Author: lizardek

29
Sep
2025

IT’S JUST HAIR

Right now I am mostly sad, on the verge of depressed. On Tuesday, I finally had the appointment at the skin department of the hospital and the doctor examined me, took my history, and then took a biopsy from my scalp. The results will take up to two weeks (it’s been a week tomorrow) and hopefully it will show if any of the medicine I am on is the cause for the massive hair loss. Then the nurse put a huge bandage on my head and I had to walk back across the entire hospital complex to my car looking...

13
Sep
2025

IS IT HAIR-BERNATION TIME YET?

I had great plans to write a LOT, if not every day, then as often as possible, this year. And I was doing pretty well, really, until all the health issues came crashing down on my head and took my hair with them. At this point, my hair is mostly hairspray and wishing. And if one more person starts to say something about how my hair looks just fine, I will punch them in the throat. Today, I woke up at 6:30 am and couldn’t get back to sleep but since I had gotten up 4 times in the night...

08
Sep
2025

UGH GAH SOB

Haven’t been in the mood for writing. Too upset about all the physical health issues that are going on right now. I’ve lost nearly half my hair and huge amounts continue to come out daily. I finally got a letter TODAY (2 weeks after I flagged the issue for my doctor and 4 weeks after I noticed the problem) to set up an appointment with the skin doctor, but of course got it too late to call today. :/ In addition to the hair loss which is causing me to have a meltdown at least once a day, I also...

24
Aug
2025

WHY TIME FLIES

Life got a bit crazy this past week, and I haven’t felt like writing. Monday last week was a terrible day with one thing after another going wrong and all kinds of stress all the way until 5 pm when I picked up Lisel after a horrific dentist visit (just a cleaning, but AUGH), and we drove to Costco where we zoomed in and out to buy party platters, and then went to an AIC mingle in Malmö, on the loveliest evening of the summer. I’ll back up a bit though. Monday morning, I had to be in at the...

15
Aug
2025

HAIR WE GO AGAIN

As if all my other health problems weren’t enough to deal with, I’ve been experiencing rather severe hair loss AGAIN. This has now been going on, on and off, for 3 years. After a terrible time 3 years ago, when I was the US at my mom’s and lost what felt like nearly half of my hair volume, it has slowly gotten better. There are so many possible reasons for hair loss that it’s almost impossible to pin down a cause: aging, health issues, psoriasis, medicines, genetics, drastic weight loss, stress, thyroid, menopause, hormone imbalances, malnutrition, etc., etc., etc. This...

13
Aug
2025

FIRST WORLD PROBLEM

I’ve been thinking about how best to use up some of the 3 vacation weeks that turned into sick leave this summer, so that they don’t roll over and cause me problems later (at some point, if you don’t use your vacation days and they keep rolling over for 5 years, you are forced to take them out before the fiscal year is up, which can cause all kinds of panic and problems at work). Years ago, I had this happen, and I had to use up 2 weeks worth of vacation days before the end of March (my company’s...

11
Aug
2025

THERE’S A LIST FOR EVERYTHING

New things I’ve learned lately how to play and appreciate Sudoku, photo editing using neural filters in Photoshop, how to set and disarm our new house alarm Latest downloaded apps BoWelle, Everyday Puzzles, Merlin Bird ID Things that have made me laugh recently This commercial with Samuel L. Jackson for a Swedish energy company’s new snacks, conversations with my family while celebrating my birthday at Åben, a whole conversation about Theo’s love for licorice Things that made me happy recently painting pottery with Martin, Theo, Lisel, and her daughters, having what might have been the last lunch and gelato at...

09
Aug
2025

THE GOOD THINGS IN LIFE

I’ve been so busy all this past week out and about, and right now, Saturday afternoon, I’m only busy with my own home-chore-based to-do list, and one of the items on it is write a blog post! I wanted to write about some of the things I did this week so I have them down for remembering and posterity, as my brain can’t be trusted to come up with details about things in the past once we get to the future. Not because I’m experiencing any sort of memory loss, just that in general, I find it’s better to write...

03
Aug
2025

ALL OVER THE PLACE

Perhaps the secret to a good night’s sleep these days is staying up until 1 in the morning. At least that way I only get up once more in the middle of the night and am apparently able to fall asleep again quite quickly, even if my brain starts waking. That’s what we did last night because we were at a double-birthday party in Malmö and didn’t get home until after 1 am. I had a really nice time, which surprised me, because I wasn’t really looking forward to going, and I spent quite a lot of the evening talking...

31
Jul
2025

CONFESSION

I low-key miss my kids so much. I miss having them at home, where I know where they are, where I know they are safe. I miss having them here where I can enjoy their humor and their conversation and their presence. I miss Karin’s casual physical affection and Martin’s sharp-eyed commentary. I miss watching shows with them and movies, and playing games with them, and going for walks with them, and just, you know, hanging out with them. I can’t tell them this, at least not without joking about it, because I think they’d think it was something I...