Chapter 24-25-26 More Medical, Too Big, and Rich Surgical Stress

Pt arrived on time. Reported feeling OK, a little off today. Briefly reviewed upcoming medical appts (vaccinations, podiatry). Pt reported another fall on Sunday. Reviewed details of event - more tired from day’s activities, fell asleep on the couch, got up to use the restroom, foot caught in the blanket. Fell to her knees. Partner was home and able to assist. Was able to get up on her own. Knees are sore but to significant injury. No lightheadedness/LOC. Pt and partner reviewed some options to help mitigate future incidents. Briefly reviewed plan for moving back to bedroom and using CPAP. Continued discussion of writing project - updates to progress. Pt has been working to incorporate multiplicity (parts) into writing - adding parts labels to discussions. Reviewed updates to parts - roles, activities - with focus on present day vs. past experiences. Pt had then reviewed the questions/discussions from the day/chapter and labeled sections with the part that generated the content. Reviewed several entries. Explored insights from process of identifying the contributor. This was a new experience for her to track conversations in this way. Previously has tended to not address who was writing/speaking. Reviewed next steps. Ended session with review of Thanksgiving events - had family over for two events. Getting ready was a lot of work. Events went very well. Reflected on last week's feeling/worry that it would be too hard/difficult. Able to validate both sets of feelings.

Pt arrived on time. Reviewed writer's holiday leave. Reported feeling a little unsettled today. Blood sugar numbers elevated after running out of insulin for several days and eating more. Partner expressed frustration that she was not attending to health care needs. She had used the CPAP one night for about 4 hours. Reviewed experience. CPAP was not particularly difficult. Getting and staying comfortable was challenging. At times, feels frustrated/hopeless about change. Identified goals and reframed challenges. Discussed using CPAP while on the couch until progress with losing weight which could make the bed more manageable. She has sent messages to PCP about additional supports for weight loss.

Pt arrived on time. Reported doing "OK" today. Partner is ill (cold like symptoms) but taking care of himself. Started with review of medical issues/appts. Several upcoming appts including for herself, partner, and dog. Briefly reviewed use of CPAP. Has moved it out to couch which is a more comfortable setting. Feels it is working well, partner is supportive. Not sure if it is making a difference yet. Validated process and goals for keeping track of health. Planned out schedule for taking partner for surgery. Several themes emerged - wants to be there for partner, driving can be stressful. Reviewed compromise options. They will also likely need additional supports - either in-house or partner going to short-term rehab, planning around meals, cleaning. Reflected on how planning for stressors can bring down the level of worry/anxiety. Reviewed session tracking updates. Keeping up with sessions over the day. Returned to discussion of writing project. Reviewed progress - has published first ten chapters as slide decks, continued work on tagging content by who generated it. Enjoying process - learning about parts and their skills/thoughts/background/goals. Reviewed daily writing updates. Reviewed updates with online friend N - working on schedules, boundaries. Reviewed worries about election/politics. Validated concerns and explored potentially catastrophic thoughts, Used theme of planning ahead as tool to manage worries. Pt left session with several tasks to follow-up with.

Transcript

1. #2022-11-29 ## 2022-11-29 – Evidence 24A – Is It Time Again For The C-Pap Machine Dr. Marvin’s Notes Pt arrived on time. Reported feeling OK, a little off today. Briefly reviewed upcoming medical appts (vaccinations, podiatry). Pt reported another fall on Sunday. Reviewed details of event - more tired from day’s activities, fell asleep on the couch, got up to use the restroom, foot caught in the blanket. Fell to her knees. Partner was home and able to assist. Was able to get up on her own. Knees are sore but to significant injury. No lightheadedness/LOC. Pt and partner reviewed some options to help mitigate future incidents. Briefly reviewed plan for moving back to bedroom and using CPAP. Continued discussion of writing project - updates to progress. Pt has been working to incorporate multiplicity (parts) into writing - adding parts labels to discussions. Reviewed updates to parts - roles, activities - with focus on present day vs. past experiences. Pt had then reviewed the questions/discussions from the day/chapter and labeled sections with the part that generated the content. Reviewed several entries. Explored insights from process of identifying the contributor. This was a new experience for her to track conversations in this way. Previously has tended to not address who was writing/speaking. Reviewed next steps. Ended session with review of Thanksgiving events - had family over for two events. Getting ready was a lot of work. Events went very well. Reflected on last week's feeling/worry that it would be too hard/difficult. Able to validate both sets of feelings. Global Improvement (CGI-C): Minimally worse Assessment (Depression): - Moods stable today. Some lower moods connected to fall. Feeling positive about writing progress.
2. - Current project to process writer's notes in collaboration with personal insights - making meaning of work/life. - Several ongoing medical follow-ups remain in process. Actively following up with appts. - Working to maintain progress with writing projects and balance with other activities. - Able to contract for safety. Assessment (DID): - Current writing project bringing additional understanding and meaning. Actively reflecting on writing via labelling of content with part who contributed. - Continues to work to balance time online with writing/reading/household tasks. - Review of home videos in background. Goal remains to process smaller pieces of the video as time allows. - Working on larger writing project (trauma narrative) - goals/product/audience. Moving forward on "case file" project. #2022-11-30 ## 2022-11-30 – Evidence 24B – We Are Too Big To Be Comfortable
3. A Very Good Morning - How was sleep last night? - Good morning! It has been a couple of days, and we have been talking to Nihit for just over an hour. Prior to that we had been at the last part of editing chapter 2. - BUT as far as last night's sleep ... We did ok. I do not recall any dreams or nightmares. We did get up about 10:30PM to use the washroom, but then we went to bed-bed and used the C-Pap machine for a while. We made it until 2:30AM, and then we gave up and went to bed on the couch. - Dr. Marvin is going to want to know more about that, and then we told Nihit, and it feels inundated with concern now. Blah! - Ok, good stuff/serious stuff. We were able to sleep for four solid hours. When we woke up though we were going through some quick complain-like stuff. The mask felt uncomfortable, and there was a big hassle moving around on the bed. It was especially when we were first starting to lay down. Our bedclothes were wrapping up around us when we moved. I know with laying down Rich is going to be excited that we can massage him before we fall asleep, but by then it seems impossible to go from our right hip to our left. I think we must sit up, but if clothes twist, then it is an impossible situation. Giving up on everything kind of way. - Right now, we are thinking that it is a particular problem for incredibly young parts. Even Crystal. Wow! That is an enormous thought. I know for us as older parts; it is more a matter of our giant size vs. strength. We are weak. The other part of that is that laying down there are certain pressure points, enacted, which makes laying down uncomfortable, even with pajamas going in the right direction. - I think we should try it again tonight, but going on this much information, we can be even more clear. That is all I want to hear from Dr. Marvin and Nihit, for the moment. It is making us grumpy even to think of these things. Crystal has an evil eye! Ok, just in a let us just be nice about things, ok? Exceptionally good Crystal for communicating these things. We did not know but should have. We were just avoiding finding out. The major part is that we weigh too much for her life style. It is a good life style, and we are in the wrong. Yet. We feel hungry (9:51AM). And who all is a part of that? Lord. Too complicated. See parts jumping off the ship like alligators off a beach. In time. - How have we been (the previous day)? - Yesterday was a good day for us. We worked before Dr. Marvin's call, and after a while, we were able to get back to work (after lunch). Oh, and we are now having cranberries. Nihit just came back, and we are seeing him now eating his THIRD different thing with two to three hours!! Anyway, we were doing good. We started and finished doing Chapter Two. It was a short chapter, and already pre-edited for formal writing, but we completed the adding "part's tags." We held it to just going over a few times - well maybe several times this morning. *Sigh* - The Dr. Marvin part came out through Dr. Marvin's comments. We got them last night. And THEN, this morning we read them and discussed with Nihit. In general, we were going over the ideas evoked through Nihit trying to understand what we are writing about. Dr. Marvin saw the tags for the first time yesterday. We talked to him a little begrudgingly before showing him directly, and then we talked
