Month: August 2015

Mi Vida Loca · Monday Meeting · nonfiction · postaday · writing

Monday Meeting and an Announcment!

JackieP39 Comments

Monday Meeting

 

Good day, People! I hope your weekend was wonderful and you got some fun in.

Welcome to my new Monday Meeting posts. I had my first one last Monday, as I just can’t seem to get a post done on the weekend for the #coffeeshare thing. It’s easier for me this way, so here I am with my second one. I do hope you enjoy these meetings. Have one of your own if you like! Just let me know and link up! I would love to read yours.

Come on in, sit down, have your favorite drink and maybe a cupcake. I’ll forgo the cupcake myself, but I do enjoy seeing my guests enjoy themselves.

Let’s get this meeting started.

August is over with already. It just seems like it only started a few days ago. Time is moving by way too fast. In a couple of weeks, my birthday will be here. I’ll have a special post on that day as I will be reaching a milestone birthday! So mark your calendars for September 12th. It’s a Saturday and I’m sure you all are super busy on weekends, but I do hope you will stop in for a quick peek and to say hi! Join my birthday party! Likely the only one I will have. Sad, eh? 😉

Some of you have inquired on how the husband is doing lately. I really need to do a new post on that, but for now I will let you know here. He has his good days and his bad days. The new medicine for depression is taking a while kicking in. The doctor reassured us this is normal. He’s on Zoloft right now. This might change once he sees a therapist. He’s had one meeting with the mental health clinic a couple of weeks ago. He was supposed to hear from them for an appointment to see a regular therapist, but this hasn’t happened yet. So we wait. He’s been having a lot of problems going to sleep at night and then staying asleep even though he takes two sleeping pills. The new doctor put him on another pill and we’ll see if that works better.

The other day he didn’t get out of bed all day. Nothing would induce him to, so I let him be. It’s worrisome though, as the more he lays in bed, the worse the arthritis gets. I understand he hurts, but  he needs to understand that NOT moving makes it worse. But, I’m not going to nag him about it. I just keep doing what I can. That’s all I can do.

The other news I have is very exciting! I’ve been waiting months to say this…

I’m published on Amazon!

Yes, finally, The Canine Caper is finished, formatted and published on Amazon! Also, A Case of Deceit is ready for pre-order! The Canine Caper is a short story, so I’m not going to be doing a paperback version of it. A Case of Deceit, which is a full-length book, will also be available in paperback at the end of October. So, for the book A Case of Deceit, on October 30th it will be available in both e-reader and paperback form.

So many of you have followed my journey to publishing from the very beginning and I thank you for that. Now, my dream is realized. I’m so happy!

Here are the links for both books on Amazon for the US;

The Canine Caper  http://www.amazon.com/dp/B014OI7NQ2

A Case of Deceit  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014JXPB34

In Canada:

The Canine Caper

A Case of Deceit

 

 

 

I am going to try to have a sale my birthday weekend on The Canine Caper. So if you want you can wait….but who wants to wait. 🙂

Sometime today I hope to have buttons on my sidebar that you can click that will take you to the Amazon book sites.

For now, I need to get back to my edits! Thank you for coming to the Monday Meeting and I’ll see you soon!

 

(If anyone wants to be kind enough to spread the word out about the books, I would be so grateful!)

 

 

Blogging · Mi Vida Loca · Monday Meeting · nonfiction · postaday · writing

Monday Meeting/Book cover reveal!

JackieP35 Comments

Monday Meeting

 

Hello People!

Yes, it’s really me. I decided to have you all over for coffee/tea/pop/soda/water/whatever you want to drink on a Monday instead of the weekend. I’m just a rebel that way. 😉

Hope everyone’s weekend was a good one. Mine was a mix of lazy and busy. Come to think of it, that could sum up my whole month! Let me tell you a bit of what has been going on in my world lately. Then we’ll get to the book cover reveal! (Unless you scrolled down and peeked already?)

