I'm Their #10

Sunday’s weather was dull until 15:30 when the sun came out. I walked Sheba very early in the morning because I had a Zoom call with John and Bunny at 9:30. We chatted for two hours! I couldn’t believe it; I hurried to feed the pets when I was done, and then Sheba and I went to Rollo Park to play fetch … probably for the very last time. Sheba is clearly having some kind of problem with weakness in her back leg or legs, so we will be just trail walking from now on. 

I watched some telly during the day because it was My Day and I was recovering from six hours of chatting with Aidan, but when the sun came out I Sheba and I went for our afternoon walk. And then I had a spa. Oh, the joy of slipping into the warm water in the fresh air of a lovely Autumn afternoon. Then, as has happened before, Pete came over. He sat on a chair on the deck as I continued to soak in all my naked glory, and we had a very nice visit. I love the guy. He urged me to ‘pop by’ more often.

When I came inside, I became quite concerned about Sheba. She was not moving around much at all, and. She refused to get out of the car when we went for our late afternoon walk. I regret playing fetch even more now, but I made myself feel better by thinking that after a good night’s sleep she might feel better. If she seems off at all as we go through our day, we’ll go to the vet.

Last night I was thinking about visiting Steve, but not in LA. I was thinking of Palm Springs where we went so often as a couple. But it ain’t gunna happen. I started thinking about it because if Sheba is slowing down, I could probably comfortably leave her here with a live-in sitter. But I don’t want to go to the US, and when I think about flying, I realize it’s impossible for me to get into a plane. Going through customs, the noise in the plane, the proximity of strangers, the number of people, the behaviour of passengers: a plane ride is a festival of triggers for me. I’d be mute and seizing often. There’s no way.

Taking an Alaska cruise with someone is probably as exotic as I can do for myself. My birthday is in December, but I’m thinking of celebrating my eightieth birthday in July and doing something to be free of house arrest.

I am, and have been for a while, conscious of a something my emotional brain is doing. When Pete casually tosses off “pop by Chris, okay,” he makes me feel liked. And two or three things in the past two weeks have come into my consciousness that I am liked by someone. I can’t recall ever using things said by others to enable myself to believe that I am liked ever before. I’ve known all my life that I have poor self-esteem, so what is happening now, doesn’t surprise me. But it does feel good to feel welcome in my neighbourhood.

Nancy and Ron, Pete and Allie, Dave and Ursula, Lynn and Hugh, and Colleen, these neighbours all make me feel very welcome. More than that, they monitor me because they know that I ‘have issues.’ Coincidentally, there are 9 neighbourhood friends, and statistically in Canada, 1 in 10 people have a mental health diagnosis, so, I’m the number 10 of a statistically perfect Canadian cluster of friends. (In frequently, in this short-form medium, one must write a long sentence.)

I see Dr. Shoja tomorrow. I have my agenda. She is a tool for me, just like the GPS device in my car. Both my GPS and Dr. S. are extremely, extremely good for de-stressing. They are reverse gas stations; instead of uploading a toxin, I download my anxieties with their assistance. Oh, and so is Tezspire a stress reducer. It creates distance between statistics about my condition based on pre-biomedical intervention, and me.

I am clear that I want to keep seeing her, and I know that it is ethical and that she is open to me seeing her. She has often said I can see her for as long as I want. But after last month, I want to talk to her about staying with her. I was stoned on prednisone. I know stoned. I know what manic feels like, and that’s how I felt on prednisone. I’m definitely talking to the good doctor about that!

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The sky is cloudless and a beautiful deep blue this morning, and I am feeling very, very good because Sheba was walking normally this morning. I have learned my lesson: no more playing fetch. That’s a sad decision because she loves chasing the ball more than anything else, but it seems clear to me that she suffers if we play fetch. 

We shall walk with our friends, and then we’ll go into the village to do some shopping and to visit the pharmacy. The rest of the day will be spent reading and doing some follow-up with Aidan.

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Last night under dark and stormy looking sky, I took these photos as the sun was going down. I’m rather amazed by the iPhone camera that took such bright photos takin in quite dark light.

Look at these colours: The light green of the Japonica (left), the dark,
dark purple of the Japanese Maple close to the deck, the brilliant red 
of the Japanese Maple by the studio, and the yellow of the climbing 
Hydrangea on the trellis.

Look at the abundance of blossoms on this Fuchsia at the end of October! 

Don't Hang Up. Hang On.

I teared up when he said: Take all the time you need.” Oh, the trials of speaking sometimes can get to me.

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I felt like a fully functioning human being yesterday. Friday was such a write-off after a tortuous night of cramps on Thursday night. Last night, I didn’t have a single cramp, and I slept deeply and wonderfully long. And yesterday morning, I felt happy and carefree, anticipating meeting Aidan and seeing what comes of our conversation.

