Menopause is trying to kill me, either directly or indirectly.
My latest, greatest symptoms are intense, chronic tension headaches accompanied by a surge in blood pressure during my period week. That's right, my lifetime steady low blood pressure is now skyrocketing up to 15X over 9X during the week I don't take the birth control pill. (The birth control pill is generally taken for three weeks, then not taken for a week, during which you menstruate.)
Last year I got an unusual killer tension headache that sent me to the ER, and now I'm thinking that must've been during my period week. In fact, I looked it up, and it was.
I recall them taking my blood pressure while I was waiting to be seen and being very shocked at the result. So, this started an entire year ago, and I've just now connected the dots. FML. (This is exactly why I keep a journal, by the way.)
Last week was my period week, and I felt like shit the whole time. My muscles ached, and I had terrible tension headaches. I had to wait until the last tension headache turned into a migraine to get rid of it because my migraine cure is solid, but apparently my tension headache game is not as good.
The only reason I connected this to blood pressure is because I had an appointment with a new primary care doctor, and my blood pressure was 15X over 9X. I looked at the nurse and was like, “That can't be right.” She took it again, and it was still 13X over 8X. I told her this was not normal for me. When I got home, I took it again, and it was still high.
It gets so high during my period week now that it sometimes gives me pulsatile tinnitus, where I can hear the blood whooshing behind my ears.
Then on Monday, after I'd been back on The Pill for a few days, my blood pressure was back down to normal, which is around 110/70 for me.
Just what I need is another heinous symptom from my perimenopause hormone disaster.
As of it's not bad enough that I get terribly dehydrated, sore muscles, and migraines. Now I'm also going to get high blood pressure and severe tension headaches? This is what low estrogen is going to do to me? Shoot me now.
🧿 Life Observations
There Aren’t Two Sides. There’s just all of us.
In Chris Hedges’s latest Substack, he writes:
This is what I keep trying to tell Democrats. You can’t simply write off an entire sector of our population. They are angry for many legitimate reasons, and they feel like Democrats don’t listen to them or help them. Some of them probably used to be Democrats.
We are not getting out of this situation by keeping Biden in office. (Nor by letting Trump get elected.) We’re getting out of this by making the Democrats actually govern this country fairly. I don’t give a fuck what Republicans do. They’re not my party. If you say you are the Party of the People and want me to vote for you for that reason, you better show me some results. Don’t do what Republicans do and pick a few key issues like abortion that you can blackmail me with. (Oh, and Dems have done very little on that front.)
Dear Biden
Dear President Biden,
I never wanted you to be president. You're old as fuck, you're the reason my student loans could never be forgiven under bankruptcy, and you helped form the system that led to the school to prison (and slave labor) pipeline for Black and brown Americans. A system that has led to their profiling, mass incarceration, and unnecesary deaths at the hands of police.
You also had a creepy way around women that wasn't necessarily sexual assault but wreaked of the privilege to treat women with indignity.
You worked under Clinton, whose goal as president of the Democratic Leadership Council (which Jesse Jackson called “Democrats for the leisure class”) was to transform the Democratic Party away from holding up the working class in favor of embracing the intellectual elite (and wealthy class).
Despite all those things, I assumed you were a kind, empathic old grandfather who would never make excuses for 15,000 dead children. You're not Jewish nor Israeli, but you have taken $4.4 million from AIPAC, a foreign agent that represents another country that has never had to register as such in the US. In fact, shortly after JFK suggested they should, he was murdered. Coincidence? Who knows.
There are a lot of people arguing about whether I should or should not vote for you. I hear them and see their points. But my biggest qualm is that Democrats have led us into fascism and will continue to. But they'll say all the right things while they're doing it. It's largely their fault we got here. They've ignored the pleas of the middle class in favor of cozying up to Wall Street and big business. Trump exists because Democrats turned their backs on middle America. And now we blame those voters for being angry and trying to find someone who will listen to them. (Trump won't either, for the most part, which makes them even angrier.)
Well, I'm angry, too. I'm inconsolably angry that my dear old grandpa is a diehard Zionest (which you frequently admit) who has let Israel murder children for SIX MONTHS. Every day, 10 Palestinian children lose limbs. And my own Grandpa is enabling and abetting that. My Grandpa is a genocide apologist.
If you were a Palestinian American, would you vote for the man who sends endless amounts of disproportionately sized bombs to drop on your family and friends? Well, guess what, other thoughtful, humanitarian people also don’t like that. What should be the red line for Americans? When should they not vote for a candidate?
“But the other guy is worse.”
I guess you and your admin should've thought of that 4-5 months ago when you could've still won the election.
But don't blame me and my vote for what you’re doing. I was all set to vote for you before this happened, even though you’re old as dirt and not doing nearly what you could be for average Americans.
I feel I’m without any good choice on election day, and I furthermore believe you and the United States are guilty of war crimes, both direct and indirect.
The citizens of the US are currently in a lose/lose situation like never before.
So, thanks for nothing, buddy.
Yours truly,
Elsie
📑 Project Updates
Please Donate!
There's not much time left to donate to my participation in the Bridge to Rutland Arts Marathon that helps their work with asylum seekers! I'd love to get two more $50 donations for them! Can you help? In return, you’ll get to join me on a video journey throughout the month of April as I create art!
Cross Stitch
Here’s the cute little piece I’m working on for myself. I’m trying very hard to get it done before the end of the month so I can start my Arts Marathon piece with a clean slate.
Collage
I went to a bunch of lawn sales yesterday and came away with some great books for collage.
To my surprise, one of them was political art that included these pages. Israeli propoganda was apparently well known to many people before October 7th.
⏰️ Currently
📖 Savoring Valerie Kaur’s words as much as I can.
🐌 Feeling very quiet and still lately.
🕊 Trying to be peaceful in a violent world.