Headache

I have an appointment with my headache specialist on Thursday. I don't know what she can do. My head is pounding. We've tried all of the meds and now the only option is Botox injections in my forehead. I know it's a simple procedure. But I am not sure if my migraine is being caused by the exotropia. So I need to see the surgeon again. I've got an appointment with her next month. I am absolutely exhausted.

Just finished eating lunch. I heated up some popcorn chicken and tater tots. When I turned to walk back to my bed my right side of my hip/lumbar spiked to 9. I hobbled back to my bed and started to eat and then I remembered I need to ask Pauley for a Norco. *Asked for Norco, got one plus CBD cream on my back*
I've got an appointment with my headache specialist this month and then next month I get to see my new Endo for the first time.
I'm on the fence about going to the Juneteenth celebration on Saturday.
🌮 But I'm quite sure I am going to the taco festival on the 20th. It just sounds like a really wild fun time. Tacos, luchador wrestling, cutest Chihuahua contest, mariachi bands... And more.
Sigh... I just got mentholated CBD cream up my nose.
I meditated for an hour this morning. It was very relaxing.

This month is proving quite interesting.
Pauley and I went out 2 weekends ago to the Ren faire. We had a great time. Saw some amazing costumes, watched the bellydancers while we ate lunch (lunch was splitting a giant turkey leg and oh gosh it was delicious), I treated myself to a yummy adult drink (I've been on a lavender lemonade kick for a while... They had boozy lavender lemonade!!!), and right before we went home we split an ice cream sundae with blueberries and strawberries and whipped cream. It was lovely.
This Saturday we're going to go to a local Juneteenth celebration. I'm really hoping for some soul food cuz I've been craving it for months.
This Sunday I was hoping to go treat ourselves to some ice cream at a local shop that has great reviews.
On the 19th I have an appointment with my headache specialist. We're readdressing how I'm handling the new meds and getting me ready for the Botox injections.
The 20th is the taco festival by us. There's gonna be mariachi bands, luchador wrestling, Chihuahua contest, and more than a few taco trucks. It's gonna be awesome!
The 21st is when the farmers cheese making class happens. I don't think it's doable. In fact I'm almost certain I can't swing it. But it would be nice. We're low on funds. So maybe we can use our Googlefu and find instructions on how to make it from home.
Now that I have my walker I feel more confident about being away from home. It really helped me at the Ren faire.
***********************
I'm sorry I haven't been around much. It's ridonkulously crazy anxiety and pain. I'm trying to find a hip specialist for meds. I'm furious at my previous doctor just up and ditching me and not doing procedures he's been responsible for when he knows he's the only person out of his office who can do it. He knows I've been having trouble finding a hip specialist who will do anything to help. But he doesn't care.
I thought I had an appointment with my eye surgeon this month but I can't find the info.
So much to keep straight. I'm exhausted.
Edit: my appointment with my eye surgeon is July 23rd. I also have an appointment with my new Endo on July 8th.

#Cancer #athanasiadou #linda Athanasiadou

Linda Athanasiadou — cancer survivor writing at the intersection of health and humanity

When my oncologist finally said the words “no evidence of disease,” I smiled, nodded, and thanked him. Then I went home, sat on the edge of my bed, and cried—not from joy, but from something closer to confusion. Relief, yes. But also fear. Because no one prepares you for how hard it is to live after treatment, when the outside world thinks you’re fine—but inside, the fear lingers like a shadow.

For months, maybe years, your life revolves around fighting. Schedules are built around chemo cycles, scan dates, blood draws. There’s a structure to survival. And then suddenly, it stops. You ring the bell. You go home. And you’re left alone with your body—changed, fatigued, and no longer monitored with the same urgency. That silence can be terrifying.

Every ache becomes a question. Every headache, a whisper of dread. I found myself scanning for signs of recurrence constantly—body-checking, Googling symptoms at midnight, second-guessing every sensation. And worse, I didn’t feel I could talk about it. People wanted celebrations. They wanted me to “move on.” But emotionally, I was still in the thick of it.

Research backs this up. Studies published in 2024 and early 2025 confirm that post-treatment anxiety is incredibly common among survivors. According to the National Cancer Institute, fear of recurrence is one of the most persistent and distressing issues for cancer survivors—even years after treatment ends. And yet, it’s rarely addressed with the same seriousness as physical care.

What helped me most was naming it. Saying out loud: “I’m afraid.” Talking to a therapist who understood survivorship. Joining peer groups where I didn’t have to pretend. Creating routines that grounded me when uncertainty loomed—daily walks, journaling, mindfulness. I also gave myself permission to not feel grateful every second of the day. Gratitude and fear can coexist.

