Category: Journey

So I still had I think three cigarettes left from yesterday’s pack, opened a new pack earlier today. Stressful day today, I vaped a couple of times with the low nicotine but ended up smoking more today. I’m smoking the last from my pack now, which puts me at 23 cigarettes so far, today. I just opened my second to last pack and guesstimating I will smoke one or two out of it before I actually go to sleep.

Once again, I started my day with a lack of sleep, thanks to horn dog Cooper moaning and groaning and barking throughout the night. While Joplin isn’t flagging him, she is flirting a bit, so although I understand Cooper’s frustration, it still bugged me when he kept waking me up!

The people that handle my healthcare finances called to see if I had received a Medicaid card yet (nope) and her tone of voice verged on panic as she informed me, I would need to call Social Security for an appointment – and their appointments were two months in the future – before she could “help” me. I went to the Social Security page to see what they could explain, and the page said if I had a my Social Security account (I do) I apparently created in 2012, I should log in and follow the directions there. I did and have now successfully I think submitted my application online. The hard part was trying to make sure they understood I only need Medicare/Medicaid and not the financial stuff. I’m covered for life with the Public Employees Retirement System.

Long and short of it though, is the Medicaid crap added a ton of stress on me, worrying about my blood pressure meds, etc. I know it was well before dinner time, sometime in the afternoon, when I started the application, and I didn’t finish it until roughly 9:30p.m. Hence my smoking more, I guess. Dammit. I mean, my disability began back in the early 90’s and trying to remember back 30 years for specific dates and shit, medications and treatments… bah! My freaking stroke in 2018 killed a lot of those memories when it damaged my brain.

Tomorrow, Daughter Mine is calling the Social Security office for me, to make sure they understand I’m only asking for the medical help and not financial. Hopefully that’ll speed things up so they mail the Medicaid card out to me, and I can contact the idiots that handle my healthcare finances to formally sign up or whatever the hell they expect me to do, to keep my ass covered.

And now Joplin is jumping from my bed to race to the door, stirring horn dog Cooper up… *sighs* I have a (non) stroke headache now, so I am so outtie….

Just about ready to go to bed, if my horny male Shepherd will ever settle down, that is. Sheesh. Whine, circle circle circle, whine whine, circle stomp big ass paws whine – rinse and repeat. My female Shepherd is in heat so I don’t really blame him, but she hasn’t attempted to flag him (show interest in being bred) but those pheromones are certainly driving my big boy nuts.

Any who, I still have about four cigarettes left in this pack that was opened last night. Yesterday I smoked somewhere between two and four cigarettes from this pack, before I fell asleep. It looks like I’ll have four left when I go to sleep tonight, so I’m looking at today as a roughly three quarters of a pack smoked. That’s a definite yay me, in my opinion. I factored the low end of only two smoked yesterday and four left today, for the math, which left fourteen smoked today… right? So like I said, that’s a yay me.

Huh, Cooper the horn dog settled down, I have a decent horror podcast playing so I am so outtie….

Mmkay, still plugging away, turned down buying cigarettes when my daughter stopped to pick up some for her household. Yay, me! Vaped a tiny bit today, mainly when I went with my daughter and grandkids to Walmart, and daughter as well as adult granddaughter were smoking in the car. I did smoke one on the way but then used vape for rest of trip. Told my daughter I actually had selected a quit date – didn’t tell her what day I selected, though. She said she hoped to join my bandwagon shortly after me.

Didn’t really notice any lessoning of desire to smoke, although I honestly don’t know if Wellbutrin is supposed to do that. Still smoking from the last pack I opened yesterday/last night. So, fingers crossed that I’m actually slowing down once again. I still have a total of three packs left from my last carton. However, I did notice I was a bit more irritable towards the late afternoon. As my depression caused severe anger bordering on rage quite often, unknown if the irritability is related to my depression or not. I’m sure it isn’t from needing more nicotine cause, hello, I’m still smoking. I’ll keep an eye on it via this daily update because it could be a side effect of the Wellbutrin, but it also could be a sign that I simply don’t have enough of the drug in me, yet. I mean, I’ve only taken a total of three pills at this point.

So, my third day is pretty much winding down, but it’s not over yet. It’s only 8:15 p.m.; I still have to walk my girls – senior Collie sisters and psycho bitch GSD (in heat!) AKA as Joplin and bring my young male GSD in for the evening. And Cooper, the male, gets a minimum of thirty minutes of laying on my bed, chewing his chew toy, while I pet and talk exclusively to him. Last night he got a hair over an hour of “Mommy time.” Oh, and tomorrow I’m adding vitamin B12 to my morning regime of medications; my doctor mentioned this vitamin should help me with the lingering fatigue and brain fog, from when I got COVID-19 in early August. I am vaxxed X3, by the way… in case you were wondering.

I think that pretty much covers my day, so I am so outtie….

Getting ready for bed, it’s one a.m. I think I actually smoked more today than I typically do. I used my vape twice during the day, in substitution for a cigarette, but I do think I smoked more. I picked my quit date basically due to the number of packs I had left from my carton, figuring I’d run out around the eighth or so and if I vaped, I’d likely be able to stretch as needed. But after today, I’m seriously thinking I’ll run out of cigarettes around the fourth or fifth… and I know, for some odd reason, I do tend to smoke more when I’m low on cigarettes. I know, stupid me… and I’m so outtie.

