wonderful loving man who knows I was abused physically, sexually, and emotionally, and he tries hard to comfort me when I have the nightmares and am in distress at night, when I thrash about, or wake screaming. But again it is something I had never planned to share with him. But when on a trip in 2007 I shared some of my childhood he had already had figured out I was abused, he just did not know how bad it was.

So in hopes it will help as my prior therapists have said it will, I will post what I shared with Jill, but I will edit it as needed. ***Warning below is the story of the physical and sexual abuse I endured the summer I spent in Canada as a child. *** If you do not want to know what I suffered, please skip the rest of this post. Hugs

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scottie-at-11 to 12

This is a picture of me that summer. The picture was labeled 11 or 12. But it was the summer after my 6th grade so I must have been 12 years old. My birthday is in March. I told Jill I was not sure if I was 12 or 13 but I must have been 12. The dog is three-legged, named Prince, and was one of my only other comforts of that summer. The woman watching me is the mother of my adoptive father. I was always watched I guess to see if I broke a rule so I could be further punished. To me the picture shows me still standing and being a normal boy despite what they were doing to me. Hugs

As best I can figure out, I was adopted around the age three. I don’t know if I had just turned three or how long I had been three but that is when the papers I found say I was, 3 years old when I was taken from the state of NY by bus to Vermont. I have very vague memories of the trip. The story about the song begins below.

I was 12 years old. I was about to move into the Junior high school from our local small town school where the elementary school principal knew something was wrong and did what he could to protect me, to the joint JR / SR high school for the area in a nearby large town. That summer my adoptive parents decided I should go live in Canada all summer from the end of school until start of the next, living with the adoptive father’s mother and her second husband.

The adoptive father was the oldest of 9 children. His father was an abusive drunk who died when the adoptive father was starting the 8^th grade. He quit school to provide for his 8 siblings and mother. He became an extremely well-muscled arrogant bruiser who loved bar fights and was well feared. He hated the world and was very jealous of those that had an education and faired better than he did in life. It was that kind of anger at learning that caused him to ban me from having books including schoolbooks in the house for years because he felt I was not manly enough. But unlike his hell spawn boys he never showed me the secrets of the skills he did have, he was a master wood worker / carpenter with the certifications to prove it, a millwright, a skilled wielder, and other building construction related fields. He was very talented with what he did, but his arrogant angry willing to fight attitude combined with his inability to understand math (other than tape measure measurements and basic addition / subtraction) kept him from ever advancing to the place in society he felt he deserved. He also did not read very well and talked in an uneducated manner. He would be a proud maga today. He got the adoptive mother pregnant when she was 14 and, while she had very good intelligence something the adoptive father lacked, her schooling ended at that point.

Back to the summer I was sent off to Canada because the adoptive father did not want me around. Please remember he had taken his anger and frustrations on me all my life to this point. To say I was mistreated would be a huge understatement. I was physically and sexually assaulted not only by him, but he made it clear to his hell spawn of two girls and two boys, all older than me by at least five years, they were free to use me or do to what they wished to me. I knew not to complain. But when I was in 1^st grade as a very bruised slight boy in torn clothes who would put his head down on my desk and get some much needed sleep, the school investigated and the adoptive parents were accused of child abuse. A story I will tell you if you wish, but not important to the song. It caused the adoptive parents to move us three times in less than half a year to another state, back then to the same state, then again but a much smaller town. The moved caused the charges to never be followed up on. After that the beatings grew less and less severe, but the sexual abuse got much worse.

So at first I looked at the trip as an escape, not realizing what was instore for me. The adoptive fathers mother married a man with a farm, it was a good farm but not great. He had a married son that will become central to this. After the adoptive parents left, I was sat down and explained the rules. I was to do as I was told, no argument or back talk, speak only to ask a question or when addressed, but otherwise keep my mouth shut, I would work as long as told, I would rest when given permission, I would obey all the time. They explained that they were going to make a man of me. I can only think that was the adoptive father’s directions, as it would happen outside the US so I would not have any help. At first I thought it would be ok, I was used to mistreatment. I figured I just needed to be good and work hard and it would be OK. After all this was only for the summer. It got farther than I imagined very fast.

