Cherry’s Blog

Been a while since I have posted an update. haven’t really wanted to think about it. I have been keeping busy so that I don’t have to think about not being able to write, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been doing things to try to get my writing back.

I have never written to a schedule…I figured out why. I have spent most of my life adhering to schedules for my diabetes that I have rebelled at schedules for the rest of my time. But I am working at changing that. I have been doing writing exercises and brain games to stimulate things. I have not noticed much improvement. I thought that maybe my memory might be doing a little better, until I realized there were emails that I hadn’t answered for weeks, some for almost a month, that I thought I had answered, and when I tried to remember what has been going on the past month, nothing. just a blankness.

I do know that the past week or so, I have been cleaning the house intensely. I have been dusting and cleaning so much. the only thing that prevents the house from being totally clean is shampooing the carpet and washing down the walls. I did this for two reasons…sometimes the clutter around me equals the clutter in my mind, and while I usually like my mind cluttered, sometimes it needs to calm and be refreshed, and I am hoping that with the cleaning of the house I will be able to unclutter my mind and force the block/damage to be healed. I finished the cleaning today…well, I need to re-vacuum and clean the bathroom again tomorrow, but then I will be done for a few days. I also wanted to clean the house so I could put out the Halloween decorations. A lot of my creativity is inspired by Halloween, even if the stories themselves aren’t usually spooky. and the third reason…to make it so I don’t have to think about no progress.

I even took down all my notes and drawings and maps for the three storylines I am working on. Staring at them, and not being able to do anything about them, has increased the frustration, so I figure if I try to cut down on the frustration of not being able to work on my major projects, I will be able to concentrate more on the small projects, the healing projects and maybe more progress will be made.

My room looks empty without all the notes hanging about. I had them everywhere. But if this experiment works, it will be worth taking them down for a little while. If it doesn’t, I will put everything back up. I did get all of my books put out where I can easily see them, so that is a plus. LOL.

But, we will see what happens. I am trying to be hopeful, but at the same time, I really don’t want to set myself up for disappointment, so I am trying to take each day as it comes, and keep trying to keep my brain stimulated. Tomorrow, after cleaning, will be a day of fun. Since it is October 1st, I will be able to officially play my Halloween music without anybody razing me (Like I care what they say about it. I have been listening to it on and off for about a month.) and I will be able to put my Halloween decorations out and make the house spooky. This is my most favorite time of year, so if it doesn’t stimulate something then, well…I will keep trying

Have a good last day of September!

Well, it has been a few days since I got confirmation from the doctor about my memory, cognitive skills, and writing. I have talked to Bob, Dan and Skyla at Mundania Press and they have given me some very good advice on a direction to go to start retraining myself as a writer. Though I am not sure if retraining is the right word. Maybe it is relearning. no…I was right the first time. It is retraining. After all, I know the functions of writing, so I don’t need to relearn how to write. I just need to retrain myself to try to access the area of my brain that I write from. Hopefully. I feel like I am back at square one, from when I was tiny and creating my stories for my stuffed animals and dolls. LOL There’s an idea…maybe I should go out and buy a boat load of dolls and stuffies and tell them stories. Actually my sister gave me a suggestion that is not too far off from that…tell stories and read out loud to my cat and dog. Kill two dragons with one lance. Start the process for telling stories again, and also start working on my lack of nerve to speak out loud…If you ever met me, odds would be you wouldn’t really be able to tell I have a problem speaking to people, but I do. I am socially awkward, so much so, that to cover my awkwardness, I usually end up talking about facts that I know about various things, or talking about the mythical, mythological or metaphysical. I am even awkward around my family…mostly about reading or telling stories out loud….comes from years of being tormented about my…worlds that I live in. But, I am going back to the basics on retraining myself on how to write. developing routines…which I have never really hard…doing writing exercises and the like. Maybe I will get my writing back. I hope so. I can’t picture my life without it. This past month has been one of the hardest months in my life, even with all of my health problems. Having my writing taken away has driven me to the brink several times. It has also shown me that I need another outlet for my creativity, and my worlds. Something that is not reliant on sitting at a computer (or a notepad) and something that might not necessarily incorporate words.

Oh, for those of you wondering, I keep saying that my writing is gone, yet I am writing blogs and emails…for me at least, emails/blogs/letters come from a different level of the brain. and it is an entirely different skill set than writing books. I have met people that are the most beautiful letter writers, yet they cannot write a book/article/story, fiction or non-fiction, to save their lives. and I have also met the most wonderful writers that wouldn’t know how to write a letter to save their lives. I fall somewhere in-between these two groups. LOL.