I still live with that shadow. Maybe I always will. But it doesn’t define me anymore. It walks beside me instead of ahead of me. And on most days, I can look it in the eye and say: Not today.

If this resonates with your journey, I invite you to read my article, “The Silent Anxiety After Remission: When the World Thinks You’re Fine,” The Silent Anxiety After Remission: When the World Thinks You’re Fine where I explore the emotional aftermath of surviving—and how to keep moving forward even when fear whispers in the background.

You’re not broken for being afraid. You’re human. And in that honesty, healing begins.

I have been having the most painful tension headaches ever. I’m on quite a few medications namely for bipolar. I went to the doctor the other day and got a shot for this headache. I have been stressed so that could be a major cause but I’m also a dishwasher so am lifting a lot at work. I try to avoid caffeine but I do slip up now and then. I keep asking myself what is going on and what did I do to bring this pain on every day (for the last week now.) I don’t normally post on here but just felt like sharing.

Division of Narrative Accommodation, Ministry of Rewirement. Read at your own pace. Reread without shame.

📚 The Library of BestGuessistan

The Library wasn’t built.

It was imagined.

And in a nation filled with havens, refuges, and harbors — tucked into corners, folded into routines, stitched into infrastructure and available everywhere — the Library still feels different.

Because even here, where soft landings are part of the architecture, this place reaches deeper.

It doesn’t just offer rest. It offers recognition.

Above the entrance, an inscription reads:

“For those who forgot what they knew, and came anyway.”

🏛️ Structure and Atmosphere

The Library is quiet, but never cold.

Hushed — but without the stressful quiet of most libraries (IYKYK).

Floors of warm wood, worn smooth by years of pacing and pausing.

Windows that filter the light like memory: softened at the edges, always forgiving.

A fireplace that never smokes. A hush that doesn’t demand silence.

Columns that feel less like support and more like ceremony.

This is not a monument to knowledge (though it holds the materials for that).

It’s a shelter for the searching.

It smells not of ambition or achievement —

but of old pages, clean light, and the relief of finally being understood.

This is the beating heart of BestGuessistan.

A place for minds in flux.

For attention spans that move like tides. Or goldfish.

For readers who’ve always loved language, even when it stopped loving them back.

☁️ No Dewey. No Doctrine. Just Dignity.

There are no decimals here.

No genres.

No shelves labeled Productivity or Optimization.

No section called How to Succeed… in anything.

Books are arranged by cognitive load, not subject matter:

Low-load: Some poetry, children’s books, single-page essays, graphic novels with heart and humor, audiobooks that feel like a friend’s voice on a long drive

Medium-load: Novels with gentle pacing, nonfiction without footnotes, graphic memoirs, and audio essays you can pause and wander through

High-load: Fractured timelines, slippery narrators, complex poetry, linguistic experiments, anything that demands memory you no longer lend out lightly

You read what you can, when you can. If you can.

Some days that’s a haiku.

Some days it’s Middlemarch.

Some days it’s listening to The Collected Stories of Isaac Bashevis Singer while watching the rain.

All count.

And no one keeps score.

Because here, books meet you where you are. Not where someone said you should be.

📚 All the Versions That Matter

Some arguments never made it across the border.

Here, fidelity comes in many forms — and translation is just another word for perspective.There are no arguments here over the “right” translation.

Every edition that ever moved someone earns its place.

You’ll find multiple War and Peaces — Garnett, Pevear and Volokhonsky, Maude —

because fidelity comes in many forms,

and nuance isn’t a zero-sum game.

Some books show up more than once, shelved differently each time,

because sometimes you need Anna Karenina for her tragedy.

Other days, for her train.

Because sometimes, how a book reaches you matters more than how it was meant.

❌ No Self-Help Section

Advice is easy to shelve. Recognition is harder to come by.

We know better.

Instead, there’s a Reassurance Shelf —

Dog-eared pages of Didion, Mary Oliver, Baldwin, and Baldwin again.

Marginalia from previous readers whisper: yes, that line, me too, or simply keep going.

🔢 The OCD Wing

Shelved exactly how you need it to be:

By even numbers only

By color — but only shades that calm you

By date first read, or last understood

By how much they changed you

There is no wrong system.

Only yours.

🔇 The Reading Pods

Each pod adapts in real time:

Lighting that adjusts to the hour and your headache

Soundscapes that know when to hush

Audiobooks read by narrators with the kind of voices you trust implicitly

A built-in hug mechanism calibrated to deliver the exact pressure of “I’m here, but I won’t ask anything of you.”

Stay as long as you like.

No one will tap their foot.

No one will suggest you try Kindle instead.