I will fast forward through most of the daily routine, the early morning being pulled out of bed, the working until I couldn’t stand up in the evening. But here comes the point of this email and the song. Sorry but to understand why it is so important to me I had to give you the background.

*** trigger warnings the worst of the abuse there ***

Almost every afternoon I would be ordered to the barn. The worst part may have been I knew why and what was coming. The son and wife of the adoptive fathers mother’s second husband would have canes. Sometimes to be extra cruel they would make me pick them up and hand them to them. Remember these people controlled my life so there was no way not to go or to disobey. The barn doors were closed and locked as I stood there shaking. I was positioned facing a wall only inches from it. Then when they were ready and positioned, I was told to “Run you little fucking bastard”! As I turned and tried to run to find safety, they started to hit me with the wooden canes they used on the cattle. (one reason I refuse to use or have simple wooden crooked handle canes) They would chase me around until they had little slight tiny me cornered and beat me until I was on the ground. I was ordered to my knees, ordered to undo Carl’s pants. Open his belt, undo his pants button, pull the zipper down, and pull down his pants and underwear. Then I was ordered to either lick his balls or take his penis into my mouth. He was almost always hard by now but sometimes not. I would suck him, give him oral sex, occasionally being directed by him or his watching wife to stop and suck or lick his balls, then return to giving him oral sex until he finished in my mouth. When he came, I was to swallow and keep sucking his cock so that I got every drop. If any drippled out of my mouth I would be beaten more with the canes, if I stopped before told I could, I would be hit with the canes. During all the sex act part if they felt I was not trying hard enough to please him or for any reason she, the wife, would hit me with her cane. During all this sex act time they both would be insulting me, calling me degrading names, threatening me with more beatings if I did not do better. The worst was the times when after I had made him finish in my mouth and swallowed as commanded, pulled back up his underwear and pants, closed them up, sometimes I would be ordered to remain on my knees and not move. By then my knees hurt so bad from kneeling on the concrete floor of the barn. They would leave or move around the barn doing stuff, sometimes they would order me to follow them which was better for me as I could get off my knees. Soon they would return or order me to get back on my knees, always with the threat of cane hits. After the first couple times I knew what was to follow and I hated it more than all the rest. I would be ordered to unzip Carl and take out his penis. Then put it in my mouth. Then he would pee. He would piss in my mouth. I would be ordered repeatedly to swallow more, do it more quickly as it swelled out of my mouth as I franticly gulped down his pee. If I did not drink as much as they thought I should I after I again put his cock back in his pants and zipped him up I would be beaten with the canes. During all this time I would be told that I was a cum swallowing piss drinking worthless bastard and so much worse. After they had their fun I was given free time until it was evening milking time when I was required to work again. I often begged just to give him a blow job to avoid the beatings and the pissing but that would have denied them a lot of their fun I guess. Sorry to put you through this but most people have no idea of what my damned childhood was like. Ron says it is an incredible miracle I am as sane or mentally, emotionally, physically stable as I am. And he doesn’t know this fuller account of that summer nor a lot of my childhood abuse, I cannot bring myself to tell him. It is enough he must hear me screaming in pain or fear at night and try to help me, without burdening him with this knowledge. And I struggle every day, and at night the nightmares come.