I tidied up some more—it’s impossible to keep the Fir needles out of the house; they are everywhere—and then took Her Highness walking. She saw a young woman walking in the 707 park and went off to investigate her, completely ignoring my calls. She was growling, but her tail was wagging, and she had sticks in her mouth that she likes to carry when we walk.

I called out to the young woman to let her know that Sheba was safe, and she assured me she was okay with dogs. We wound up walking together and chatting and as we arrived at our cars, she asked me my name. Her’s is Nicky. I felt great because she wouldn’t have asked my name if she hadn’t enjoyed some aspect of our walk and talk together. And that made me feel wonderful.

And on the way home, in gentle rain, I noticed a Salal bush outside Sandy’s fence, and it struck me as beautiful. I’d seen it a million times, but yesterday I felt so, so good about life, it looked beautiful. Everything was making me feel good yesterday. Aren’t I lucky?

My biggest source of joy right now, however, is that my blitz of entertaining had me repaying everyone who regularly invites me to their homes for a meal, and now I can relax and put entertaining aside for quite a while. After today, I anticipate no visitors until Paula comes for Christmas. I’m seriously looking forward to her visit. 

When we got home from our walk, I made the salads and put them into the fridge for later. And then I put wood on the fire and got busy reading things on Aidan’s and STAMMA’s websites. At 10:30, I got a text from him saying that he’s likely catch the 11:15 ferry. That will have him arriving here just before noon. Ideal timing for lunch. I appreciated his giving me a heads up about his ETA.

While I waited, Dwight called and we chatted, and then Bruce called, fresh back from Croatia, and we had a lovely chat as well. As much as I have trouble with seizures and speech with my friends, how I love them! And as I was saying goodbye to Bruce, a text came from Aidan saying that he was on his way by road from the ferry.

When he arrived, I went outside to welcome him and as he came near, I opened my arms, and we hugged before saying a word. And it was a real hug. Then we began speaking and I realized that he doesn’t stutter. He loved the lunch I served. He’s a vegetarian, so I was glad that I save adding the seafood to my laksa. I served him the soup without prawns, and I had prawns in my serving. 

He arrived just before noon, and I drove him to catch the 18:15 ferry. We talked about stuttering advocacy for six hours non-stop. He valued my perspective on late-onset stuttering (LOS) and we will be working together to bring his organization up to speed on the issues facing LOS and he wants to get a support group going for LOSs like mine with STAMMA.

I have to say that I love Aidan. He’s such a committed, enthusiastic and brilliant young man. And thrilled and proud to be working with him and I know that he enjoyed our day together as much as I did. It was extraordinary how strong a bond has formed between us over stuttering. I do truly love him because he doesn’t stutter and yet he is determined to make is organization, SPACE, as effective and active as STAMMA.

And for fifteen years, he was an actor in NYC. An actor! Now you know why I feel love for him.  How could I not? I offered to help with fundraising too, and he liked some of my ideas—ideas that I used when I was fundraising for the Performing Arts Lodge (PAL Vancouver).

What a wonderful, inspiring day! And what a wonderful, inspiring young man Aidan is. It was the nicest, most emotionally moving day that I’ve lived in years. And now, the work begins.

Aidan Visits Today

I'm going to Gabe Automotive to have my tires torqued, and then going into Nester’s on the way home. But then, you see, I had a nap. It was more a deep, deep sleep. I had only five hours rest/sleep Thursday night because of cramps in all my limbs. My ‘nap’ left me woozy for the rest of the day.

When I got up, I took Her Highness for a walk in Elder Cedar. And when we returned home, I cleaned and tidied the house in anticipation of Aidan’s visit today, and then I got into the spa for a good long soak under ominous skies. But once that lovely warm water and embraced me, all concerns were gone. It’s a blissful feeling to get into the water. I reckon it’s impossible to think about anything negative. It feels just too, too good to ruin with negative thoughts. I always close my eyes when I get in. It relaxes me instantly. 

Back on land, it was time to feed the pets and then make my dinner and install myself on the chaise. Yesterday felt like a recovery day. I went to Eoin and François’ place knowing that I was going to meet their friends who are neighbours, but I did not anticipate the effect that they’d have on me.

I’m fluent with E&F, I have been for years. But on Thursday night, I spoke quite well at times, but it was hard. Plus, it embarrassed me deeply to speak rather well with E&F but pretty badly with Connie and Kyle. I want to explain why that was for fear of what they might think of me having such difficulty with them. But I couldn’t comfortably do that. I don’t want to take over the conversation to talk about myself. No thank you. Not when the subject is my mental health and about my symptoms. And not with strangers.

