Alfred or Scotty

I've been following American Idol closely this year as there are 4 contestants that I'm really excited about; Haley, Casey, James and Lauren. Fortunately all 4 are still in the running, at least until tonight when someone is kicked off. I'm crossing my fingers that Jacob or Scotty go home. They are both good but I don't think either of them are great. They aren't as polished or creative, nor do they have the richness in their voices that the other 4 have.

By The Way - Have you noticed how much Scotty looks like Alfred E Neuman?

It's insane...

Overly Complicated

Just what I need, now I'm having some trouble in my pelvic area. A new pain to add to the list. I don't know what's going on but I've been having little bursts of pain in this area for a couple months but last night it started in about 9pm and was still here this morning. After hours of really bad constant pain it backed up a bit and has since flared and calmed again several times. Is it a GI issue or a reproductive issue? Who knows.

The worst part is that I don't have a doctor to turn to. I don't have a general doc, and neither my neurologist nor my headache guy at Mayo can help here. My GYN has basically thrown up her hands and given up on helping me. Can they even do that?

I went ahead and made an appointment and saw a GI person on Monday. But now things are different than they were just a couple days ago. I'm scheduled for a CT contrast scan on Friday and I've put in a call to the doc. I don't have any idea what to expect in terms of a response. I suppose I should start looking for a new GYN too in case nothing is found.

I HATE THIS!!! I feel like my body is failing me more and more. As my medical situation continues to get more complicated I get more and more overwhelmed. I'm still trying to get a handle on these migraines, and now whatever is going on with my legs, and my endometreosis and, on top of all that, now something is going wrong in my gut. I live in a place where everything is disconnected. Finding a good doc is like finding a needle in a haystack around here and there is no chance of the different disciplines working together. How am I supposed to navigate all of this, especially while in all this pain? No really, how?

Oh how I wish we were back in the midwest and I could just go back and sit down with my Mayo team and really get a comprehensive work up.

Missing Amitriptyline

It took less than 48 hours after taking my last Neurontin for the severe nerve pain in my nerves to return to the more normal state of tenderness. Clearly not a coincidence. While I'm relieved and even a bit excited to have that behind me, I'm feeling the loss of the antidepressants I was taking earlier.

You may remember how excited I was to have an appetite and to have gained some weight during the first quarter of the year while I was taking Amitriptyline. I really thought (and still think) that despite all the wonderful benefits I experienced on this medication that there were so many others to try that may make more of an impact on my migraines without so many of the bad side effects. So far that hasn't worked out but there is still other meds and Botox to try.

In the weeks since I've been off it, I've been increasingly returning to my pre-Amitriptyline relationship with food. The nausea is ever present, I'm not craving specific foods, I don't have the will to do much cooking or baking and I'm just not enjoying food. The only thing that is different now, after a few months of good appetite and weight gain, my body is used to having lots of food so I'm still very hungry all the time. The war is now raging between my hunger and my lack of appetite and will.

What's interesting is that part of this war is about preparing and cleaning up after preparing a meal. I feel sluggish and physically beat down, which makes the business of food a real challenge. While I'm going to continue to search for the best migraine preventative I think I might also launch a search for a different antidepressant. It really helped me to feel more like myself (premigraine self). I had almost forgotten what that felt like and having that taste has just made me want it more.

Earth Day Efforts

Yesterday was Earth Day but I decided to hold off writing about it until today. I'm a big fan of our Earth, as I'm sure many of you are too. While debates rage on as to how much damage we are or are not doing to it, one thing is for sure, we take and use more than we need. This kind of behavior is everywhere in our culture and has even been spreading around the world.

I feel like this is robbing us of the connection we naturally have to ourselves and the world around us. More and more I find myself longing for simplicity, quiet, stillness and a more natural life. Don't get me wrong, I'm so very thankful for many modern amenities like indoor plumbing, clean running water from the tap, toilets, washing machines and such. I'm also extremely thankful for technologies like computers, Internet, cell phones and Netflix. I can't imagine being so far from my family and friends and living with chronic pain without these modern conveniences. But at the same time I feel like the ease of this modern life just makes it too easy to over consume.

