Today I Am Thankful For... Ver. 4 Infinite Chances in an Amazing World

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Jim Morrisson and The Doors.
The perfect heartbreak music..
Lyrics from the mind of a genius!
 
Am I really supposed to list everything? It would be a pretty damn long list.

I am starting to get interested in some hobbies and things I lost the ability to enjoy.

I've gone from vegetarian to vegan, something I have wanted to do for a long time. Maybe I'll have the will to stick with it. Although I would have no problem with eating the eggs from my mom's chickens since she has them in a large pen.

For many months, I could not watch TV alone at all and often not even with others but now I can, though I prefer to watch it with one or more other people.

I am no longer having days where I lay in bed staring at the wall or keeping my eyes closed, barely moving, doing nothing, not eating or drinking unless someone makes me, needing to piss for hours and still not moving and not answering half the questions I am asked - pretty much living as a corpse when you are like that.

I am rapidly gaining followers on my Google+ circles which allows me to spread information much better (mostly animal rights causes but also beautiful pictures, other charitable causes, science info, and so on)

It is still insignificant, but it seems like my YouTube earnings are picking up steam.

Getting more rain, maybe the drought will come to a complete end. A part of my wanted it to keep getting worse so it could break new records and I could watch rivers and lakes go completely dry, but then I'd think about all the suffering and how so many animals would die so I kept singin' Rain, rain come my way but not because the Bible thumpers pray (Maybe some of you remember those prayer for rain days in Texas and elsewhere 2 or 3 years ago).


Everyone I love including my pets are alive and none have health problems that pose an immediate risk of death or extreme disability.

That is, except for my dad, unfortunately - he is diabetic and he will seriously eat plain sugar by the tablespoon full. If you don't buy sugar, he gets angry. Soon he gets enraged to the point it is frightening to my pets, my younger nephew, and myself. It probably scares the older nephew and maybe my mom, but they don't show it. So we buy him real sugar because he says Splenda and so on doesn't taste good. Now his eyes are deteriorating - this is something found yesterday. He is essentially choosing a slow type of suicide but I am going to try to make him see the light before he loses the ability to see anything. His blood glucose goes up to 475 and he says it is because he is being bitched at. That is the exception to everyone's good or significantly better than anyone should expect health. I hate to say something like this, but he'd be better off switching from sugar to one of the less harmful recreational drugs. Eating jars of pure jelly and drinking bottles of syrup is a really good way to screw up your life and make it short, even if you start as a healthy, fit 18 year old. I suspect he has Munchausen Syndrome (people induce sicknesses, often so they can be admitted to a hospital and he really likes being in hospitals - one day in a hspital brings me misery) not to be confused with Munchausen by proxy where a child, other relative, or sometimes a pet is made sick for attention. He used to get attention when he gorged on massive amounts of sugar but pretty much everyone in the household thinks he is doing it for pity or attention as he will eat lots of sugary foods and soon after check his glucose which is sky high. Now everyone just tries to tell him he is killing himself and attempts to get him to use sugar substitutes. His doctors have been made aware of what he does - he has to know it is all the sugar messing his legs, eyes, and kidneys up.

My mom has a muscle disease that has just over the last week caused partial paralysis of her feet, but the doctors think it is probably reversible (I guess it is mixed news since this problem just came up in the past week, but I'll say more good than bad given the prognosis).
She has had stage 4 breast cancer 7 years now and no sign of worsening. Some time back when she last had to take the harsh chemo that makes her sick, one of the 3 small tumors seemed to be killed off. Now she has a tumor in the lower part of I think her right lung maybe about the size of a pencil eraser. The other is more like thin, diffuse streaks showing up in varying intensity in a region between the lungs and is inoperable. The chemo drug she has to take the rest of her life (Herceptin) does not make her sick as she has a type of cancer caused by a genetic mutation:
Wikipedia said:
Amplification or over-expression of the ERBB2 gene occurs in approximately 15-30% of breast cancers.[1][5] It is strongly associated with increased disease recurrence and a poor prognosis.
The name listed here for the gene is different but it is known by multiple names:
Wikipedia said:
The ERBB2 gene is also frequently called HER2 (from human epidermal growth factor receptor 2) or HER2/neu.
Even though her prognosis was supposed to be worse than the 5-year survival rate of 22% for stage 4 in general, (I found only one site that gave a statistic of 15% for her mutation and less than 5% 10 year) she is still doing well and I see a new drug came on the market in 2012 and one is in phase 3 clinical trials for her type of cancer. Herceptin can lower heart function and when it drops below a certain level, must be stopped until heart function returns to normal. The test before last, heart function had dropped close to that cutoff, but it actually improved some with the most recent test.