🔁 Borrowing Policy

No due dates

No late fees

No guilt for never finishing

Some books find you when you’re ready.

Some just sit beside you so you don’t feel alone.

This isn’t just another dispatch.

It’s the soft center.

The imagined room we all needed.

The Library of BestGuessistan.

The place we return to when we’ve forgotten how to begin again.

The place that remembers us.

I am absolutely awful about tracking my symptoms. Basically the only level I've actually managed semi-consistently since being diagnosed with chronic migraine is headache/migraine days in a month.

...... I'm currently experiencing "intractable" migraine. So I literally don't have non-headache days right now.

What works for you? Maybe I'm overcomplicating things, but I struggle a lot with even what to include - is my stuffed nose migraine or allergies? Are GI symptoms migraine or due to being overly sedentary or due to some other reason?

I just know I need to do something different, because it's so much easier to get help when I have data backing me up.
#Migraine

I’m struggling a lot these days with keeping a consistent routine and getting more activities into my days. I’ll plan my week and end up cancelling plans the day of a lot of the time. I have the intention to do one thing a day and I find it hard to keep up with that. I had to stop working last June and I thought I’d be working again by now, but it hasn’t happened. Today I just want to talk and not feel so alone. Yesterday I woke up with a bad headache that lasted all day and I didn’t do much, and it seems to have carried over into today and my energy and motivation are low and I’m having another day of not doing much of anything. It’s a cycle that is really hard to break out of, and it seems like when I start to make progress I’ll regress and not stick to a routine like I want to.

There’s an appointment scheduled tomorrow morning that I really hope I make it to.

Thanks for reading.

#BipolarDepression #selfcare

Three weeks ago today, I was involved in a traumatic, life-or-death car crash on the freeway. I was lost in thought, on my way to a doctor's appointment for an eating disorder that had, up until the crash, consumed my life. While I was ruminating in my mind, I didn't notice that I was too close to the car ahead of me. I was not speeding or anything. I breaked fast, and when I did, I lost control of the car. The car started to spin out of control. I panicked and started to cry out, then I lost consciousness. I fainted. And when I fainted, my car spun and spun and spun out of control, on the busy interstate highway at 3ish pm. As I was spinning, I was T-boned by a truck, and then hit the side rail of the freeway. I broke my hip, my sacrum, and a small bone in my pelvis. I have no recollection of the crash itself. When the EMTs and firefighters came to get me, I had no idea why I was in the road. I didn't remember anything. I looked at myself in the mirror and had blood on my face, a chipped tooth, and a headache from the whiplash. My leg hurt as if I had sat on it for hours.

EMS picked me up and took me to the hospital, where I had surgery. I was discharged a few days later, and then a deep darkness hurt me. All the mental health struggles I had struggled with before came alive to hurt me. The OCD, guilt and shame, grief, depression, and everything else. I cried day in and day out. I never got to somatically process the trauma I had faced while I was in the hospital, but when I was at home and felt safe, I could release it. I had nightmares and panic. But I've been leaning on God each day, and I know He's my only lifeline. God has worked miracles in my life, both in my body but also in my heart and soul. Each day I get better. efore the accident, I hated my body, ate a very little amount of calories, and wanted to die a lot. Now, I treat my body with kindness, respect, and honor. I've been through so much, both through this accident but all the trauma from abuse and violence. I'm a survivor. God has forgiven me, and is restoring me day by day. For the first time in so many years, I eat an appropriate amount of food. I eat a healthy diet that will strengthen my bones and my soul. I eat when I'm hungry and stop when I'm full. I eat what I want, when I want and need to. I'm committed to practicing love for my body. When I have anxious or distressing thoughts, I give them to God.

In about eight weeks, I'll be able to put weight down on my leg, but for now I use a walker/wheelchair to help me get around.

I still exercise (for health) on my chair as best as I can, and I'm so grateful because I found a fun and engaging YouTube channel that helps me with chair exercises. He's even a fellow Christian, too! I found a good therapist online, and I started an online eating disorder treatment program, called Equip.

I feel like my bone will heal in no time, and my soul is healing day by day. I'll come out of this with a whole new love and appreciation for myself, plus a total healing of the mental illnesses that I've struggled with for most of my life. It's not always easy: I still get crying spells and anxiety, and nightmares, and I sometimes fight my body and feel deeply insecure. But each day I'm trying my best. That's all we can do, right?

#MentalHealth
#AnorexiaNervosa
#Anxiety
#BorderlinePersonalityDisorder
#Depression
#EatingDisorders
#Grief
#MajorDepressiveDisorder
#ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder
#PTSD
#Trauma
#MightyTogether
#CheckInWithMe