I've made many changes over the years in an effort to be kinder to the environment and on our finances. I even have a list of things I want to do but really can't until we move away from city apartment life. Things like grow food and herbs. In the meantime I want to come up with more things I can do here and now. But I'm having a tough time coming up with stuff. The basics are sort of covered. I'm using NRG efficient light bulbs, recycling, keeping water use low and such but there must be stuff I haven't even thought about.

Have you found any creative ways to use less and be more green? I would love to hear your tricks or ideas.

I Know I'm Right

I spoke with Dr Garza yesterday evening. He is absolutely certain that the extreme scalp, face and neck pain is not related to the Neurontin. He said that it must be a coincidence. What I heard him say is that he has not seen it in his practice and that it is not one of the side effects that were either found or reported by the drug company.

I understand and even appreciate his knowledge and experience. I am certainly not an expert on these drugs, medicine or even migraines. But I feel like after more than 5 years of living with this chronic pain I'm as close as anyone can be to being an expert on MY pain. I am 99.9% sure that this new pain is directly related to the Neurontin.

This past fall my local neuro doc had prescribed a cream that I can apply to the tender nerve points around my head. It was something she had developed along with a compound pharmacist that combined Neurontin and a numbing cream. After a few days of using it I noticed that I was having a lot more pain on those nerves that I was applying the cream to. Suddenly these nerves were screamingly painful and I had to assume it was either the numbing cream or the Neurontin but to make sure I decided to stop using it and when I did so the really bad pain returned to it's normal lower level of pain.

The pain I am feeling now is exactly like what I was experiencing last fall with the cream - exactly. And it started when I started taking oral Neurontin. I can't believe that this is a coincidence. How is it possible that the two times I've taken this drug I've had this reaction - however impossible my doc is convinced it is? I know my pain, and even when my migraines were at their very worst, literally every day for months, the nerve points on my head were never this painful, never.

I am disappointed that Dr Garza isn't willing to even consider that I might be right about this. I do believe him that he has never seen this in his years of prescribing this med and I get that the research hasn't reported this to be a side effect (though I don' t quite believe it is because it wasn't found - just can't trust the drug companies). But even if it wasn't found to be a side effect during their testing that doesn't necessarily mean I can't have that reaction.

I know I'm right.

He instead wants me to keep taking it at the pace that was prescribed. But I already can't drive because of other expected side effects and I just can't bear to keep taking two pills a day. I told him that I would keep taking it for a few more days and decide. What I didn't tell him is that I will only be taking 1 pill a day. I needed some time to gather myself and make a plan as I wasn't expecting him to insist it wasn't the medication. My body won't allow me to swallow that second pill, I tried. Maybe it was all in my head but I couldn't do it. I'll give it a couple days here and then propose that I come off it and see if that resolves the pain and if it does, we try something else. If it doesn't (which won't happen) then I'll go back on it and start again. That sounds reasonable right?

Have you ever had this kind of an experience where you knew you were right even though conventional wisdom and the medical community was sure you were wrong?

New Medication Challenge

I haven't been feeling like myself lately. My migraines have been really bad and the nerves on my head are screamingly painful including my entire scalp, face and neck. Everything makes it hurt worse even a breeze moving my hair, or resting my head on a pillow causes my head pain. My eyes and ears are so much more sensitive than usual, and they are usually pretty sensitive. The extreme nerve pain is more than enough to create a bad migraine situation and since it doesn't go away, neither are the migraines.

I put a call into Dr Garza at Mayo - again.

In the meantime I'm just trying to take it easy and make it through the day. Since resting and napping is just as painful as activity I'm finding the best relief comes from distraction. At least if I can think about something else for a while, I can get a break from thinking about the pain. Of course, right now it is pretty hard to distract myself from this pain...the rescue meds are not terribly effective for the present situation so I'm kinda on my own here.

I Heart It

I am just loving Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution. Have you been watching? I don't have kids so I'm really not that in tune with how school lunches work. Watching this show has been quite eye opening on that front. Pizza for breakfast, french fries being considered a veggie, prepackaging individual portions in plastic that the kids can just microwave...the list of craziness goes on and on.

I don't exactly know how today's school lunches compare to those I grew up with. I always brought a sack lunch with me and I grew up in a house where meals were prepared from recipes with real whole foods. I can remember hating the way the school lunches smelled. And on the rare occasion I tasted items from the trays of friends and I never liked any of them. Even the school pizza was gross. However, I had several friends who always ate the school lunch and really enjoyed it. Looking back on it today I think it tasted bad to me because I wasn't used to eating processed foods.