The anxiety I felt and the effort it took to speak is probably why I suffered so with cramps that night when I went to bed. That’s why yesterday felt like a reparation day. And today, Aidan comes. But with him, even though he’s a stranger, I feel totally comfortable because he knows and understands people who stutter. He’s our advocate, so I am unafraid. (More about him below.)

But first, the storm. Rain POUNDED down last night starting around 19:00. It was crazy in bursts, and normal in between the short-ish torrential downpours. Meanwhile inside, Ethel was curled up on the table in front of the fire, Fred was in the chair, close to the fire, and Sheba lay on the cool wood floor at the foot of the chaise. I love going to sleep when it rains.

Back to Aidan: I have two concerns that I want to talk to him about. One is AI-generated voice reception. I’m particularly concerned about the use of AIG voices in agencies, corporations and government. My second interest is the population of late-onset stutterers (LOS). It’s my concern that an enormous percentage of LOSs live without support and are unaware of devices and practices that can assist them with communication. These two things comprise my agenda for my talks today with Aidan. The issue that means most to me: LOSs.

I’ve found community and support in the stuttering community. I’m particularly grateful to STAMMA for forming a support group for LOSs. I want to grow the group, but I live in Vancouver and STAMMA is in London and serves the UK. But as I emerged from my breakdown and found my speech so, so badly broken, I never thought of myself as a stutterer/stammerer, and no one in the hospitals I went through ever used the word, “stutter.”

Once the doctors at Vancouver General diagnosed me as having a mental health problem I went home, BUT … I had my first appointment date with Dr. Shoja in hand. She didn’t label anything. I went through many words before I started calling my seizures by their correct name. Google was my greatest resource, so once you have the right name for my symptoms, I could do a lot of learning. And when Dr. S. diagnosed me with C-PTSD and FND. Google taught me much more.

One day I came upon a wonderful film on YouTube called Stutterer. Here’s what I wrote as a comment under the film:

This film changed my life. I thought of myself as having a bad speech impediment. No doctor or anyone used the word "stuttering" when speaking with me. I struggled for a couple of years when, due to a nervous breakdown, I lost my speech. Then I saw this film, and that led me to contacting stuttering organisations wherein I found community and a healing in my soul. I'm now a stuttering advocate working to make agencies and corporations aware of the impact of AI-generated voices have on the speech impaired. Bless you filmmaker, producers, distributors, New Yorker and YouTube for saving my soul and giving me a wonderful community to be part of. 

I want to find partners to help me light a fire under stuttering organizations to create space for LOSs. And I’d love to work on publicity about LOSs in which we could alert medical and mental health professionals, and doctors whose patients lose their speech about the stuttering community where they can get emotional and practical support services.

It's a film for everyone. It’s brilliant and it’s short. Here a link.

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This morning, there were several tributes to Jay on my Facebook feed. It was heartwarming to read the words of others who loved him, and I loved that one person posted photos of her together with Jay when he was young. I never knew him then, so it was fun to see young Jay.

I’ve already made laksa for lunch this morning, and soon I’ll walk Sheba, and then make a quick run into the village to go to the pharmacy. Then I’ll come home to wait for Aidan’s arrival. I’m very excited about meeting him.

Deathly Cramps

By 11:00 yesterday, the sun came out. The predicted wind and rain storm failed to arrive and so Her Highness and I enjoyed a lovely early morning walk in mild weather through the trails of the 707. Although the sunshine had not yet arrived, the cloud layer overnight kept the forest warm.

When we got home a decided to try to make something to take to Eoin and François’ place as a hostess gift. They make extraordinary appetizers, so I was not going to make some. Instead, I decided to temper some chocolate and make some marshmallow filled chocolates. But I was certain that I’d screwed up. I need a new thermometer because the one I have was not working. It was giving me four-digit readings, so I’ll be going on Amazon later today. But when I popped the chocolate marshmallows out of the mold, they looked okay. I was stunned.

Once lunch was served to all, Her Highness and I went to Elder Cedar to walk. My plan was to leave Sheba home while I was out for dinner, so I wanted the two walks and late in the afternoon we went to Rollo Park to play fetch. When we got to Elder Cedar, she was very keen to walk. She roared ahead of me and then ran back to me with sheer glee in her face; I’ve never seen her do that before. It was a very lovely walk.

Once back home, I travelled with Graham Green’s aunt while Her Highness recovered from our walks. I’m really enjoying the book. And I was very disciplined all day about my diet. I did, however, lick the spatula when I was making the chocolate, and I had a taste of the marshmallow to ensure that I’d not put in too much vanilla. 

I made chocolate leaves to top each of the chocolate marshmallows that I made. I have always had success with making chocolate leaves in the past, but not yesterday, and I have no idea why. It took three tries of painting Salal leaves, cooling them in the fridge, and then carefully peeling the chocolate layer off the leaves before I had a leaf for all five chocolates.

