My 1,000th Post, THANK YOU!

Yellow roses (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Can you believe it? 1,000 posts? I can’t either but I am so excited.

I started this blog when I was going through a very rough time and I wanted to hide, to hibernate (hence the title hibernationnow) to just get through one day after another. I was sick, I hurt everywhere and was finally diagnosed with Fibromyalgia and Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an autoimmune disease. This blog has helped me grow up and get through many important things in my life. Some very good and some very bad: It’s LIFE as I have known it; I’ve always tried to be honest. (Although there is a lot of fiction and non-fiction mixed together and sometimes I love trying to trick you!)

I want to THANK YOU sincerely from my heart for reading/following my bog.You don’t know how much it means to me. There have been people from the start that still follow me and I am so grateful. There are new people every day and I get excited with each new follow. WELCOME. I enjoy the comment section so much and I try to write back as many people as I can even if it is a simple “Thanks for writing.” I read EVERY comment and I think about them too. You make MY day.

I know I can’t stop writing, writing keeps me centered. It’s in my heart and soul. But, I need to make a few decisions down the road. Some of you have suggested that I self publish some of the posts into a book. I’m thinking about it but I know it is quite expensive. In the “old days” people had agents who did this for them. Blogging is an absolute joy to me and I will continue writing, no matter what.

There’s a new chapter in my life now, both kids are in college and while I was sad and angry for a while, I’m now excited and looking forward to my new adventures. It’s not the end of the road, it’s just the beginning of another chapter and the possibilities are endless. Knowing me as you do, some of them are quite…..interesting! I’ll keep you posted.

Thank you, again, for your support of me, for your suggestions and your kind words. Please keep them coming. I truly appreciate you.

Love, Laurie aka hibernationnow.wordpress.com

p.s. of course you knew any image would be in my favorite color…….

And In The End…

Happy New Year 2013 (Photo credit: Mark Kens)

Last post of 2112:

After my rather solemn afternoon,(see the post before this one: https://hibernationnow.wordpress.com/2012/12/31/bloody-foolish-me/) I pulled myself together and we had a wonderful early dinner as a family, the food was exquisite and our children 18 and 20, entertained us, as usual. The no fighting/no texting rule was in effect. There was much laughter and seriously good food. For my foodies (and I am one of them, here is most of the menu)  Appetizer: There was a choice of raw tuna with tofu, lobster bisque or gnocchi with mushrooms. I chose the gnocchi, our son chose the bisque and my husband ordered the raw (really hard for me not to say EEW) tuna and tofu. I’m trying to be serious here, it’s tough! Our daughter had a salad for an appetizer. You will see why later.

For our entrees: choice of filet mignon (yes, please for the three of us) with mashed potatoes and mushrooms that tasted like frizzled onions, were divine. I eat red meat about once every six months and I dare say, I enjoyed it. Our daughter (the vegetarian) had the gnocchi as a main dish, no mushrooms, in a tomato sauce. In my opinion, they should have stayed with the white (cream?) sauce that we had and my daughter agreed. The other options were…..I have no idea as soon as we saw the filet mignon we didn’t concentrate, sorry. Wait, my husband said there was also chicken and a seafood risotto and maybe something else. He also said once he saw the steak he couldn’t concentrate. On the table there were slices of dark raisin/walnut bread and some hard wheat bread.(Okay, so I ordered more bread for the table so I could have two slices of the raisin walnut bread with butter.) It was an occasion( and I have been eating like a bunny.)

For dessert there were three options: Linzer torte (we’re HERE!!!) or chocolate mousse cake with coffee crunch ice cream ( or vanilla) and pumpkin cheesecake that we all laughed about. My husband and I could not decide so we ordered one linzer torte and one chocolate mousse and split both in half. Sometimes, you just need both. They also offered sorbet ( seriously?) but our family doesn’t even count that as an option but they did offer it so I thought I should tell you.

It’s New Year’s Eve and I’m grateful. Grateful for my loving family, grateful I got through the day and that I talked to both my sister and my mother, grateful I can put my nightshirt on soon. I will feel happier when my daughter texts me when she arrives at her destination, moms worry like that, yup, we do.

To all my readers, I am GRATEFUL for you. Thank you for keeping me going, for your comments, for your dedication. I’m about to reach 1,000 posts really soon!!

This would not be complete if I did not acknowledge some very special friends that I feel extremely close to (even though I have never met them in person) These women I feel honored to call my friends and my support system. I actually feel closer to these women than some that live around the block. I mean that with all my heart and as they know, I wear my heart on my sleeve.  Great love and hugs to: Judy/Judith, Maureen, Rosemary, Ash, Michelle, and Tammy. I LOVE all of you. If your name is not mentioned I swear I came to a complete blank. You know who you are, please forgive me and just write your names in here _________________ and ___________________. I apologize.

Wishing you all a HAPPY AND HEALTHY 2013.

WITH LOVE,

From me, Hibernationnow.wordpress.com

Laurie xoxoxo

Calling Myself A Complete Idiot Would Be A Supreme Compliment

Stir Crazy 3 (Photo credit: The Michael)

A few weeks ago I posted a very disturbing blog post that scared me and some of my friends and readers. It was called “Worried Sick: One Crazy Ass Blog” and people I didn’t even know got worried about me. Days later and a tears shed, it prompted me to write a gushing thank you post and sincere apology.

That said, I now believe I am a stupid and utter asshole, although I can’t say for sure. However, I realized today that I think I did something totally silly and possibly quite dangerous. In my “fibro-haze/know it all “frame of mind, I realized that I had stopped taking one of my Fibromyalgia drugs, Topomax (used also for epilepsy and a variety of other illnesses) cold turkey. What makes it even more insane is that I had checked this out once before and knew to taper it. My excuse? I forgot. Reason? Fibro Fog Forgetfulness. We just can’t win, can we?

I researched it today and found out that yes, stopping the medicine without tapering it can produce some significant and intolerable symptoms including severe anxiety, discomfort AND tingling of the hands and feet etc. I’m just lucky I didn’t end up in the Emergency Room (although that was listed too.) However, I was curled up in the fetal position in bed feeling a bit suicidal.

I won’t ever be that cavalier again. I think what happens with those of us with chronic pain is that we take so many different medications (none that seem to help us at all) that we figure stopping one won’t make a bit of difference. Wrong.

I was totally out of my mind to have not thought it through in my search to lower the amount of pills I was taking. Again, when they say “consult your physician” as much as we may hate to, understandably so, at least we should call our local pharmacist. Besides, at least we know their number by heart.