Anyway, I love with Jamie is trying to do and I sure hope meaningful changes will take place across this country. No good can come from a bad diet.

On a Scale of 1 to 10

We've all been asked this question a thousand times- "How would you rate your pain on a scale of 1 to 10?" I really hate the pain scale question, despite understanding how useful it is. Since living with chronic pain my approach in answering has changed.

These days anything that I would rate under 5 I would not use the word pain as the descriptor. Instead I would use discomfort or ache. A rating of 5 means I'm straddling between pain and a bad ache or discomfort, unable to really tell if it is one or the other. The real pain scale, as far as I use it, is between 6 and 9. This is where most of my pain takes place. Even though sometimes I'm tempted to say my pain is a 10, I'm fairly sure there is pain worse so I try to stay away from using that rating. Instead what I'll do is use 9.5.

How do you use this scale when facing this question?

Wondering What This Means

So last Saturday night my legs began to ache. My toes were tingling and it almost felt like the lower half of my leg had fallen asleep. Over the past week it has waxed and waned at times feeling like a dull ache and at other times feeling like a pain or throb. A few days back my other leg decided to join in.

Here I am a week later and I can't help but wonder if this is the start of another ailment. Am I developing Fibromyalgia or some other condition that will spread my pain? I've read that these kind of conditions are often seen together, although it sounds like the medical community doesn't understand why, it has been observed.

I can hardly stand to entertain the thought for more than a few moments. The very idea of trying to tackle another chronic pain condition is overwhelming right now. I'm already a little overwhelmed by my migraine, endometreosis situation combined with trying to relocate. For now I'm just crossing my fingers and hoping that it goes away...please let it just go away.

The Wardrobe Switch

I'm getting set to do one of my favorite bi-annual activities, switch out my winter clothes for my summer clothes. I always keep a small stock of spring/fall appropriate stuff out to aid the transition but at this point, I'm not going to need all my sweaters and sweatshirts and such. And the days are becoming consistently warmer. More 60s and 70s than anything else so it is time to have more short sleeve options.

Over the winter I get the chance to miss my summer clothes so when it comes time to bring them out I almost feel like I'm getting a new wardrobe. Then by the time fall comes around I will be missing my winter clothes and excited to start wearing those pieces again. Adding to the fun of switching out my wardrobe is the fact that I store the unused pieces in a cedar chest so the clothes always come out with that wonderful cedar smell.

This spring is extra exciting for me because of the weight I've put on. I think I'll be able to fit into the skirts and jumpers that I love so much but haven't been able to fit in for a few years. I've never been a big fan of shorts - not really sure why -but I've found that skirts are a great alternative, as they allow for all kinds of air flow.

Do you find yourself missing your summer wardrobe over the winter?

Sigh

Still feeling funky. I think the Neurontin is messing with my eyes and making me pretty groggy. I'm finding it difficult to focus my eyes on things. Things look blurry a bit and for a while after taking the med things seem to move in my vision almost like I was drunk. It should be interesting to see how things go as I continue to step up the dose. Right now I'm just taking 1 pill with breakfast but I'm on a slow path to get to 2 pills 3 times a day for a total of 6. Yikes, I sure hope this is just an initial reaction and not something that will last. I can't imagine what 6 pills will do, when 1 pill has me feeling so altered. I may be napping a lot in the weeks to come and driving less.

sigh

The good news is that my appetite hasn't suffered. I'm still hungry every couple of hours and am able to eat simple things. I am finding that the extra pain and nausea I'm experiencing right now is effecting my appetite for strong flavors. Mostly, I'm limiting myself to blandish things. So long as I don't start losing weight again, I'll eat rice cakes all day if I have to.

Feeling Seriously Funky

Boy do I feel funky. I was warned that when coming off of the last med that my migraines would get worse for a while and boy have they. I've had a really bad migraine for the past 3 days. I can't treat them all because I'm still limited to just 9 rescue meds in a month. Yesterday I didn't treat it and by early evening it had gotten pretty ugly. By the time I woke up the pain was so out of control, I stumbled out of bed and collected all the rescue drugs in my arsenal and began taking them all. Today I also started on the new medication, Neurontin, and between the crazy pain, migraine brain and all the medication I've taken, I'm in quite a state. I feel out of it and altered, exhausted. Today will definitely be one to write off. I hope the rest of the week isn't going to be as funky as this.