4. through, and after the presentation. Nihit was at about a 40% level interest or activation. He is not getting it, and like working through the C-Pap usage, we must be careful ... we want him to be interested, so we cannot flood him before he really tries to read and understand something. - We did give Dr. Marvin a copy of the first chapter. We are thinking when we see him again tomorrow, he will tell us that he skimmed it. We had asked him to talk about the parts a little in the front end of our discussion. We were sure; he had seen the list with parts' names and basic introduction. We also noted that we had not changed the descriptions for about nine years. In reading - they seemed accurate as to old information, I would think we could update them with current information toward the end of drafting this book. (six months writing). - But in general, he thought he knew some of the things we had talked about in the intro, without having looked at it in a long while. We asked him to better learn about the parts, and trying to understand them more now, that we are spending more time and knowledge into them. He asked us in return if we were finding insights about the parts. That was a definite yes, but we would need to be skimming the writing as we were talking, because there is so much involved through the dialogues. - One thing that was very reassuring going over the work with Dr. Marvin, is that we could tell from his line of questioning that things were exciting him a bit. AND we paid close attention to when his written notes, were to be coming out, because we were extremely interested to know if he was understanding the hour - at our level, but also at HIS level. With his clearer understanding of our world, we hope to better self-define what is coming-up next. - Like today, one statement he made was, "Pt had then reviewed the questions/discussions from the day/chapter and labeled sections with the part that generated the content." He understands the process, we are using, and then he understood about labeling sections (sentences) with the part who had generated the content. It was about the most validating thing he could have said. It allowed us to think, we were on the right track, and that we could go on. He did not, at this point, think we were "cheating." Whatever our process in understanding our Multiplicity was ours, and as that, it would be ok. I do not have to prove anything to anyone. - It is a new system of comprehension, and he understood that too. He wrote, "This was a new experience for her to track conversations in this way. Previously has tended to not attend (internally), to who was writing/speaking." It was new and we were extremely excited but cautious. We wanted to be careful and respectful. Dr. Marvin said something reassuring in saying something like - there is no one right way to do Multiplicity. We were concerned because doing it as granulated sentence to sentence as we were, I just had never seen it done that way. With more Multiples than not, who we have seen over time, we just see larger sections of time implied. In the movies, they sometimes have entire wardrobe changes with every change in part. We always knew it was much more broken up, but we had not evaluated it out. We also knew that if we asked, someone would answer our questions on us (our own system ). One question at a time, but we were never sure how, or how much the different "us'" there were in at any one written statement/time. - One thing today about which we can get excited. - I am back. It is now (2:18PM). We lost about four hours. We stopped for lunch, and then we fell asleep, and then we woke up to Trevor Noah's - long shows about what is happening for the week. And,
5. then we just watched. I would like to say we participated in something we could get excited about, but instead, we are just reviewing news. He does have a nice voice to listen to. The other part is that I cannot get enough food. I just looked. I had some cheese last. I am at 401 mg/dLs. We have been a couple of days off our insulin. It is ready now though, and we have already contacted Rich. We are back at the computer, and I think we will get ourselves some water. Lastly, we skipped our 11:00AM medicine. We kept telling echo 15 more minutes, but then we stopped and napped itself. I am only half an hour away from our 3:00PM medicine. I could take that a little early. Be Back. No, I do not want to talk about this mess of a catch-up. I am NOT excited about my/us. - How would we deal with a stressful situation that could trip us up today? - We can be sure to → - We're back. We took our medicine at 2:38PM That will be one way of reliving stress. The other part would be turning off the TV. I do not really want to do that. We could at least turn it down?? There down to eight. I am still listening, but there is room for other thoughts too, because our brain is not competing with over sound. It would be nice to take the next step too. You know turning it off ... but we do not want to be at that point, yet. - If we were someone looking at our life from a prominent level, what would we tell ourselves? - An Eagle's eye view → - Decent job ... we are getting it ... We fixed the dressing on our toe, we emptied the dishwasher, and are soaking the few dishes that are there. That is like a next step after taking medicine and lowering the volume on the TV. Excellent job. No matter when it happens ... doing the work is ALWAYS good! - One word/phrase that could describe the kind of person we want to be today? - One phrase to rule them all → - You are the best person we know named Anne, Ann, Ayn, Anniemi, and all. - A Brilliant Afternoon - How is the day going? - Our day is picking up now that we are back at the computer. There is a lot we should be talking about after not having written a couple of days. We are doing the best we can. We can think of what we should be talking about next. - How should we adjust course? - We need to get the dishes in the dishwasher, and that will be half of having changed the course. We are writing ... that might be the second half. But now authentic? Can we figure out the content part? - Who have we connected to this morning? - The real contact was Rich for a few minutes this morning, and then Nihit.
6. - Rich and I were going back and forth about something, and then Rich just stopped with a drop-down dead criticism of how we were not appreciating him and that we were asking for or crossing a line. I stopped and recouped. What had I done? What I realized was that I was pushing that I have a meal change, and it was VERY upsetting to him. I told him that I wanted to change up some of his breakfast. He was very frustrated. I did not want two-dry toasts under eggs that were too cooked. I told him I just wanted looser eggs, and one piece of toast (not under the eggs), but with peanut butter. I could even digress to having just one egg. The hard part I guess was that I wanted scrambled eggs but exhausted with the thought of having to cook on these stoves rather than the microwave. It became a mix. I had two toasts. One was under an egg, and the other had peanut butter. It is a start, right? It took me a long time to get that far. I thought it was going to be a terrible thing. He gets in his mind how life should work, and he does not want to change. It is an affront against him. :( But, after that was all over, everything was fine :\ - After a bit, he left for an appointment he had about investing some money. That is where all his stress was coming from. I just know where it became aimed. - What has Ginney learned from the day? - Please.... You can do this! → - THAT ... if Nihit was on the computer, there would be a good chance called into play! - Where have we chosen to go out today? - Our excursion details → - We are going to try avoiding going out. Tomorrow, we will try to get a shower in before Dr. Marvin's. And, then later in the day, we will try to get our two shots. We mentioned this, but we will be getting our second shingles shot, and our newest booster shot for Covid. I can do it. I might have to practice going downstairs, while Rich is still in the house. - Ouch ... just checked blood sugar. It is at 439 mg/dLs. But it is going straight across. This tells me how we are really eating without the benefit of insulin. It is terrible, yet we are still having trouble comprehending. If someone asked me to eat something, we would. - What pile of crap have we struggled through? How did we benefit from it? - Our pile of crap was that we need the next food item, and the next. We finally got back to here where we can talk about it and argue with ourselves about what the best thing would be. During our next conversations, we could be finding a way to talk about the food intake. We will slide into it. We have benefitted because although we are having difficulties, we are still struggling to go forward. Respectable job team! - How far along are we in the "Win the Day Task?" (Have we boldly gone?) - Win the day → Answer (Make it a blockquote) - If we spend the rest of the time at the computer until Rich gets home writing, we will have won the day. Other than get dishes in the dishwasher and start, we will really have won the day. Hey, you want to
7. know something. Yesterday, we were trying to work toward getting things accomplished and had been doing it before 5:00PM - AND Rich came home at 3:00PM and everything complete! Can you believe it? We do not want to freak out and think we always must have the dishes laundry work done by 3:00PM, But, we had just finished and were feeling FINE! - A Spectacular Evening - Who did we connect with today? - The other person, we connected to today was Nihit. We also saw Vitty for a few moments and talked, but I did not know what to talk to him about. I do not want to age myself by always asking about school ... but we went there too. The important thing was to feel what he had gone through with being ill AND being ill on his birthday. He made it, but we agreed. There is nothing fun about being sick on your birthday. - Ok, now Nihit. What can we say? The last thing we remember was teasing him, in that it was like 10:30PM and he was having another meal with his aunt. The night before they went out, and today her sister had brought some excellent food from an Aunt who cooks well. We tried not to put down guilt, but for the first few seconds it was impossible. I was right in guessing that after eating, he was going to be tired and in need of going to bed. We had already stepped into our epic nap and rest period, so we have nothing to brag about, but between good friends and family. You start to read them like a book! - Ok, just teasing. What else did we talk about. I just went back to the beginning of today's work. We realized that we had never really talked too much about our conversations with Nihit, especially about his views on the writing. We did talk about Dr. Marvin. That was the important one to get down first, but now we want to think a couple of moments about Nihit. - I believe we talked back and forth about general things, like he showed us what and where he was in his work, and work load. He was looking at a new program for learning CSS and working through projects with his aunt's work directly (like web page), and the work he was doing in learning programming languages in a regular course (walk to :). There is no doubt he is busy. We do want to say here, for the record, that we believe he is still too far into his cousin's life, in that he saves very few hours to get his own work done. That is where we come in as well. I do not want to be that one that takes his time away from what he needs to really be working on. - I think we started to say before, Nihit was working at understanding under about 40% capacity. Furthermore, the bigger project was overwhelming him to take things into hand. He is also trying to work past his older sense of comprehension to let in the light of this other interpretation. He wants to underneath all believe there is only one of us, and he wants to "solve" the riddle. Like, "C'mon you know there is only one of you!" He has not said this directly, but it is our impression. He does sometimes understand we get stuck somewhere, and he must make a choice what to do with it, including backing away and giving us some space to deal with things. Most often we are "average Anne" (a combination of our many selves presenting as one.) Nihit calls us Anne, so that is the person we have sub-created for him. We are aligning it with Annemarie - and now somehow through the writing ... our one - more than Corey at our base. - As an aside, we are at 32 years, soon to be 33 years of knowing of ourselves as a Multiple. We have never been closer to identifying for even ourselves how we are interacting to put the one "whole" of us