But for now, tomorrow I start my retraining. Here’s hoping.

If you have noticed, I have been kind of quiet on the front since I came out of the hospital last month. I keep hoping that things will improve, but they just aren’t. One day I feel a little better physically, then the next I don’t. One thing that is keeping that fluctuating is my weight. In the month since first going in the hospital, my weight has fluctuated 10 pounds up and down about six times. And now that I am on this other insulin, and the higher doses of it, my weight is going to continue to climb. Which I am not looking forward to.

But this is what is the not-so-good news. This is something I am going to have to try to find a way around, and right now, the wall is so high and wide that it is daunting to look at, that I can’t even begin to know where to start to try to figure a way around.

For those that have not read the blog before today, I will start from the beginning.

Since getting out of the hospital a month ago, my brain has had this deep, dense, thick fog that has been impenetrable (thank you thesaurus LOL…Also thank you spell check and back-space key) when I have tried to do any thinking deeper than surface thinking…which, as you know, includes my creative thinking for my writing. I have also been getting physical pains when I try to think deeper than the surface. My short term memory is shot and I have no memory retention…I cannot remember what I see, read or do unless I make notes…and I rarely remember to make notes. When reading out loud to dictate notes into my tape recorder (I did figure that one out to get around the wall and fog to continue the research, but still can’t write. ) even simple words, words that I have known how to pronounce forever, are proving difficult for me to know how to say and I am having to spell them out, often having to do that two or three times as I spell them wrong.

Well, I went to the doctor today to talk to her about this, among other things, and She told me that every time there are extreme lows and extreme highs brain cells die, neurons get fried…but it is usually just very small, and is easily recovered from. but from what I have described, this was not a small fry. it is a rather large fry. Memory and cognitive (I know I didn’t spell that right, but for the life of me, I don’t know how it is spelled) Brain damage fry. She took me off some of the meds that contribute to brain fogginess, and reduced others that also do the same in the hopes of reducing the effects of this, and we are hoping that eventually my brain will repair itself, but she is not hopeful. She looked me in the eye and told me that I am going to have to find a way to work around this, that if it repairs, it is going to be a long recovery process, and she is not all that hopeful that it will repair with all of my other health problems and how many times I have ended up in the ER and hospital, and how fragile my diabetes is. She didn’t say it, but she hinted that it is possible that I may not be able to write again, because that is one of the areas that was most damaged…my cognitive/creative area and my short-term memory.

I don’t know what I am going to do if I can’t find a way around this to be able to write again.Writing is my existence. I can’t imagine not writing. I had contingency plans to be able to get around and continue to write when…if…I lost my vision. I never dreamed I would have to face possible brain damage. I never ever dreamed the diabetes would affect my creative self, I figured it was too busy going after my body to bother with my mind. I always prided myself on having a strong mind the more weak my body has gotten. right now, I am pretty devastated, and don’t know what to do. I can’t even begin to know where to look to try to get around this newest problem. I thought loss of vision would be the scariest thing I would ever face :S

