Sep
18
I took my paddleboard to Fern Ridge last week, not my very last outing of the season but the last local place I hadn’t visited. I’ll have to try it again earlier in the summer next year because the water was so low it was a bit like paddling through a very large mud puddle, but it was still pretty and astonishingly secluded. Just me and the birds out there, and every now and then something mysterious underwater that would go zipping off stirring up great swirls of mud, I don’t know if that was fish or the shrieking eels from Princess Bride, I just tried not to think too hard about it.
I was at my hospice patient’s house and she was restless and upset, a little weepy. She could only tell me that her mommy was worried because she couldn’t find her. I told her she was okay, she was so well loved, I told her with full honesty that her husband loved her more than I have seen any man love a woman. I told her that her kids loved her, her grandchildren loved her. I told her that her mom was also loved and cared for, and that her mom was happy because she knew her daughter was loved and being cared for so well. I could feel her relax a little and her scrunched-up face softened. “I don’t know that she knows that today,” she said to me. “But I will think that.” Oh, I wonder so often about Alzheimer’s and how the person experiences life in that terrible fog. Sometimes it seems to dissipate and there are such brief heartcrushing moments of clarity.
Mabel had her spay surgery a few weeks ago and she was SUCH an adorable little invalid afterwards. She is a very dramatic creature and once had me considering an emergency vet visit over what turned out to be an insect bite, so I knew I was in for it post-surgery. She was indeed quite pathetic and I legitimately spoon-fed her for a couple days and carried her around like a pampered queen and the household was unusually calm and quiet and frankly it was kind of nice! I put her in a little ‘recovery suit’ as an alternative to the cone of shame and she acted like it was a 9000-lb lead weight which was quite funny. She is all healed and back to her happy snappigator dash-around ways now, although I was tempted to keep her on the Tell That Bitch to Be Cool, Be Cool Honey Bunny!! drugs forever.
Little Joe, the best school horse ever, is retiring at the end of this month. And for real retiring to his owner’s place, not “Going to a farm where he’ll be so happy! (But actually turned into Elmer’s glue!)” My GOSH I am going to miss him, he’s been my super-special horse buddy for 3 years now. I am in touch with another horse’s owner and have tentative plans to switch to her, she’s a 23-year-old Arabian mix chestnut mare named Samara. I’ve only done one short ride with her but I think she’s going to be a great new pal who has a lot to teach me. I could tell instantly by her expressions that she’s a whole different beast, sweet Joe does have slow Eeyore energy and this lady is for sure operating on a higher frequency. I have been assured that she is not deliberately murderous, but it will be a new challenge. I think it’s probably good for me to break out of my Little Joe rut and improve my skills, and hopefully she’ll be patient with me as I get up to speed (literally).
Mare eyes!
I have applied for a few different jobs in the last few months and here is how often I have heard back from the employers: ZERO TIMES. I feel v grumpy about this modern trend of simply ghosting every applicant, whatever happened to the simple courtesy of a canned “NO THX” response? Do we not have AI jammed willy-nilly into every quivering crack of capitalism, surely the chatbot can reply now if hiring humans cannot be bothered? Shoot, I’d rather get a recognizable ChatGPT writeup than nothing at all. It’s not just that you’re unqualified, you’re also too old!
Oh and speaking of AI. I am VERY suspicious of this sudden influx of people in the AI industry who are loudly worrying about the dangers facing humanity. Like I am sure there are plenty of real people who have real concerns, but the actual company executives now calling for a global halt on progress — man, I am side eyeing this public hand-wringing. I believe it is possible to be both concerned that AI is in fact going to ruin us as a society and also be unconvinced by billionaire techlords developing ethics out of nowhere. Could this be ginned up to try and slow competition or simply put AI in the spotlight as much as possible to cover the fact that the ROI so far is extremely shiteous and our economy is basically dogleashed to AI investments? I’m just saying. But I’m also not saying it’s not worth worrying about. It is! Everything is scary and terrible! And there is NO ONE in charge ANYWHERE that can be trusted to make good choices!
Finally, here is something I never thought I’d say — I’m sharing videos on TikTok. It’s just silly animal stuff, but if you want to follow me there, I’m at https://www.tiktok.com/@sundry_mourning
Sep
7
There is something I have been very hesitant to write about, but it has affected me so deeply it feels increasingly dishonest not to. And that is, as our actual United States president calls it, because we live in a timeline that is both deeply dark and troubling and also impossibly stupid, THE FAT SHOT.
So here we go into the topic of GLP-1s and body image and weight loss, and if that is not your jam, I get it. For a while there I was really trying to avoid all of the endless writeups on these drugs and it felt impossible. I don’t have any kind of Hot Take to share, I am just going to talk about my own experience in general terms.
