Its been so long since I’ve updated here I can’t even remember what I said last. No I’m not cheating by going and looking it up. As you know most of my time is spent working on TaleChasing or GuardiansNovel. Almost every other lifestyle update goes on twitter.
However, this post kind of applies to all of them and it’s too long for twitter. 
So I’m updating you all here.
Ever since Oct 08 I’ve been working with an (as much as possible) honesty motto. This is hard to do when you’ve promised to be totally up front and above board with how you are doing your projects when you are slightly embarrassed and ashamed of some of the life-changes you are still working on changing. Things like procrastination, talking about your health (because it generally comes off whiny and honestly unless you’re waiting for a major organ transplant you aint got THAT much to complain about), bad habits, etc.
So for the keen observer I leave hints around when I’m less then eager to share what’s going on because I’m “ashamed” of what’s going on. When I say ashamed I’m not talking cause I’m like killing puppies and don’t want anyone to find out…I’m talking about sleeping more then I feel I should be, putting of working out or getting work on one of my projects done (no matter how legit, or not, the reasons) or just pissy, depressed or annoyed. The biggest hint is that I don’t twitter or update anything.
Over the last week and change I’ve been recovering from the flu and slowly really taking notice of how my medical cocktail seems to be failing me. I’m horridly tired constantly, I’m less then thrilled about doing things I WANT to do let alone things I need to do, I haven’t really talked to anyone, and my head has been killing me and I often feel sick.
So long story short and many tedious details left out, I went to the Dr today that we seem to like and just said…this is what’s going on…doesn’t seem like what I’m doing is working…what do we do? Here’s what the current plan is:
- She’s going to cover me until I can replace my therapist and psychiatrist
- She’s helping me find said doctors with the limits I have on my resources
- I have to get a set schedule of sleep. I need to sleep regularly and for a decent amount of time without waking up in between. The intent is to try to normalize my sleep pattern (mood, body and headache)
- I have to find an hour a day (and try and do it in some sort of schedule) to work out. Working up to at least an hour of cardio (help for my mood and my fitness health)
- I need to eat 4 to 6 times a day working with the limits I have for calorie count and record it (mood and fitness as well as some headache maintenance)
- I need to figure out how much caffeine I’m getting a day and regulate it. Don’t go over and don’t go under (this will help moderate some of my headaches)
- She gave me prednisone to try and stop the headache cycle I’m in (cause it sux big time)
- She gave me some pain meds to try that are different then what I’d been put on (she wasn’t happy with what they’d given me)
- The plan is to change my mood meds once I get a different dr because what I have is obviously not right for me
So I have to start slowly doing this and keep a record of how it goes then see her in a week.
I’m writing about this for a few reasons:
- My stated transparent policy – I hope that someone who has the same issues or is working on the same things realizes they aren’t alone or gets tips on how to help themselves through what I’m doing
- I know many of you like to know what is going on with me and I don’t want to leave you in the dark when I feel ok about sharing
- (And the hardest to write down) To give those who are following me and my projects an updated status to perhaps explain why things are going a little slower then we’d all like them – and to tell those people who are attempting similar projects that they aren’t alone if they have issues they are working to overcome while working their way to the top.
So there ya got it! 
What’s the plan and how does it fit with my projects?
- Start getting the headaches lower so I can function
- Start working on eating and sleeping right to help me be awake to function
- Get right on that therapist/psych to get the meds right so my motivation gets fixed
- Begin the workouts as soon as 1 is a bit better. Tiredness is easier to work through then pain.
- Start to slowly pick at my to do list (small stuff first) until 1 and 2 are starting to pick up and I can focus on more/larger to do things in a day (and not beat myself up about it or think that people think I’m horrible)
Some of you might be wondering what this means for the kind of alternative lifestyle I lead. The gist of my duties was mostly to be available 24/7 for Daddy. The main change which is scheduling sleep, food, and working out kind of hampers this a bit. The good news is he’s talked to me about it and totally on board with working with me and the Dr to make this happen. There is a lot to do as you can see from above but in general we’ll begin working on me getting food and working out set (we’re working on that anyway for our working goals). What that means for my frequent checks on him is that we’ll arrange a number of hours as downtime in a row to normalize my sleep. There’s more but it’s taken me like 2 hours to write this post and we can talk about it later.
As for Guardians and TaleChasing I’m still on track but while these few things get stable I’m a little slower on the deadlines. You’ll however be able to see how things are getting better as I get on a more maintainable and steady turn out schedule for those projects. I’m going to be keeping tabs on all of this via Twitter, Tale Chasing and Guardians and Hash Kaizen.
I understand that’s a lot of places to look and don’t expect you to. But this is where you’ll be able to look if you want to check in on how things are going. I expect that Chapter 3 of Guardians will be released the second week of July due to issues with above and my actors being slightly unavailable this coming week. I’ll keep you up to date on that.
Yay! I finished the post. LOL
June 30th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Hey Kimi
Just read your post and I’d just like to encourage you to not give up and keep hacking away at those little nasties. I’ve had no shortage of those myself.
I’ve noticed a few over-riding principles, that definitely applies to myself - and probably will apply else where too,
Tiredness = Depression
Depression = Anxiety
Anciety = Sleeplessness
Thus the cycle would continue. The best way to break it is to do as your Dr told you
make sure you schedule your sleep and get a good amount of it.
