Sunday, July 19, 2015

Because I Love Her


My daughter will turn 12 next month.   She is still scared of the dark. I asked her why she is scared. She doesn't know why. 
I got a little frustrated when she told me this. I mean, she is almost a teenager, what teenager is scared of the dark in this day and age when kids grow up so fast?
But then I am reminded again that she is not like other 11.5 year old girls.
She told me that she  also wants to stay up late too. I tell her that you can't have it both ways. And I had no interest in watching whatever kiddy show that she wanted to watch.  So I explained to her in detail how to turn on the lights near where she wants to sit or watch TV, and then to turn on the next set of lights when she is ready to go upstairs to bed.   We walked through a couple times how to turn on and off the right set of lights so that she is never in the dark.
So now when I go upstairs, she is learning to stay up later and later all by herself downstairs.

Monday, July 13, 2015

Day 67: The Long and Winding Road

My wife has been taking 150 mg Zoloft, 150 mg 5-HTP (5-hydroxytryptophan) and some naturopathic medication intended to improve the adrenal glands.  She was taking 0.5 mg Respiridone, but she decided not to continue with that, since she would hear a dull static ringing inside her head when she took Respiridone.
With some weekly massage and acupuncture thrown in for good measure, her condition has steadily improved, and she has recently started to fall asleep consistently without the use of zoplicone albeit she is getting only about 4.5 - 5hrs of sleep.  Consistently meaning that she has been off zoplicone for 3 days now and counting after steadily reducing the dosage of zoplicone in the prior weeks.  She still complains about waking up too early and not getting enough sleep, and that combined with her general mood tells me that she is not out of the woods yet.
She keeps asking me the same questions, such as whether she has a thyroid problem, whether she has throat cancer, whether she will make it, why can't she sleep naturally like other normal human beings, does she have TMJ, whether she has a cortisol imbalance, why isn't she seeing an endocrinologist about her problem, why does she have thsi persistent tension in her neck when she does not have any stressful thoughts, when can she start weaning off her meds, how do I know how much sleep she has been getting, why does she feel like she's not improving, do I even care about her condition, etc.
I initially tried recording a couple answers on my smartphone so that I could just play it back to her whenever she asks those same questions.  But then after she wrecked her own Nexus 5, I had to give her my Nexus 5.  When I gave her my old phone, I initially tried to add her as a secondary account, so that there would be 2 accounts on the Nexus 5, my account (primary) and her account (secondary).  Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that secondary accounts cannot receive any text messages, and the administrator (primary account) has to specifically provide access to the secondary account to make phone calls.  And to top it all off, there is no way to make the secondary account an administrator, so the only way was to factory reset the phone.  Factory resetting my old Nexus 5 (her new phone) also meant wiping out the pre-recorded answers that I had made.  Now I am too lazy to record new pre-recorded answers, partly also because I don't really like how I sound in the audio.

But nonetheless, I feel like a tape recorder just regurgitating the same canned answers over and over again every time she asks the same questions over and over again.  It's become almost a challenge of how robotic and monotonous I can sound without sounding like "holy crap, are you frickin' kidding me, you just asked me the same god forsaken question a couple hours ago!!!"

I am the secretary for my wife, and she approves of this post.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

The Budding Alcoholic

When I was very small (around 7 or 8 years old), when my parents held a hotpot, sometimes they would buy Baby Duck sparkling wine.  In hindsight, I think it was my mom who would pick up the bottle of Baby Duck. I didn't realize it at the time, but my mom has a stronger taste for alcohol than my dad.  She was not an alcoholic, but she did enjoy red wine on special occasions, and also sometimes would sip a glass as she claimed that it helped her to fall asleep.
Anyways, during these special occasion hotpots, I would ask my mom for a small glass of the Baby Duck so that I could look like an adult.  I never really enjoyed drinking wine, because like all alcoholic beverages, there is a bitter aftertaste.  But I slurped it up nonetheless at every hotpot, because I felt it was a privilege to do so.
So we were eating at a restaurant recently, and out of the blue, my son asks about tasting a glass of wine.  WTF, where did this come from?
I asked him why did he suddenly become curious about wine.  He said that he saw me drinking it before, and wanted to try some himself.  We don't drink alcohol at home.  I don't buy beer nor wine to consume at home.  We have kept a few bottles of wine as gifts from friends.  So I really don't know when or how he even remembers the previous time that I drank red wine, as I don't remember it myself.
Anyways, my son asked to try a sip of the wine that we had at home.  I told him that unfortunately, once you open the bottle, you have to consume the whole thing or it starts to lose its original flavour and begin to taste more sour after a couple of days.  Man, the look of disappointment on his face just makes me cave in.  I hate that.
I told him I would give him a sip of wine the next time we went out to eat.