Another Great Doc

For the record, I have a very high opinion of Mayo's headache clinic out of Rochester. I called out there yesterday morning to leave a message for Dr Garza that this new med isn't going to work and to see if we could try something else instead. I was told that Dr Garza is out of town for the week but that the message would go to his secretary and she would find one of his colleagues to address my concerns. Of course I was a little nervous about this...you just never know what to expect when dealing with a new doc.

But - two hours later the phone rang and it was Dr. Robertson from Mayo. She was friendly, patient, and clearly very knowledgeable and experienced in dealing with migraines and all the medications involved. She took the time to look at the notes Dr Garza had written and she spoke about what he had laid out for a possible next step for me. Even more she took the time to explain that he likely thought of this next step because of the weight loss I had been experiencing and the other pains associated with my migraines. She explained very clearly how this next med will work, what to expect along the way and exactly what I should track in order for Dr Garza to make a good analysis once I'm at a therapeutic level.

I couldn't be happier with how this all turned out. I'm excited about the new plan and I'm just so relieved to feel like this headache clinic and the doctors in it are so excellent at what they do. To feel like I'm in such good hands...well there is no way to describe how it feels. I like my neuro doc here, but I've wasted years of my life trying medications at an ineffective dosage level. I don't know how much of her time is actually spent seeing migraine patients but I know she deals with people with all kinds of neuro conditions so it is not her focus. I believe she was doing what she thought was best, but I really need to be under the care of someone who better understands the less common intractable migraine patient.

I don't know how much longer we're going to live in this area but I'm feeling like maybe I should just stop going to the neuro here. I'm not going to deviate from the plan the Mayo docs are suggesting and unless they decide they can't treat me anymore because of the distance I really shouldn't need to have someone here. The only thing I can think of that she is presently doing that Dr Garza isn't is refilling my prescriptions for Bachlofen. But he could start doing that.

Dog Tired

I'm still recovering from what was a terrible weekend. It became obvious on Friday that the new med Dr Garza had prescribed was not going to work. I honestly didn't think my dry mouth could get any more dry than it was, but it did. It got a lot worse and I just had to stop taking the medication. All my teeth and all my gums hurt so bad, they were so dry, all day long. I'm just not willing to lose my teeth over this medication.

I've also been on the birth control pill for a 3 weeks and have been experiencing all kinds of bad side effects. I called my doc about that last week and never heard back. Then on Saturday night I began experiencing tingling and pain in my lower leg. After about 12 hours of this pain, which of course had to happen over the weekend, my husband took me into the ER. They didn't think it was a dangerous clot but were not able to tell what it was without doing some testing, but didn't have anyone to do the testing...whatever, so long as it wasn't an emergency I figured I could deal with it today.

Through all of this, I didn't get much sleep, and certainly didn't get much done. I feel like I wasted the entire weekend feeling horrible and am left dealing with a terrible migraine this morning. I've put calls into both docs already and am looking forward to getting back on track with my treatments. Even though the migraines and my endometreosis are clearly the more important issues, I'm pretty worried about losing my appetite again. I LOVE the weight I've put on and I LOVE enjoying meals again. I would be so crestfallen if I started to lose weight again.

Now, after two nights of little and poor sleep, I'm dog tired and will likely spend most of the day on the couch. Blah!

Not Again - Good Grief

I've been slowly making my way through some spring cleaning chores over the past couple of weeks. This has included both cleaning projects like the inside of the fridge, and organizing projects like adding a couple shelves to the kitchen to get some stuff off the counters. Seems like there's never enough storage room in a kitchen. While there are still a number of things left to do, today, for the first time in more than 6 months, I'm actually feeling sort of relieved by the amount of organization and cleaning that has already been done.

It is as much of a motivator as it is a relief. The more that gets done the more I want to get done. Now I'm searching for even more stuff that I can pack up and add to the piles of boxes already lingering in the corner.

Now if only my arms didn't ache and my head didn't hurt in response to all these projects. All the bending, scrubbing and chemicals are nothing if not trouble for someone like me. My migraine brain is constantly trying to sabotage me, forgetting things, losing track of my thoughts... Just when I think I've at least grown accustomed to my migraine brain my frustration reemerges and I have to try to work through it yet again. I'm beginning to wonder if I'll ever really get the hang of living with chronic pain and all the ugliness it brings with it.