So, I need to figure out a way to get around this. I don’t want to give up writing. The passion is still there, I can feel it burning away at me. I can feel me just aching to write….but what do you do when you don’t know a way around the block that is not just a writers block, but a actual damaged block? I don’t know. I am going to email my publisher and see what they have to say, see if they have any suggestions…I may be shooting myself in the foot, burning bridges (to use two cliches), but right now, I would rather burn bridges and find ways to write, then still have options open to me and not be able to produce anything…here’s hoping.

~~~

oh, as a little note…I was thinking of putting up a reminder of my works in progress and the sites that I visit, but right now, with how things are, I am wondering if that might be premature now…but I think I will do it anyway, because, even if I don’t ever write again (I throw myself on the mercy of all deities of all religions of all the universe that this is not the results)…I still have Judgment At Witches Court available for sell, and if that is the outcome of this, I will probably post what work I do have…so here is the refresher information…

Cherry Dumas

Judgment at Witches Court - "Witches, a psychic, and a lawyer…who else can save the Witches Realm?" available through Mundania Press and other retailers

The Elementals of Celayone series - "It takes more than evil to defeat the natural order of the universe."

Hubris - "Can twins redeem themselves in the face of gods?"

Mu Mysteries - "Can a mother and daughter form Lemuria change the way things are done? or will their attempts lead to war with Atlantis, or will their attempts lead to the destruction of their very way of life?" - An online e-serial (Coming soon)

www.enchantmentofthemind.com
www.enchantmentofthemind.com/blog
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cherrydumas/
http://www.facebook.com : Cherry Dumas
http://indigochick.conforums3.com/index.cgi?board=cherryd - Message board for Cherry at Skyla Dawn Cameron’s forum

first off, I hope this blog comes off making sense since I have taken my evening medication (including my sleeping pill), but this blog wants to be written. So I will do as good as I can to go over it before I post it LOL.

Something strange is going on with pets over the past year with pets dying with the people I know. I feel really bad about it, but it strikes me as strange.

and this is the ones the ones that I have paid attention to, I believe that there have been more, that didn’t register with me, or that weren’t mentioned to me.

My baby cat, okay, he wasn’t such a baby, but he wasn’t old either, Orion died last November. and a not even a couple of months ago, our horse Flicka.

My ex-roommate and friend, Steph, her cat died just very shortly before Orion.

Another friend of mine, she has lost a couple of ferrets.

My sister, her cat is getting ready to die, she doesn’t have much longer to live.

Laurell K Hamilton has lost 2 dogs (and even though it doesn’t seem like much, it does break the heart) she also lost a fish, all in a few months…the first dog within two or three months ago, the second dog within a week or so, and the fish this morning.

And these are just the ones that I can think of right now, I know there have been more, I just can’t remember them right now. I wonder what the significance of the animals dying is. And not all of the animals dying have been elderly, or even showing signs of being sick. and it wouldn’t struck me as strange if it has been spread over a longer period of time, but spread over just a year…that has been what has raised my curiosity. strange. Really strange…

I wish all your animals…and mine…go health and long life

I was able to do a bit more research tonight…not nearly as much as I did yesterday, but the reading I did tonight had more useful information than the reading I did last night. Yet, I still didn’t get any writing done. To be honest, I didn’t even attempt. Fall has hit for sure, with a vengeance here in the mountains of Utah. A little higher than us received the first snowfall of the year, and the drastic temperature change has left me feeling more achy than normal, and sniffily, yet stuffed up. I am trying to head off the cold, but I think I am losing the battle. So needless to say, I did not fell up to sitting at the computer to type. I was able to get more work done on the songs for my Ipod, but even that kicked my butt. My back and shoulders (especially my bad shoulder) is hurting really bad tonight. So I know that if I had tried to write, I would have been only a few minutes at it. Tomorrow I go to the doctor to get a continuous blood glucose monitor on that I will be wearing for the weekend so we can fine tune my pump, and hopefully get my blood sugars a little more stable. So I won’t be getting any work done tomorrow…and Saturday my brother and sister-in-law and nieces are coming for the weekend…maybe I can try to slip in some time to try to write during then, but odds are, my next best time to try to write is not going to be until Sunday evening or Monday…scratch that, I will be going back to the doctor on Monday to have the monitor taken off…so Tuesday…I hope. Wednesday we have to travel 2 hours one way to Salt Lake to see the regular doctor, where I am going to talk to her about my memory, among other things. So, if not Tuesday, then Thursday. Sheesh, it is no wonder I get little progress done. A cool thing happened yesterday though. I have mentioned sun spiders before. Usually we see them as "teenagers" (at least, as of lately), or full grown adults. But yesterday, I felt something crawling on me (and I usually automatically slap, but this time I didn’t) and I saw an itty bitty baby sun spider crawling on me. He was soooo cute! I am interpreting that to mean that I am back at baby steps with my writing. But it was after seeing the sun spider, that night I was able to push past the fog and get some research done. So, I am hopeful for the first time in weeks. I took the tiny baby sun spider outside and let him go. I will keep trying to at least get research done. Like I said, I did find out some cool info that will be needed for Mu Mysteries…though this info is for just before, and just after, the destruction of Mu (Lemuria). But I might be able to use some of it anyway. I am getting some physical descriptions of the Lemurians that have been handed down orally through the generations of the people of Easter Island.