First, what’s with the crazy weather? It’s been so weird in my corner of Alberta, Canada. One day we are hot (36C/97F) to cold and snow! I kid you not. A couple of days ago it snowed just a bit north of me. In August! Where I live it was rainy, windy and cold! It got down to 3c/37F! My poor tomato plants were not happy. Neither was Sam, as he hates cold rain. Today it’s back up to warm, but we have the smoke from Washington state fires drifting over and so it’s  hazy and smoky. It does crazy things with my allergies.

I’ve been busy doing edits on ‘A Case of Deceit’. I’m close to needing beta readers, so look for a call out soon. Unless you want to volunteer now? I’m done with ‘The Canine Caper’ and just waiting for a bit to upload it to Kindle. I want to be able to offer you the opportunity to pre-order the Deceit story at the same time. I’ve been doing this dance between both stories, Amazon and CreateSpace to get it all in order. Whew! I never realized how much work there was in the back-end of putting a book together!

I’ve been lucky in that I have had a ton of help from a couple of great friends. They both advise me on how to do things and give great feedback when I either vent or have a question. They have been both so patient with me. Let me tell you, having friends that are already published and more than willing to give you a hand is priceless. So I want to take this moment to thank them both…Maddie Cochere...without her input my edits would have been much harder to do. She also has given me great advice on so many things on the book and publishing. I love her to pieces. Thank you, Maddie! You’ll be hearing from me again soon I’m sure.

The second person that has helped me tremendously is Aulikki, most know her as tiny from Tiny Lessons Blog. She has helped with beta reading the Caper story, edits, and my new book covers! She is the designer of both book covers…The Canine Caper and A Case of Deceit. Without her help, I would not be able to publish either story. She has been a so supportive in so many ways. A true friend. Thank you, tiny! You are my hero! She did all this for me even though she is one busy woman. I’m always able to email her to ask dumb questions. With the book covers, she took my visions of what I wanted and made them a reality. I think she did an awesome job on them!

I can’t thank tiny enough for all she has helped me with. One day I want to meet both women in person. 🙂 The friendships one forms in Blogville are strong and true. I value them highly with all my friends on here.

Now on to the exciting part! The book cover reveal for A Case of Deceit! Here you go!

 

Deceit BookCover5_5x8_5_Cream_280 draft9

 

Isn’t it great? I just love it! Tiny and I agree that it fits the story to a T! (or a Tee 😉 )

So look for The Canine Caper to come out sometime next month, fingers crossed! At the same time or very close to the same time I will be offering A Case of Deceit for pre-order! I’m so very excited and scared. It’s been a lot of hard work, but I’ve learned so many things and friendships have strengthened during this process. I couldn’t have done all this without Tiny’s help and encouragement. I owe her big time!

In fact, I owe so many people who have helped me on this journey, including the beta readers for The Canine Caper. Thank you all!

 

 

What do you think of the book cover? Do you have blog friends that never let you down? Let me know!

 

 

Blogging · Guest posts · nonfiction · postaday · writing

Guest Post ~~ Arcane Words ~~ A Fish of Gold Specialty!

JackieP19 Comments

Hello People!

I know it’s been awhile since I’ve posted. Sorry about that. Been super busy most times and super lazy other times. Ha! I’ll have a post on Monday with a surprise. You won’t want to miss this one and I’m super excited! (I’ll give you a hint…it’s book related!)

Now onto my special guest poster for today. Many of us know her as Fishy, Goldy or Fish of Gold. I know her as ‘friend’. Please welcome a rare occurrence in Blogville, a guest post by our own Goldfish. Even though she is going through some difficult times, she volunteered to do a guest post for me. I feel honored. Thank you, Fishy! ❤

She’s here with some arcane words and their meanings. I love when she shows us some of the long forgotten words of days gone by. Take it away Fishy!