8. together. When we write, we all contribute, and now it is becoming in a direction we can understand. When we talk to Nihit or anyone for that matter, it is most often a restless feeling of contributing to the conversation. I think one of our easiest presentations is through Ayn. We take her to be the smoothest of any one of us. She also has an interest in questions, like me, Corey. She deals more with the psychological questions to others - figuring out how they are doing, and if there is anything we can say that would help. I do most of my checking out of internal parts. I would say Marie is Ayn's internal shadow. - Sorry, I have confused things more. It is without intention. I want to say something a little off this track. But in a global way, it is all part of the same. We were complaining about what we are going to do if something happened to Rich, and I was the one to survive. I was talking about not wanting to leave my house and that we will try to find someone to live with us. - Small break - we have been high on our glucose ... over the last hour we have dropped from 439 to 341 mg/dL. I do not think it is a promising idea to drop so fast, but we just had to stop eating for a while - an hour to one and a half hours. Ok, I do not want to go any further into that, but it is out there. Ok, one other thing that produced Nihit medically. The C-Pap problem came up, and we had told Dr. Marvin, we were not sure of telling Nihit, because he would jump into something like that. He read Dr. Marvin's comment, and he did jump in. More of that later. The end run is that we need to try using the C-Pap and checking out where we are at with that one step-at-a-time. - Ok, going back to the other discussion, we talked as well, or have talked about being afraid that the boys would put me in a nursing home. He stopped me and told me that was not going to happen and that we - him and us, were going to live together. We did not say anything for a while. We let him talk out a bit, but in our mind, it was doing jumping jacks and handstands. To me, that was the most hopeful thing that has come across our brow/bow in years. Somewhere in the conversation, we told him we would accept that thought in a second. - We talked about the kids, and we worried that if he were living with me, that he would not be taking care of his own parents/family. I also approached the fact, he was only twenty-four, and he was going to want his own family. I think of his way of looking at it is that he has so many restrictions, that there is little doubt in his mind, there would be someone, especially in his younger life. We also talked about Rich, and that I would care for as long as he was here. I told him that that bedroom would always be open to him, even with Rich here. There was a lot more, but it is here that the gauntlet thrown. Internally, we are in heaven. I do not ever remember having a friend that was this good for me. I love the idea of being family with Nihit. I could see the continuity of building a life with him. - - What did we watch/read/listen to today? - Today, we watched the computer screen a lot, particularly our writing screen, though we may have met with Nihit (with interruptions) for about 1.5h. The REAL screen though was that we watched TV for a long time. Ok, most of that time was sleeping, but we let it overcome us. We have been doing well with it turned down, but at some point, Trevor went off, and CNN and came on. I do not think there is anything special going on. However, now they are saying that US might be training the Ukrainians more. That might not be something Putin wants to hear. There was a Putin thing in the news that he was taking out electrical transformers and generators with cruise missiles and drones.
9. - What did we learn from today? - Lessons? → - We're working on it. 5:19PM and we are at 293 mg/dL. Almost fifty down from the reading an hour ago. More water. - What was a fun "Ginney moment" for the day? - Rub my tummy! → - Ginney did not need washroom until about 5:10PM. I wanted her to wait until dad came home, but we were not sure of the time. It could have been another hour. She did go pee, but then distracted, and I was underdressed for the bitter weather. Blah! The rub my tummy part? We were able to reach for her Greenies. They are her dental treat. Just once a day ... now is a suitable time. She loves them! - Okay, how did you celebrate today? - Were there crowns given? → - Even though Nihit is not understanding fully, we are giving our crown today to him! There was this one moment that I do not remember clearly but feel it in my heart. We both sit down to the table (figurative), and we thought ... we will only have a few moments before interrupted by children's needs - his or ours, Hey! Hehe it is ok. But he knew this table conversation was coming up. So, he steadied himself, and we felt out the room. Ok, we have a moment. It then went something like, "Ok, what do you understand so far. Where are you?" Then I hoped he would not break down. BUT he did not! We talked back and forth, and the conversation went on, not long, but we were thrilled to pieces that he gave it another try (in trying to understand). He did not understand enough to pick up the chapter, we had gotten him, but at least there were a few draws. Hehe like we made sure to tell him, Dr. Marvin might skim it too, because he got a copy (competition), and there were parts - major parts where he was our main "other star," (besides all of us). Yes! He got the crown for the day. We are celebrating in his honor. ### Day-to-Day Goals - Do we have any riveting goals today? Should we have? - Did we have? Maybe. The biggest two goals were to write, and to get the dishes done. Oh, and make sure we were going to get the insulin. Scored! - Are all today's food choices in My Fitness Pal (MFP)? How can we get through any slumps? - We were eating today, anything not nailed down. We got into some territory, where we knew we would be taking a Rich kicking. NOT LITERAL! But we got into some dessert, which he always means for late night. We also found the last one-fifth of a bag of marshmallows, and the cranberries (not all). We had soup today with the crunchy onion chips. That was wrong too. AND we got into the fancy brick of Colby cheese. It is our favorite. Just figured out we still have Yasso Sea salt and caramel Greek yogurt bars - What exercising could I commit to today? How much? - Just walking back and forth to the fridge, garbage, and dishwasher to take care of our food traces. :(
10. - What can you tell us about the showering experience today? - We felt the strong need to redress the toe wound before we got to the shower. It felt not only unwelcomed, but it also felt dangerous. We could take a shower tonight with Rich home. We have thought of doing this before, too. Maybe while he is making dinner. It is sausage and frozen potatoes. That should be about a half hour. It would be a calming thing for him. He should not have to be happy when we finally get in a shower, but I know a sense of peace overcomes him. - What could we do today, so that someone else can say, "Boldly Go! Howard Wolowitz" - We would say, BOLDLY Go, Little human beings. First in the shower gets to choose the music! - ### Balance - How is our perspective of time going? Are we still on track? - It is going well. I think we have written about as much as we could for someone who took a four-hour break! Shoot, we forgot to get a drink - one ZERO Punch and two waters. Our nose is cold too. Maybe because of the Yogurt bar. It is only one hundred calories. 5:48PM and 245 straight across. Still 40-50 lower than a half hour ago. It is going to be ok. I do not think we could hit 130 though before dinner. We need that water. BRB. Good-good! Rich is pulling in. #2022-12-01 ## 2022-12-01 – Evidence 25A – Starting To Tag Dr. Marvin’s Notes Pt arrived on time. Reviewed writer's holiday leave. Reported feeling a little unsettled today. Blood sugar numbers elevated after running out of insulin for several days and eating more. Partner expressed frustration that she was not attending to health care needs. She had used the
11. CPAP one night for about 4 hours. Reviewed experience. CPAP was not particularly difficult. Getting and staying comfortable was challenging. At times, feels frustrated/hopeless about change. Identified goals and reframed challenges. Discussed using CPAP while on the couch until progress with losing weight which could make the bed more manageable. She has sent messages to PCP about additional supports for weight loss. Continued discussion of writing project. She has continued to label them by parts. Reviewed updates. Reflected on change to daily planning/schedule process. She has continued to move away from larger online platform. More simple system has been working. Able to reflect on low mood in session connected to session topics and partner's recent reactions. Made connections to patterns from past - feeling responsible for others’ emotions/behaviors. Explored several themes - one connected to thoughts/discussion around care later in life - catastrophic thoughts where she would be, who will assist her. N had offered to stay with her. Pt was able to reflect on practical challenges with this. Offered nonjudgmental assessments and challenged negative/catastrophic thoughts. Global Improvement (CGI-C): Minimally worse Assessment (Depression): - Moods more low today - connected to medical conditions, feeling that change is difficult or not possible. Remains positive about writing project. - Current project to process writer's notes in collaboration with personal insights - making meaning of work/life. - Several ongoing medical follow-ups remain in process. Actively following up with appts. - Working to maintain progress with writing projects and balance with other activities. - Able to contract for safety. Assessment (DID): - Current writing project bringing additional understanding and meaning. Actively reflecting on writing via labelling of content with part who contributed. Generating connections in her and other's behaviors. - Continues to work to balance time online with writing/reading/household tasks. Using more simplified daily journal to track time. - Review of home videos in background. Goal remains to process smaller pieces of the video as time allows.