*** abuse part over ****

Now to the part about, the song. Why it is an important part of my childhood and especially during what I just revealed to you. See my adoptive mother revealed to me just before I left (as she laid on top of me … another story you might not want to know …) that my real father was alive and in NY state. She described him or what she claimed he looked like and gave me a few small tantalizing things I was desperate for. She gave me very little more than that but promised if I was a good boy while gone and pleased her more when I got home, she would tell me who he was. I so badly wanted to know more, but she told me I had to earn that information. I knew what that meant. But if … the hope …! I had recently learned the Day is Done song lyrics and music. I could sing it from memory. Every line seemed to be my unknown dad talking to me. As I cried in the barn, in my bed, and all the time I was in Canada I dreamed of my unknown dad. I knew if I thought of him hard enough he would know I was being hurt, that I needed him, and he would come to rescue me. In my head I created so many dreams of him showing up, defeating everyone hurting me, saving me and taking me to a wonderful new life with him, my dad. Every day many times a day, especially after the afternoon abuse, I sang that song to myself and dreamed of my savior dad coming to get me.

Sadly as an abused kid, I did not stop to think why I was up for adoption in the first place. It did not occur to me that my dad simply gave me up because he was a man who couldn’t stop fucking every woman he met and already had a bunch of kids at home and more elsewhere. From what I have found out much later he may have been paid to do so by the adoptive mother’s father for some reason, at least the adoptive mother’s father paid for the adoption costs. The adoptive parents never came clean with me and as you can imagine I long ago stopped believing anything they told me.

So that is the story of why the song is so important to me. During that summer of abuse it was the lifeline I clung to thinking it was something my dad was asking me, thinking if I believed hard enough my real dad would save me. Like all such beliefs without facts to back them up, it was a lie and false hope. No one showed up to save me. At one point I was allowed to call my adoptive parents while the adoptive grandparents sat there and listened, and I begged to be allowed to come back home. I promised to be a good boy, promised to everything asked of me, promised to never complain … but they already knew what was happening to me and felt it was good for me I guess, would make me more compliant as a teenager in their home.

During the email conversations with Jill, I shared some more of the physical abuse I suffered. Below is some of that, again edited. Hugs

As a 4 or 5 year old I was taken to have my leg bone put back in the hip socket due to being “tossed to see how far I could fly” down the stairs for an afternoon. The doctors think that one of the reasons I have hip and spine damage so bad relates to those … fun times by the hell spawn siblings. I remember my adoptive mother once laughing with friends as she described how my hell spawn sisters were holding me by the arms and legs throwing me into the air to let me land … sometimes on their bed. But they suddenly went out to play and after a while she went to their room where she found me unconscious crumpled up on the floor and couldn’t wake me up. Seems the hell spawn had thrown me into a closed closet door. But no, I was not taken to any medical place to be examined and no the hell spawn did not get into trouble. When you described me as something they could take out and play with and throw me into a closet when they were done you were more correct than you could know. For the first nearly 7 years I slept in a hallway as they did not feel the need to provide me with a bed or even a room. When my older hell spawn siblings would take me into their beds I would enjoy the comfort, after paying the price for it.

If dear readers you made it this I thank you, and you have a far better understanding of me and my childhood than you did before. Now friends I must, I really have to go do something, watch something, a funny video or a m ovie I can totally immerse myself in. I so desperatly need to get the things in this letter out of my mind. Hugs

My afternoon

Hey all I am beat, wiped out, muscles spasming, shoulders screaming, and so tired. I had my allergy shots this morning. Yesterday the new TV arm came in and this afternoon after Ron had his nap he decided that we should put up the arm. I had a nice rolling stand for the TV that held my Xbox stuff. But Ron did not like it for my new office and … well my eyesight has deteriorated again and to play Halo even on the 4K 55-inch screen I need it close to me to see the important icon info at the bottom of the screen. Just like I have my monitors at 250 scale. So Ron and I sat down and investigated TV arms with really long extension that were rated for twice what we thought my TV weighted. This one goes out 43 inched and is rated for 110 pounds, which my TV is like a third of that. And by my dogs that love gravy the bracket is really heavy and seriously built. Ron and I had a few missteps installing it, and tomorrow he will adjust it. We need to raise the TV by 2 to 3 inches, or near to the shelf bracket above the TV. That can be done by changing the rails that hook the bracket to the TV. Plus Ron wants to shift the bracket over as much as the sliding space for the screws will allow. But we got it put up. But after trying to hold the bracket to the wall and carrying the TV a bunch of times, and then putting the TV on the bracket my damaged shoulders are screaming in pain and losing all strength, my back was spasming horribly and I am losing the ability to walk. Ron did not want to continue with me this hurting. Here are the pictures I took as we were doing the work. Hugs

