Vet69

I have been and out for years. I feel a shift now. Something between gear and anger. I'm in pretty good health for my age, eat healthy and have never done any illegal drugs.I exercise regularly. Maybe I have a chance, I hope.

Dee74

Well, someday we all have to pay the piper I guess.

I try not to think about it too much.

There's always Keith Richards - and my grandad was a drunk...96 when he died...none of us know how long the thread is.

All the more reason to seize the day - right now life is good

D

LBrain

Glad you posted Vet.
Sounds like you are really making an effort to get your life back.
All you mentioned is a good course of action. Keep with it. It takes a some time and work for us to return feeling healthy again

I will add a suggestion that Zero promotes as well, Full Catastrophe living. It was started as a pain management seminar. And it is useful for all other aspects of existence. If you can fit it in, it's a good read/instruction manual. Learn how to do a full body scan and follow the 'advice' in it. It also has guided meditation you can get online or if you you purchase the book you can get the discs through the publisher as well.
Keep moving forward my friend.

zerothehero

Body scan: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQRQoLIP32Q

Sitting meditation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoCXMOylUHs

Resources: Online MBSR (free)

TigerLili

oh lord I went to two bizarre meeting yesterday. When I moved, I went from a busy city area to a small coastal town. There are only a few meetings each day in my local area - up to 20 mins drive - or I can drive further afield to other towns.

on one hand, every meeting has people with 30-40+ years of sobriety. on the other hand, when these folk share, they go on and on and on and on, sometimes about anything BUT sobriety and recovery. However, I figure sitting around drinking tea listening to old guys talk about their life is better than sitting at home thinking about drinking. A plus is that I'm getting a history lesson of the area lol.

jackrussell

You're a trooper, TL.
What do you think that the old farts make of you, the newcomer, at the meetings?
They must be VERY curious.
And how goes the bunny thing?

zerothehero

Funny bunny!

The few meetings I've gone to without fail have that old guy or gal rambling on and on with their stories and advice. Very sweet, really, if you have the patience. But then, you're there. What the hell else you gonna do?

LBrain

as long as it keeps your mind off drinking... and gives you a couple hours to distract yourself from yourself... I hope

do what you gotta do to stay on course TL

TigerLili

They are very nice but probably don't think about it very much. I think there is a revolving door of newcomers. Some who stay for good, or for a short time or who never come back.

The baby bunnies are too cute for words. I could sit and watch them play and eat for hours. I took bunny mama to the vet yesterday because she was having tummy troubles. I should have been more assertive and got him to look at her teeth but I felt a bit rushed out the door. He said he would look at them "next time". She can get fixed a few weeks after the babies are weaned. The babies can't get fixed until they are 4-6 months old! I thought they would be like kittens and could get done when they were quite young.

TigerLili

Yup. I'm not working so I have a lot of time on my hands.

I think there are more old timers at pre-5pm meetings.

jackrussell

So, you are actually planning on raising the rabbits as pets, TL?
And: how's the neck pain?

Hope everyone is doing well.
Today, I enjoyed sunshine, very cold temps, and fresh snow. Blue skies.
Lovely family chats, on phone and facetime. Good day at work.
Visiting a dying friend on Friday.
An accelerated sense, for sure, of life expectancy, as I age.
I am learning, as time passes. Different kind of learning from the academic model. So: life is good. Emerging. How are your guys doing?

TigerLili

jackrussell yes the babies will be pets. House bunnies! Mama is completely house trained and likes to explore and lie around. The babies are confined to the spare bedroom while they learn to use the litter box, and then they can come out to the rest of the house as well. I have plastic sheets on the floor, topped with cardboard and then cheap shower curtains topped with newspaper and a bit of straw for them to dig in. They are getting better with the litter box. The do whatever Mama does so they are getting the hang of it. They are definitely for lovin', not the oven! Mama has a furever home to go to when the babies are completely weaned at about 8 weeks. I am looking for homes for the babies, otherwise they will go to a no kill rabbit/small animal rescue.

The neck pain is pretty suck. My dose of Lyrica is doubled for the morning. I see a new neurosurgeon on Feb 2.

I am sorry about your friend passing. Are you able to go to the funeral?

jackrussell

My friend is actually doing well. A non smoker, she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer last spring and has outlived the life expectancy. She and her husband are continuing with fingers crossed awaiting the inevitable. I'm looking at them as a lesson in elegant coping.

zerothehero

Elegant coping. I like that phrase, though I'm sorry for their (and your) suffering.

TigerLili

sorry jackrussell I misread your post and thought your friend had already passed.

TigerLili

It's raining here today. My garden is enjoying it. A couple of local female cops have a side job as gardeners. I have had them do some work for me in the past and I'm planning to what I'll get them to do next. I have a short fence on one side of the property and I want a narrow garden bed along it, with some of that lattice business on the fence so I can plant climbers to grow over it. Then another garden bed where there are already some trees on the fence line at the back. I have a deck along the back of the house and I want lattice put along the lower half of one side (it's raised up a few feet from the ground due to the slope of the land) so I can grow passionfruit and cucumbers from the lattice, and then on the other side of the deck I need some privacy screens on the top half and I will also grow some climbers on that. My yard gets full sun most of the day so everything has to really like it hot.

The deck doesn't go as far along the back of the house as the 2nd bedroom, so it gets really hot as the sun hits it all day. I'm getting a ceiling fan installed in the room, but I'm also thinking of getting a pergola to the height of the roof and I can grow things like grapes over it and things that have leaves all year round. Do you think that might make the room cooler as the sun won't be hitting it directly?

jackrussell

How does Lyrica affect you, TL? Do you get high? Does it make the pain diminish, but you feel like you're swimming through pudding? Or is it pretty much normal, sans nerve pain?
Visited my friend today. She and her husband of 50 odd years were joking and kind of flirting with one another. Much laughter. I imagined visiting for an hour before heading off to a job; but was there for four and half hours listening to stories , and telling stories, and laughing. Her health is holding. And they've clearly figured out how to deal with the inevitable.
Very inspirational.

jackrussell

TL: it's hard for me, with our four very distinct seasons, to get my head around the fact that you can grow stuff like grapes, with leaves, all year round.
How hot does it get in high summer season?
We have -16C sunny mornings at the moment. Warming up to -8. Fluffy 6 inches of snow on the ground. Vet must be hunkering down as DC is walloped by an immense winter storm. Interesting that we can communicate these things instantaneously. In the not too distant past, posts would have traveled by steamer carrying our thoughts. I kind of like now. Not a bad place to be, for us.

Vet69

I just finished with the snow thrower while the wife and son shoveled. It's snowing 2 inches an hour. We could get up to 30inches.
This storm will kill people. I'm going bed and it's early. The snow blower awaits me in the morning.

TigerLili

jackrussell - Lyrica is taken for neurological pain. It blocks the nerve receptors or some such. There is no high or low. It is more like my brain is pudding :-) It's hard to think, remember things etc. It definitely helps with the pain. I was in hospital four times with the pain before they worked out what it was. They kept telling me it was a migraine and giving me migraine medication. They gave me morphine and some other drug which helped the pain but it's not viable long term as it doesn't actually address the problem which is nerve compression in the spine. One time I took myself to hospital beause I could feel the pain building and ended up lying on the floor of the ER screaming my head off and I wet myself because I couldn't move from the pain. I don't think I would wish it on my worst enemy.

Glad to hear your friend is in good spirits. I feel for her husband a great deal. It must be terrible to know your beloved is dying and there's nothing you can do.