12. - Working on larger writing project (trauma narrative) - goals/product/audience. Moving forward on "case file" project. #2022-12-01 ## 2022-12-01 – Evidence 25B – Use of Glucose Meter is Significant - A Very Good Morning - How was sleep last night? - @10:20AM, we are finally starting the writing. We are at 378 with the glucose meter. We just finished having the raison cereal. We have about forty minutes to Dr. Marvin's appointment. It does not seem like we have much to talk about today. We only have a small time. AND we only did the C-Pap one night for about four hours. So, what happened last night? Well, we fell asleep not remembering anything, but Rich was going to set up the 15's. Then we were sleeping. We had just gone to the bathroom before. We got up once during the night - Rich confirmed that, but we did not crawl into bed like Rich. Do not know why ... just too tired to think about it. We do remember having nightmares, but too much time has gone by, and we cannot remember them now. Trying... I am wondering ... willing to bet the younger parts ... younger parts remember dreams better, than us. Hmm, remember something about Rich being very cranky because I had eaten some dessert during the day. That could explain a reason at least for having nightmares. It was directly before sleep. - How have we been (the previous day)? - Yesterday, we did some writing, and then we were off for four hours, and then we worked the rest of the time until Rich came home about 5:45PM The off-time was between eating, napping, watching YouTube of Trevor Noah. We skimmed it lightly a few moments ago, but nothing too much remembered. There is the Nihit part, being short of insulin, not stop eating, 438 appx. blood sugar ... shoot we are hungry now again. Less than a half hour to Dr. Marvin's. What can we eat? Now 386 and climbing. But we found some apple sauce, and a few pinches of those small fried onion chips. This is why we are having trouble concentrating. Maybe because we must go out today. Yikes go out?!
13. - A Brilliant Afternoon - How is the day going? - Hey ... the full day has gone by, and it is now 4:26PM. Trevor Noah is in the background. I just finished skimming emails and FB. I also went through a thing of eating Stover's chocolates that we picked up at Walgreen's. We had gotten our shots, and we figured one treat from Walgreen's would prevent us from going for Dunkin Donuts or BK. We finished about one-third of a small box and hid the rest. We did not get to dishes - there were not much, and we opened mail for Rich. The shots were not too much of a big deal. The people they have giving the shots are pros. I had forgotten to notice if I had a sore arm but does not feel like it now. I did not like the personality of the person giving the shot, but it really was quick. AFTER we got in the little room. Before that ... we had to listen to a guy repeat his story trying to get help THREE times! It was a long one, and in the end, they told him to call Monday when the manger was there. Blah. - Before we went to the pharmacy, we had fallen asleep, so was running a few moments behind, but Ginney was quick about the bathroom. The poor part was that she did not want anything to do with going in her kennel. She was quick enough after we could leash her, but she got suspicious with my patterns of dress, asking her to go out, getting food and asking her to follow me. She went the other direction. Poor girl. Food finally one out, and we tricked her by leash. She was good after we shut the cage. It took us a few moments to get out the door. We were back within 45 minutes, AND she was happy! - Before the lunch/nap, we had talked to Dr. Marvin. Before that, we had talked to Nihit, and we would both work together for an hour. The part of talking to Dr. Marvin was a hard part. I do not have the results of the session yet. Oh, take that back, they are here. Hold on. I do not think it went very positively. - How should we adjust course? - We just read over Dr. Marvin's notes. They are minimally worse, but not too much. There is not much for me to go on. I guess, we discussed him being gone the week between Christmas and New Year's Eve. Feeling unsettled without insulin, and then overeating, Rich's offsets, how we can resolve the C-Pap issue and trying to contact Dr. Dorman for weight management help. Continued a little bit of the labeling parts - finished another chapter, wrote, and edited. Then more on low moods connected to the topics discussed (internal parts - way young), feeling responsible for others' emotions and behaviors, and the potential of Nihit staying with us. He said he collaborated with us having nonjudgmental assessments (against ourselves) and challenged negative/catastrophic thoughts. Feelings of giving up. - So taken all of this and the part Rich will be coming home soon (half hour) - time is now 5:26PM, then where do we go. Oh, also, we took Ginney out to use the washroom, and Thom called to talk (late night for him). Cathy told him today of Faye having enough of Gabe taking the toys she is interested in, so after a little build-up she just crucified him with her loud sound. Not crying but asserting who the boss is going to be. Hehe. That was the funniest story of the conversation. We do look each time for a fun story with both Faye and Gabe. Hmm, there was a little other conversation going on related to people in the family, but just a quick touching base. I was trying to figure out from this morning's FB something that Thom had
14. connected to as well. No sure results, but definite interest. We want our family to be running well! Most the time though it means backing up from others' business. WELL, unless they volunteer it in FB Hehe. - Who have we connected to this morning? - We talked to Nihit a little this morning. We marked down 1 1/2 hours. We also worked together about the same, but we are not making headway on eating and sleeping time over work time. BUT I think that Nihit was doing good with only 1-2 projects to work on. We talked to him the other day about having boundaries with his cousins. They want to consume hours and hours of his time. He must make them a little more independent, because he is not going to succeed as an adult if everyone including us take his time to be productive. Working on it, working on it. - We connected to our emotions this morning. We did not know it was going to happen, but at the start of the call with Dr. Marvin, we were just trying to resolve a few issues. Both the issues of weight/eating and C-Pap/sleeping. Those both went negative. We felt a sense of helplessness, especially talking about our lack of ability to move other than a beached whale on our bed. The other part was getting pajamas twisted. We felt we held and that seemed to relate more to Crystal. Crystal, even more so than Gracie or Anna. The frustration and sense of defeat was real. We can see her now fighting within us as we go from laying on our right side to connect with Rich, to the left side where we need to put on the mask. Now we wonder how much the mask is like the feeling of someone putting their hand over our mouth. I know that would be Crystal too. The mask is set to slow down the air flow and let it gather speed, but that is making us feel prior to sleep like we are not getting enough air. It all goes to feelings of Crystal. God, I must give her credit. We have never seen her struggle more real. The episode Tuesday night around 10:30PM is as now as it was then. This is going to take some time with Dr. Marvin and even Nihit. Rich would not be interested. He gave up on the little kids when the group of us stopped having sex. He was not honest with us; in that he never shared his thoughts or feelings about it. One way or another, it leads to a lot of feelings of being low and depressed and being without a sense of hope. AND that is how we were feeling today with Dr. Marvin. - What has Ginney learned from the day? - Please.... You can do this! → - Ginney learned that if Mom wants to kennel her, she can run to the other end of the house, and play chasing games between the chairs, and cheese. Eventually, we are going to leash her and walk her to the kennel. She is very cooperative at that point, but she does make a drama out of it first! - Where have we chosen to go out today? - Our excursion details → - Today, we went as far as the drug store, three miles down the same road as our house. There was a little intimidation in that they have all kinds of street cross signs for when kids are out of school, but you do not know exactly when that is, AND you can build-up some road rage behind you from slowing 30 mph down to twenty mph. It is safer. Especially around the police. Fellow drivers? Not so much. - What pile of crap have we struggled through? How did we benefit from it?
