I haven’t written a journal entry in a bit because it was a daily goal for me for a while, and I recently started having really bad stress, so I decided to (at least temporarily) remove most of my daily goals until I’m doing better.

I think the main cause of my stress/anxiety has been how hard I’m working on getting my knee/legs rehabilitated. I’ve been doing a barrage of physical therapy exercises twice a day, going to the pool a couple hours twice a week (which requires the Paratransit process), going to the physical therapist’s office once a week, and going for walks as often as possible, usually at least once a day.

That might not be so stressful, except that I don’t have a great mind-body connection, so I have been making a concerted conscious effort to pay attention to my body—especially my left knee—and keep track of how it’s feeling: whether there’s any pain, whether there’s any tightness, etc. And I’ve been exerting this effort pretty much every moment that I’m awake. Eventually this kind of awareness should become automatic, like I think it is for most people, but in the short term it requires an incredible amount of energy.

But it’s been yielding great results. I think my knee and legs are doing better than any time since I broke my foot in 2017. I notice as soon as there’s discomfort and change what I’m doing as a result, adding in different stretches when necessary, not continuing on with things that are causing discomfort, even when it’s something I really want to do, even if stopping causes Shannon inconvenience. I’ve gotten to the point now where I can go up and down stairs without pain, so I was able to actually do some laundry last week! I know most people wouldn’t be excited about doing laundry, but I was ecstatic! I went up and down the stairs a few times that day, and my knee has been feeling a little tight since, so I’m going to be cautious when I try it again.

In addition to daily goals like writing in my journal, I’ve also mostly put my Korean studies on hold. Most days I spend about 10 minutes reading in my app of short intermediate stories/articles (though I seem to have progressed beyond the intermediate into the advanced level of the app), but don’t do any other studying. I just don’t have the emotional or intellectual energy. Luckily, my main study Discord server is on summer break right now, and the person who leads study groups on the other server where I’m active has been on vacation. So I’m not missing many group study opportunities. But I’ve lost my streak in various flash card apps and such, and for a long time I was writing a Korean journal entry every day, and I haven’t done that since June 28. But I’m trying to keep my priorities straight. Right now my top priority is leg rehab!

Though I’ve stopped some of the other things I was doing, I’ve actually been working on some fiction writing, inspired by the writing group I went to at the library last month. I have a short story I’ve been working on, and I’ve written a couple of poems. I really like one of the poems, but I don’t think I’m ready to share it with anyone because it’s extremely emotional, about all of my experiences with death. I wouldn’t want to take something that heavy to the writing group, for example. At least not right now, when I don’t really know the people. But I’m still hoping to have a rough draft of my short story done before the next writing group meeting in two weeks. It started out inspired by a children’s story I’d written in Korean, but it’s grown to be much more introspective than I would have been able to write in a foreign language. I think I might have a full rough draft finished maybe tomorrow, and have time to put it through a couple of revisions (maybe with Shannon’s feedback) before taking it to share with other people.

I say I might have a rough draft done by tomorrow, and yet I’ve been quite sick the past couple days. Last night I was woken repeatedly by itching, which has continued today, and my digestion has been terrible the past couple days, too. It turns out that stress is one of the triggers for mast cell activation syndrome. Yay. And apparently the dosage of the Xolair that controls my symptoms most of the time isn’t enough to control them when I’m really stressed out. I’m talking to my allergist in about two weeks, so I’ll consult with her about whether there’s anything additional I can do when I get breakthrough symptoms like this in acute situations.

But for now all I can do is try to reduce the stress and anxiety. That’s why I’ve cut back on things like my Korean studies, but Shannon has also suggested that I talk to my physical therapist to find out which activities are likely to be having the most impact on my knee/leg progress, and maybe eliminate something I’m doing. I’m guessing most likely I would eliminate going to the pool for the water exercise class. I think it’s helping, but maybe it isn’t helping enough to be worth the additional stress right now, until my anxiety has subsided. I’ve been making such great progress that I hate to stop any of the stuff I’ve been doing … but … I’m anxious all the time and now I’m itching and having diarrhea.

In the past when my anxiety became this bad, I usually took enough Valium for a couple weeks to break the cycle, then could go off the Valium again. But when I take a truly therapeutic dosage of Valium, it makes me sleep pretty much all day long. So right now I’m taking a dosage that makes me sleep a LOT, but not all the time, and it isn’t really enough to stop the cycle. But I don’t want to increase the dosage and fall unconscious for days/weeks on end. I’ve got too much going on right now. Of course, the amount of stuff I have going on right now is probably WHY I’m anxious.

Maybe I should talk to my psychiatrist about what to do about the anxiety, rather than trying to solve all my problems myself. I’ll phone her office tomorrow.

Oh, one last thing that I want to remember. Gary was over here today, sitting in the rocking chair in the living room, and Megara was very interested in him! It was the first time we’ve ever seen her show interest in anyone else instead of fear! She kept trying to get closer to him, but Mango kept getting jealous and driving her away. Gary suggested that sometime we might want to lock Mango up for a bit and let Megara approach him as much as she wants. It was a shock to see her so confident and curious! It made us really happy.