Overwhelm from Managing Care

Whether it's issues with school, friends, mental health, or physical health, the issues don't slow down just because there's already too much on our plates! This week Stefanie discusses the new  issues plaguing her kids and how she wants to go back to bed and not deal with it. Unfortunately that's not an option when you're the one in charge of "all the things"! 

A Podcast for People Raising Tricky Kids

Transcript

  📍   Hello, and welcome back to where the F is. My village.  I hope that the beginning of the holiday season is treating you well.  Um, I know for the default parent in a household. It can be a lot. And you know, for us, we.  Due to a lack of planning. Or foresight. Um, all three of our kids are born.  In the last quarter of the year.  

And.  

Then we have our wedding anniversary.  Which is in November. So we have three birthdays or wedding anniversary. And then of course, like Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas. Um, so it is a very busy time of year for us. And I don't know what you guys have going on.  At your homes, even if you're just doing, you know, the Thanksgiving and Christmas thing. Or Hanukkah. Or whatever holiday you may be celebrating.  Um, it is a lot and we already are raising these tricky kids. 

So we're already like teetering at a nine out of 10 all the time already.  And.  I just had a moment of overwhelm. Last week.  Um, what else is new? What else is new, except that Stephanie's overwhelmed.  Um,  Why don't I kids has an like a new issue or something that I have recognized, I guess I should say. As a recurrent issue.  And we're at the beginning of it and I just feel completely overwhelmed.  Uh, we actually are going to try to go to the doctor today, Monday. And.  He seems to have some like nerve pain, some neuropathy or neuropathic, nerve pain.  And it is. Uh, the weirdest thing. So we've had multiple issues with that. 

I didn't. Put it all together until Thanksgiving day.  

Um, we were, you. You know, like trying to go to bed, actually, that's not true. We were sitting on the couch watching TV. And we were watching a movie. Because it's Thanksgiving and we're, you know, had a Christmas movie on that evening. And he kind of just can't. Get comfortable on the couch and he's wiggling and moving. 

And he's saying his leg is going to sleep. And he, it feels really Tingley.  And.  That's kind of the best he can describe it. Well  within, you know, 30 minutes, he couldn't walk. His foot, his leg hurt so bad. He couldn't straighten it and he couldn't walk. And he says he's describing it as a falling asleep. I'm doing. Things that you do for somebody whose leg is falling asleep. Which is you try to get the blood flowing, right? 

So I'm like bending his leg. I'm kind of squeezing the muscles. Trying to get that blood flow in because I'm sure he's just been sitting funny and he's cut the circulation off to his like y'all. That is not what was happening.  

By bedtime.  I mean, it was like 10 o'clock at this point. So way past bedtime. He.  Was in so much pain on the front of his leg. I should say, like from mid thigh. Down to just above his ankle on the front side of his lake.  Hurt so badly that even a sheet. Touching his skin was too much.  It was killed, like killing him.  And. I'm like, uh, Hm. So helpful that I've had shingles before. I had shingles. Three years ago in November of 2020, when my dad was in the hospital for a month and we couldn't go see him and he was dying. 

So, um,  And like the vaccine didn't exist yet. Like the middle of COVID. Um, so yeah, I, you know, understandably got shingles. And if you've never had shingles.  The nerve pain is such a unique experience where you get these kind of like electrical zaps.  And then there's kind of a constant pain. And for me, it kind of moved up and down. My spine, it wrapped around my body, which is normal. 

It's normally. On one side. Of your body and then wraps around to the front. And there's this really ugly rash too, but that was the least of my worries, but the pain was unlike anything I had experienced before, in some ways, like, I wouldn't want to put my hand on it.  You know, like if you like bang your thumb, you like squeeze your thumb. 

Cause you're like, oh wow. And somehow that like counter pressure helps.  The nerve pain is so hard to chase down that I couldn't, I couldn't touch it. Like I couldn't find it in my body with my hand on my back. Like I couldn't find it, but it was there and very painful and I couldn't wear a bra.  Um, so I was dealing with that and. It was a very unique pain.  And.  I'm looking at him and I'm like, oh my gosh, he's having nerve pain down the front of his leg.  

And.  We.  Tried like the concoction of medications that we have here, which we have quite the variety.  And.  Managed to. You know, With moist hee and Advil and Tylenol. And.  Other meds.  Um, Casey laid with him.  Until he fell asleep.  And then the next day. It was like a little better. Like he had blankets on.  But.  We spent most of the weekend with him, not able to walk on his leg. So, you know, of course I'm texting our doctor and I'm, I'm just like, can we have some steroids?  Because.  I'm realizing as I'm like putting the pieces together. 