Just a quick little trivia. Mu is the original name of Lemuria, and throughout the islands of the Pacific Ocean, including Hawaii, the Philippines and even Japan and New Guinea, there are still places and people that bear the name of Mu in the names, or a variation of different ways Mu is known in the specific lands. Mu became known as Lemuria from the Roman festival bearing the name Lemuria which honors and remembers those that died in a great cataclysm that swallowed the island. According to the ancient Romans, some of them are the descendants of the Lemurians. They had a really interesting ritual that they performed on the day of the year they say Lemuria was destroyed. They also believe that Lemurs (another place Lemuria comes from) are the spirits of the dead Lemurians. Cool huh?

well, tonight I finally finally managed to get a little bit of research done without the far extent of the increased splitting headache or foggy feeling. toward the last 10 pages or so I started getting the feelings, but I did get some work done. Granted it was stuff that I had already read that I decided to go back over so I could underline the prevalent stuff that I need. But, hey, I figure, any progress is good progress. I am going to try again and see if I can’t get any actual writing done tomorrow. If I can’t write in Grakas, I will try The Prank and if that doesn’t work, maybe I will start the extremely rough draft of the first chapter of Mu Mysteries even though I am not near finished with my research…but hey, if I do nothing but research, then the story will never get written LOL. I do know I need to get working on the website update again and get that behind me so that I will actually have a place to put Mu LOL. But, first, try writing. not that I haven’t tried writing, but I think I might just actually get a little bit of work done. At this point, even a single paragraph would make me happy. I do know the story is starting to form a bigger, more brighter, picture in my head, much like Grakas and The Prank are. so it is finally coming from being an abstract to wanting to be a reality. So, we will see I do know it was very satisfying getting even what little bit of research I did tonight…It was only 54 pages in a book that is about Lemuria, but that is not bad at all. Not where it is a research, not fiction, book. If I wasn’t starting to feel tired, I would work on one of the three stories tonight, but I don’t want to push my luck. Keep your fingers crossed that I will get some work done on the book(s) and maybe even the website.

I keep trying…still no go. The writing is still like a big thick fog bank that clings to your very skin, no matter how hard you strain, you cannot penetrate its thickness. I would think it was a writers block, if it wasn’t for the fact that if I try to do any thinking beyond the superficial, I run into that same fog bank.

I don’t know what is going on, but also my memory is so much worse too. Today is Labor Day in the USA…I know that, both from living in the US all my life, and the fact that I have been having to look at a calendar daily to see what day it is. But today, I tried to make a doctors appointment for my shoulder, and the answering service told me "Uh, they aren’t in today, it’s a holiday." oh duh! If I try to think of just a day or two in the past, it is patchy…but if I try to think of months or years in the past, I come up with huge long blocks of pure nothingness. I have always had a hard time remembering personal things in the past, but I could remember…in fact, I used to remember things that my brothers didn’t remember, of things we did together as children…but now…I am struggling to remember anything. I know certain things have happened…such as we did such and such a few years ago… But now I am struggling to remember any specifics.

I noticed this was getting a lot worse after my trip into the hospital in April with my diabetes…but after my trips in August, a lot more is escaping my notice. Even my family is commenting that something is not right with me.

I am just not recovering like I used to. I am still trying to get back energy and feel better overall from the trips to the hospital…I still feel like I was hit with a semi. It used to be able to recover from one of these episodes in a few days, a week at the most…now it is 3 weeks later, and I am still not myself.

Frustrating, frustrating. I could live with the physical…but it is the mental that is getting me the most. I want to write! but how can I write when I cannot focus? This blog is nothing. I am not thinking deep…I am not trying to tap into my thought processes or my creativity, so this is nothing. I can correspond just fine…I do struggle to find words and sentences at times…but this is nothing. It is when I try to write. When I try to think deeper than surface. I can feel my various characters tapping on a piece of frosted glass that separates us…I even have some new books and a new talking globe to play with for some of my research of the various things…yet, I cannot use them, other than to glance through or play with.

I keep trying to force my way through it. I keep trying to wait it out. But so far, it is still stagnant. I also notice that when I try to force past it, my usual headache gets very sharp. It is almost like there is either a warning in my head about it, or some wires got crossed. I am leaning toward some wires getting crossed…even if it is not something that can be proven physically, something got crossed in my head to cause this fog bank.

