tic toc

10-11-11


I have been more twitchy than normal. Not a big deal. Just noting it. Ken happened to listen to a podcast on Tourette’s. Man, the more and more I hear about this, the more and more I think I have a minor case of it, and Dax is well on his way, too.

It often starts as a kid clearing their throat. I used to clear my throat constantly. In fact, I remember my mom taking me to the doctor for it. He didn’t see anything horrid, and we tried to figure out what it was from. The first thought was allergy related. I stopped drinking milk for a month to see if it helped. I made sure my room was dust free. We tried several things, but eventually gave up since it didn’t seem to make my life problematic.

I still clear my throat more than I should. Dax does, too. It is almost involuntary. In fact, the other thing I have always done is to sniffle. I will do one forceful inhale through my nose, and will do this over and over. Sometimes I don’t even realize I am doing it. Sometimes I do it to the beat of a song that might be on, or just one that is in my head. I don’t even have to have a stuffy nose to do this.

In high school I noticed more tics. Facial ones, mostly. I was always twitching my face. I have an old video where I am hanging out with I think Sarah and David and you can see it so clearly. I keep scrunching my face randomly. I watched some videos of common facial tics. I could see my face in theirs.

Currently, my left hand tenses a lot. Then my left pointer finger will need to be held down tightly, either by my thumb, or sometimes even my other hand. I will often be walking, and I will notice my left thumb pressed up very tightly to my pointer finger. I won’t even notice how I have been holding it.

I have been tempted to somehow film it, but honestly, it doesn’t really do much to prevent me from my life. It is more just kind of funny. It is hard to diagnose, too, so I really don’t feel the need to go get it checked out. They also don’t have any kind of treatment, especially since mine is pretty mild.

It is a 50% chance that I will pass this gene down to my boys. Dax has already started to clear his throat. I am going to watch for tics. I will be curious. I also will be able to explain to him what is going on so that he understands it. It makes it easier to deal with.

When you kind of understand what it going on, it does make it seem less freaky.

I do wonder why some days I am worse than other days. I wonder if stress comes into play.

My blood sugar seems to be having some issues. Not sure what is going on, since I have been really good about everything. I started tracking it more, and I am paying attention to all of it, so let’s see what can be done.

This will sound odd, but there was one good thing to come out of Doug’s death. Shockingly, I have become closer to his mom, Sandra. It’s funny since really I have never had a high opinion of her. Mostly because I think of her as someone who broke my dad’s heart and someone who kept Doug from his father. But now that I know more about Doug, I am starting to wonder if perhaps it wasn’t so much that she kept him from our dad. She was protecting him. She must have known that Doug had issues. And since he was a child born in 1969, bi-polar disorder wasn’t probably as well known when it was first taking over. By the time he was a young adult, his issues had already taken up a huge part of his soul. He didn’t know how to let dad be a part of his life, even though I really feel like he wanted him to be there.

Sandra lost her only son. She lost her chance at things like grandkids. She isn’t married and she spends her time with her good friend from school. They live together, which of course makes my dad assume they are more than friends, but honestly, I could totally see being in my 60’s, living with a girlfriend if Ken was gone.

I think Sandra is reaching out to me mostly because she can think of me not only as a surrogate daughter, but more specifically, she wants to be part of me and the boys since we are blood related to her son. She can love my boys, to which I am happy to have her do that. The more people in their life, the better. Plus, it means, she is presenting me with heirlooms for the boys so that Doug will always be a part of their lives. It really is such a wonderful thing in so many ways.

I only worry about my dad. My mom is way on board with it, and mostly my dad seems fine with it. I think my parents are always shocked at how I become a part of other families. I think it used to make them jealous (mom especially) but now they recognize that it is truly a great thing.

The more love out there, the better life is.