What happened to me in the early part of the year that damaged my ablity to do anything or blog

I recently wrote a letter to Jill about what had happened to me health wise, as best as I know. She gave me permission to use it here for everyone so I don’t have to retype it all. As you will see at the end of the email typing can be a problem for me some days. Some days are much better than others, but I have terrible neuropathy, muscle spasms, and arthritis. I did edit for clarity, spelling mistakes, and to remove stuff that was for Jill alone. Hugs

In January my primary care doctor took me off my heart medication controlling my heart rate so I could have my needed allergy shots. I shouldn’t have been on it even though I needed it because I have life-threatening allergies that require me to have / use an EpiPen and the heart rate drug interferes with that working when needed.

So I was taken off the med and my heart rate soared far more than it was thought it would and stayed there. I was in the 130s and 140s bpm, with spikes much higher. Before the med it was high but not so high. The high heart rate caused me not to be able to breathe. I struggled to get air in and after three or four weeks as things got worse I suffered what my doctors now think was a TIA or mini stroke. I suddenly struggled to speak, I could hear words but when I went to respond the words in my mind wouldn’t come out or I couldn’t find the word I wanted to use. What came out of my mouth was mangled or totally a different word. Now I normally mispronounce some words to be funny. Like saying elephants as efahlants or some other word to be funny. But this was seriously differently. I couldn’t pronounce words. Plus, my mind was full of fuzz, I struggled to think. I couldn’t read stuff on the screens of my computers and couldn’t respond at all. If I tried to reply, what I typed was like a third grader and sometimes made no sense to me at all. Ron was desperately trying to help me but everything was wrong, I couldn’t talk to him to explain what was going on with me and I would get so upset, but Ron has over 16 years in various ICUs and realized what was wrong was some kind of stroke caused by a nearly constant heart rate over 135 and most of the time over 140 and struggling to breath.

But in the land of medical treatment for profit, I couldn’t get even a call back from my former heart doctor’s office. Side note, they called me back in late May after I have seen a heart doctor from a different group and then in June to ask me to schedule my appointment. So by mid-March Ron had had enough and raised hell with my primary and they got me an appointment with a heart doctor taking patients. That doctor looked at the heart rate and blood pressure readings telling me this was serious. Remember, I was still struggling to talk. As I already was unsteady on my feet and walked with a cane or walker, no one even took that into account.

So that doctor had me go through a nuclear heart scan that allowed them to do a stress test without me being on a treadmill. They also did echo scans of my heart. During the test my sugar crashed, and also when they put the medication in to raise the heart rate I suddenly had trouble breathing. My blood pressure readings were so far off the scale the nurse disregarded them and put in her own idea of what they might be by manually taking my vitals, but her monitor on the cuff was not working to her satisfaction so she put in numbers she felt were more appropriate. They were made up as she recorded my diastolic as 40. That is seriously out of acceptable range.

The determination was my heart was OK, good looking even with some recent damage and the doctor tried several drugs and got my blood pressure and heart rate down to an acceptable range. The determination was that in his opinion after what every happen to me my continued breathing problems were making my heart react. Basically, he passed the buck.

So back to the allergist that started this so I could have my treatments. He started them and I started to feel better almost right a way within a few weeks on that side, but he did a breathing test, and my breathing was very bad. He had me do an x-ray and ordered a pulmonary test also gave me a referral to a pulmonologist in the hospital system he worked for. But before I called to set up a new patient appointment, the hospital called me to tell me the test would cost me over $300 dollars for a half hours test. I can not afford that. They told me it was so expensive because it was being done in a hospital. So I did not call the pulmonologist and I am waiting to see the allergist again to ask what to do. I still have breathing problems, but they are not as bad as they were but if I get excited and try to talk I struggle to breath and when I come back to bed from the many times I have to pee at night when I first lay down I struggle to draw in air.