This is the third time he's had nerve pain like this. So the first time was the Hells itch situation at the beginning of the summer, when he had his first. Um, sun exposure had the teeniest tiniest sunburn. And it is knighted nerve pain up and down his spine.  

So he had that happen. And if you'll remember, we went to the ER. And we're there all night. Before.  This doctor who I do not like  was like, we don't treat that here. Like, that's not like I was like acute pain. We don't treat acute pain in the ER, we've been here like six hours.  Anyway. Got no help at the ER.  And we finally went to our pediatrician. And he's like, it sounds like his nervous system has kind of been set off and he's having nerve pain. 

And I was like, yes, that is what I told the ER, ER doctor last night. So he prescribed. Uh,  prednisone. He took to prednisone. And like, by the end of the day, the nerve pain had settled down. He was fine. Okay. So that's issue number one. That was either triggered by the sun. Is that exposure, which it does happen to people.  Um, if you want to learn more about it, there's lots of hell's itch. Um, Facebook groups that you can join. And my two tick docks on hell's itch have gotten more views than anything else I've posted. 

Like we're in the tens of thousands at this point.  Which is hilarious because my, where the F is my village tic talk is not dedicated to hell's. From sunburn, but whatever. Anyway, that's w that's what that people want. Apparently.  Um, so we had that happen.  And then.  A few weeks ago, I'm losing track of time at this point, but like five weeks ago, he had  a severe headache for 13 days. And we went to the chiropractor. 

We went to urgent care. We saw our doctor. We  then a few days later went and saw a nurse practitioner in our doctor's office. And nothing was making it better. And we ended up at the ER by the second Saturday we were dealing with this. And I don't think the treatment that they gave at the ER actually really fixed anything. 

I think the barometric pressure overnight that night, Changed. And that is what fix things, but he had this horrible headache. They did an MRI at the ER.  And the doctor. At this, this ER, which we went to a different one.  And, you know, he's had a headache for two weeks.  

She's like, well, what do you want me to do?  And I'm like, I don't know, lady, I have been managing this for 13 days. You're the fifth doctor's appointment we've had.  And she's like, well, I mean, I'm just not a neurologist and, you know, so like what did your pediatrician send you here for? Like, what do you want done? And I said, well, I think she was wanting some imaging since we're 13 days into this, to make sure that there's, you know, he doesn't, he isn't having a stroke or something. And some pain management would be good.  And she, I think it was really important to her that I know that she wasn't going to give us a game plan. For managing chronic headache.  And I was like, I know we're not here for you to manage future headaches. 

I need you to manage this headache. We need to break this headache. Can you do that? Like we were. Getting slightly testy.  In there and actually was very frustrating because the day before, when we were meeting with the nurse practitioner at our pediatrician's office, who I will not be seeing her again, I mean, she and I, we were talking to her for a long time and she's talking about like,  Like exercise that he needs to get and he needs to have a railway well-rounded diet and, you know, he needs to stay off of screens. And I'm like, I, we are here today. Because we're on day 12 of the headache. I need help breaking the headache he's in right now. I don't need advice on his diet. 

His diet did not suddenly change 12 years ago. I mean, 12 days ago. He has been eating and playing and screen timing the same amount, like nothing has changed. And so I don't know why we're talking about iron and vitamins and calcium right now, because none of that is going to fix where we are right now. 

And where we are right now is in the middle of an intractable headache. They need your help fixing. And she's like, well, I'm just trying to, you know, It's just say for root causes or whatever. You know, we need to be eating more from the farm, then the pantry, I think she was saying, and I was like, oh my God. 

Okay. Well, we didn't just start eating processed food 12 days ago. So what are we going to do today?  So that we can try to break this headache. And if you guys, if you don't suffer from chronic headaches, first of all, lucky you like congratulations. So as someone who does suffer chronic headaches and chronic migraine,  Sometimes your body gets into a cycle  and it just cannot break the cycle of pain. 

And I'm sure it honestly relates to other types of physical pain.  But when you're in that situation, I can't tell you, I don't even know how many times I've ended up in the ER, because I've tried all this stuff I have at home.  And none of that is working. And you just need to go and have somebody give you a cocktail of drugs and essentially like knock you out. 

