I am currently part way through the following video :

And one of the presenters, appropriately enough a gastroenterologist, talks about the link between gut health and serotonin levels.

He claims that 95 percent of our serotonin is both manufactured and stored in our gut.

If so, trying to treat depression on the brain level is like trying to cure a hangnail with medicine for the spleen.

I have been reading stuff along these lines for years now, and it makes me very curious to see if a modern probiotic formula would do me any good.

Maybe for all these years, my real problem has not been my traumatic and isolated childhood but a distinct lack of the proper “gut feelings”, so to speak.

In a way that feels like it would trivialize my pain and suffering, but if that’s what it takes to get rid of it, hey, trivialize away.

Besides, that’s just the depression talking anyway. It will say and do anything and everything to keep me in its icy grip, including talking with what seems and feels like my own voice, but I ain’t falling for it any more.

I am not my depression. And it is not me. So it can shut the fuck up.

I murder my depression.

Anyhow, thinking about my gut health made me realize that I have a pretty healthy diet now. Low in carbs, lots of plant protein and fiber and the vitamins and minerals I get from the fruit I eat with every meal.

I still don’t get nearly enough calcium, which is why it did not surprise me at all to learn that I have osteoporosis.

Although I suppose I really ought to follow up on that and learn more. Because that can be a really serious disease if left untreated.

And eating more almonds will only get me so far.

There are probably more sophisticated treatments than just adding calcium to my diet at THIS stage of the game.

After all, medical science has been tackling this in women for at least 25 years.

And it can’t been that different for men. Bones do not have a gender.

Well, not on the structural level anyhow.

Eh. I’m such a mess, medically speaking. It’s hard to even know what to focus on. I have been focusing on whatever the fuck is happening to my legs because that’s what is the most painful, debilitating, and scary issue I got going on right now.

But I should really be concentrating on controlling my diabetes. And using my CPAP machine on my sleep apnea. And the hernia in my gut. And my vitamin B12 deficiency because I don’t eat enough meat. And my osteoporosis because I don’ eat enough dairy. And my foot numbness. And the loss of feeling in my fingertips. And the fatty infiltration of the liver that was diagnosed a LONG time ago. And so on, and so on.

It’s all far more than I can handle. What I really need is some sort of medical case worker who keeps track of all my ailments and who can talk to doctors about them and arrange appointments and such.

But nope. No such thing exists. Apparently, nobody cares if you are sicker than you know how to handle on an administrative level.

Guess I’ll just die, then.

More after the break.

Another spadeful of dirt on my grave

I think my legs might be getting worse.

Specifically, it’s the muscle spasms in my upper right leg (aka “the Cramp^[1]“) that seem to be intensifying. Right now, the second I stand up, the damned muscle starts to twitch and throb like I am about to have one of my little falls.

Luckily, he says with some irony. I seem to have gained a knack for catching myself when that happens, so instead of falling onto my butt, I just suddenly dip down like I am trying to win a surprise limbo contest.

Most of the time, at least.

Maybe that’s the problem. My muscles have a strange need to dump me on my butt and render me helpless on the floor for a while, and I keep thwarting them in that, so they are going to keep trying till they catch me off guard.

Well tough titty, muscles. This is the new normal. Get used to it.

---

Missed Wound Care again. That’s twice in a row. Sigh.

I woke up around 10 am and had a sudden feeling that I had Wound Care today but I didn’t know when.

So I called up the Community Care Center and they told me I did have an appointment today and it was for noon.

Oh OK, thanks! I said, and hung up the phone.

But then I realized there was no way I could make that because noon is when Joe starts work these days. So then I had to call them back and tell them I couldn’t make it.

Which took a dip into my emergency supply of chutzpah. In other words, it was a medium strong challenge to my social anxiety.

It helped that I didn’t really have a choice. It would have been worse, social anxiety wise, to just ghost the appointment.

So I had to make the call, hard as it was to do.

It was fine, there was no problem, she just made the new appointment without a fuss.

Which is good, because if she had expressed the slightest bit of anger or disappointment or disapproval, I would have broke down completely.

Or possibly exploded with rage. You never know with me.

Either way, it would not have been pretty.

Though it might have been cathartic…. hmmmm. Oh well. Like I will now always say :

The stakes are always high when you have an anxiety disorder.

And I will talk tio you nice people again tomorrow.