But the important thing is the fog in my brain is clearing up. I still sometimes struggle but when this happened I simply had a head full of cotton, full of fog. I couldn’t understand what I was trying to read, and there was simply no way to comment. I would get so frustrated and angry. But months passed before I could visit other blogs or even deal with any comments. That let some haters who did not understand my repeated pleas to give me space to write horrible stuff in the comments. I could hardly post videos I was trying to watch and laying in bed posting email links to stories from my devices.

I am not fully recovered, and my doctors think the way I am is as good as it is going to get for me. I still get so frustrated, when tired I still struggle to understand and respond to things. Sometimes I struggle to find words I want to speak and other words come out like before, mangled. While Ron understands it is horrible when on the phone. When I type sometimes, I read it afterward and it is gibberish. Yet I must accept this and move on. But it still is frustrating.

My muscles spasms are so bad that as I was typing this email I was jerking and hitting random keys.

I am so unfocused and unable to think well enough to get anything done

What a day this has been. I have been up late the last few nights, 9:30 and 10:00 PM, yet still getting up between 4:30 and 5 AM. Which as led to the fact today I can not concentrate and can not focus on stuff, can not seem to get anything done. I was able to do the dishes. But every time I sit at the computer to try to read the saved stuff that spans the last few days of saved tabs of websites and comments, I can not get more than one done before getting up and leaving the room to do something else. I have been helping Ron a lot, but again it was not mandatory, but just what came next.

This morning after starting the computers and bringing up the old saved tabs, I opened all the newer tabs of comments and new posts. But all day I can not sit and deal with them. I want to, I really do. But not only can my body not settle (all night I was plagued by cramps in my legs and feet.) Now my shoulders are screaming in pain, not wanting to deal with typing or the mouse. Shit, I am not sure what to do. I desperately want to get these things, these tabs, others posts, and get comments answered and read. But I again can not focus. I think Jill has described this better than I can. When it has happened to me in the past, I was not dealing with a backlog and did not really care if there was a backlog, but now I am frustrated as all get out. As frustrated as a rooster in an empty hen house. OK bad joke sorry. My other computer screen has movies ready to play on it, yet that doesn’t seem to bother me to ignore.

OK. Everyone, I am going to give in and just watch a few movies. Then I will reassess the situation. Right now I am in and out and feel like I am in Quantum Leap shifting between times, bodies, and situations. Great show by the way. OK, this is going nowhere, and I am still unable to “think”. Good night. Hugs

Stupid, stupid, idiot, I wish I could still get angry at my own stupidity.

I screwed up! Yes, let me say it again louder, I screwed up! What is worse I started this post late last night not having done all the crap I got early this morning and have been working all day with only a few minutes ago finding and fixing the problem that started this that had I had half the brain I had decades ago or even the eyesight I use to have I might have spotted it right away.

Please indulge me this might get really long as it started yesterday at about 4 or 5 PM. Also as Nan can loudly attest I am never short of words but use as many as possible to say what I want. The saga started at with Ron being unable to sit and watch his TV shows including his apple box, Netflix, HBO Max, Amazon Prime, and a subscription to an oriental video channel he loves. But he gets like that … often. So he decided we had to get out the two new monitor arms we bought for when we moved me into the new room … hold on don’t get ahead of me I got a lot of stupids to go through first. He wanted to set one up and that went to wanting to try them on a monitor.

Well the instructions, which I had a real issue with Ron even bothering to look at as he is sure he understands these things, said first we had to put together the base and then to attach it to the desk, forward from there including putting a monitor on the arm which was what Ron really wanted to do. Well I could see where this was going so … I started shutting things down and getting read to unhook everything.

So Ron was all excited, and he thought it was a great time to clean off the desk and move it into the new office, even though he was not finished working in there. So why fight the inevitable that will happen? I agreed.