If you find there are more problems with sleeping it can also mean Diabetes but that would be a question for the Dr’s
Stick in there and don’t give up!
July 11th, 2009 at 12:24 am
[...] prayer request this week is for Kimi. You can find details in audio here or in print here. Tale Chasing is her podcast about reading and writing Urban Fantasy. Her podiobook is [...]
July 19th, 2009 at 5:50 am
I thought a few weeks about how to word this reply. If I fail, I apologize. I hope that my intentions come off as good rather than bad.
1. Sleep helps with your mood.
I know someone who claimed he couldn’t remember anything, was irritable, and zoned out. I asked him how much sleep her got and he said it was 5 hours. I told him that 8 hours is better. Since he’s been doing that his mood and everything evened out.
My cousin, who has anxiety also said that once she started forcing herself to sleep on a schedule that her anxiety went down.
From a scientific POV, I believe it has to do with the renewing process in which the body ups the white blood cell count while one sleeps and often evens out hormones.
I know from some people that some people can sleep 2 hours a night without bad effects, but since each of our bodies are different, our limitations are different. I *know* I go loopy without the right amount of sleep.
2. Exercise does help.
Scientifically it’s the adrenaline which lifts the heart beat, then serotonin (The feel-good hormone) starts kicking in to preserve the body from feeling injury. This sis why some people say that burning at the stake isn’t so bad, ’cause the rush of serotonin kicks in to cover the pain so one can get away. This is why one doesn’t notice bruises until days later, or people can walk after breaking their leg. If you go on the R-rated side–apparently that helps too. ^.~
It’s an artificial high which will make you feel good.
The first two most countries usually force the person to do before taking any medication. I watched a Japanese program in where the therapist told the person to regulate when they sleep and what they eat. The person got better.
Also sunlight and the regularization of receiving it can help. I know people often get depressed when they don’t go outside. People who work night shifts are often very tired compared to day shifts. I forgot the science behind it, but sunlight helps regulate sleep also. You can look up stats from Sweden about how sun is related to suicide rates…
3. Meditation.
I didn’t see this one listed, but for me, it’s saved me quite a few times. I learned how to do this when I was taking acting classes (When I was 9).
When I was anxious and couldn’t handle things I learned to force to slow myself down, breathe, normalize my breath and figure out what was wrong psychologically. It’s served me well. It helped me out of depression and when I felt trapped. Kept me sane in really tight situations, and helped me sort my head when I had no other way to cope.
It’s helped me through headaches, nasty flashes, stress, etc.
It doesn’t have to be complicated as learning how to do Om… it can be simple and when you get good at it, you can calm yourself in a 2-3 seconds.
My cousin said that alone helped her through her high anxiety without drug use.
There are basics of meditation I’ve found.
a. Regulate your breathing. Pay attention to it and how your breath effects your body. The slower you breathe and the longer you breathe for will help your lung capacity, your blood flow, and calm you. (Hinduism says to breathe in through your nose (cleared) and out through your mouth.)
b. Become aware of your body in space.
How are you sitting? How are you standing? How are you laying down? Become aware of that, what’s wrong with that, where your body hurts or doesn’t hurt, how your body moves. Then start shuffling your body until you’re comfortable in space and neutral. Then shut down the awareness. You don’t need it anymore until you’re done.
c. Block out the outside world.
The primitive way of doing this is to become aware of every single last sound as far as your can hear and take them all in. Then one by one start to ignore them. This was a damn good technique I learned because it allowed me to write and not get distracted as much.
d. Still your mind.
This is by far the hardest part. Especially with a headache. Sometimes headaches are stress, sometimes psychological fear, sometimes injury. This will help sort it out. If it was from your body, you should have felt it in the body step. I often find that headaches I get build from my neck so when I do this, I often find out my neck is under stress. The trick is to find what is disturbing you. Every single thought that will not still, earmark it, shuffle it into a concise list to deal with later (i.e. prioritize that list). There are sometimes pesky thoughts that are not really coming to the surface. Chase them. Find out what they are. Once you get through it, still your mind again. If you still have trouble, try the old, water drops into a pond follow the ripples as far as you can trick.
I usually konk out during this process, but feel better when I wake up later.
The 2-3 second one is usually close your eyes, breathe deeply, calm your mind, move forward. Takes practice though…
Anyway, meditation has saved my neck a few times and helped me to feel back in control of whatever my head does. I thought it might help you as well. It’s a technique like writing, so it take lots of practice. Might be worth giving it a shot.
As for your podcast, I’m sure that people are more concerned about you getting back on your feet than getting another installment. If you want to talk about being horrible about your lag, I think I have you beat. I had 14 technical failures in a row happen in a 2 week period. I promised it way back in December… so you’re doing better than I am. Get better and take care of yourself. I hope I wasn’t beating a dead horse…
November 20th, 2009 at 5:17 am
You are generous to share so much of yourself. I can identify with so many of your issues! You do not come across as whiny at all. Most of us forget other people’s issues pretty fast, you’ll probably have to remind us on a regular basis.
I just found Guardians today, after following links around iTunes(I think), and after listening to the Chapter One Teaser I was hooked and ready to listen to it all. I really am intrigued by the premise, and the writing and delivery are great, so I’m hoping you WANT to continue when you are ABLE!