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Life
I had a quiet week at home last week and am still struggling with a relapse of my chronic illness, though last week wasn't as bad as the previous month. The big news is that I've started a new, experimental treatment for my immune disorder that has given me hope of a better future for the first time in decades. When I talked to my ME/CFS specialist recently, she said that she and the other doctors (there are only about a dozen specialists in the US, but they all work cooperatively together) have been seeing good results from microdosing of the new GLP-1 weight loss medications. They have a strong anti-inflammatory effect and have been shown to help normalize immune function in those with immune disorders. So, I'm trying it!
The medical field noticed that autoimmune patients taking GLP-1's sometimes saw huge improvements in their diseases, even if they didn't lose much weight. The microdosing reduces side effects (and I really don't want to lose any weight, since I lost about 25 pounds a couple of years ago due to treating thyroid dysfunction). The day after my first dose was the best I've felt in months, with no immune symptoms at all. This weekend (and today), I still had/have flu-like aches, but my energy has been good. I just took my 3rd dose this morning (and last week, I started on half a microdose!), so we'll see. I am feeling cautiously optimistic but am trying not to indulge too much in "what if" fantasies! After all, I've had this very limiting disease for almost 24 years now. We'll see ...
Fall foliage is just about at its peak here in northern Delaware, so I've been enjoying the views from our windows and back deck and around our neighborhood. And I made a trip to Trader Joe's on Friday, for the first time in months, so that was exciting!
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| From our back deck |
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| View from my bedroom window |
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Perfection of Reading Booktube Tag - This was a unique, interesting tag with questions related to Buddhist virtues (the "six perfections") and how they might relate to books I have enjoyed. I found myself thinking of books that I don't often discuss on my channel, so this was a fun one!
Chronic Illness Vlog: Seasonal Fall/Winter Relapse & Trying a New Treatment for ME/CFS and Long-COVID - If you're interested in more details about my current (and annual) relapse and the new treatment I am trying, you can check out this recent vlog I posted last week.
Friday Reads: Psychological Thriller, Paranormal Suspense & Ghost Stories! - My weekly reading update of what my family and I have been reading, including lots of spooky short stories!
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Tracker is back for its third season! My husband and I love this time of year when our favorite shows on network TV come back with new seasons. One of those is Tracker, starring Justin Hartley as Colter Shaw, a loner who travels across the nation to find missing people. This latest season kicks off with an episode that digs even deeper into Colter's own family history and difficult upbringing, all while Colter manages to find another missing person. We love this show for its mix of drama, suspense, intriguing cases, and travel across the U.S. You can read my review and watch a trailer for season 1 here.
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I finished reading The Housemaid by Freida McFadden for my neighborhood book group last week. Millie has just gotten out of prison and is struggling to find a job, until wealthy Nina hires her as a live-in housekeeper. The tension is high from the first pages, since a prologue tells you there’s a dead body in the attic, and Nina treats Millie horribly from day one. It was a very propulsive story, and I’ve enjoyed it. But I predicted several of the biggest twists before they were revealed … and I never do that! My husband is the one who usually guesses what will happen (in books and movies, too - it’s annoying!), and I am normally taken completely by surprise by mystery, suspense, and thriller novels. At book group, several other people said they also knew what was coming, and some commented that the novel was poorly written. In all, our average rating was 6, with ratings varying from 2 to 10! We had a very wide range of opinions on this one. From my perspective, it's a fun, fast read but there are certainly better thrillers out there.
Now, I have moved onto an unusual pick for me, The Sirens by Emilia Hart. It has some fantasy elements, which aren't usually my thing, so I normally wouldn't have picked it up on my own. But, one of the booksellers at Northshire Books (hosts of Booktopia that I attend every year) raved about it at the event this year, other friends of mine from Booktopia enjoyed it, and then I received it in a book subscription box that my son sent me. I'm glad I gave it a try! In Australia in 2019, Lucy wakes up in her college dorm to find that she's in someone else's room, choking a fellow student, with no memory of how she got there. She's never sleepwalked before, but her older sister used to, so Lucy flees to where her sister, Jess, is now living. Jess isn't home, but Lucy goes into her place, an old rundown house on a cliff in a small seaside town that Lucy has heard of before, in the true crime podcasts she listens to. There's been a string of missing men in the town, going back decades. Besides the sleepwalking, Lucy has also begun to have vivid dreams, where she is a young girl named Mary, trapped in the hold of a ship with her sister, Eliza, and 80 other women convicts, being transported to Australia. The dreams continue and intensify, along with the nighttime rambles, as Lucy reads her sister's diary and learns stunning things she never knew. It's a complex story of these two pairs of sisters, separated by over 200 years, and so far, the fantasy elements are sort of paranormal, which I actually really like. I'm enjoying it so far, and it's a very compelling narrative that is keeping me engrossed.
On audio, I'm listening to White Smoke by Tiffany D. Jackson, a YA novel that is perfect for spooky season, the R.I.P. event, and the Book Cougars podcast's year of reading ghost stories! Teen Marigold and her blended family have just moved from California to a large Midwestern city after her mother won an artist's residency grant. Their newly renovated house is in the middle of a street of empty, dilapidated houses. As Marigold, her younger brother Sam, and their bratty step-sister Piper try to settle into their new home, strange things begin to happen. Doors and cupboards open by themselves, things go missing, footsteps and other strange sounds can be heard, and more. Even some of the construction workers refuse to enter their house! Marigold suffers from severe anxiety, and her new surroundings aren't helping. This novel combines real-life issues like mental health, gentrification, drug use, and class issues with spooky haunted house elements. I'm loving it so far!
My husband, Ken, is now reading Run by Blake Crouch, another book I gave him for his birthday by one of our favorite authors. We both love Crouch's more recent sci fi thrillers, including Dark Matter (my favorite!), Recursion, and Upgrade, so we've been reading some of his earlier novels. Run was an early novel that he self-published when he wasn't happy with how his novels were doing with traditional publishing, and it renewed his fledgling writing career. It's an apocalyptic thriller about a man and his family on the run. Ken says it is very gripping and hard to put down!
Our son, 31, finished reading A Crown for Cold Silver by Alex Marshall, a fantasy novel. He said last weekend that he hasn't had a chance to start a new book. I'm sure he's started one by now, but I haven't had a chance to catch up with him. I'll have an update by next week!
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What are you and your family reading this week?
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