And it's like unplugging and plugging your computer back in practically. And.  Over the years now, I have all of those drugs at home. Besides an Ivy, I can do basically everything at home.  But my cocktail is not appropriate to give to a child.  So I was needing help and I was there because the things that we had been told to do, weren't helping. 

And I have no idea why, why we're talking about the farm right now. I don't know why we're talking about the farm right now, when we're in the middle of a crisis. Now, when I come back to you, And we realized, oh, he's going to be a chronic headache suffer. Well, how can we manage that? Great. We can have that conversation then. 

But I finally, I was like, I'm sorry, I don't, I really don't mean to push back on everything you are saying. But talking about the farm and vitamins. And how much screen time he gets is not helping the serious pain he's in right now. So can we stop talking about screen time right now?  



Like what in the world? 

So we left there. I was really, I was fuming. And then anyway, we ended up at the ER, the next day with a doctor that was like, what do you want me to do? So they did manage to give him an IV with some medication that we hadn't tried yet. And here that seems to be the end of the headache. Although the weather changed overnight and I, you know, probably that's what fixed it. 

So anyway, he had that issue. Then a couple of weeks later.  Suddenly his shoulder is killing him. Like just killing him. And.  You know, try and Advil and Tylenol and he to. And ice and all these things. And I have like some CBD lotion or whatever. So I was going to rub it on there.  And just, I can't even tell you how lightly I was touching his skin. And he was yelping in pain. And it was like from his shoulder blade, I would say from the base of his shoulder blade wrapped up over the top of his shoulder to about his clavicle.  

And this is where it's like, I didn't realize at the time that he was ha it was nerve pain. He like having a shirt on her, um, moving it all her, he was getting zaps. So we had that happen.  And we went to the doctor after a few days. And she did an x-ray of his collarbone to make sure it wasn't broken. And she gave us, you know, a child appropriate muscle relaxer type of medication. And it resolved after a few days. 

And then a week later it started happening to his lake. So.  That brings us to the present day.  

So, and everyone, we just need to accept the fact that I get thirsty. And if you hear.  This sound is my metal straw in my water, and I am a human being and he drinks something.  

And if I had a producer. They would edit that out. But that is not a person in my life.  So. Okay guys. Anyway.  

Texted Archer on Friday. Cause I'm like, can you just send in some steroids and we'll see if we can like calm this down and then come see you after the holiday. Laura doctor didn't want to do that. She wanted us to go to the ER. Fine.  And. It was in that moment, the Friday after Thanksgiving.  Where I had planned on getting some rest over the.  Four day weekend.  That I just, my whole body, I just wanted to go to sleep. Test.  Like started shutting down. I was overwhelmed.  And I was sitting there thinking I.  Cannot.  Do another complex.  Problem. Like a complex. Medical problem.  I'm exhausted. I have spent.  Hours and hours of my life. For like,  Eight years. Researching. All things, ADHD and anxiety and every other type of thing that could be going on. 

And one of my kids' life.  And I'm just sitting there like.  

Aye.  I need to have a plan before we go to the ER.  Like, what are we going to give him?  

What am I going to ask for? Because. Guess what.  We're back at the ER.  And this is supposedly the ER in town. That's good. So we do have a children's hospital in our city.  That gets all kinds of awards. I personally don't know anyone that would give them an award.  

But  people do organizations do.  Um, But the last multiple times we had been there, I just felt like, unless a kid had like, Was having a full blown asthma attack or a bone sticking out of their body or something like. Just, we were not going to get any kind of intervention. Or help.  So it wasn't gonna go there. 

And then when he was having his shoulder pain, we went to this kind of like, you know, I don't know. It's like, it's not affiliated with a hospital. It's one of those places, but it's an ER.  

Um, we went there and I would say it was better as far as like, we were seeing very quickly. I think we were only there a few hours actually. And we were only there a few hours because my son slept for a couple hours from the medication they gave him.  So we went back to that place.  Because I did not want to go back to the hospital where no one believes a single thing that comes out of my mouth.  And.  The doctor comes in and my son is sitting on the bed. And he's playing on his iPad and.  The doctor's like, well, how are you feeling right now? 

Like, what's your pain level? One to 10. And my son's like an eight. The doctor's like, oh man. Yeah, you must be really hurting.  I realized yesterday, the doctor didn't touch him. The doctor did not examine his leg. Did not do a neuro check. Which I'm not that worried about because we had just had an MRI the other day and the previous doctor had done a nerve. 