 

fishyguestpost

A long time ago, Jackie put out a request for guest posts. Since I love Jackie, I said I’d oblige. Then, as life does, my world exploded and I couldn’t find the time. I could barely find time to post on my own blog. The nagging knowledge that I still owed her a guest post ate away at me. So today, even though I still don’t have the time, I’m writing a guest post.

I asked Jackie for a prompt since coming up with things to say on other people’s blogs can sometimes be difficult. She said, “As for subjects, how about one of your famous arcane word posts? I love when you come up with old words and tell us what they are about.”

That’s what you’ll get. Here are some words that should be used more often. Some of them don’t even have synonyms.

cacaesthesia

noun

1 a morbid sensation
The cacaesthesia felt as if someone was walking on her grave.
2 (medical) abnormal dysfunctional sensations on the skin; a feeling of numbness, tingling, prickling, or a burning or cutting pain

Synonyms: (medical) paraesthesia

Alternate forms: cacaesthesia, cacesthesia, kakesthesia

Etymology: Modern Latin, from Greek aisthesis ‘feeling’ or ‘sensation,’ + Greek kakos ‘bad’

haplography 

noun

1. omission of syllables in words over time
The English word idolatry comes from the Greek eidololatreia, but one syllable has been lost through haplography.

Etymology: from Greek: haplo– ‘single’ + –graphy ‘writing’

haplology

noun

1. omission of a doubled or similar sound or syllable in a word
Her tendency to haplolgy continually made her misspell Mississippi as Missippi.
Etymology: from Greek: haplo– ‘single’ + logos ‘speech’

oncethmus

noun

1. a bray; the loud, harsh cry of a donkey or mule
2. spoken or written word continuing at length and in a tedious way
The oncethmus of politicians only gets worse once they’re elected.

Synonyms: bloviation, circumlocution, diffuseness, diffusion, garrulity, garrulousness, logorrhea, long-windedness, periphrasis, prolixity, redundancy, verbalism, verboseness, verbosity, windiness, wordage, wordiness

Etymology: Greek ὀγκηθµός ‘bray’

ostranenie

noun
1. defamiliarization
2. a sensation of being unfamiliar with something familiar
Have you ever experienced ostranenie when you think about your own name?
3. An artistic technique of presenting to audiences common things in an unfamiliar or strange way in order to enhance perception of the familiar. A central concept in 20th-century art and theory, ranging over movements including Dada, postmodernism, epic theatre, and science fiction, it is also used as a tactic by recent movements such as culture jamming.

Etymology: Russian остранение ‘defamiliarization’ first coined in 1917 by Viktor Shklovsky in his essay “Art as Device” (alternate translation: “Art as Technique”) (Crawford 209)

vorfreude

noun

1. joyful anticipation
She experienced vorfreude at the thought of summer vacation.

Etymology: German vor-‘pre-‘ (denotes primarily that something is before or in front of another thing or higher in a hierarchy) + freude ‘joy’

scaevity

noun

1. unluckiness
Scaevity caused him to fail.
2. left-handedness
She attributed her hard life to bad luck, but it was really scaevity.

Etymology: 1600s, unknown

 

 

Thank you again Fishy! I really appreciate the guest post and learning some new, old words!

 

Blogging · Fiction · Flash Back Friday · Humor · postaday

Flashback Friday

JackieP12 Comments

Hello People! I do hope your start of the weekend is a good one. We finally have cooler temps here in my corner of Alberta Canada. We’ve been having some hot days lately, yesterday being one of the hottest ones. It got up to 36C (97F). It’s been in the 30’s (90’s) for a while now so I’m more than ready for some cooler weather.

For Flashback Friday, I’ve chosen to bring back a little story I wrote almost exactly two years ago. It was for a WordPress Daily prompt and one that I had fun writing. Hope you enjoy it!

 

 

 

When the full moon happens, you turn into a person who’s the opposite of who you normally are. Describe this new you.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I sit huddled in the dark corner of my living room. I can feel the pull of the new moon that is rising in the star-studded inky sky.