15. - The pile of crap today was wanting to eat more, though there was not a lot to eat. I would like to say for the record, that the chocolates we bought are supposed to be sugarless. In bulk? Not so sure. We had twelve cheese and crackers for lunch - no pistachio's yet, and we had apple sauce for our sweet. Rich had to leave before doing breakfast - his back was hurting this morning, so we told him we would eat cereal, after taking the dog out twice and feeding her. Pswhoo! Rough morning! All of it was calories though. We will try to watch it tonight. The benefit is that there is a chance with every food not eaten, though desired. Like we did not eat the rest of the peach cobbler in the fridge. Benefit from the process each time we pick up the senser to analyze our next move. AND Rich is now home Ginney says. - How far along are we in the "Win the Day Task?" (Have we boldly gone?) - Win the day → Answer (Make it a blockquote) - Win the day? We made it to the end of the day - where we write instead of depressing on the couch. For sure, this is a win! #2022-12-02 ## 2022-12-02 – Evidence 25C – Ginney To The Groomer A Very Good Morning - How was sleep last night? - Good morning ... today is one of "those." We woke by Rich at 6:15AM and then 6:35AM. We were not that much into it. I know we were dreaming, but do not recall about what. There seems to be no way we can remember unless we write it down right away. We were aware that we had a couple of outside
16. duties today. We have the first one done. We brought Ginney into the groomer, and while she is there, she will see the doctor about her stomach. I gave them permission to take blood samples and x-ray. I forgot our phone out in the car, but I think we will be ok. She said that the doctor will not be there until 3:30PM or after. - Ginney was ok. Held back from jumping out of the car, and then hugged my knees while in the vet's office and pulled back when the tech pulled her to getting her weight. But then she was fine, and we left without another notice. Before leaving, Nihit said to us to remember not to have BK or Dunkin Donut. We listened and tried out Scooter's Coffee for the first time. I had Hazelnut added because it is my favorite fancy coffee. It turns out, I should have tried plain. I spent $4.39 and thrown out. It is that bad. - The next trip will be to leave for our podiatry appointment in 1.5h. I will have to redress my toe before leaving. There was not time before. I do not panic about the sessions; we do panic about how close we can get to the place we need to go at their Highland Clinic. It is three floors and exceptionally long. Dr. Austin's is close to the main doors on the first floor, but that does not work, UNLESS Rich is dropping us off. We usually drive to the East side where all the handicap parking is, and then walk to the middle of the building where she is. It might be an ounce closer parked in handicap (if you can get it) through the front (south) direction, but there are no chairs to sit if we are not going to make it. We try not to bring in our walker, because there are chairs in-between. - Then the last trip of the day will be to getting Ginney from the vet at the end of the day. I will just be tired. In the best situation, we would stop by after the podiatry, but that appointment is about 11:30AM and the vet assistant said the doctor will not be available until the afternoon. Hmm that be another thing ... if Rich could pick her up on the way home. He will be stopping down the block to pick up groceries. Just checking. They are open until 6:30PM. Ahh, arrive by 11:30AM and starts at 11:45AM - that's Dr. Austin ... I will check with Rich later in the day. It is possible he could pick her up if he takes the 5:00-6:00pm pick-up time at Walmart. We will see. Also depends on his mood and how flexible he will be. - How have we been (the previous day)? - The previous day marked in until Rich got home. I do not recall. Afterward, we turned and talked to him a while. He let me talk which was about three-fourths' of our day. That is as much as we remembered. We asked about his day, and I know he is worried about getting a couple new jobs in. He would like to have more work in the shop although he does not have much room for it. He talked about getting the "ladders" job he had last year. He talked to someone yesterday giving him an indication, though not assurance that the job will come back. Considered a "big job." His shop assembles pool ladder parts, or puts the parts in a box, I am not sure. Just know it is profitable and keeps workers at the shop busy. - Anything else? Hmm, we fell asleep again while Rich was finishing his TV for the day. I woke-up about 10:30PM past Rich's bedtime. He was just to the part WHILE I was waking up, to be going to bed (so turning on the rain music). It drives me crazy when that happens. I did, however, use the washroom, and remember to put on the new C-Pap machine - mostly. - There are two parts of this ... first part says that Dr. Marvin and us talked and negotiated a new deal ... do to the difficulties with laying down - waking up Crystal, that we would try using the C-Pap machine in
17. the living room. If it works, we will put it on the lower shelf on the coffee table next to me, to clear out of obvious site. AND we figured out later that we HAD gotten a second new C-Pap from their recall. The first was a completely new machine, and it is set-up in the bedroom. Last night when we finally opened the box to the second machine, we discovered that they had just cleaned-up someone else's machine and they wanted us to take the rest of the parts from our old machine and build a Frankenstein version. We did, though we are missing our memory card. I do not know if it will take a normal one. We will have to check it out. BUT the humidity tank, hose, mask, and filters, we had already. - I like this model over the other one, but suddenly, it had made perfectly good sense to have one in the living room, where we are sleeping. We figured that Rich was not going to be overly happy, but he did help us plug it in, AND reach that back buried space to clean up some fur balls. We were very appreciative. We put the machine on at 10:30PM, then woke-up with enough time for the washroom. It was about 1:30AM, but then we slept until Rich woke us up. We usually sleep like this without the mask but appreciated getting through it WITH the mask. It was a little tight on our left cheek, but we will adjust that tonight - after we get back to the couch. We are happy with this amount of progress. We are hoping we have produced a solution until we lose more weight. - One thing today about which we can get excited. - We would like to think that we have made progress with our toe ulcer. We have been very faithful wearing the shoe, but only so-so on dressing it. Before we were waiting for Rich, and now we are trying to do it on our own, because it is much more comfortable, and less hostile. THOUGH without Rich, we are not getting reports as to if it is progressing. He got nasty the other day stating we were not fixing the toe, because we were waiting for saline solution as directed by Dr. Austin. He was right in that we were holding back, but I hate it that whenever we disagree with him, he gets cranky. - It happened again this morning. Because of Ginney, I thought I should feed her myself while Rich was still getting out of the shower. We wanted to speed ahead her bathroom cycle so, we could take her out before the vet visit. BUT he came out before we got to the halfway mark, and he was criticizing the way I was doing breakfast. So, I just put down the cheese we were holding and went to the couch. By the time we got to our chair, we said that he could do it, and that is when the big snarl came out for being upset about criticism. Is that how he looks at it? There is only one way he perceives at doing things around here, and that is his way. Any other way is simply wrong. Sometimes that is hard to oversee. - How would we deal with a stressful situation that could trip us up today? - **We can be sure to** → - We should be able to let some of this frustration go. It is part of the discussion in Dr. Marvin's office, with the depression. The other main part was that we had figured Crystal was out and out of her range upset with us trying to move all the weight around on the bed. We are interpreting it as her feeling that someone is holding her down, rather than knowing that the weight was causing mobility problems, or in getting our pajamas straightened out while turning. I do not think Rich understand our talk that was between Dr. Marvin and us originally, but in our eyes, it is just that much more important that we lose weight, with or WITHOUT the surgery. - If we were someone looking at our life from an important level, what would we tell ourselves?