Actually. I think he'd had two neuro checks in the last 10 days. And a neuro check is where the doctor like watches. You walk across the room. We'll have you walk on your heels, walk on your toes. And then. Push against their, um, hands, push up, push down, you know, raise your legs, all these things to make sure that, you know, you haven't had a stroke that they're not missing something. 

Anyway, this doctor didn't do that.  He didn't like even remove the blanket and look at my son's leg.  He just sat down and was like, okay, well, you know, what do you want me to do?  He even said like, Hey, listen, I am not a neurologist. I'm just a dummy. Our doctor, you know, stuck working the day after Thanksgiving.  Wow. 

Okay. But you did go to middle medical school, right? And you did. Go through rounds and multiple departments. And what. I'm just a dumb ER, doctor or work in the day after Thanksgiving.  I said, well, I think some prednisone would be a good idea and I would like a prescription for Gabapentin.  Which is a nerve pain drug. 

It can actually over time, eventually like years, my dad had a back surgery and he had a nerve. That had been, um, severed and, you know, his doctor was hopeful that over a period of years, that it would eventually grow back. Or, you know, grow longer or whatever. Anyway, Gabapentin is this drug.  It's. 

I mean, it's probably a very controversial to give it to a child.  Um, but I, he was like, oh, I don't know. I've never heard of a kid. Being prescribed Gabapentin. And you guys. Thank goodness. I spent a few hours on this before we got there. Because I said, well, actually it's approved for children. Um, three and up.  And he's like, oh really? 

Okay. And he goes, do you know what the appropriate dosages.  I'm like.  I believe it is 10 to 15 milligrams per kilo. But you need to confirm that.  

So he scampered away.  And I called our pharmacy and they were closed, which is not normal. I feel like normally the day after Thanksgiving they're open, but I'm glad that I called cause I was like, oh my gosh. If he sends the prescription there.  We're going to be screwed. So I kind of like go out in the hall and I'm like, Hey, can you tell him he needs to send a prescription to the pharmacy? 

That's open 24 hours a day.  And he comes out and he's got his like phone out. And I think he's probably got some app for dosages and stuff.  And he's like, does this look right to you? Like three quarters of an ML, every, you know, three times a day or whatever? And I'm just like, Well, um, I know that it comes in capsules and I was thinking, I think the max he can have a day is like 460 milligrams. 

So whatever that would be in capsule form. So, you know, if they have a hundred milligrams, maybe. A hundred milligrams, three times a day.  And he's like, okay. Yeah, I'll go figure it out. You guys, what in the world?  Once again, I do not have a medical degree. So we leave there. With they gave him steroids while we were there. 

We got our prescription for Gabapentin. He started, actually, I did not give it to him.  At first, I wanted to see if the steroids would work. Cause I was a little nervous about the Gabapentin because it was my idea. Not a doctor's idea.  Anyway, by the following day, we started taking the Gabapentin.  And he.  Is better now, but now he has a horrible headache. 

So, um, it's Monday and we are at home and I will be calling the doctor here in a minute. When they open.  

And.  I just.  The overwhelm. Is. Like the more into healthcare. And mental health issues. We get the more I'm like, does anyone know anything?  Like if I walked into the ER with my son who, first of all, it took, this was the third time this happened before, because I'm dealing with a child trying to explain his pain. 

First of all,  And it didn't occur to me that he was having nerve pain.  But if I hadn't realized that, like what, what would we have even been doing at the doctor at this point? Like what.  

So.  

If I don't have a plan.  

And I haven't researched it to try to figure out what's happening.  And I'm sitting in front of a doctor who also like.  I think Grey's anatomy and house and even scrubs ha has it spoiled us into what we should expect of sitting in front? Have a doctor. Cause I have to say this the third time in like six months that I have been in an emergency room setting and had the doctor look at me and be like, what, what are you like, what do you want me to. To do.  



I don't know, doctor, what do you think we should do? 

And do you have any colleagues? You could consult. I don't know.  So I.  

I know there are some places that have, are capable of having plans.  Um, one of my kids, little friends,  Was, um, found to have cancer.  

End of last school year, I guess.  And it was kind of a complicated tumor as far as where it was. And they went to St. Jude.  And this is, you know, the second or third person I know of that has gone there. And they seem to know what they're doing.  And.  They had a very distinct treatment plan. And he is home now in remission.  So like they, they seem to know what they're doing.  Is there.  And at Quizlet for St. 

Jude for like other stuff. Is there a St. Jude for mental health?  Like, if you have to keep going on your mental health journey outside of your just local therapists, is there a place like a Mayo clinic? Level. Place for that.  