I dread it every time the full moon rises. My body twitches and itches. My nerve endings tingle with energy. I know what is coming and hate the inevitable.

Clenching my teeth I hug myself tightly. My body rocks back and forth as my fingers dig into my aching arms. My head starts to buzz and I feel my teeth ache. I rock harder and hear myself mumbling a useless litany of words.

“Please, please, not again. No, no, no. I will not turn.”

Again and again I sing this song. I know it won’t make a difference. It always happens on the full moon. Always.

My family has been cursed for centuries. An old ancestor made a very powerful warlock angry and he cursed the females of the family. Every new moon the curse comes alive. For me it is an agony, a torture that I endure. I’m not sure how much longer I can live through it. It weakens me each time. Each time I think will be my last. Each time I pray it will be my last.

Hours before the new moon comes I bar the door and windows. Dozens of locks are put in place and I hide the keys. I make sure my car is not readily available by pulling out cables and hiding those also. I do more and more each time to try to insure I can’t get out of my own home.

I’ve even gone as far as putting my car in someone else’s garage overnight, hoping that it will slow my desires down when the new moon rises. It’s never enough though. Never strong enough locks, the car is never too far away. The moon’s pull is more powerful than all my puny attempts of sabotage.

My rocking slows as I feel the moon’s final pull on my body. The change has come. I sigh deeply and rise from my chair. I know I look different now, I don’t have to search out a mirror to confirm it. I have lived with this never-ending curse for years now. There is no cure, no hope.

I know my eyes have ice in them now. I am cold, calculating. I have changed completely into someone I hate, I fear. My body feels differently now. It’s rigid and tough. I toss back my hair and breath deeply. The change is complete once again.

I have changed into something I have always feared. That is part of the curse. The females change into something they fear the most. Each one is different. Each one is unique in her fears. For me, I have changed into something I am not.  Someone tough, hard and ruthless.

I grab my purse and keys and a brightly colored sales brochure. Yes, the change is complete one more time.

I have changed into a  shoe shopper, a sales shoe shopper!  Goddess help me.

 

 

http://www.funnyuse.com/

 

 

 

Blogging · Guest posts · nonfiction · postaday

Guest Post ~~ Jeanette Ford ~ Author and New Blogger

JackieP1 Comment

Hello, people! Please welcome new blogger and author Jeanette Ford. Today Jeanette tells us how she began writing and what lead her to write her books. Take it away Jeanette!

 

final Tiger

 

Hi Jackie, thank you very much for inviting me to be a guest on your blog. This is so exciting for me because, as a new and almost completely unknown author, this is something I’ve never done before. I’m so grateful to you for giving me the chance to get my face shown out there. I’m a new blogger too and thus far I have enjoyed meeting some fellow bloggers; they are all such lovely people and I look forward to meeting many more.

When I was little, because of my illnesses, I spent a lot of time alone at home. I always had my nose in a book and therefore I had an active imagination and loved to write too. I carried on writing in various ways over the years during my busy life as the mother of six children – so much for being ‘delicate’ – mostly writing letters, some memoirs which I called ‘Norfolk Reflections’ and later when I took a college course, I adored doing all the writing involved and was sorry when I had finished the course. There followed a job I loved as a Teaching Assistant in a junior school until I retired.

Because of my illnesses, I ended up going to a special school for children who were struggling like me. Of recent years, I came into contact with fellow pupils from that school through a facebook page. I ‘met’ a man whose sisters had attended the school the same time as me and we connected immediately, especially when we discovered that we both liked writing. He joined a poetry group and encouraged me to join too. So I found myself writing poetry. Then I went on to a ‘Flash Fiction’ group and started writing for that. Eventually, I thought I’d like to write a book and so, in 2011, I wrote ‘The Sixpenny Tiger’ based upon my experience of working in a children’s home back in the nineteen sixties.