18. - **An Eagle's eye view** → - Good-good! We got the dressing done 20 minutes ahead of time! You are doing great, AND it feels much better. - What else are we thinking of? (Morning Pages) - We must think about not getting anything to eat on the way home. Yes, but we are missing lunch. Leaving at 10:30AM and getting out about noon. How about a compromise. Two roast beef Arby's - NO EXTRAS! Except horsey (two) and Arby's sauce (six). We could make that deal. AND no eating until we get home, so might as well stop at the Arby's closest to home at Walmart. Deal? Regular RB. Fine (but frustrated). - One word/phrase that could describe the kind of person we want to be today? - ***One phrase to rule them all*** → - A bit more responsible ... we are TRYING! ### Day-to-Day Goals - Do we have any riveting goals today? Should we have? - Our riveting goals of the day are to just get through the day, with outside trips, AND by the continuity of our writing. Maybe if anything ... to do some editing on chapter three when we get home, - Are all today's food choices in My Fitness Pal (MFP)? How can we get through any slumps? - AND after we eat at Arby's. It should be 1:00-1:30PM. Only other thing is doing it after a short nap. BRING IN THE PHONE. - What exercising could I commit to today? How much? - Our hard part is going to and from Dr. Austin's office. Remember there are chairs through the hall if we need them and stop worrying about it. We are going to be ok, remember that K? - What can you tell us about the showering experience today? - Not much of an experience. We did shower yesterday, and we dressed our toe both days. - ### Balance - How is our perspective of time going? Are we still on track? - We are doing well. We have 27 minutes before we need to leave. I do think that we are going to listen to audible, but something less engaging than we did when going through the stop sign. How about "The Confidence Man?" Jamie Raskin, "Unthinkable" was the stop light problem book. - What has been going well? - We have been attentive to the time. Nothing more exciting than that
19. - Today, we have added balance by ... - Trying to calm down the part about being out of the house and driving so much. It is going to be ok. We are a good driver. Remember that we will be less tired after Dr. Austin's appointment if we do not eat until after getting home. - What could have been better? - If we had more time to talk to Nihit. I do like that he not only got a chance to talk to Vitty, but as well, he is working on the computer either his UI, or his Aunt's work. ### Connect-Consume-Cerebrate - Connect → Had a nice talk - With whom? About What? - With whom, we have NOT had a talk - was with the vet person. She did not ask about the grooming, so I did not get a chance to talk about leaving the front part alone, AND we did not talk much about the throwing up incident, where we thought she was really listening. - What did we learn, and what did we contribute toward to the conversation? - We learned that if we were spacey, we could not think properly of how to manage Ginney's grooming or medical, and THEN we left the phone out in the car. I have no idea if they called with questions. I could go out and get the phone, but there are only 8 minutes left until we leave. We have budgeted about 7 minutes to be in the car doing our fiddling stuff like calling back the vet or setting up our book. - Consume → Run Protocol - What did we read/listen/watch this time? - The only thing under "consume" is that we are watching sentence after sentence spoken aloud as it gets typed. Just getting the job done. - Cerebrate → My Brain is the best - What is our brain exaggerated up on at this time? What triggered these thoughts? Feelings? Behaviors? - We could get the "hyped-up" part done after getting back. Some good feet news. - Can we put out an elevator Pitch? For ourselves? For others? - Everything is ok. Just let it be. Maybe when we leave, we could take the 11:00AM medicine early? Where will we be at 11:00? About 2/3rds toward where we are going. Yeeks. We are still at 348. This is no good. Remember to take the water. I gave Nihit a warning note, we would be leaving, but he has me blocked off. He is doing a lot of hand motions, like he is preparing to give a preparation. Ok Nihit! See you, most likely tomorrow. I should be home about 1-1:30PM. LOVE YOU! ### Seriously, as a writer...
20. - What kinds of ideas have come to mind today? Relevancy to a better life? - I was laying down a few moments ago. We had the new C-Pap mask on, and breathing was heavenly. We laid back and closed our eyes with old-fashioned Christmas music. Likewise, we started thinking these last several days, that we were seeing ourselves to the end of our life. After about 15 minutes, motivated to get up. We do not want to die. It is a feeling like - investigate the light. Just walk forward. We knew how tired we were after the day's activities. I do not want to get into what others might be able to do with all this playing in their background. All I can say is that our feet and legs got heavier, our mind less flexible, and our sense of hope drained. - After a while, we decided to pull ourselves out of it. We turned off the mask, checked the dishes (all good), and got something cold to drink. We are out of water, and close to out of Gatorade - Zero. Not only that, but we needed to put on our pajamas, though keeping on our shoes (altered). The day was hard at Dr. Austin's ... we were not feeling it, but then we were, and it got worse as we put pressure on our damaged foot. I was seeing quite a bit of blood on the gauze, although she was trying to hide it. She had to go down to the blood level, so she could get new cells growing onto freshly trimmed areas of the toe. That was part of our problem with taking care of Ginney - going to the vets for her. We were tired, and our feet hurt. We might need to take off the toe of our special shoe. It is rubbing on the top of our big toe, and that seems to have swollen it. - As to relevancy to a better life? If we take care of ourselves, we will be in a better position to live our life - and certainly much longer. We just lost our thought, shoot. Something here. It will come back to us in a couple of moments. - All these things go toward helping us to live longer. We can do it, right? - What are cues which include writing/reading about Multiplicity, trauma, and being a better human being? - I will have to think about this for a second. I like the free flow of thinking. Dr. Marvin said something about this yesterday, but we forgot. We are too scattered to go much further. - We are affecting Multiplicity by ... - Asking the questions, we need to ask. We are going to figure out more of ourselves. We just must keep trying. I do not know where we are in general. Just putzing along Nihit before leaving for our appointment. He was not answering, which meant that we were on mute from him. So, we just left, and then of course, by the time we got back, we must assume that he is already in bed. - It was a long day with the trips out between foot and Ginney. I think that because we are so overweight, we are having a demanding time getting through moment-to-moment accomplishments. It is ok, we are going to get there, but it is going to take some kind of extra motivation. Right now, we are only tired. - We can ask if anyone else is going through these kinds of every day struggles. - We missed saying goodbye to Nihit. ### Note Making - Ideas Log
21. - Are there any burning ideas to scramble down quickly? - We just finished looking at Dr. Austin's report. There is not a lot of change, but significant warnings. It always catches my attention when she says amputation or loss of life. She is just hoping that we read her notes. She does not say all these things in her meetings, but that is why we need to read over what she has written to clear herself of trouble. - Are there unanswered questions from the day? - Yes, there is a question, we just wanted to ask/answer, but we have been forgetting where we were. - Idea Expansion (Nick Milo) - How is this new idea (note) relevant to the question(s) I am considering? - The questions we are considering are all the things that make us feel as if we are falling apart, and then how this affects our younger parts, or their thinking/feeling processes. While we were with Dr. Marvin Thursday, we felt we were struggling so deeply, we could not imagine anything less than we were feeling how younger parts felt, although back then there was no one to talk to. Just had to keep stumbling forward. I felt so close to crying with Dr. Marvin, but we could not. There is a high wall preventing that. - Is this idea (note) like or different from the others to which I am comparing it to? - We have gone through a lot of depression. This was a clear, deep one with Dr. Marvin. We started criticizing ourselves, but he stopped that and put down the human side of it. He made it ok not to be feeling happy all the time. It goes with his comments that we are not responsible for taking care of others, or making them feel better, than ourselves. It must be ourselves first. Sometimes, we just need to step away, and see where things go. We need to make it safe, but we cannot hide from the feelings. I think we just do not want to feel them. They hurt. AND why is it we cannot cry? Which of our selves are dealing with the same thing as we are. We are quite sure they originate with the younger part, but we do not know how to grasp it. Help ourselves and help them. - Do my present thoughts (notes) agree or disagree with one another? - Our present thoughts - the ones we have been working on, where we are taking care of others, before we take care of ourselves ... Nihit are you listening to this? We need to take care of our own needs, even though it appears that the others, will not be ok. They will be ok. They are more resilient than they want us to think. If we just put up a few flags and step back, they can see themselves down the bunny hills. - Are there other connections that I may like to make between my ideas (notes)? - I think if we sit with our ideas and feelings, that we are going to learn taking care of them. Like today when we were sitting with the mask on and only hearing music, as we let it drown out our thoughts. We were feeling the low feelings again. We gave ourselves a reasonable amount of time to deal with it - about 15 minutes, and then, we picked-up ourselves to do the important work for us, of writing things down. As to connections between our notes, we knew we were going to have a grueling day. We understood that the time-out - and moving our body around, was going to make us tired. We took a 45- minute nap, and then took a 15-minute feeling time, but then we felt strong enough to get up and write. A good cold drink helped as well; we turned on Christmas music. Christmas has in the background been a
22. high over the years. Not to share with others but felt when we were in our quiet spaces. Respectable job! We do not need to die all the time. - The 7C's of Note Making (Nick Milo) - Remember the magic of being in the concert band? No singing but flowed with others. Sweet! I would like to connect the music to a happy time. We had a problem when we were young (and older), that we could not remember the music, so we could not remember all the holiday songs, or others played commonly over the radio. This would be a suitable time to let you know that if our nose were not tickling, we could hum. I did like the part of our childhood the year our mother got us a radio for our bedroom, and we could tune into about everything. There was a lot of time spent in the bedroom. Oh, and listening to stories - even mysteries, and spooky stories. It seems like listening to the audiobooks, like we did today on the car ride to Dr. Austin's and back. We have always liked stories, even stories about Trump. We were listening to "Confidence Man" by Maggie Haberman. She was a joy to listen to. Her stories pour out with great presence of mind. They are allowing me to put a sense of Trump into the picture, to better understand his disease and disorder. We have things that make us feel like we are falling apart. But then? We have things that put us on solid ground again. Let there be music. Dr. Marvin was getting us past the point of thinking things as being either good, or bad. He was saying more like things just are what they are. This might then be a point of accepting, and then moving on. We want to spend some time with us. There was a lot of being down, but then came Christmas. We need to help Rich bring it into our house. He wants to work on it over the weekend. He is going to go to Jaxsyn's wrestling match though tomorrow, so we will have to gauge the time. Maybe even wash some clothes? Hey, that is an idea. There are two things that make sense to us. First letting the holiday in, and then getting things done that will make the life of Rich and us better. We always wanted someone we could share our life with. We now have a few! And it turns out we do like Christmas music. - Solution Prompt - What is the problem → - Having thoughts and feelings that do not belong anywhere. - What is the solution → - Keep bringing them together to build stories and songs. - What is the benefit → - We can feel the past and sorrow, and all the happy feelings too. Just need to accept and delight in the entourage! We the Multiple of Many - So, What Next (Next Action Step?) - Let us get this saved and ready to move into our Rich time of the day. We deserve good company!