So after I unhooked everything Ron helped me remove everything from heavy from the desk and I removed the papers and other small stuff scattered all over the desk. The Ron cleaned and washed the desk of all the dust, dirt, food, and cat food pieces that gather on a place where I let cats stay and so much daily work is done.

One thing, I have said and will say many more times that “Ron cleaned …” . And that is because Ron doesn’t mind cleaning stuff, doing the detailed work of getting cat fur and other debris off stuff. I hate it, and Ron understands this. I will wash dishes now that we don’t have the dishwasher, I will clean toilets and showers, I will do the floors until my torn up dying shoulders give out. But detailed cat hair / fur removal and other stuff like that I hate including cleaning, dusting, and wiping stuff down. I have not done it so far in my 60 years except a few years in the military, and if I can keep my wonderful hubby happy I won’t have to.

So I guess now I have to explain what my desk is. In 1998 we bought another new home because Ron insisted for the many times again we move … I now understand why, but then we did not have a diagnosis of his anxiety issues. That would come many decades and a lot of lost money later. The prior owner was selling everything in the house including a wooden table with the ability to expand to about 84 inches and was 31 1/2 wide. I loved it. The owner wanted 100 dollars for it and we paid that. There is a further story about the table, but everything worked out for us after my adoptive father tried to screw me, again.

Long story short, after all the damage to the home and my office from hurricane Ian my desk in my office was destroyed and to get my computer system up online the guys took the eating table we had so they could quickly get me set up. But after using it for a while and having very … large Odie sprawled on it, we realized it was so much better for that than my other desks. It was decided not to buy another desk but I would keep this table as my desk. Fast forward to last night … again.

Last night we cleaned off the desk, removed the middle top, took it into the room and expanded it and put the top back in. Remember this was a sudden decision due to Ron not being able to settle down and wanting to see how the new monitor arms worked, Then we added the arms that we put together haltingly and without any missteps. Added the monitors and adjusted the arms so I could move them. Ron still needs to loosen then some more so it is easier for me to move, right now I have to get up and use a lot of effort to move them. When I told him he was agreeable but said he was only trying to keep the monitors from falling, but remember the arms we bought are for monitors larger and heavy than mine as Ron thinks I might want / need bigger ones in the future. My eyes are still getting worse.

Then after the monitors it was time to put the computers he wiped off and cleaned but that also became a small issue. When I was in this room as my office originally I had each computer up off the floor which keeps them much cleaner and healthier. In the old large front room office Ron was always going to build something to get them off the floor but never did find time to do it, and in that room and the living room my computers sat on the floor. One on each side of the desk, on the side of their monitor. This important as you will see later. The important thing to know is the side of each monitor changed. They are reversed.

With the Logitech program and devices I have I can switch computers with just moving the mouse to the edge of the computer screen and it switches to the other computers. So blogging computer is always computer one and video computer is always computer two with any laptop or other thing I am working on being number three. On the keyboard I use number three for my phone so I can text easier. I never had an issue with changing my set-up before. What I did not realize is they changed the program so simply resetting the flow settings did not change the computer arrangement to match the current set up. That is important as you will see and how I totally became stupid and caused my self two days of extra work.

So we set up monitors, computers on the desk moving their position to better salve my OCD about size and placements, we put the battery backups on the floor, ran the new power cables and plugged stuff in, and started to hook the other stuff up. Then came the last part, the ethernet cables. We had not moved the modem or router so the cat cables I was using before were too short. I dug boxes out of my closet of older cables and stuff. I found a few that are more than long enough and ran them along the walls and into the room to the computers. But they are not cat 6 such as the ones I was using, so when everything gets put into the room I will take the measurements of the lengths I need and order them at that time.

I should mention that somewhere at this point Friday night I still did not know what was keeping my mouse and keyboard from switching / working properly as I had written about so much of this much of this post. I closed it down to go to bed at like 9:15 PM which is very late for me only to find that this morning I had lost the entire post. I had not yet dumped either computer which I was planning to do and then reinstall all the programs hoping that cleaned up what every was keeping the issue. Remember the point is to move the mouse to the edge of the monitor and the cursor jumps to the next monitor. To be continued tomorrow morning.