And.  The disconnect between all of the.  

Facilities is so interesting too, you know, I mean, I have a friend whose son had.  Auditory issues. I mean, he has auditory processing disorder. And they drove. 12 hours.  I really feel like it was once a week for a period of time and then once a month for treatment, because there wasn't any place closer than 12 hours away. For them to go do this treatment.  But I don't think insurance covered because I think auditory processing disorder is still one of those. 

Like, is it real? What is this?  And I'm just like, These people that I know.  

There, the amount of effort people are having to put into it. And like, if we need to go see a neurologist, guess what? There is not anybody in my city to see.  

We.  Would need to go at least an hour and a half away, if not all the way out of state to where there's some neurologists that people really, really like.  

So.  

I guess that's the next step is figuring that out. I'm very afraid of not being believed.  Our job as child advocates and not being believed.  Or taken seriously on a regular basis is so it's, I, I don't know. I feel like it's one of the hardest parts. That's one of the reasons why I really love our pediatrician.  She. So it's a husband and wife, so we may mostly see the wife. She believes me.  When I'm in front of her describing what's going on. 

I think she feels like we are talking to each other as peers. And I appreciate.  The fact that she never looks at me and is like, okay, mom, well, let's take a look.  

Uh, so.  But, you know, as we move from doctor to doctor, I mean, just the experience with that nurse practitioner and then the ER doctor, the next day was exhausting. I don't also want to have to sit here and fight with you over what's happening.  And. I have to be so careful because if I'm too combative,  Or.  We are there too much.  Am I is somebody gonna call the authorities on me because I have a friend whose son ended up having very complex migraines. He had these. Migraines where his brain wasn't in. He wasn't in pain. But it basically caused stroke-like symptoms throughout his body. And there were periods of time where he couldn't walk and he needed a wheelchair. And nobody can figure out what's wrong. 

And they thought there must be a Munchausen by proxy situation happening here until he went to Mayo clinic and they were like, oh, we think he's having these crazy. Uh, migraine storms or whatever that are affecting his mobility.  Yeah. You know, but the ER, doctors calling.  Um,  Colin DHS on her.  Which, I mean, you want them to call DHS, I guess. 

I mean, right. Like you want them to call. I just need to sound incredibly sane when I'm sitting there and also be really careful for what I'm asking for. Cause I feel like every time. They're looking at me like we're not going to give you opioids. And I'm like, I hope you don't because opioids aren't good for what we're dealing with any way.  So.  I'm just.  

I almost was to the point where I was like, I just can't move. I'm very tired. I have a mountain of research to do.  

I feel like I'm the only person in my little family that can manage this. My husband.  Um, Is not like the medical person. He's not the one to sit there and ask a million questions of the doctors or research a lot of stuff or. Whatever. So like when one of our kids broke their arm, He took them to the ER.  He can handle broken arm.  

But when you're sitting there having to have a discussion with the doctor and pushing back. That this is not him. So this is me. This is all me. This is me. Doing the research advocating, finding the healthcare systems. And, um, it's so overwhelming. And then there's just all the other regular stuff. Like one of my kids is really behind in math and we need somewhere or someone. To tutor him and I don't really know. How that's going to work because it isn't just like, he's not good at math. 

It's, there's some processing issues. There there's some ADHD delays as far as like, if you don't have any working memory. And you can't remember why you walked in a room or you had something to say, but if you have to wait 30 seconds, you're going to forget. You can't really memorize the multiplication table.  So it's important to me that whoever helps him understands that.  So I have no idea where to go.  I've gotten some ideas. 

I have no idea where to put.  Math tutoring in our schedule. Feel like it's important.  I have two kids in afterschool sports.  One of the places was like, so he'll come, you know, they'll come here once, like twice a week. And do an assignment each time they're here. And then there will be three to five assignments that you'll be doing at home nightly, like one a day, I guess. With your kid and I'm like, ha ha. You're hilarious.  We wouldn't be here. 

If I thought my son would sit with me and do math.  There's no way. And if you are judging me for that, then you are not raising this kid because there are kids out there and they will be world changers, but that you can not get to do. Anything. And what I mean by that is there is no consequence. Big enough. 

There is no bribe. Sweet enough. To motivate this one to sit down and do a math worksheet with me, like literally with. The whole world of all of their favorite people and things and goals could burn to the ground.  And in that moment.  They ain't going to come sit with me and do a math worksheet.  It's just not going to happen.  So I was like, oh, okay. 