I am putting a bunch of songs on my new Ipod (I went from around 450 to, at current count, about 1150 and still a bunch more to put on. Ranging from classical, to rock, to country, to comedy, to Christmas and Halloween.) in the hopes that maybe some new or different music might help to clear out the fog. I still have a couple more days of working on getting the songs on my computer before I can get them on my Ipod…but I do listen to them on the computer, and still so far, nothing.

Maybe a change of scenery would help, but I don’t feel well enough to travel, and I can’t sit outside…not only has fall hit early, but I cannot be out in the sun…and I don’t have a laptop. I gave my brothers back to him.

Something’s gotta give sooner or later. I do go to my regular doctor next week, so I will talk to her about my memory and the fog bank. Maybe she will have some idea of what is going on.

Meanwhile, I continue to do what I can to try to push through it. Even if I don’t make any progress…at least I am attempting and not just sitting idle. Maybe with the change of the month, I will find some progress. I hope so. I am almost desperate about the writing. I have been working on Grakas since January, and I should have a lot more progress by now than I do, and I am not happy with myself for the progress I do have with it. I was hoping this year would be a lot better in regards to my writing, but it is proving just as much of a struggle to get the work progressed as it was for both of my other books…shoot, which reminds me that I need to submit Into the Forest to a new place to see if I can get it published. Need to do some research of that. LOL.

ok, enough. I will go for the night, and hope that tomorrow brings at least a small change with all this.

At least I have my dreams I can escape into. and on that note, I hope your nighttime dreams bring you whatever pleasures you desire.

Good night.

I keep dreaming about lava. About trying to escape lava, of it surrounding me, or chasing me as I try to find a way to get away from it. And the lava flows faster than normal lava, like it is super-super heated, much more so than normal lava. The first time I dreamt of it, I couldn’t escape it, and I woke just before it got me. But while I was trying to get away from it, it kept burning me as it would catch up with me and it would touch me and I would manage to outrun it again for a short while, until I just couldn’t run anymore. Then last night I dreamt of it again. This time I was with a man that was not dead, but not alive either. He wasn’t a zombie or a vampire or any other creature like that. He just wasn’t alive, but not dead. I really don’t know what he was. But he was with me as I was trying to run with the crowd to escape the lava flowing through the city. Finally it trapped us and we couldn’t get away. and he turned me into whatever he was. When he did, I got super cold, super fast and we were able to walk through the lava to get away. Prior to that, it kept burning me as I was trying to run through the first edgings of the lave to find a way out of the city.

At first, I thought the lava was my passion for writing and that I was avoiding it, trying to outrun it while I fought various health problems and the various times, and that it was showing that I couldn’t outrun it, that it would catch me and that I would always have a burning passion for writing, no matter what. But now, I am wondering. I got thinking today about it and I am trying to outrun it to live, not for any other reason, and that it kept hurting me, and that the only way to get through it, was to die…the first time, die outright, the second time to be transformed into some sort of not alive/not dead creature. And that it points more to trying to outrun something that is painful, that hurts me, and that I cannot outrun it for long, and it is something that I end up having to face, regardless of the outcome. So, I am wondering if my subconscious is trying to tell me that I am avoiding something…something more than likely emotional…more than likely anger. I don’t express my anger very well, if at all, and so it simmers under the surface…and I am wondering if that is the lava. I will have to do some more thinking on that.

Well, I have been trying to write, and no luck so far. I still face the fog bank when I sit down to do anything that involves thinking at a deep level. It is like my brain is not working right, that it was short circuited and is still trying to heal. I am continuing to try to push past it, and every day seems to be a little better, so I am hoping that I will eventually break free…in the meantime, Galock continues to send out the troops to me…spiders, spiders, everywhere. I keep trying to tell him I am doing the best I can…but he is a very impatient muse/totem. LOL. Trust me to have an impatient spiritual/creative helper. Sheesh. But, I am getting a little bit more hopeful every day with it. I am still fighting my health…I just can’t seem to shake this last diabetes episode, but I am noticing an improvement almost daily. Soon. Hopefully sooner than later. But still, soon.

I am feeling about 50% better from after my scare of the hospital. My brain is still fighting not wanting to think much, or compute what thoughts I have been having…but I am also dying to get some writing done. I am missing it so bad, and I am feeling antsy. So, I am going to try to get some writing done. Oh I hope I can. I can already feel my foggy mind trying to rebel against the idea. Just the thought of it is bringing on a headache and my mind feels sluggish, but either I need to push past this feeling, or let myself rest for a few days longer…but the longer I am going without writing, or research, the more antsy and drifting I feel. I don’t know if what I write, if I can write, will make much sense, but I have to give it a go.