I found myself hooked and when I took voluntary early retirement because my school was having some financial problems, I wrote three books in the first year of my retirement. Two of those books are now available from Amazon: ‘Rosa’, a psychological thriller and ‘Bell of Warning’, a ghostly tale set in Cromer where I grew up. The third one I wrote is a children’s book, called ‘Robin’s Ring’, which as yet is not published as I’m still waiting for someone to draw the interior pictures for me. I have a third book published called ‘The Hiraeth’, which is the first book of a trilogy, inspired by the beautiful ruined castle, Gwrych, in North Wales. ‘The Sixpenny Tiger’, a story about a boy subjected to abuse, is to be published very soon.

Because of my ‘delicate’ childhood, I am uneducated really; I have no ‘O’ or ‘A’ levels, I have never studied at university, I have never taken a writing course or won any competitions. I never went out of the country until 2007. I write about what I know and about the places I know. I am fascinated by atmospheric places and intrigued by life after death and so, some of my books lean towards the ghostly. But I don’t write in a particular genre; I write what comes to me, be it a ghost story, or a children’s tale or about the plight of a child in care or even a picture book for very young children. I have in mind a sort of crime thriller which I intend to have a go at doing at some point in the future. I hardly know what I’m going to be writing next but one thing I’m sure of – I’m not going to stop until I have to!

 

 

 

Thank you so much for guest posting Jeanette! I love your attitude on writing. Just write what inspires you. If anyone is interested in purchasing Jeanette’s books, please look up Jeanette on Amazon by typing in Jeanette Taylor Ford and there you will find all her books for sale. Also, please visit her blog and say Jackie sent you….you can find it here.

 

Guest posts · nonfiction · postaday · writing

Guest Post ~~ MC’s Whispers ~ Mining Through Reality

JackieP9 Comments

Today’s guest post is written by Maria-Christina or otherwise known throughout Blogland as MC. Maria-Christina is a writer, a journalist and also a translator. I asked her if she could write something about being a translator, as I have great respect for anyone who can communicate in several languages.

Please make welcome MC, while she talks about what it’s like to be a writer with more than one language going through your mind.

source
source

 

 

Mining through reality

Writers are weird creatures. Writers who moonlight as translators are even worse. Because their minds don’t operate in just one language. There is a whole tower of Babel being constructed daily in the chaos that constitutes their head. And when a lightning rod strikes and they get angry, you just don’t want to be on the other end of their multilingual fire!

We all have days when we just don’t want to get out of bed. Or out of the house. Or even see or speak to anyone. It is days like that when writers just sit and…well, write. When you can’t express in spoken words what it is you feel, you can just pour them out on paper. And it comes so easily. Sitting in silence and just typing, letting your sadness and your reflections flow into words on virtual paper.

And when you’ve finally emptied your head from all those thoughts, having converted them instead into lettered images, you sit and breathe. And start thinking again. Only this time, translators do it in a different language. And so they decide to start writing…again! But now in another language. Because it will be different. The emotions, the tone, the style differ between languages. It is as though each one captures the mentality and culture of its people and its home nation. Translators have another trait too, they become obsessed with finding the right words to convey the meaning and innuendos of one language into another. It is something that often drives them insane. Just like writers become fixated with finding that specific word that is right on the tip of their tongue and they would recognize it if they saw it, but just at that very moment it seems to elude them…

Writers – and translators – are weird creatures. But they are people who use their talent to mine their way through reality. It is the very thing that drives them pleasantly insane that at the very same time keeps them sane. A paradox, it is true. But can you imagine what it would be like if you had no outlet to express all the emotions you accumulate and compress inside of you? It would be like nurturing a volcano that is just bursting to erupt. And if you haven’t heard anyone swearing at you in more than one language simultaneously, all in a mumbo jumbo of anger or discretely camouflaged rage of words, then you have not experienced the true wrath that is the torture of every writer and translator out there!

 

 

MC also writes great short stories, you can find her….here. 