My brother who has moved back in is not being an asshole (except rarely), he has been nice most of the time unless he is doing things to turn other family members against each other without our knowing and/or scheming behind our backs to cause problems or possibly stealing things. Not someone who can be trusted, it will take a long time for him to gain my trust as he tried to get my sister to turn my mother and I into police saying she was making my nephew (who has never touched a drug) and I use drugs and I was standing in the living room screaming and threatening to kill the family while shooting dope - nothing remotely similar happened.
Later he made a death threat to my sister after he got involved with her boss who is single with a severely disabled girl my sister was paid to care for. The woman was the vulnerable type who just wanted to be with someone and my brother is sort of predatory on women like that in the sense he pretends to love them while milking them of all the money he can and leaves them bad off financially and I would imagine emotionally devastated. My sister realized it was all lies including hateful messages he sent from the cell phone my nephew got for Christmas he stole when he left last time from a facebook page with my/his mom's identity and photo. But I will give him a chance without giving him any info to hurt me with (I just hope he doesn't find out when my mom said I was crying and upset over losing a pet that it was my dog, Cloud (and that has a very happy ending, though he is not with me now) and not my raccoon. If he wanted to hurt me, turning that in so he gets taken away and killed or gone from me would hurt me more than anything he could do and then he'd have a dead brother pumped full of insulin found locked in an inescapable underground tomb or my mom would have two dead sons to bury. I don't think he would do that to me as he has been nice to me, even given me a few gifts, and doesn't seem to be angry all the time like before. But I know he can be really nice then suddenly he starts hating certain people and getting jealous of others - especially me and I can't understand that. My life hasn't been a good one, though the last 7 or 8 months or so seem to be improving and I have felt alright most of the last week - that's a good thing. And my brother's behavior up to this point seems to be another good thing. But although I like talking and stuff, his being here is also stressful. But I'll put this in the good column, seeing as I expected things to be difficult.

I'm alive and I may have crossed the line from high dose downer combo to overdose very recently. Someone commented about wanting me and someone else to "stay with us" or something like that - that is, not die. My blood pressure got slightly low before I went to sleep or lost consciousness. I spent most of the next 20 hours or so sleeping.
Weeks earlier than that, I overdosed bad on phenibut. I have seen too many places and people online, maybe even on Bluelight say you can't die from a phenibut overdose but I beg to differ. My blood pressure dropped enough that I could not scream, only make soft calls for help that nobody could hear, barely move my arms and legs, could not bang on the wall, or anything. I was trying to make my blood pressure rise and was also trying to get on Bluelight and find if a moderator or someone I've talked to was online I could ask to call my house. I could not get up for a few minutes and thought I would die but I eventually was able to raise my BP till I could move more and then recovered enough to check it. I have the number written down but I think it was 81/48 and my pulse was in the low 40s. Went to the kitchen, barely able to walk, made sandwiches thinking eating would help me stay awake. Also made strong, nasty coffee and took several ephedra pills (you can still buy them, brand name is Primatine - you just have to get them behind the counter). I started eating. Maybe 10-12 hours later, my mom came to wake me up and I had passed out with a big piece of a sandwich in my mouth. I chewed and swallowed, and right back to sleep. Next time I woke up and she told me about it, I thought the whole thing was like the funniest thing that ever happened but there is nothing funny about overdosing like that and passing out face-first when eating as you could choke. I'd like to smack the next person who says taking too much phenibut will just make you want to sleep way too long upside the head - they don't know what they are talking about. (I hope it was okay for me to talk about a couple of overdoses, particularly the phenibut overdose that would probably have killed me if I had not tried to move for some reason and realized I was too weak to move much at all. If I hadn't tried to move, instead laid there a few minutes or less longer I would have passed out and likely not woke back up. My blood pressure and to a less extent my pulse were a bit low when I woke up again. If this violates triggering rules, just remove the details and leave the I'm still alive part. I would have left the OD stuff out but I felt it might be anti-triggering.

I may have skipped my most recent semester in college, failed the last (partly due to an ice storm preventing me from sending a 25% assignment in and studying for finals in my other class where I lost at least ten more points because some asshole stole/guessed my email password, changed the password to the site I do my homework on, and the password to my university email address. I tried and tried to get someone to let me back in, the professor, tech support, the company that ran the website, all of them multiple times until I said fuck it, there's 2 or 3 points of work left their. I was also having a manic episode and could not concentrate on statistics because I'd keep forgetting where I was at in a problem as other thoughts went through my mind and I could not stop them. I think I would have got a C in Geospatial Mapping and either a D or an F in Psychological Statistics if my mental state was the only problem but my standard is nothing lower than a B. It seems nobody was penalized for failing that semester because the ice storm fucked things up, so I am in good shape to go back if I am mentally stable enough but I just need to get one more mirror to do my own experiments which I can do without any fucking degree and if I find anything interesting, I do not see why it should matter if I have my degree yet as long as my experiments are well designed, recorded, and carried out in an acceptable way. Lack of any evidence of what I am checking for will not be as important as its presence since I am doing two case studies - if say 25% of a species displays the type of behavior I am looking for with the setup I am coming up with, finding that out would be important but I have a single test subject so most likely, it would not be seen. I'd get the same result if it was absent in all individuals. It could be present in 90% but not in mine. It could be present in less than one percent and by chance, I get that rare positive result. The reason I believe a positive result is more important is partly because it is not something most scientists expect if my suspicions about their expectations are right. There was another logical reason I had worked out that slipped my mind and it could have been flawed logic.