I also decided, with how close this episode(s) with my diabetes was…I need to get my paperwork in order…just in case. I would hope that nothing would happen, and that it is not needed, but I can’t have something happen to me and leave my family in the lurch of not knowing who to contact, and what my situation is. just a precaution. I have thought of this several times over the last few years…but this trip into the hospital showed me just how worn out my body is getting, and I can no longer ignore the practicalities. heck, while I was in the hospital, sort of drifting, I thought I was at home making a video last will and testament. so, I definitely need to do it. I quail at the thought of it, because it makes my health that much more drastic in my mind, but I need to have things laid out…not that I have many possessions…my most valuable possessions are my books, movies and crystal collections. I don’t have money, in fact I have a lot of debt. but there are things that I would want specific people to have that I cherish. but most important, I need to make a living will. so try to write first, and then start compiling my belongings and people/places to contact. I have a big pressing feeling on both of them…the writing and wills…I don’t feel that anything is going to happen, maybe it is my mind being a bit panicky, but regardless…it is time.

ok, off that subject…back to writing lol. I don’t know what I will be able to write today. I am going to start with Grakas and if that doesn’t work (which I need to get further progress on that one, because it is the more important one to get finished), but if I can’t get any progress on that one, I will go to The Prank and see what I can do there…if nothing there, maybe I will try for the beginning of Mu Mysteries, even though I still have a lot of research to do. If none of those work…I will try for a whole new project…maybe I will try working on one of my old ideas that I wanted to expand on. Lots of possibilities. That is why I like having lots of projects going on at once, I never know when one won’t want to be worked on and when another will. I am not the type of writer that forces a story, or can actually stick to one idea. my mind jumps around so much, that I have to have options. I do envy those that can stick to one story and get it done within months…I would have more books written if I was that way. I have tried to write that way, and I had such a hard time, and my creativity dried up. So, for me, it is lots of projects, or none at all. and the none at all is not an option I will chose.

One thing I need to decide is on my shoulder…still having lots of problems with it, even 8 months after the initial surgery. I need to decide if I am going to go back to my surgeon on it, or go to another surgeon to get a fresh perspective on it and see what we are missing. It just continues to get more and more painful. which also interferes with my writing, because I cannot use the arm for typing very long. So when I want to write for longer, if the rest of my body is allowing it, I usually end up typing one-handed…which is not very productive LOL.

I swear, at times, it seems as if things are stacked against me for writing, yet, I can’t go without writing. frustrating.

So, here I go, to go write, and push past all of these issues, or at least try. Wish me luck.

This is just a quick stop in…I had to drive 2 hours both ways to go to the doctor yesterday, and where I still haven’t fully recovered from the hospital stays, the trip did me in more than usual.

But I wanted to let everyone know that things are going a bit better. We figured out what put me in the hospital and what has been going on with my diabetes.

It has been 2 things….the first one more than the second, as you will see why.

The first, was evidently I am allergic to the insulin I have been using. I have been using it for around 3 years (give or take) but in the past 6-9 months I have been feeling worse and worse, and then I started breaking out in hives and my white blood cell count has been steadily going up (my doctor yesterday reminded me that my count has been higher for a while now, but nobody could figure out why.) So we put the puzzle together…high white blood cell count, hives, blood sugars being really bad, culminating in me being in the hospital 3 times in the last 4 months, and a cough….me going on the other insulin lowered my white blood cell count to normal levels…so it all points to me being allergic to the insulin (also, when I was on the hospitals insulin, my hives would disappear, but when I was on my insulin, they would come back.) So….allergy. So I am on a new insulin, which quadrupled my insulin intake from around 30 units a day to around 120 units a day. So I am splitting that dose up between my insulin pump and injections…otherwise I will run into more problems with my pump. hopefully it keeps me out of the hospital though.

The second reason was we also figured out I have been having an allergic reaction to my blood pressure pills as well…it was constricting my airways, giving me a smokers hack, even though I don’t smoke. So I can no longer take "ace inhibitors". So I am on a new blood pressure pill as well.

Since changing those two med’s, I have not coughed since I was at the doctors yesterday…yeah, I know that is not much time, but **knock on wood**, the trend continues LOL.

So, the sucky thing about my diabetes now, is that I am on ALL the kinds of treatments for diabetes….diet, pills, injections and the pump.

The fun thing is, between the new insulin and the diabetes pill…I am going to be putting the weight I worked so hard to lose, back on. Already I have gained 8 pounds since going on the diabetes pill. And here I had lost almost 100 pounds in the last year (give or take)…I am not looking forward to this side effect

Anyway, that is the update. Still haven’t felt like doing any writing. I am so anxious to get back to it, but I am even having a hard time just reading, let alone writing. I usually can devour a 6-700 page book in one, one and a half days at the most, when I am at the top of my game. Right now, the same numbered page book, is taking me around a week to read. So…I am hoping my mind gets back in order soon so I can get back to what I love most…reading is second in that list LOL.