Alysheba

Thank you so much, Sassy. I'm so glad I have gotten to know you over these threads. You are so great! ♥♥♥

I hope everyone has a wonderful Sunday!

courage2

Aly, I really admire your attitude throughout this long period of pain. In your place, I imagine I might wallow in self-pity, or give in to anxiety and drink. All your posts show self-determination and kindness.

How do you do it???

Alysheba

Not very well sometimes, courage. But my sincere thanks. ♥♥♥
Also I use your idea about having pillows on hand for the hard times!!!

courage2

True confession: my most successful method of blocking intrusive negative head-talk is to "miaow" at it.

Your turn

Alysheba

Hi Courage!
Hope all is well with you and all the other friends on this thread.
True confessions: I will have to think about that one!

Saskia

Hmmmm - there are definitely downsides to aging but for me one of the big positives has been the development of my ability to let things go and generally ease up on myself :-)

Alysheba

Sassy, you seem so young in your age and I think you have a wonderful way of looking at things. ♥

FBL

Have what is (hopefully) my final appointment with the retina specialist later this morning. Hoping for more good news.

Have a great weekend, gang!

Saskia

Thank you, Aly. I spent too much of my life feeling awkward, hurt and miserable. How I feel now is a gift I treasure. All of you here in SR have helped immeasurably in my healing.

FBL, great that your eye episode is almost over

stargazer016

I am happy the eye saga is drawing to a close FBL! It's taken a toll on you in so many ways. You have handled it like a champ.

Sassy, I agree one hundred percent about developing the ability to just let things go and to stop being my toughest critic. I can more easily just let things go that used to consume my thoughts and encourage me to drink. Emotional maturity is a later developing gift of not drinking I believe.

Have you rescheduled your cruise? I had a customer yesterday whom was planning a cruise similar to yours. NYC, Boston, and three stops in Canada. Still sounds like a fun adventure for the future.

I'm glad that you will be able to step back a little bit this summer Courage!

Aly, my thoughts go out to you each and every day dealing with your situation.

Have a good day all!

courage2

Sassy, you're going on a cruise? Excellent! Where?

FBL, I hope the retina specialist gave you good news.

SG, I agree w/ you and Sassy 100%. I'm not nearly as hard on myself as I used to be. In terms of emotional maturity in general, though, I'm still nowhere near. Unfortunately. Lots of work to do there. I went straight from little kid to substance abuser to old reformed drunk. Should have taken a little bit of time to grow up.

Here's a couple of things I don't have emotional control over yet:Aly, how's your day going today?

Alysheba

SG, Thank you so much. I am touched
FBL, so happy your eye trauma is almost over, I hope. You have been through so much. ♥
Thank you too Courage and any one else I may have forgotten. Sassy. ♥
I've upped one of my meds, Gabapentin. The ortho surgeon cancelled my appt for next week and rescheduled in late July. Ugh! But he told me he was going to probably up it anyway. I have not heard from my other doctor yet. I hope he's taking new patients. The pain is still fairly substantial. Sometimes it feels a tiny bit better, but mostly it is worse than it was before I saw the ortho dr.
Well, I just have to have faith that one of my doctors will help me! I'm going to see my regular dr next week. I really like her and she is staying on top of this (after I talked to and wrote emails to the BOD) lol.
Thank you all so much for you thoughts and kindness. You are all the best.
Great posts today. ☻☻♥

Saskia

Cour, I had to cancel the cruise when I got the worst cold I have had in many years! Not the end of the world - I will probably reschedule for later this summer or next year :-)

FBL

Great news! Got the "all clear" from the retina specialist. They already set up my initial evaluation with the cataract specialist in 2 weeks. Once I get that surgery, they can fit me with new glasses. Hopefully my vision will soon be better than ever!

Heading off to the next sports card show later this morning. Wasn't going to go, but my buddy asked if he could go along, so that got me excited to go. Still working on a few different sets, with the 1971 Topps Baseball at the top of the list.

Have a great weekend, all!

stargazer016

Glad you got the all clear FBL! You will be amazed at how much better your vision will be post cataract surgery. I basically only need reading glasses for small print now, but the constant on and off of glasses drove me nuts, so I got progressive glasses after six months. They have readers on the bottom and virtually plain glass up top. The week between surgeries was funny, with one good eye and one bad eye. I couldn't believe what I had been missing. Like I mentioned before, it was as though I was looking at the world with scratched up sunglasses all day long. You will probably want to set up a chart on your kitchen fridge to keep track of the daily eye drops and frequencies. It gets confusing when doing both eyes!

Courage-"Old reformed drunk" should be the header for this group, lol!

Have a good day all!

courage2

Sassie, when you go, where do you want to go? The islands?

FBL, such great news. I'm excited for you!

ORD for Old Reformed Drunk could be an acronym for us... maybe New ORDard?

Reminds me -- what music are you all listening to these days? SG?

Remember when we went through acronym/thread naming? Aly & Saskia, you may not know, but we were called FIST (Former Insanity Survivor Thread) for a while, and even survived a potential ban for being salacious. But we were strongly encouraged to change the name when that thread hit 500.

Alysheba

Sassy, so sorry you were sick and had to cancel. I hope you are feeling better now! Like Cour, wondering where your off to. Sounds like a lot of fun. It's been a while since I've had a vacation. After I get some things taken care of, I may try to schedule one too!
FBL, glad to see you are feeling so well.
Courage, what a great story about FIST! I was Lol when I read it.
As always, SG, great to see you!
Have a great day all! ♥♥♥

FBL

Thanks, everyone! Sure is a relief to have the hard part out of the way.

Star, I was on 4 different types of drops for the retina, so the cataract should be a piece of cake. Also, only getting the one eye done for now, AFAIK. Will know more in a couple of weeks.

Picked up about 50 cards for my collection this morning. Still a long ways to go on that particular set.

Courage, I remember the FIST days! I'm used to POST as it reminds me that I'm past being a drunk.

stargazer016

Morning all!

Courage, I am discovering old English prog rock bands like Gong, Soft Machine, Hawkwind and that ilk, as well as early 70's kraut rock, as the genre was called. FM radio was pretty loose back in the early and mid 70's, but I missed huge swaths of music apparently. I'm also currently exploring more ambient types of music, like Steve Roach, old Tangerine Dream, Eno and the like. Still love my jam bands and will forever be my true love. Listening to a lot of fall 1976 Dead. It seems to be a special tour, before the '77 explosion. I always have music on, whereas I haven't turned my tv on since the last episode of Game of Thrones.

My son is finishing up his junior year in high school and we are trying to get him to focus on possible colleges. Like myself, he really doesn't know what he wants to do with his life at this point. He seems to enjoy his computer science classes, so we are gently prodding him in that direction. With the crazy costs of education today, one really only gets one shot at a degree these days. I know things will work out in the end.

Have a good day all!

Alysheba

Hi all. Great post SG. I think, if a family can afford it this day, that going to college is a great thing to do. I learned so much, even apart from my classes, there was so much going on on campus, and it was so interesting. Good for you. Computer Science certainly seems like a good way to go. Here, near the Silicon Valley, they make great money, but rents and housing costs have gone crazy because of all the billionaire techies. I have a good friend who has been the Tech Director of law firms, where I met him, and he has done very well for himself. Good luck to you and your family! ♥
Hope everyone else is well.
Take good care and have a wonderful Sunday! ♥♥♥