23. ### Anne & Nihit - Both selves - Perspective - Are we helping ourselves before helping others? How? Let us make this an excellent job! Do not distract! - Today focused on us, getting things done, and making the best of a tiresome day, BUT if we turned around, we could see our pretty groomed puppy AND hear the Christmas music with snow felt scene. - What difficulties are we having focused on the day outlined? Get your head back in the game! - The difficulty was wanting to do more during our tired times. Hey, we can fix that, AND the new C-Pap machine in the living room is going to be a blessing! - Between us - Nihit and Anne - How was today a gift through Nihit/Ann conversation? - Today, we did not talk too much, but we kept ourselves coordinated with the work we each had, and, in the time, we had to do it. It was a gift! His gift was ... saying, should we turn to the sessions? - In what way are Nihit and us helping each other today - have we rallied!?? - I do not know all that Nihit did, but he registered - as many sessions as we did - SEVEN! Yay! He wants to zoom ahead, but we are going to need producing a number. Like, if we can go six of seven with seven sessions or above, then we can put up higher expectations. No sooner. We want to satisfy these numbers! - What could Nihit and us accomplish by talking together with Dr. Marvin? - Can we collect a list of what the two of us can do, and what the two of us are having problem with - like a business evaluation. C'mon get over it Nihit ... You will never think you are good enough for Dr. Marvin, BUT he is all accepting!
24. #2022-12-06 ## 2022-12-06 – Evidence 26A – Stress Is Upcoming Surgery - Rich Dr. Marvin’s Notes Pt arrived on time. Reported doing "OK" today. Partner is ill (cold like symptoms) but taking care of himself. Started with review of medical issues/appts. Several upcoming appts including for herself, partner, and dog. Briefly reviewed use of CPAP. Has moved it out to couch which is a more comfortable setting. Feels it is working well, partner is supportive. Not sure if it is making a difference yet. Validated process and goals for keeping track of health. Planned out schedule for taking partner for surgery. Several themes emerged - wants to be there for partner, driving can be stressful. Reviewed compromise options. They will also likely need additional supports - either in-house or partner going to short-term rehab, planning around meals, cleaning. Reflected on how planning for stressors can bring down the level of worry/anxiety. Reviewed session tracking updates. Keeping up with sessions over the day. Returned to discussion of writing project. Reviewed progress - has published first ten chapters as slide decks, continued work on tagging content by who generated it. Enjoying process - learning about parts and their skills/thoughts/background/goals. Reviewed daily writing updates. Reviewed updates with online friend N - working on schedules, boundaries. Reviewed worries about election/politics. Validated concerns and explored potentially catastrophic thoughts, Used theme of planning ahead as tool to manage worries. Pt left session with several tasks to follow-up with. Global Improvement (CGI-C): Minimally improved Assessment (Depression): - Moods stable to more anxious today - connected to political changes, upcoming holidays, planned surgery with partner. Able to process in session and plan for how to approach worries. - Current project to process writer's notes in collaboration with personal insights - making meaning of work/life.
25. - Several ongoing medical follow-ups remain in process. Actively following up with appts. - Working to maintain progress with writing projects and balance with other activities. - Able to contract for safety. Assessment (DID): - Current writing project bringing additional understanding and meaning. Enjoying self-reflection component - learning/accepting more about parts of herself. - Continues to work to balance time online with writing/reading/household tasks. Using more simplified daily journal to track time in sessions. - Review of home videos in background. Goal remains to process smaller pieces of the video as time allows. - Working on larger writing project (trauma narrative) - goals/product/audience. Moving forward on "case file" project. #2022-12-07 ## 2022-12-07 – Evidence 26B – Ginney Need To Go Out A Very Good Morning
26. - How was sleep last night? - Sleep went well - remember to tell Dr. Marvin no nightmares remembered. This might be toward a better result from the C-Pap. Rich had to wake us about 6:20AM because Ginney wanted out of her kennel. We did not hear it, although he did. He was sleeping back in the sitting room. So, we took care of Ginney - two times out, and we gave her breakfast, which she did not eat. She has not thrown up by now (12:29PM). She did not have her lunch with us either. We do not know why she is acting this way. She has stayed with us in the living room all day. It is different because dad is home. - How have we been (the previous day)? - Somewhere about 9:30PM last night, Rich got a call from his son. He had called previously to tell Rich that both he, and Jaxsyn, his grandson had gotten sick - cold. He guessed that it was to do with the wrestling match all three had been to on Saturday. Rich was able to say, that he also had the cold and it hit him the night previous, so Monday. But the second son call Rich received was Chris stating that both he and Jaxsyn had Covid. - It was like ... oh Lord. I had remembered that I had a kit from January when we went to Thom's. I had not used it, so when we got home, buried in the beast of a sewing room. Not too bad, although a clear ten minutes to find it. I read the directions and dealt with a cranky Rich as he followed the steps. Do this, Do that. The results were that he had a blue line and a very week pink line. The two lines indicated that he had Covid. Rich wanted to go with there was no pink line, which would have meant no Covid. But as of 12:39PM, he is officially up for the first time today. He sounds and looks terrible but walked me to say he is going to work and has calls to make. I know he must back up his work, but like when Dr. Marvin was sick. They make lousy patients. - There ... just worked through a schedule for the rest of the afternoon to meet all our objectives. Look for it under today's date (12-7-22) in the Sessions area. Good deal. We are good to write for the next 28- minutes. Yay! - One thing today about which we can get excited. - Rich was not in shape to teach us how to do things, but we are making do. Let us make a shower time. Perhaps work backward in our chain of events (listed above). Did it! See above, or in today's Session's work. - How would we deal with a stressful situation that could trip us up today. - We can be sure to → - Instead of overwhelmed with all we would like to do to help Rich and us get through this part where he is so sick, we are just breaking it down. We can do this ... do not want to get overwhelmed. - If we were someone looking at our life from an important level, what would we tell ourselves? - An Eagle's eye view → - We can do this ... just got to keep our eye on the individual parts, so we do not get overwhelmed. - What else are we thinking of? (Morning Pages)
27. - We are thinking that we must be careful. We just did the living room and the office - bare minimum and we get tired and dizzy. Take it slower, we have plenty of time between things. BUT now we have secured 50-minutes of writing time before taking our shower. - One word/phrase that could describe the kind of person we want to be today? - One phrase to rule them all → - We are going to be super-focused and good at what we do! - A Brilliant Afternoon - How is the day going? - Ok, so far. Must worry about not giving ourselves enough credit, though this morning we edited, and in the afternoon, we were back after an hour lunch, and we started to write, PLUS make the schedule for the afternoon - with non-writing tasks. We are good ... taking care of our babe! - How should we adjust course? - Don't be afraid to jump ahead of our schedule, OR ... ok, the writer's might want that time. We spread out, so left to do things as planned. That is what Dr. Marvin said yesterday. That if you could plan things out, we would reduce the stress. We are hyper-alert now, but we are feeling productive. - Who have we connected to this morning? - We had connected to Rich and Nihit this morning, and that is about it. - Nihit worked a couple of hours with us, and he was intent on moving forward. He is, however, behind and at some point, had to sleep. I think around midnight. We tried to keep the talking down, but looking now, there were a couple of hours of doing stuff including talking to Rich before we got to more controlled settings. We are trying. - What has Ginney learned from the day? - Please.... You can do this! → - Ginney is a little down - not eating today, and it might have to do something with Rich being so sick, and things moving uncoordinated. She is learning that we can oversee the THREE of us together at home on a weekday. BUT she is out of sorts. - Where have we chosen to go out today? - Our excursion details → - We are planning to go out and get our medicine. And, then bring garbage to the curb, and then get the email, and then get Ginney out of the car, and let her out. That is my goal, SOON. Ten more minutes to shower ... just preparing everyone. I want to get these few things done in case I get sick next. Rich doubted yesterday that I have had FIVE Covid shots, but I showed him the proof. We carry a Covid card. :)