I will say that as soon as I started hearing about these meds I knew it was only a matter of time and availability and cost until I would give them a go. I’ve only spent my entire adult LIFE in a state of mild to complete obsession with my weight and how much I’m eating. And I am hardly a hesitant person when it comes to, let’s just say medications. Other folks might wisely consider things like side effects and long term repercussions, I myself do not treat my body like a temple unless we are talking about the gluttonous rat Templeton in Charlotte’s Web.
Earlier this year I had read about someone’s experience with compound GLP-1s, which are the custom-mixed, non-FDA-approved alternatives to brand-name drugs like Ozempic and Zepbound. That was enough to spark my interest and I ended up acquiring a semaglutide prescription through a telehealth service (Hers, for the record). It was an easy if expensive process and there is some medical overview in the sense that you get a chat message from a doctor now and then, but largely you’re on your own with everything.
‘Non-FDA approved’ is a term that no longer holds much sway for me (you mean the same FDA run by Trump Jr’s hunting buddy with no medical or scientific credentials?) but of course it’s a lot more sketchy to order drugs off the internet rather than getting them prescribed from your own doctor.
It’s also not easy to dose these compound meds. They don’t come with injector pens or any kind of mechanism that makes that part a no-brainer. You get little vials of liquid medication that has to live in the fridge, and a pack of syringes and rubbing alcohol pads. For each dose, you have to draw the correct amount out of the vial into the syringe — weirdly difficult! — then flick the needle like you’ve seen in the movies to get the air bubble to float to the top, then inject your own self.
I was given a dosing schedule that starts you very low and gradually increases the amount, which I followed. It’s been a while but I would say I noticed an effect right away, a mild sort of nausea that reminded me a bit of early morning sickness. As time went on and my doses increased, I got to a point of familiarity with it: the strongest effects would be happening on maybe the third day after the shot, then waning back down until my next dose.
I did not have extreme side effects. The worst I have ever felt has been some nausea/food aversion and fatigue, nothing major. My dosing has remained pretty low, it seems like I respond to it really well and can get by with smaller amounts.
The big thing you hear about with these drugs is not having ‘food noise’, which I didn’t really understand until I experienced it. I would say it is like having food become … food. As opposed to a drug.
Food isn’t a DRUG lol, O RLY then why have I used it like a drug for as long as I can remember? Food can be euphoric, food can be comforting, food can numb and distract, food is the one addiction you can’t find the relief of abstinence from. I have struggled with food for so long and really dug myself into a bad habit during COVID of evening dissociation with food and TV. I remember the feeling of just giving myself permission, night after night, to have whatever the hell I wanted because god dammit everything was so fucked, and I have not been able to shake the chase of that full-body whew of permission + overconsumption.
Plus, menopause. Metabolic changes, body fat redistribution, pounds clinging stubbornly. I wasn’t problematically overweight but I was at a higher weight than I’d been since pregnancy and the scale kept inching upwards.
Once the meds reached a certain point, I’d say my relationship with food completely changed. I can still enjoy and appreciate food, to be clear. I was worried about that part, like yes I would love for food to not rule my life but I also don’t want to lose its appeal, right? Things taste good, things look good. But nothing is overwhelming in the way that it was. I can eat a thing and just … stop?!? I eat smaller portions overall, but the real switch is in the night eating.
OH, THE NIGHT EATING. Workin’ on my night cheese ♬ Oh my god the calorie intake that would happen after, say, 7 PM. The mornings I would wake up just steeped in regret from all the binge snacking. Well, I just plain don’t do that any more. I don’t want it and I don’t miss it. All I can say is food does not get me high any more.
I’ve lost about 30 pounds from my very highest to my lowest weight. I bounce around a little and I’m still tinkering with the dose to find a sweet spot where I have good appetite but no bingeing. I worry about muscle loss and getting enough protein, ugh the protein. I dislike the syringes and vials and am in the process of switching to the Wegovy pen (this was not available to me when I first started back in March). I just got my bloodwork done last week and everything looks fine. I don’t need to lose any more weight but I would like to take these meds forever if I can.
It’s been pretty life changing. I feel a LOT more confident about my body, which is vain but there it is, and that’s made a huge difference in how I feel on a daily basis. I also feel untethered from decades of cycling through various unhealthy relationships with food. Restricting, bingeing, endless scrutinizing and criticisms. I just … eat food now. For fuel and pleasure but never for intoxication or numbness.
I realize I’m not the target market for these medications. There are folks who need it more than me who can’t get it yet because of cost and that sucks. I hope it continues to become more available to those who want it. I hope we as a society can figure out how to view GLP-1s as an option and not something that should be praised or demonized. I wish we weren’t seeing such a backslide into extreme thinness happening hand in skeletal hand with the increasing availability of the meds.
I don’t want to promote using compound meds — I know there have been issues, I know there is risk. It was something I was willing to contend with, and I was willing to pay the high cost of an out of pocket prescription. It’s not for everyone, but it worked very well with me and it’s a big factor in my overall state of being these days. I feel generally positive and hugely relaxed about my weight and my eating, and I am not sure I’ve felt that way since I was a child.
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