That sounds great. Mm, I don't know how we're going to do that.  

And I feel for this kid because when I was kid.  I started out good at math. I was like in the like advanced group in my elementary school math group. And then somewhere I fell off in a ditch. And I think it started around algebra. But.  It's like, it made sense in the sense where somebody could be like, especially like my brother, like, okay, we're going to do, we're going to multiply this side by two and that side by two. 

Okay. Then we're going to divide, you know, whatever. And I'd be like, okay. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. That makes sense. And then he'd be like, okay, so you do this problem on your own. And my brain would just go, Nope.  Whatever you just explained is gone now. And this pro math problem has different numbers in it. 

So I don't know what to do.  And I've probably said this on here before, but like I had to. Bright. Papers about mathematicians in high school to pass math.  And it's funny cause I was in AP classes and everything else. Um, except for.  Science. I took physiology instead of, uh, chemistry.  And did great. I could tell you all the bones and the muscles and all of that stuff. 

I can tell you all of that. I do not know anything about the periodic table, however, because I did. I managed to go around chemistry.  So, I mean, I remember I even had a teacher in high school that like at one point he took me out in the hall and he's like, Stephanie, I just don't understand you. Have great grades and everything else. You're not even trying.  And I started crying and I was like, I'm trying, I'm trying. 

I just can't math. I just can't map. And he looked at me and I think he was like, oh crap.  Um, so anyway, we got to, we got this math struggle. One of my kids would like to see his therapist again. I think that's great.  Um,  We got sports happening.  

And it's just one sport each. Like we're not over-scheduled as far as like, we don't have people like playing soccer and piano and horseback riding and like, Nope. One place to in this one place. Basketball. And my youngest doesn't do anything yet.  And I just know that. I remember during the pandemic, when the whole world stopped.  And realizing that there was too much, like every second of the day had so many things.  

And I have been fighting ever since to not have. Too many things.  Like I swore we would never go back to piles and piles of activities where there wouldn't be rest. And we wouldn't.  Be able to.  You know, have some fun besides just like running all over town to things.  

And I know that having like a physical issue and a mental health issue.  Like that takes priority over getting to sports practice. Right.  

I just. I need to know, like, and ideally all of this stuff takes place after school.  And, you know, the therapists and the math tutors and the orthodontists and all of those places. I only have so many appointments after three 30 every day.  

So I.  

Anyway.  

So what I am doing right now.  As I'm just trying.  

Well, here in a second, I'm going to call the doctor when they open, but I'm just trying to rest. Where I can.  

Even if it's only a few minutes at a time.  

So.  If you can get a walk in.  Crate.  If you can sit and read a book or take a nap. Great.  

If you don't have time for that.  

I'm going to say, scrolling through Instagram for 15 minutes also counts.  Just doing.  

Something that doesn't require all of your synapses.  To do like give your, because you know, one of my kids was like, you don't. Why are you so tired? You don't even doing anything.  No, it was like my brain, my brain is tired.  I haven't like clowned in clunk, clowned. I haven't climbed any mountains today.  

But my brain.  Is wiped out. Just completely wiped out.  And that is real. So I am, there's just gotta be things around here that aren't going to get done. I think that that's going to be the main thing we're going to triage.  Clean underwear over dishes in the sink and see.  How things go and, you know, we'll, we're at the beginning of a journey on this nerve pain thing.  And I'm overwhelmed at the thought of seeing a new doctor. That's like three hours away. 

And also it will probably take six months to get into.  Um,  Yeah.  

There's all of,  all of that. So.  Not to sit here and complain.  Sorry.  But just to say, like,  I think everybody has something going on. And. We all need to give ourselves a ton of grace. And give each other a ton of grace. Lower the bar.  And.  You know, spend 10 minutes on Tik TOK, watching silly videos. To give yourself even just a tiny, tiny break. So I would encourage you to do that.  



Between now and two weeks from now, and we have a new episode come out. 

I encourage you to.  

Bind. Some Zen, do you remember on the daily show when Jon Stewart was the host and at the end, he would say, and now your moment of Zen. And it was just like a 45 second clip of like a monkey riding, a bicycle or something.  

See how many of those you can cobble together throughout the day.  To try to give our brains some kind of  📍 rest.  Because this tricky life with these tricky kids is. Hard. It is hard. So it feels hard because it is hard. So I encourage everybody to take care of themselves. Take that five minutes when you can, and I will see you next week, villagers.  



Where the F is. 

My village is an SP production. Special, thanks to Jason. Cademy for our music.