Writting this on Sunday morning!

So Saturday morning I got up early and wanted to dump the computers because I was still sure the problem was a registry issue. So instead of just running the registry cleaners I thought to dump them, that way cleaning them up really well. But I had a major problem. I still had 61 open tabs saved for comments and websites I want to get to. If I dumped both computers I would forever lose them. So I was stuck doing them one at a time dragging the process out and maybe keeping the same issue with the mouse / keyboard program switching monitors / computers. I decided to do the video computer first.

I had done all the prep work yesterday so all I had to do Saturday morning was to run the recovery program telling the computer to clean all the drives and redownload and install the Windows 10 OS. Then after about 20 minutes or less I started the tedious work of going through and adjusting all the settings, renaming the computers, setting things up to give me the max privacy and performance mix. That takes far longer than doing the recovery. Then I started with the programs reinstall. I do Chrome first, then Nortons security and utilities, then NordVPN, and lastly I install Ashampoo Winoptimizer 26. I set all of them to give the max security and max privacy. Also Both NordVPN and Adblock Plus in Chrome stops any advertisements except those I allow. Plus NordVPN and Nortons both work to prevent malware and scan for viruses. Then I add in the sound programs, camera programs and other odds and ends programs I use. That takes hours, but I can still use the computer while doing it.

Next I used the history of devices on Chrome to open all 61 of the saved open tabs that my blogging computer had open. I then did all the recovery steps on the blogging computer that I had just done on the video computer. During this Ron got up so I started up his computer and used it to also load the 61 open tabs so I would be sure not to lose them.

During this time I was checking to see if the newly installed Logi Options+ to see if it seen the computers in the right order and would work by moving the mouse to the left edge of the right screen moving the mouse cursor to the left screen and to go back to the right screen I would move the mouse cursor to the right edge of the left monitor. It wouldn’t switch, still not working. But in frustration I moved the cursor all the way to the right edge of the right monitor and suddenly the cursor showed up on the left monitor. Wait how did that happen. I did a few more times, and it worked like it should. Except to the program the monitors were in the possitions they were before the move. I did not make sence to me. I open the program on both computers and reset the flow part of the program. Same thing. I was getting so frustrated! Then know I needed a break I left my mouse cursor on one of the monitors in the open flow part of the program and went to get a soda.

When I returned I noticed a tip message I never seen or had appear before because I never left the cursor on one of the monitors on the program that names the monitor / computer for each ones connect with the program.

The message said “Drag to rearrange”. WTF

By my dogs that love gravy could it really be that easy? Could it be the solution was to simply move the monitors in the program. Then I looked at the names on the monitors displayed in the program. I had not bothered because I knew both of mine were there so why take the effort to really look closely at the names on the monitors displayed. Son of a deer tick, on the screen the monitors were PlayBlogger on the left and PlayVideo on the right. But I had switched the order in the move. Now the monitor for the PlayBogger was on the right and Play Video on the left. I dragged the displayed monitors in the program to show the current positions of the monitors. Then I moved the cursor to the left edge of the right monitor and it jumped to the left monitor. It worked! Just the way it is supposed to. All that work, and two days lost from blogging and read blogs / news. All because I did not know that I could change the monitors on the screen and I DID NOT LOOK AT WHAT THE DISPLAY SAID THE MONITOR ORDER WAS.

But by the time I figured it out it was far too late in the day and I was very tired. I decided to get a shower and go to bed. Ron had acid reflux again in the early part of the night and was up most of the night. I couldn’t sleep either so we got up about 3:30 AM and while having coffee I am finishing writing this post. Before the morning news shows I have to move my rolling TV entertainment stand into the new office so I can watch the Sunday news shows that are on broadcast. And I have to now go open and save all the last few days of comments and blogs I missed. Hugs