My point with the above is that while I have had academic difficulties (the semester before I failed, I dropped out in the middle and barely opened my books before that because I just wanted to die), I can pursue a couple of experiments I had thought about in the past but threw away as I normally do with my ideas. These experiments have at least a small chance of uncovering things not previously known about cognition in two different species of animals involving evidence or lack thereof of ability to recognize their reflections. The other experiment involves using mirrors as tools to find objects they can see as they are hidden in a mirror but not directly with their eyes. (An interesting question would arise in my mind if they show no interest in their reflections but they understand the reflection in the second experiment shows them where something is hidden. It is already clear neither animal behaves as if the reflection is another animal. If they know the reflection shows an object and where it is at, they likely understand when seeing another animal, such as me looking into the mirror, seeing both me and my reflection that the reflection shows where I am just as with the object. Could this either be because the animals just do not care about their own reflections even if they understand what they see, or if not, might it allow them to learn to recognize themselves in a mirror? There is no way to know if they recognize but lack the interest, but if they can't recognize themselves at first, they may be able to learn how.
I am really looking forward to going ahead with this experiment. Just have to not let my emotions get in the way of critical analysis. I'll record it all, so all the data will be there. I am thankful for having Lucky, my raccoon - a species that has really not been researched much in this kind of way if at all, as far as I know, and Baby, my macaw - medium and large size parrots have been researched a lot more than raccoons but I have not heard as much about macaws - they may be less researched than most parrots but whether or not that is so, I can do it anyway.
This is the first time I have really gone this far planning and thinking about anything like this. Not sure what the fuck I do if I get unexpected results with Lucky since I can't tell anyone even if I find out something that seems important. But in the unlikely event I can find evidence showing something considered a higher level cognitive trait in animals, it would change how a lot of people feel about the species in a positive way and they would probably get better treatment. As it is, wild raccoons have a life expectancy of 1.8 to 3.1 years depending on location and most are killed by humans (traffic, guns, poisoning, trapping. There is an asshole who knew I had wanted a pet raccoon because I had checked into the laws with him and he had the nerve to start talking to me about how he put food out for raccoons and possums so he could shoot them as they were eating - it may be legal in Texas to just kill them for the Hell of it and leave the corpse where it drops). In captivity (pets and zoos), they usually live 10-15 years and can live over 20 in rare cases. I would love to someday find something in some species scientists and the public don't think is there that would change how that animal, and maybe others are viewed and treated in a positive way. That has made me feel motivation recently to just start working now and try to get that damn degree,

I should save some for later. Anyway, it could all go to Hell at any moment - I learned that long ago. Maybe this time will be different. Maybe if I actually get involved in more things before I go back into a depressed state I can keep my moods under control.

Oh, almost forgot - I got two people to donate money to the charity Animals Asia, which I have been a supporter of for a long time. One gave $75, the other gave $20 and I will take their word. I also have an idea to get them more exposure if I can get a couple of people on Google+ to send out a couple of videos. And another fundraising idea I won't talk about unless I am able to do it and decide to try.

Almost forgot something else. I found out recently that my best childhood friend is living back in this town. I've thought about contacting him. I just feel like he will take one look at me and decide I suck, so I do not know what I will do.
 
I'm thankful for patriots who stood up to a king.

I'm thankful for friends that have come down from Delaware to be with me for a few days. They have been bringing a different friend of theirs with them the last few times and I have really enjoyed this.

I am thankful that I am alive.
 
^love it!

Absolutely grateful for waking up this morning; my housemates; the sun.

:D

~ Vaya
 
thankful for coffee, pubmed, and all the mods here at BL..

Hope to dust off my snorkel and flippers one of these days..
 
One more day/eve off. Excited, already went grocery shopping. The BF gets off at 1 so I'm pretty excited for today :)! Super thankful for days off <3.
 
I have 3 more days of work but im thankful for another sunny day in vancity. Two days in a row!!
 
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My wife, things have been a bit tough of late but she has managed to guide me back on to the path of sanity, I wouldnt listen to anyone else even oif there was some one else who was around to see me starting to break up, <3:)
 
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