Lifelong Friendships Are Real

My father stood at the foot of his lifelong friend and fellow veterans coffin, waiting silently for him to be lowered into a final place of rest, within view of my parent's headstone, straightening his 78 year old spine as best he could and saluting for 45 minutes before Butch, my dad's best friend since middle school in Shawano, was lowered into the semi-frozen earth.

Butch graduated from Shawano High School three years before my dad; they were on the school's baseball team with another student who was actively recruited by the Cincinnati Reds, but graduated from UW-Whitewater and joined Price Waterhouse in Milwaukee with my dad instead.

Dad has a solid group of "guy friends" from Shawano, together they deer hunted, goose hunted, and flew into remote Canada for a week of fishing each summer.

I too have strong friendships from junior high and high school. I have attended services for few of their parents (which is a blessing), yet I wonder who will attend when it's my mother or father services are held for.

Untitled

Every day,

            dark

Every thought,

            dark

Every feeling, 

            dark.

            No energy                                                                                                         motivation

                   movement from my bed.

    
                  

Every distraction,                        

            dark

Every ask,

            dark

Every look,

            dark.

            No joy

                  potential

                  movement in my brain.

Every touch,

            burning

Every question,

            ignored

Every demand,

            pointless.

            No interest

                  color

                  hope.

I Quit my Fucking Job and Couldn't be Happier

Yes, it's true: I quit my job (technically not until Monday 02/23/26) and I couldn't be happier!!

I have been told ad nauseum to never quit a job unless you had another one lined up, but in this case, my job was creating so much stress, distress, and overall decreased satisfaction in my life that I had to get out of there before I became a patient there.

UHC/Optum/Sherman Counseling closed all of the outpatient agencies in the state effective 12/08/25 and I got another job at a free standing psychiatric hospital which is a level of care I had no experience working in. The salary they offered made my jaw drop and I immediately accepted.

Here's the deal with inpatient psych care from my humble experience:

There is no "typical" day

The only tasks scheduled are daily groups with the expectation of facilitating and documenting two groups per day 

Any given day at a hospital can include 4-19 admissions; multiple AMA (against medical advice) discharges, involuntary admissions with virtual court which can lead to 90-day orders for patients to remain admitted until the staff psychiatrist deems a patient no longer a harm to themself and/or others with court ordered meds which will be administered by a shot in your ass if you won't take them orally

Severely psychotic patients who will scream for hours on end something like "HELP ME!! SOMEONE HELP ME!! HELP ME!!" And it's not because they are receiving substandard care, it's because they have lost touch with reality and will be given PRN Haldol, Benadryl or possibly Thorazine by a shot in the ass to get them to calm the fuck down and sleep for between 8-10 hours

There are patients such as the one described above who cannot benefit from the inpatient level of care provided and are transferred to one of the state psychiatric hospitals - Winnebago Mental Health Institute outside of Oshkosh or Mendota State Hospital in Madison.

New admissions must have their psychosocial assessment and Treatment Plan with therapy goals completed and routed to the assigned staff psychiatrist, nursing staff, and assigned case manager within 72 hours from admission

If you complete a patient's "intake" as outlined above that patient becomes part of your caseload with the expectation of meeting with them every other day for general updates which you are expected to provide in every morning's Treatment Team meeting with staff psychiatrists, other inpatient therapists, case managers, recreation therapists, nursing staff, and utilization review staff who will tell you what the patient's last covered day by insurance is at that point and that they need a "criteria" note to indicate that the patient needs additional time at this level of care which will be part of the documentation submitted to the insurance company to gain approval for additional days at the inpatient level of care

Patients admitted for alcohol or other substance use detox have an average length of stay of 3-5 days. What beneficial therapy they are going to receive in that amount of time is beyond me.

Mental health patient have an average length of stay between 7-10 days. As primarily an outpatient therapist, what coping skills or insight into what led to their admission they can gain in that short time again baffles me

I am clearly meant to be an outpatient therapist. I want to connect with my patients, establish clear goals and work toward them with my patients, and if we get off track, I want to steer them back on the path of reaching their goals. I cannot do the work for them, however I will provide all of my training, knowledge, and experience to walk that path with them and support them during times of crisis and times of success.

That's who I am. 

                                                           😱                                                                                             

 

So This is Christmas...

This is a lyric from the song "Happy Christmas (War is Over)" that sadly strikes me as very relevant this particular holiday season:

And so this is Christmas

For weak and for strong

For rich and the poor ones

The world is so wrong

I've heard this song as often as any other and they all sort of mesh together at some point, but for this blog I read all of the lyrics and realized this is really an anti-war anthem more than a traditional Christmas carol. Regardless, it's the "The world is so wrong" line that grabbed me.

Without doubt there are many things "wrong" in our world, but as the political pendulum swings as it always does, I want to post what I wrote on the back of our photo Christmas cards this year.

I feel I've been pretty open about my mental health and work struggles this year, but I don't want to believe that the world is so wrong. Has it been my best year ever? No, but honestly I struggle to remember an entire year that didn't include disappointment, loss, or pain. Sure, maybe when I was six or seven years old the world seemed stable and consistent, but I know for sure that the Christmas of 1976 was unsettling because that was the first Christmas with my youngest sibling, my brother who's six years younger than I am. Being the oldest of the Porath clan, I've heard stories about how I pouted when my younger sister was born and the world didn't revolve around just me anymore. 