Thanks MC for guest posting! I appreciate it. 

 

 

 

Blogging · Guest posts · nonfiction · postaday · writing

Guest Post ~~ Erin ~ Blogger at Bipolar Calico

JackieP8 Comments

Hello, People!

I hope you are having a great day. Today let me introduce you to Erin from Bipolar Calico. Some of you may already know Erin and her blog. She’s a straight talker about mental illness, specifically her mental illness.  She doesn’t sugar coat things and why would she? One of the things I like about Erin is she always tells it like it is. It might not be pleasant or pretty, but it’s always truthful. I hope you’ll give her a warm welcome while she gives us a message…..

Never Give Up

 

I ache from being tired again. My brain doesn’t shut down properly at night because of my chemicals being so severely messed up. I take a fist full of pills every night just hoping that they’ll work and I’ll get at least a few hours of sleep, enough to function the next day. And some nights it just doesn’t happen. The last few weeks there’s been just too much going on for everything to work right on a regular basis. So I do my best to compensate.

I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder II in 2006 and Borderline Personality Disorder in 2008. I can’t tell you about all of the times I’ve been hospitalized because quite frankly I don’t remember them all. Let’s just say I’ve been in-patient a lot, mostly for suicide attempts. Four of them, two serious enough that when I finally did wake up I was in the ICU, once in handcuffs. I don’t recommend that.

But to talk to me in person, to look at me, you’d never guess that there’s anything even remotely different about me. I’ve managed to stay employed at the same company the whole time, even getting a promotion. I’ve started and completed a Master’s degree and a graduate certificate program. I have the outer appearance of being “normal” for all intents and purposes.

Until you really get to know me.

For the most part, I’ve been stable since 2010 when I was hospitalized the last time. I’ve been through intensive therapy, I actually still see a therapist on a sort of regular basis, and I have a controlled med regimen. I try to eat right, get some exercise, take my meds and vitamins, and just be a good kid. I make a little time every day to do something I enjoy like knitting, reading, or making Lego’s. I blog so that the crap I feel on the inside doesn’t fester. I do my best to practice random acts of kindness. I maintain routines whenever possible. Those of us who have Bipolar tend to thrive on routines.

If there’s a secret to my so-called success it’s that I don’t ever consider myself cured nor do I think for one minute that I can be anything but constantly vigilant. I stay stable because I keep on top of my illnesses.

And that’s part of it, too. I always think of my diagnoses as illnesses, not character flaws. They’re chemical imbalances that can be regulated, in part, with medication and that makes them essentially no different from diabetes. They certainly don’t make me less of a person.

never-give-up
If I can offer you any advice about living with any kind of invisible illness it would be to never give up on yourself. You’re going to have days where you’ll want to throw in the towel and end it all. Don’t. You might not be able to see if right away but we all have something, or someone, to live for. And suicide doesn’t really end your pain, it just transfers it to those who loved you. So don’t give up, you’re strong enough to get through this, whatever “this” is for you.

 

 

Thank you, Erin, for guest posting. I appreciate it.  Folks, you can find Erin at Bipolar Calico, I hope you visit and say hi.

 

Blogging · nonfiction · postaday · writing

If We Were Having Coffee

JackieP32 Comments

Hello, People!

I do hope this first day of August is a great one for you. It’s hard for me to think it’s August already! Seems like the year just started.

 

If We Were Having Coffee

 

If we were having coffee, I would invite you inside where there is air conditioning as we are having a very warm day today. Maybe you would like ice coffee instead? Me, I’ll still have mine hot, as I don’t like it iced.