Do you find yourself having to go through the process of dealing with some aspects of living with chronic pain again and again?

Mmmm...Cheesecake

At long last I have found a cheesecake recipe that is actually good. My husband and I are both huge fans of cheesecake, huge! I've tried several recipes over the years without any success. But that has all changed now with my latest recipe find. This recipe came with a recipe for the graham cracker crust but I just prefer to buy an over sized one at the grocery store and save myself the time and hassle of cooking that too. You will need an over sized crust for sure as it makes a lot of filling. Lemon Dream Cheesecake 4 pkgs (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened 1 C sugar 1/2 C heavy whipping cream 1/4 C lemon juice 2 Tbls flour 1 T lemon zest 21/2 t. vanilla extract 1 t. lemon extract 10 drops of yellow food coloring (optional) 5 eggs, beaten In a large bowl, beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Beat in the cream, lemon juice, flour, lemon zest, extracts and food coloring. Add eggs; beat on low speed just until combined. Pour into crust and bake at 325 degrees for 55-65 minutes or until the center is almost set. Cool and refrigerate overnight. I'm not sure why it split in areas during the baking but it sure didn't sully the taste. A couple quick tips. If you buy a large lemon to zest, it will generally produce enough juice so that you won't need to buy lemon juice. Even if you are just squeezing it with your hands. You can also replace the lemon components with any other flavor too. Who would have thought cheesecake could be so simple...

The New Preventative

I spoke with Dr Garza late yesterday afternoon. He's the headache doc I saw at Mayo when I was in Rochester back in December. He had instructed me to call after about 3 months on Amatriptyline and update him on how it had gone. It took about that much time for me to sort of get a handle on what was going on.

The benefits have been real but the side effects have been very real as well. Since ultimately they didn't cause a meaningful decline in the frequency of my migraines we decided to go ahead and try something different. I was sort of relieved to get the new prescription of Nortriptyline. It is also an antidepressant similar to the other one. He says this one is often better tolerated in terms of the side effects and as a bonus I should have the continued appetite and boosted mood that comes from the antidepressant. I had some anxiety about going off my present med because I have loved the appetite and weight gain that has come with it.

I had tried this drug once before but at a much lower dose, which Dr. Garza has already explained to be ineffective. I have more faith in Dr. Garza as opposed to my neuro doc here because he has spent his career working specifically with headaches where as the neuro doc works with all neuro conditions. He just has more experience. But I still need my other meds from the neuro doc so I do need to go back and see her again. I have an appointment scheduled in a couple weeks that is already causing me some stress.

I will need to tell her about this new med that I'm on, that she had originally put me on at the lower dose. I will have to tell her that Dr Garza prescribed them and that I want to try this his way. The girl in me feels guilty as if the neuro doc will feel betrayed by me. But I simply won't let whatever amount of people pleasing tendencies in me make a decision that is not right for me. But it will be uncomfortable for sure. I'll have to work on my wording in advance to help reduce the stress of having this conversation.

Any advice?

Lighting Design

I'm a big fan of low light, as many of you fellow migrainistas are. I've designed the lighting in our apartment to fit my migraine eyes, with low wattage and indirect focus. Over the past year or so I've watched all 4 seasons of the Showtime program The Tudors. It a semi historical drama that follows the life of England's King Henry VIII and his many wives. If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it. I was enthrawled with the ambiance of the series. The action all takes place before electricity so the lighting is all candles and giant fireplaces. Huge candleapra and chandelier were present in every room creating such a romantic, warm, cozy and inviting environment. Watching it just made me want to be there, with fire lighting all my evening activities. For a while I tried using candle light at night instead of the usual lamps and Christmas lights I use. All I had available were tea lights and a couple big jar lights. I put several on a small plate and really enjoyed the soft light but found that it just wasn't bright enough, especially when the TV was on. Generally I need the environmental light to be bright enough to prevent the high contrast of light and dark in the glow of the bright TV from prompting a migraine.
We definately don't have room in this apartment for big candleapra or chandelier so I began wondering if using a couple oil lamps would be a better solution. My concern with an oil lamp would be that it would create a black smoke that would coat the furniture, walls, my lungs, etc. I don't know if that is a valid concern or not. Do any of you know if modern lamp oils produce black smoke?