28. - What pile of crap have we struggled through? How did we benefit from it? - Rich is struggling through. We are putting up with it. We are trying to pre-suppose his needs, and then beat him to it. Furthermore, we are making it ... just need to be sick, dear. That is all, and SLEEP ... GET Better! AND do not get US sick! - How far along are we in the "Win the Day Task?" (Have we boldly gone?) - Win the day → Answer (Make it a blockquote) - We are so bold, we are planning like a dozen goals, INCLUDING going out. We can do this. Just one thing at a time, right? - A Spectacular Evening - Who did we connect with today? - We had a couple extra interactions. One was the "kid" who helped us at the pharmacy. He was very responsible and considerate. Especially because we asked him to add two Covid tests and bring them out with my medicine. AND we were happy that even though the insurance did not pay for it, the total with four medicines, AND two Covid tests, the cost was only just over $20. - The other person we responded to be the lady at Dunkin' Donuts. There was not anyone in front of us, so it was very quick. AND the lady had my order in a bag when we pulled-up to purchase the two white frosting long John doughnuts. She was cool, calm and collected and responded to us being happy with her quick service. She was just mellow and happy. Sweet! - What did we watch/read/listen to today? - We are listening now (5:11PM) to Rich's show, where the two guys go around the company buying antiques. Forget his name. It is Mike. It is like the other show he watches about people selling their antique stuff to a place in Los Vegas. Both shows repeat the same themes over and over - how cool the items are. People rarely get what the items are worth. Especially the Los Vegas guys. - We watched a few shows during lunch. Political. BUT Nihit was saying goodbye about then, so we came back to the computer. We wanted to have a more productive day. - What did we learn from today? Lessons? → - Whoops, someone's puppy is up. She heard a car backfire outside. So, now we must figure if she is going for hungry. We are going to need washing out her food container. We put some sauce from the roast beef this morning, and he did not eat it. It was wet, so maybe got soggy and yucky. We will give her a better option. Hmm, that is unusual. She just got into our bed. So now both Rich and Ginney are sleeping. Might as well go a little farther. We are feeling some discomfort in both our wrists. We are shaking them up. Might have to change tasks. - What was a fun "Ginney moment" for the day? Rub my tummy! → - The fun moments were both while out in that although Ginney barked a few times with people passing our car at Walmart while waiting, but both times meeting the guy bringing out product and the donuts.
29. She was more interested, and less interested in just barking. We gave her a treat when we got home, she was so good! - Okay, how did you celebrate today? Were there crowns given? → - I am going to think that the crowns given to Rich. Today, he did not let me do Everything on our list, but he agreed it was ok if I made dinner. Good Rich - You get the crown! I could not talk him out of doing dishes, but we DID get dinner responsibilities. We will wrap up here now to get that going. Maybe after he smells food, he will wake up long enough to eat. ### Anne & Nihit - Both selves - Perspective - Are we helping ourselves before helping others? How? Let us make this an excellent job! Do not distract! - We did a decent job today. We were taking care of our goals while being considerate to others. Everyone seems to remember that we are a writer, and we are doing great with writing AND editing. I feel proud of ALL of us. - What difficulties are we having focused on the day outlined? Get your head back in the game! - We are being very obsessive about staying on track. This happens when we get a full day to run the board. We still are not interested in doing other things other than writing, like piano and quilting, but we ARE on a writing roll! - Where is Rich at? - Rich just coughed, so maybe he will get up soon. It seems to precede that he needs to sit up and get rid of some of the phlegm. We should look up to see what the signs are of having pneumonia. - Chest pain when you breathe or cough - ## Symptoms The signs and symptoms of pneumonia vary from mild to severe, depending on factors such as the type of germ causing the infection, and your age and overall health. Mild signs and symptoms are often like those of a cold or flu, but they last longer. Signs and symptoms of pneumonia may include: - Confusion or changes in mental awareness (in adults aged sixty-five and older) - Cough, which may produce phlegm - Fatigue - Fever, sweating and shaking chills - Lower than normal body temperature (in adults older than age sixty-five and people with weak immune systems)
30. - Nausea, vomiting or diarrhea - Shortness of breath #### When to see a doctor See your doctor if you have difficulty breathing, chest pain, persistent fever of 102 F (39 C) or higher, or persistent cough, especially if you are coughing up pus. It is especially important that people in this high-risk group see a doctor: - Adults older than age sixty-five ... Rich is seventy-one. - Ok, tonight we are going to get his temperature. Next time up, let us see if we can find the thermometer. - Between us - Nihit and Anne - How was today a gift through Nihit/Ann conversation? - We appreciate how hard Nihit was working to get his work done for the course before he felt too tired. I am also proud that Nihit is much better at recognizing when he is too tired and needs sleep. He does not fight it as much as before. Being in a conversation with him was like we are only regular partners. We both have our concerns, like his cousins, or our Rich and Ginney, but we move in and out of them while checking in and out of each other’s sessions. We are both doing good! - In what way are Nihit and us helping each other today - have we rallied!?? - We are rallying in that we have both been productive, while taking care of others. He also got a chance to see Dr. Marvin's note from yesterday. We did not really get a chance to talk about it. That is happening more because his family life is so distracting. We are playing the waves. - What could Nihit and us accomplish by talking together with Dr. Marvin? - I think we are back to - how could we be helping each other better, and then let the questions come up where they do. We could start off with both making a list of how we are helping each other. AND getting Nihit to a point where his lack of getting things done, does not make him a big problem. We love him to pieces! ### Dr. Marvin's Note - Date today "What or why is it important for Dr. Marvin to be reading our writing?" We would have to review this note, but we do not have time for this right now ... Rich is becoming closer to consciousness with more coughing. We are trying to get him to spit some of the phlegm off the side of the back porch. BUT he is having a challenging time moving from his chair. I do not like the thought that Rich's lungs are fighting with all this fluid. "Could any of our goals be accomplished any other way?" Yes, we could push that we get better information as to what Rich is going through. Both the thermometer and Covid test tonight should be a good start. I want to write a note to Dr. Dorman. I want
31. to know when THEY think we should do something, especially if Rich is not getting better. He has had this for at least three days. Today seems to be the worst so far. Ok, we are going to the kitchen and see what we can do - both Ginney and Rich should be fed. WAKE UP you all!