We’ll sit in the coolness and I would tell you how excited I am about several things lately. First, I would tell you how overwhelmed I have been with the offers to guest post on my blog. The response I got from fellow bloggers have been phenomenal. I still have several bloggers who have promised posts that will be forthcoming and have a few more already scheduled for next week. This makes me very happy.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that I am done with my edits for the first story in the DeeDee Watson, PI series, The Canine Caper! It’s all ready to be formatted and put on Amazon! Also, I have a brand new book cover for the story. Would you like to see it? Yes? All right….here it is…

 

 

cover play 5 canine caper

 

 

I’m so happy with this new book cover. The last one was good, but this one I think suits the story much better. I just wasn’t satisfied with the last one and how Dee was portrayed on it. I love this one! A friend and I worked for days on this. I found the images and she did the Photoshop work. We are working on the second book cover for ‘A Case of Deceit’ now while I do the edits for the story.

For the Canine story, I am hoping to have it up on Amazon by the end of the month, with the second following a few weeks later. Wish me luck!

If we were having coffee, I would also tell you that I have started a new blog. Yes, I’m certifiably crazy. It’s going to be tied in with the DeeDee Watson, PI books. I’ve been working on it as I have time the last few weeks. It will be…um…different. In a good way I hope! How will it be different? Well, the characters of the books will be writing for the blog, not me. I mean, of course, I will be writing, as the characters are fictional. But…Dee, Fedora and yes even Tee will be there. They will be in charge of what I write, they dictate, I write and post. Confusing? How about you hop on over there after you read this post and give it a look. It’s still a work in progress, but if you want to follow it, it won’t hurt my feelings. 🙂

I’ll try to post on that blog a few times a week. Oh, I guess you’ll need the link, right? Here it is…. JLPhillipsauthor.com       (JLPhillips.com was already taken, so I just added author on the end)

If we were having coffee, I would tell you that the last month has been crazy. Some good, some not so good. First, the weather…whats with the weather? In my little corner of Alberta, Canada we have had some really hot days, some pleasant days and we even had days in the middle of the month that I had to put the heat on! That’s just crazy. But it was cold and rainy and windy and this tin can we call a home was cold and damp. So yeah, I put the heat on. Today? It’s in the low 90’s (low 30’s c). I’m just thankful I have air conditioning.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you about the husband. As most of you know, he has been disabled the last few years with debilitating back pain. He has arthritis of the spine and multiple spurs on the spine. Some days he can hardly get up out of bed. We finally got him in to see a new doctor last week, as his old doctor was doing nothing for him except prescribing stronger and stronger pain medications. This new doctor said it was ‘unusual’ for patients to take this big a dose of pain meds for a ‘degenerative disease’.

In other words, the old doctor would just keep giving stronger pain medication for something that is NOT going to get better, instead of trying to deal with the pain in other ways. Which is why I wanted the husband to go to a different doctor. I knew something was not right when the old doctor would just brush us off when we spoke to him about alternative methods of dealing with the pain. If the doses kept going higher on his pain meds, he would turn into a zombie. The quality of life would be nil. This wasn’t acceptable to me. Or to the husband.

The biggest breakthrough with the new doctor was this…he diagnosed the husband with depression! Finally! I’ve been trying to tell the old doctor for several years that the husband was depressed, he wouldn’t listen to me. This doctor saw it before I even said anything! It’s just not normal for anyone to start to cry for no apparent reason. Which the husband did several times during the doctor visit.

I kept my mouth shut for most of the of doctor visit, (yes I went in the room with the husband.) so I was almost shocked when the doctor said he wanted to ask the husband a few questions dealing with depression. He asked questions, the husband answered and the doctor said from the answers he would say the husband is definitely depressed. He prescribed Zoloft and we set up an appointment with a mental health expert. The doctor explained to the husband that he wants to wean him off the strong pain meds and that with being depressed the husband was feeling a higher degree of pain due to the depression. So it’s a great start! We’ll see what happens next with the therapist.

So I have been having a busy few weeks.

If we were having coffee, I would just relax and after telling you my news I would listen to yours and enjoy your company.

Thanks for joining me and see you soon!

 

 

 

*#WeekendCoffeeShare is the brainchild of Part Time Monster, if you want to read other coffee posts or join in please do!*