So I'm pretty sure there has always been disappointment, loss, or pain in any given year. When you're a little kid these setbacks are age-appropriate, at least I hope they are for others reading this. At age 54, the disappointment, loss, and pain feel SO MUCH MORE intense than the tantrums I threw when I was six and naturally so. If I still threw tantrums at this age, that would be really fucking weird. 

Bringing this all together, I'm trying to say that life is not fair, shit happens, and as we mature, the unfairness and shit mature with us. At age seven I wasn't worried about car insurance, now at age fifty-four, sometimes I am. I came to terms with the birth of my siblings decades ago, love them to death and am thrilled they are a part of my life. 

My intent for 2026 is to manage the challenges that will undoubtedly happen, not make mountains out of mole-hills, and reach out for help when I need it. 2025 showed me how much I need to lean on others which I have fought against so hard I burned out. I was a pile of smoking embers as summer waned but I got  help and I need to keep up that momentum. That will help me find peace, joy, and to take better care of myself (I have a terrible habit of working harder than my patients and that has stopped since I started my new job as an inpatient therapist at a free standing psych hospital).

I will close with this lyric from the same song I've been yammering about:

And so this is Christmas
I hope you have fun
The near and the dear one
The old and the young

The Bittersweet Goodbye is Real

Since I came back to work part time on 11/05/2025, I've been working knowing that at the far end my last day seeing clients would be Tuesday 12/02/2025 and staff (me and another LCP) would spend 3 days discharging clients, counting up IT and office equipment, finally locking the doors on Friday 12/05/25.

Last week I emailed all of my clients who haven't scheduled to see me from 11/06/25 to 12/02/25, checking if they wanted to schedule another couple of sessions or if they wanted me to discharge and close their file, which is the option the vast majority of clients took. So I spend a good amount of time last week discharging them and closing files.

Each client discharge brought to mind the awkwardness of their Intake session, "ah-ha" moments I was privileged to witness in sessions, and memories of tragedies shared and successes achieved. I teared up as I looked over most of the names on my client list. I wish I could take dozens of them with me, but I can't. I'm moving into a position that's not focused on outpatient therapy.

For me the good news is that I've already found a full time position at a local 74 bed inpatient hospital, completing Intake assessments, treatment planning, and discharge planning for both mental health and detox patients, in addition to providing individual, family and group sessions, and floating over to offer PHP and IOP 1:1 sessions, processing and psychoeducational groups. 

My last day at my current gig is Monday 12/01/25. My new gig starts 12/15/25. I've never taken any time off between job changes, but given my own mental health struggles, the objectively fucked-up way the termination of my current position has been handled, and my need for time to process all of it, I feel entitled to have ten days off between,

Whenever I get a new client I go into Facebook and try to locate them and block them. When working at a prison, this was literally for my own safety.  With middle school and high school kids this was purely for privacy boundaries and I've continued that practice for many years since. I'm well aware of the Wisconsin Department of  Health Services and best practices of not contacting or accepting contact from former clients for at least two years after the end of the professional relationship. Two years is a long time to be motivated to search for someone and start social contact with them, which is the point of that limitation. As much as I care about my clients now, in two years will they even be interested in any contact from me, and me from them?

I hope I've offered the best care I could to my clients. I want all of them to succeed, whatever that looks like for them, and if I played any role in that coming to fruition, I am humbled, I hope I've made a difference. I hope I've compassionately prompted change.

I continue to and always will hope....

                                                                

…and then there’s this…

After my therapy session but before my ninth and final acute Ketamine session on Friday, October 31, 2025, I responded to a voicemail from a Vice President in my organizational hierarchy. She bluntly told me that the “large national insurance company that owns the outpatient agency” I transferred to from a remote home-based position in November 2024 has made the decision, based on “multiple considerations” (corporate speak for “these outpatient clinics are not making a profit or at least not a large enough profit”) so all of these agencies will close permanently on Friday, December 5, 2025.

There are three agencies in Wisconsin that are closing: in De Pere where I work full time, in Appleton where we have a prescribing nurse practitioner, and the Oshkosh office where two clinicians were recently hired.

Granted, it was/somewhat still is a cluster fuck where I work. Because there are only two full-time LPCs in the office we have no admin support on site.  We started out with one, but she was let go “due to down-sizing” shortly after January 1, 2025. So that leaves A LOT of shit for the two of us to do. Because I’ve been at the De Pere location the longest, the toiletry supply/carpet cleaning company thinks I’m in some sort of managerial role and their sales rep regularly calls me or stops into the office unexpectedly and thinks talking with me will result in additional services we will purchase from them. The last time he called me, I finally told him, “Dude, I am not a decision maker here. I’m a therapist, that’s it. Here is my director’s email address. She’s based on the south side of Chicago. Good luck.”

