It’s so odd that there can be so much sorrow and joy in the same part of my life. My husband and I celebrated five months married together on the 11th, and in the same week, we celebrated the birth of not one, but two humans coming into the world; one was my sister’s daughter, so my niece and then Kyle’s best friend’s baby so we call that baby our nephew.

I thought I would cry when I met my sister’s kid, but when I did I was filled with a lot of joy and optimism. I do have a lot of sorrow in my heart because of Kyle’s mastocytosis diagnosis appears to be getting worse day by day. We are now being referred from Kaiser to Fred Hutch Cancer Center to now, University of Washington Medicine. This is the place I wanted him to go originally when I found out that his cancer might be back. We are hoping to hear back from UW tomorrow or on Tuesday, the 18th.

My job is going well, but I feel like people can tell I am distracted at work. Not that my performance is suffering because I choose to leave my personal issues at the door and focus on the kids, but it’s hard because I don’t know not if, but when my husband will get sicker or have a stress induced seizure due to his epilepsy. He’s mainly been seizure free minus one since we have been together but he has been taking more anti seizure meds lately because he feels them “come on” but tries to be proactive and stop it in its tracks. I know his stress levels due to work and the cancer are terrible but it is making his condition worse. I asked if he would step down from management considering he’d get paid the same to not be in charge. He said no not until he “has to”. Which frankly pissed me off because yes he has been more apathetic to the stressors at work, he’s still getting worse even with his new attitude toward it all. He, however, has completely eliminated any overtime which is good because he can barely make it through an eight hour shift due to pain and swelling in his extremities along with facial and skin redness everywhere.

We are spending the evening together now as I type this. He is playing Madden 25 (an Xbox video game) and I am writing. We have a fire going which was great until I found a dead mouse that was bloody and molded in one of our kitchen traps. BLAGHHHHHHHH gross. I almost had a panic attack when I saw it by the fridge in the kitchen. I had Kyle dispose of it. I mean, it’s great that we don’t pay rent now with the rising cost of debt and living along with his soon to come cancer treatments, but I would love to not have rodents. For those of you who don’t know, Kyle and I live with his grandparents; they live upstairs and we have our own little apartment downstairs. But the house was built in 1967 so the windows are all single paned and there was a huge leak in the window where the wood above it rotted and leaked water all over my pillows are ruined them (this was in our bedroom). And last weekend, or maybe the week before, our 30 year old hot water heater went out and we had no hot water for a day and a half. Luckily Grandma paid for a new hot water heater and we didn’t have to contribute, but we sure did offer.

Since their home is so dated, their electricity bill has been running high due to how hard it is to keep our house warm. And even then, I am FREEZING 24/7. But the bill for what I would imagine is a 4000 square foot house was over $800.00 for the month of February. So we have been building fires to reduce the heater going on and off and it’s been a little warmer. Because forking over $300 for the electricity bill kinda sucked. Granted, we don’t pay rent and we weren’t going hungry over losing that $300, but that was apart of our emergency fund.

We did get some good news regarding insurance for Kyle. We got a letter in the mail from insurance saying that all of the costs associated with Kyle’s cancer treatment would be no cost to us… I do not know if this includes our out of network costs like going to UW but it’s been costly as is just going through Kaiser, so I’ll take the win on that.

My mental health has been super bad lately. It is hard to pinpoint, between the stress of my husband’s health, the happy joys of new life, newer job, my untreated sleep apnea, etc. I would imagine my hallucinations and disorientation probably stems from lack of quality sleep. But everyday around 12-1pm, I start going on what feels like a bad weed trip. I feel like this out of body experience, I can’t focus, I am genuinely scared to drive and I can’t properly function and this is all while I am at work, being over stimulated by the noise of 15-20 teens and young adults just being themselves.

Fortunately, I have a follow up with my doctor on Wednesday, the 19th. But last month, she said there wasn’t much to do med wise until I get my sleep apnea Inspire surgery. But that is being appealed so that my insurance will pay for it because my hallucinations will be greatly reduced once I get quality sleep. Currently, my sleep apnea is untreated and I do not tolerate a cpap machine so I no longer have one. Now my throat has been hurting and I even went to the urgent care for it this morning and they were like, it’s just cause you sleep with your mouth open due to untreated sleep apnea. So I feel like this upcoming appointment will be another waste of time and money because yes it’s a med check but I can’t do anything different to come to a different result.

It’s weird having all of these feelings and emotions. I am happy I can properly deal with this stuff because I am sober and going on 19 months sober as of tomorrow (yes I know… no fronts) but I am happy I can be in the lives of my loved ones without them worrying about me drinking and drug usage and what not. I am able to be fully present with my husband and for him and for my family and friends.

I am debating going back to therapy to cope with these emotions and address my mental health. I am very jaded by my last therapist who should have quit a long time before she did because when I got raped and I told her I might press charges, she shut me down and legitimately told me, “It is not worth your time or energy to report it because no one will believe you.” And then I kept going to this person for help! I haven’t seen another therapist since 2019 and I am afraid; I’ll be honest. But if I can’t take more meds, I clearly need more help so we’ll see.

Until next time, my friends.

Dani