Setting some goals as per my God dream

I woke up early this morning and came up with some goals. I have been doing well with the one goal I set at the beginning of the year. People say you can’t set goals like this but the few times I have done it I have had success.

Last year I was in the hospital in October in NC for a blood transfusion. I was also in hospital in May with meningitis. In 2002 I was in for several days with a blood clot at the end of April and then I was in for 21 days with that retroperitoneal bleed. 2001 I was in with a blood clot.

So this year my entire health goal was to stay out of the hospital. Despite having a terrible brain disease which hospitalizes many people I have managed to stay out of the hospital and I only missed two days of work. Of course the fact that I work from my home is the only reason. I would have missed most of the year if I had to get up and go somewhere. But anyway that is one goal I have kept so far and we’re getting close to the end of the year.

Here’s what I came up with for my God mandated goals.

• No more throwing up, unless I have food poisoning or something.
• Stabilized vision.
• No more being nauseas every single evening.
• Able to complete all the activities of daily living I was doing in April of 2002. At that time I was training for the AIDS marathon in Dublin. I was not only doing normal things I can’t do now, like cook, but I was walking 15 on Sundays and training three other days a week. Now this might be unattainable for me for now because my skin is very sensitive when I am on these blood thinners and my feet kept bleeding and that is why I had to quit the marathon training. My socks would be soaked with blood when I finished those long walks. I’ve still got big scabs from my feet bleeding when we went down to the Washington Book Festival a couple of weeks ago. I have high hopes for this new blood thinner coming out of France though and hopefully when that is released here in American I will be able to eat broccoli and I will no longer bleed and bruise if you look at me funny. But regardless of my marathoning abilities I should be able to walk enough to do a day of extra work which often consists of walking around and then resting and then doing it over and over and over and over again. This is a very important goal which is likely many smaller goals rolled up into one.
• Regain my cognitive abilities that have suffered. Work on memory retention skills and also the slurred speech thing. Both of these problems, which I believe are because of the brain swelling, absolutely interfere with acting. Unless I’m playing a drunk who doesn’t need to remember her lines the not being able to speak clearly or remember thing is going to cause me major problems. Both of these things have improved significantly since February but they need work. I also have this habit of substituting the wrong words when I talk. My kids and boss have learned to work around it but it doesn’t work so well with strangers.

Really it sounds like I need some rehab. If I had a traumatic brain injury I think I would have gotten some. If I had a real brain tumour instead of the psuedotumour I think I would have gotten some. It appears to be up to me to find out what to do and how to do it. I’m going to make an appointment to go and see the chiropractic neurologist for whom I used to work and see what he suggests.

Writing goals

Write this book called Bare Minimum for NaNoWriMo. Write the second draft starting in the middle of January.

Meanwhile for December and the middle of January work the second draft of Bluer. Keep working on these two until I can send one in for publication. Go to Vegas to see Penn and Teller and the Blue Man Group to celebrate. Squeeze in rewrite on Devil May Care and start submitting to agents.

Acting goals

• Get new headshots.
• Take lots of classes at the Conservatory. There are some great ones there and they cost hardly anything.
• When healthier audition for Herb and do more improv.
• Work towards getting voiceover work and industrials.
• Get cast in Neil’s Death movie.