At 15:00, we went to Rollo Park to play fetch. I wore her out and then we came home, and I had a spa while she had a huge drink and then curled up to sleep. Soon thereafter, I fed everyone their dinner and then I left for Eoin and François’ place to have dinner. I was very keen for their food. We had homemade pizza, and it was absolutely delicious. Plus, we had butternut squash soup that was pure perfection. What cools E&F are! And their friends, Connie and Kyle, were lovely people and fun to chat with. It was a wonderful night, but it ended badly.

I came home and went to bed. It was 22:00 and after less than a couple of minutes in bed, I was up on my feet trying to stop my left leg from cramping. It’s like a switch is thrown and my leg severely cramps up in both the thigh, and calf, plus my foot twists outward and it’s very painful.

Standing up and walking and shaking my legs didn’t stop the cramping, but it seemed less painful, so I got back into bed, and both legs cramped up, so I was getting into bed and then getting up to walk and shake every two minutes, and then my arms started cramping as well. It was one Hell of a night of vicious pain, and it went on until 1:20. That’s the last time I looked at my watch. By then I’d had 3.5 hours of constant pain, so I took and Ativan, and sleep eventually overcame me. And thank God!

Today began early. I was up at 6:00 (thanks to the Ativan, I got an extra hour of sleeping), and we left here at 7:40 to go to Gabriola Automotive to have my tires torqued. And then we went shopping, after which I took Her Highness walking in the very wet 707 Park. When I finally got home, I was very happy to be warm and dry because it’s very windy and it’s raining heavily. We’re in full storm mode

The rest of the day is going to be sweet. I shall be reading and preparing materials for tomorrow with Aidan who’s coming for lunch. I’m going to make laksa and my Asian salad for him. I just happen to love both dishes. But mostly, I’ll be reading. We’ll walk in the forest if, and when, the rain stops. Tonight, it’ll be wonderful to be cozy and warm while I watch a movie. I just hope we don’t have a power failure.

I took my first selfie during the sunny break yesterday.

And this photo was quite an accomplishment. I lodged
my camera in a tree and was able to activate the shutter
using my watch. This is a fabulous way to take photos.

Above and below: two trees at the medical centre in
full Autumnal glory.

Memories of this past summer with Jay (in his hat) and Eoin,
François and Steve, who took the photo. I'm still terribly sad
about Jay's passing and I miss him every day.

Yay Tezspire!

Wednesday’s clear bright morning soon turned into another dull day. Some malevolent spirit is clearing the skies at night, so it gets good and cold and then brings clouds in the morning to deprive us of the sunshine I want for my clover. However, the clover is thriving, me, not so much. I was chilly on our morning walk, but it was wonderfully refreshing to be out there with Mother Nature.

Then we went into the village to buy supplies and order a refill for a prescription. When we got home, I spent some time with Graham Green travelling with ‘him’ and his aunt until it was lunchtime. These days are rather dull, but I’m not complaining. I do three walks with Her Highness, which, on top of her reduced food, should help her lose some weight.

Once the brood was fed, I had a spa. These are the last spa days as soon I will be draining the tub for the winter. For my first six years here, I kept the spa going all year round, but two years ago, I rarely used it and that’s when I decided to drain it during the cold, dark and wet months. I refill it in April or May.

At 14:00, the sky suddenly cleared. In a matter of minutes, every cloud was gone, and earlier in the afternoon I’d turned the lights on because it was so dark when the clouds were a very dark grey. Her Highness and I went to Elder Cedar to walk; we should have been playing fetch because it’s such a good way to burn some of her calories, but I prefer our walks, and I love the Elder Cedar trail. When we play fetch, I get tuckered out from walking too quickly.

And speaking of breathing, I’m of the impression that the Tezspire is working. I am breathing well and I’m capable of modest work. I feel as clear in my lungs as I did when I was on prednisone, and that’s what Dr. Dorscheid said would happen. This is very exciting! And more good news: I’m really enjoying Travels With My Aunt. It’s a gentle read and I’m thrilled to find myself engaged by a book again!!

Jay’s obituary was in the Sounder, so I had people calling me yesterday and it was nasty talking to people on my telephone. People were shocked to discover that Jay had died, and talking about it was extra difficult for me. I couldn’t speak in whole sentences. I could just say key words. Thankfully, most of them had the courtesy to not keep me on the phone long. 

There’s a storm warning for today and tomorrow. The real problem is wind and when there is a wind warning issued, I must prepare for a power failure. I’m going into the village to fetch gasoline in my jerrycans, and I’m going to keep the fire going all day. 

I’ll read and putter all day, but tonight I go to Eoin and François’ for dinner with friends of theirs whom I don’t know. I’m really looking forward to going because they are the best cooks in my world.