Health, Both Mental and Physical

I don't know if you remember, but I've been having some issues with occasional dizziness, sometimes mixed with weakness of my right leg, for some time. In the last couple of days, I've had a bit more dizziness and some feeling of pressure in my ear, so tomorrow (well, this) morning I'm going to stop in at the campus clinic before work to see if I have an ear infection or something. Not sure if it's related to prior dizziness, but it's annoying.

I felt exhausted when I went to bed, but now I'm awake and not very tired. Frustrating. I think the noise of my phone's charger might have woken me up. It's a high-pitched enough sound that most people wouldn't notice it, and it took me some trial and error to pin down just what was doing it. I may have to plug my phone in for the night on the other side of my room if it's going to start doing that.

I'm going to make an appointment to talk to a counselor while I'm at the clinic, too. The anxiety, worry, and feelings of wanting to withdraw are not okay, and are kind of worrisome. (Worried about being worried; that's kind of funny, actually.)

[As an aside, I feel some hesitancy about talking about mental health issues in a public forum. At the same time, to not do so would be to disregard my feelings on the topic. People have physical illnesses from mild to serious, and they have mental illnesses from mild to serious. The fact that people feel shame about the latter and not the former arises from problematic social expectations that I want to actively fight. {I guess fighting problematic social expectations has become something of a hobby of mine....} If it's natural for me to make a brief note here about a visit to a doctor/nurse, I ought to do the same for a visit to a counselor.]

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Also, were I actually single, I'd be very tempted to buy this shirt in today's Woot sale. My unicycling still needs work, but I think I'm good enough at it to justify calling myself a unicyclist.

http://shirt.woot.com/offers/different-spokes?ref=cnt_wp_0_8

More Road-tripping Pictures

Some of the stillest water I've ever photographed.

This is at Clark's Landing in Crystal Falls, Michigan. It's named after Joseph Clark, a Navy Seal killed in Iraq. Kuma and I stopped here to stretch our legs.





While I don't want to live anywhere but in a city, pictures like this do make me miss being up north.

Pictures of the shrine of Bishop Baraga, whose large statue stands on a cloud supported by five large steel beams coming out of Indian Tepees, as well as a bunch more photos and commentary, ( behind the cut. )

Clinic Visit, Dog

I declared today a sick day and went to bed, planning to get up at 10:30. I was up about 1:30 and took a trip out to the clinic after getting some food. The nurse looked me over and said that it might be clogged eustachian tubes. I have some decongestant medication (generic Robitussin) as well as pseudoephedrine tablets to take a few times a day for a few days.

I also made an appointment to talk to a counselor in the first week of February. Having finally decided to stop worrying about doing so, I feel good about that.

I bought the household dog, Wonka, a toy at Big!Lots on the way home. He's being really cute with it. I think he wants to be in his 'den' (a corner of my parents' room) to keep it safe, but he also wants to be out with people. He keeps walking back and forth from one spot to the other, spending a minute or two there before moving again. I love that dogs get so happy about such simple things.