I bet I could find some cool antique oil lamps to keep around the house that would spread more light than the tea lights and be aesthetic.

ChornicBabe Blog Carnival

The New ChronicBabe Blog Carnival is now availble.

The topic: I'm Thankful For...

Sound Woes

I wish I could be in control of all movie, TV and commercial sound mixing. So many of the "professionals" doing these jobs do a poor job in my opinion. And I don't believe I'm saying this as a migrainista, but as a consumer.

Almost every show and every movie I've seen has had moments, if not several moments, of poorly leveled sounds. Surely you have noticed these sorts of events. You're at home watching a movie and suddenly the characters start whispering and you can no longer hear them so you turn the volume up but then there is a loud event like a car crash and suddenly the sound is outrageously loud and the speakers rattle. The thing is, if the sound mixers had done their job right, you could put your TV volume at a reasonable level and experience a range of sounds from whisper to crash without needing to adjust the volume. You can bring the levels down during a whisper but it should always be at an audible level. I guarantee you the characters are not trying to hide their words from the audience so we need to hear it. And the same goes for overly loud moments. The goal of the sound should not be to blow us all away. Certainly some points in shows or movies need to be louder but they never should be so much louder than conversations that your speakers react.

Often times when coverage is being done at sporting or other large crowd events the coorespondent's voice will be completely drowned out by the screams and cheers from the masses surrounding them. I am so sick of being forced to listen to several minutes of these obnoxiously loud screaming fools. If the station is incapable of focusing in on the sound of the speaker then they should NOT ever send the speaker out into a loud crowd. NOBODY CAN HEAR YOU - THIS IS A WASTE OF ALL OF OUR TIME! AND IT MAKES ME SO MAD! This happens on the Today show all the time. They will go outside to do segments and sometimes their crowd is so loud you can't hear what's happening.

Surely all consumers are annoyed by all ofthis, as I am. But also being someone who lives with chronic migraine pain and sensitivies to sound, this is particularly troublesome. I wish I could step in and take charge so that none of us ever has to be exposed to poorly mixed sound. Seriously, I know this is someone's job, why don't they do it better?

Spring Fuss

Well, it's April already. That means rain, taxes and lower energy bills. My husband and I sat down this weekend to work on our taxes. An activity so full of stress, confusion, annoyance and focused time that it can't be done without a migraine to follow. We spent hours and hours working through all the paperwork, instructions and such as we itemized our deductions only to learn that the standard deduction was bigger than what we had itemized. All that work and we could have just done an EZ form.

Oh well. At least it's done and we don't owe a bunch of money. That's the ideal outcome.

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We still haven't heard anything about this job in St. Louis. I'm done with this waiting process. I just can't stay in this holding position any longer. I've moved on and am now thinking about what we can do to enjoy the spring. It won't be long until the summer heat and humidity will drive us indoors again.

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I'm thinking that the time has come to pack up a little more of our stuff. Since we closed down our storage unit we've been living with very little livable space. The stuff is getting to me. Maybe if I pack up some more stuff at least we'll have more space on our shelves and table tops. I don't know about you, but when things around me are disorganized or cluttered that's how I feel internally. And right now I'm feeling both.

I love spring. If only I didn't have to spend so much time fussing with health stuff...

I'm Thankful

Every so often I like to compile a list of what I'm thankful for on any given day. The positive things that I should focus on instead of all the pain, brain fog and such that results from my migraines. These wonderful gems are what I cling to for help during those toughest of days. When this appears as the topic for the ChornicBabe Blog Carnival I was excited because it's been a while since I've done a thankful list. Here it goes:

1. I'm so thankful for my husband. He is a great friend, so understanding and flexible. He works very hard to provide for us, allowing me to stay home during these VERY difficult times.

2. I'm thankful for all the technology that makes even the worst days a little easier; Netflix, blogger, facebook, shutterfly, hulu, ChronicBabe, and more.

3. I'm thankful for our dog, Lucy. She gets me out of the house for a walk at least once a day and is a great companion throughout the day. She makes me laugh and smile daily.

4. I'm thankful for my family and friends who bring such richness into my life. Whenever I leave the company of them I feel lucky to have such great people in my life.