The View from WI: 2025

Recently my Director at work sent out an email asking if any of the clinicians had a brief story of "success, breakthrough, or knowing when a client connected to you (as a clinician)." This is a true experience that I provided to her.

I saw this client for the first time on March 11, 2025. On his clinical intake form the reason he was seeking individual counseling was listed as “Grief/Bereavement; Mood disorders”. Ok, pretty typical I thought.

He sat down on my office couch and said, “I’m not really here for grief counseling. I received an OWI charge last summer and I feel like everyone in the world knows about it. This will absolutely ruin my relationships in the community, relationships I’ve spent years developing. I can’t get away from the shame of it.” He had become tearful.

I handed him a box of Kleenex and said, “Are you up for a brief allegory or story of someone I know very well who was in a situation similar to yours?” He nodded yes. I told him about a 23-year-old young woman, much older now, who was dealing with addiction issues when she was 23, couldn’t make eye contact with strangers passing in the mall because she believed she was wearing a big scarlet A that the entire world could see and therefore judged her by. I continued, years went on, she spent time in and out of treatment, but she finally got it. The shame was gone. She could see a happy, successful future for herself for the first time in years.

He asked, “What happened to her, do you know?” And I said, “You’re looking at her.”

From my office couch he fell to his knees and sobbed like a child longing for acceptance, respect, and understanding.

He continues therapy with me and has made a shit-ton progress from that first visit. Recently he told me, “Kristine, if you hadn’t shared with me what you did on that first visit, I don’t know if I would have made it, I really don’t.” I smiled and said, “Well, it’s in the past where it belongs.”

Any day can be recognized as marking another 366 days around the sun, but generally birthdays and New Years Eve are days carved out to celebrate this trip.

My first caveat about 2024 I'll state is that this past 366 days have been more shit-show than celebratory, but that's not the focus of this post. However, I wanted to get that out of the way to start.

So here are some celebratory highlights from 2024.

It sounds weird but losing Apollo on January 17, 2024 eventually opened my heart to love another rescue puppy, Rexford Mahi Sack, who we brought home from the Happily Ever After Animal Sanctuary on October 21, 2024. Rex was born on February 16, 2024 and was just about 8 months old when he came to his forever home. Apollo was a "rescue" puppy but I didn't know what that really meant until Rexie came home. As of today, 2 months later, he won't let Mark touch him, put his collar and leash on him, and refuses to play with Mark. He has bonded with me like super glue and is my "protector" when anyone approaches me, hands me something, or even engages in conversation exclusively with me, Rex will stare down the other person, voice a low growl, and sometimes he stands up in front of me to block anyone from potentially getting too close to me. We put in an underground electric fence to accommodate his habit of going outside in an open fenced-in area like he did when he was at the shelter. Because I'm the only person that can put his leash on him, our outdoor training is limited to times when I'm available to take him outside. Approximately 3 weeks after Rex came home, I started working outside of the house at a local mental health outpatient agency that Optum/United Health Care purchased. I was super excited to be working in direct client care and outside of the house again, but my absence 40 hours a week threw a major kink into Rex's outdoor training. And then, you know, it's Wisconsin and the snow came. In the midst of all of this change I was having some serious physical health issues which prevented me from taking Rex outside in the mornings and evenings I worked. Our current potty training situation is that Rex does his business on XL puppy pads, the location of which were determined by where he was going potty in the house.

Mark and I spent 9 days in Key West FL at the end of May into early June. It was glorious. We rented a 4-seat golf cart to travel around the 4-mile by 2-mile island. I was more hyped for this vacation than Mark was and I took full advantage of running around the island to Duval Street, the southern most point in the continental US, and do some grocery shopping at Fausto's Food Palace where I found a bottle of Sun Drop priced at $1.79 which is WAY cheaper than it can be found in WI where it's actually produced (in my birth place of Shawano, WI). We went deep sea fishing and caught more Mahi Mahi than we could eat but took what our Captain of the Southpaw Fishing vessel fileted for us to take to the Conch Republic Seafood Company where they seared our fish in butter, olive oil and lime juice. When our platter of fish was delivered we asked for lemon wedges and our waitress looked at us like we each had two heads, then we explained that in Wisconsin, we eat our seafood with lemon and of course in Key West all seafood is served with Key Lime slices.