So, my doctor had told me to only take one pill a day, versus the two a day on the prescription, to allow my body a chance to adapt to the new medication as well as slowly building it up in my system. At this stage you’re allowed to keep smoking like you normally did/do. The script directions say one pill a day for your first three days, then add the second dose on day four; the doses need to be eight hours apart, and you can take with or without food.

At my heaviest smoking period, way back when my husband had a heart attack, I smoked two packs a day. Once he was out of danger and things were leveling back out for the kids and me, I cut my smoking back to between a pack and one and a half a day. That’s pretty much where I leveled out for years, some days smoking closer to the one and a half packs and others hovering right around a pack. I don’t recall my exact age, but believe I was in my early to mid 30’s at the time. Around my forties, I leveled out to a pack a day to sometimes a pack plus maybe five cigarettes out of the next pack. By now, I was consciously trying to smoke less.

In my fifties I was finally down to a pack or less a day, where I could actually count the number of single cigarettes smoked versus packs. I was smoking between ten to fifteen cigarettes a day. I was proud of myself, dammit! The last time I had gotten myself down so low, I was in my late twenties. Back then, the typical advice to help quit smoking, was to switch from your preferred brand to one you could “tolerate” but didn’t really like. I did that, in my twenties and successfully quit smoking for six weeks. Now, I’m the type of person that will do the opposite of what I’m told to do, and when I had quit for those six weeks, my Mom (thanks Mom!) started lecturing me that now would be a good time to quit smoking. She didn’t acknowledge that I had already stopped smoking six weeks earlier – don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t expecting praise or anything, just simple acknowledgement like “Keep it up,” or “Good job,” or something like that. After about twenty minutes into her stop smoking lecture, I lit up in front of her. One of my husband’s cigarettes, mind you, a yucky cheap non-menthol. (I had been smoking menthol only for over five years by that time. ) So yeah, that was well before my husband having a heart attack and my heavy smoking period.

In my mid-fifties I started vaping and was able to cut my cigarettes back to a half a pack or less, daily. I was bouncing around eight to twelve cigarettes a day and vape – with 0.3 whatever the measurement is of nicotine in the vape juice, as needed. My goal was to hit five cigarettes daily, with vaping as needed, and then quit. I knew I was reducing the amount of nicotine intake and need, so felt the residuals of quitting wouldn’t be as harsh. I kept hard candies and carrots on hand for my cigarette substitutes – that was for the psychological dependency. I enjoyed the various flavors of my vape juice, too. I wasn’t limited to menthol, although I did add mint flavor to a lot of the juices. My vape started acting up, it was outdated and needed to be replaced because I couldn’t find the replacement parts for it. I went to my normal vape store and shopped for a new vape; the younger people working that day, erred and gave me 0.6 nicotine juice instead of the 0.3 I had been using. I didn’t realize it and was puzzled that now I was exhibiting withdrawal symptoms and sort of unconsciously began smoking more to relieve them. *sighs* I was back up to a half to full pack a day before I realized it. And that’s where I stayed until I had my stroke in 2018 at the age of sixty.

In the last four years I’ve once again bounced around from a half pack to one and a half daily, with the heavier smoking days when I’m around my daughter and son-in-law – both smokers. As I live on the same property, I tend to be around them more often, Although I’ve consciously worked myself down to a pack a day this year – 2022. And now I’ve asked my doctor for assistance and am making the conscious effort to quit. Wish me luck! I am so outtie….

I started smoking eons ago, way back in my earliest of teens. And I’ll be 65 in a little over four months from today; I still smoke. I had a stroke in November 2018, I blogged about it. Smoking was considered the number one reason for my stroke, stress was the secondary. It left me with high blood pressure and the need for daily medication. I still smoke…. Smoking doesn’t taste good, like it use to. Smoking sucks.

Every three months I would have a medical appointment, checking my blood pressure and for my medication’s refills. My doctor and I cheered when the top number finally leveled in the 140’s and the bottom number finally went below 100. Normal blood pressure is typically 120/80, by the way. When mine dropped to roughly 130/95, I was able to have appointments every six months, yay me! My latest appointment was two days ago. Imagine my shock to hear my blood pressure was 120/75. I was in happy shock, let me tell you!

Exercising has slipped due to fairly minor injuries to my legs and arms from overly rambunctious dogs. My three year old German Shepherd female is on the small side but makes up for her size in strength. Even with an “Easy” command, that girl can – and does! – drag me. My year and a half old male German Shepherd is almost as big as an Irish Wolfhound – the largest dog breed – and while he is a gentle giant, he’s still puppy clumsy and broke two of my toes when he jumped on them accidentally. Joplin is the female and tends to injure my arms and hands from her strong leash pulling, while clumsy Cooper injures my feet and shin area from sheer clumsiness and honestly, his big head!

All of that lead up is basically the back story. I started Wellbutrin today. Don’t know why I chose this date, but I picked October 10, 2022 to be my last day of smoking. I’ve added the mobile WP app to update daily, versus my normal at my pc updates. So, here starts my smoking cessation journey, and I’m so outtie….