I spent everyday in Key West in either the pool, the ocean or the Gulf, mostly more often than once a day. The back pain I was experiencing vanished with the increased humidity and regular water "therapy". My day at Smathers Beach was peaceful and tranquil and even though they had showers to clean away the ocean water, I didn't take advantage of that and when I got back into the golf cart I stopped at some shops along the way home (Books & Books on Easton Street, Kermit's Key Lime Pie Shop, and Emerald's International where I bought a Mahi Mahi pendant with an emerald eye (my birthstone) and an emerald "constellation" thumb ring. About 4 hours out of the water a SERIOUS case of swimmer's itch set in and I thought I was going to have to amputate both of my legs because the itching was SO intense, the best treatment I could provide was to scratch the lesions until they bled and then put rubbing alcohol on them. I've been swimming in the ocean at least a dozen times before and for the life of me I can't explain why I didn't shower the salt water off of me, but trust me: LESSON LEARNED.

The emerald thumb ring I bought needed to be resized and then shipped to me. Just as I got that via UPS, I thought, "This is the last thing I'm bringing back from Key West." Oh, silly me, two days later I tested positive for COVID and that was literally the last thing I brought home from Key West. I've had every COVID vaccine and booster that the NIH recommended. I was honestly surprised at the seriousness of symptoms I had. I was out of work for 7 days, spending my days laying in bed or on the couch. It seriously kicked my ass.

While we were in FL I stopped drinking my regular 12 oz of morning Coke and Sprite throughout the course of the day. I started drinking 68oz of Dasani water a day and I felt great! After three weeks of drinking only water I lost about 10 pounds. In mid-July my daily blood pressure readings started to drop - like 77/59 and I spent a day in the ER where I got a bag of fluids and felt better, my BP was up to 108/68 and I was discharged to follow up with my PCP.

In mid-October my PCP prescribed 0.25mg of Ozempic once a week for 4 weeks because I was officially diagnosed with diabetes type II. At week 5 I was to increase the weekly dose to 0.50mg. Once I started Ozempic I lost weight-mostly muscle mass because that's the mechanism of action, and I needed to "push fluids and eat a high protein diet." I stopped Ozempic after my 4th dose because since I started the med I was in the ER again, BP 79/60, pulse 115. They did a total cardiac and respiratory work up and everything came back within normal limits. I had a 7-day Holter monitor placed which came back within normal limits. I need to schedule an echocardiogram, probably sometime next week.

Late October brought my 35th class reunion which totally kicked ass!! I was honored by the reunion committee to write a poem about the significance of being 35 years post high school graduation. Some of my "besties" from Minnesota drove down and we stayed in an awesome Air B&B near Lawrence University which is one of my favorite neighborhoods in Appleton. I spent time at the reunion talking with people I went to junior high with, people who knew my younger sister who was 3 grades behind me, and yes, the infamous Sid Seehawer hiding in Mr. Moe's lecture podium at Wilson Jr. High. I didn't attend our 25th or 30th reunion, but I will be damn sure to attend our 40th. I was shocked by the number of classmates that we've lost since our 20th reunion, the last one I attended.

The last big change this year was transferring to a direct client contact position at an outpatient mental health agency that Optum/United Health Care purchased in mid-September 2024. It's kind of weird because there's only me and another clinician who started on 12/23/24 and our totally kick ass Administrative Assistant as the entire staff. As I described earlier, with adopting Rex, the timing could have been better, but overall I enjoy getting ready for work and leaving the house to go into the office. While working at home I fell into some patterns that really didn't increase or sustain healthy self-care. But no more wearing my pajamas to work!!

It is 12:23am, January 1, 2025. I usually include a snippet from Auld Lang Syne, but I think I'll let my words and photos speak for themselves this year. May the best of 2025 come to everyone reading this blog 💕