One of the situations I hate most about any employment environment is having to fix another department’s mistakes. We have a “central scheduling department” whose location is completely unknown to me. When new hires are going through the on-boarding process, we submit our schedules to a different department that creates our schedule which includes our preferences such as not working with telehealth clients, not working with couples and/or families via telehealth, the age range of clients’ counselors feel comfortable working with and that sort of thing. Then the mystical schedulers who receive calls from new clients are supposed to follow the clinician-created availability…but sometimes they don’t.

And if a new Intake gets scheduled outside of the parameters I’ve provided, it’s up to me to contact these clients and explain why I can’t see them and provide them with next steps, so they are seen by a clinician who meets their scheduling preferences.

That drives me ABSOLUTELY CRAZY.

I have enough work to do and spending time talking with clients, apologizing profusely for a mistake I DID NOT make, but I am held responsible for fixing makes me want to scream.

 

There is a process to make the schedulers aware of such “mistakes”, but I swear it’s a 12 step process that I don’t have time to complete.

These are some examples of how I got burned out at work, only to be compiled by home stressors, that led to my recent FMLA for Ketamine therapy. I have gained significant insight into what leads up to burn out for me and am starting to better manage my perfectionism, maladaptive beliefs that I am independent to the point that “I don’t need any help or support” to get through life while increasing my insight that I didn’t get this far in life without the help and support of family and friends, and that I do the best I can with the information/skills/resources available to me at the time.

This is a much more balanced way of living, which I’ve secretly craved for so long that sometimes I have to double check the validity/reality that I can truly live this way.

In my therapy session on 11/07/25, I suddenly came up with this concept of “Kristine 2.0” which involves getting in touch with core beliefs and values that can propel my life forward, which will likely involve cutting off some of my previous beliefs and values that served me at the time, but are no longer useful or effective.

Despite the nervousness and support of my husband, parents, and siblings, to name a few, I feel good about taking some time in December to keep exploring my beliefs and values, keeping what I need and leaving the rest. The last three Holiday seasons have ranged from totally shitty to barely tolerable at best. I want this season to be filled with hope, love and peace, and I truly believe I can make it so.

Phoenix Rising

Here I Go Again...

 

WARNING: This blog includes descriptions of self-harming behaviors, please take that into consideration before you continue reading and especially if you choose to leave a comment.

Here’s an AI generated definition of treatment resistant depression:

Treatment-resistant depression (TRD) is the lack of response to at least two different, adequate antidepressant treatments for major depressive disorder, meaning the symptoms don't improve or only partially improve after taking the medications for sufficient time and dosage. While there isn't a universally agreed-upon official definition, the condition is identified by the failure to achieve adequate improvement with standard treatments and requires further investigation to find an effective course of action. 

I’ve had a major depressive disorder since I was roughly 22 years old. I’ve had treatment resistant depression since roughly 2006 when I had a 12-treatment course of ECT (electro-convulsive therapy), generally known as “shock therapy.” I had 2 weeks of ECT on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule, then 2 weeks on a Tuesday-Thursday schedule, finally I had 2 weeks of weekly treatments on Wednesdays.

By the 5^th week Mark had to carry me from the car into our house after treatments because my head hurt literally beyond description, I was weak, I had unending vomiting on treatment days, and I could barely sip water and eat 6 saltine crackers throughout the course of the treatment days.

During the last 2 weeks of treatments, I attended the wedding of one of my best friends and I remember none of it. Thank God we have pictures so at least I could see the lovely bride and groom, their flowers, and my other friends in attendance.

In early October 2023 my depression symptoms were worsening. I spent weekly sessions with my psychiatrist trying an addition of another antidepressant, reported no improvement, that med was discontinued and another antidepressant was added, yet again I reported no improvement, and my symptoms were still worsening. Finally, I did some online research and found oral Ketamine treatment for treatment resistant depression. Costs were all out of pocket, I had to provide medical information, have an online interview with the prescriber for medical clearance, meet with a “guide”, and document my intentions pre-treatment and what I got “out of the medication session” to discuss with my guide.

I had a 6-treatment weekly course of 800mcg (I’m not sure how they measure the doses, it could be micrograms, milligrams, I don’t really know) but after week 4 I started feeling a shit ton less depressed and that continued for about 18 months. Which brings me to late summer/early fall 2025.

My shrink and I have gone back and forth over the years discussing if I may have bipolar disorder, which as of my last appointment with him on August 4, 2025, I’m not diagnosed with. I agree with that…there are times when my depression was so severe, I would have given anything for a smidge of hypomania, which never happened.

By mid-September this year I started feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and once again worsening depression. I believed I was an independent woman who ought to be able to manage my emotions without any help or support outside of my therapist and my shrink. I said nothing to anyone except for them about how I was spiraling down, down, down.

I couldn’t wait for my psychiatrist to tinker with my meds or take weekly doses of oral Ketamine through the previous online organization I had previously used and received significant relief. I needed help NOW.

On September 21^st I found a local provider of IV Ketamine, 6 total sessions on a Monday-Wednesday-Friday schedule for 2 weeks starting October 13^th. They use an app where I complete daily mood ratings, journal, have access to an online community, and PHQ-9 depression assessments.

This is my entry for Friday October 10^th:

I had a breakdown. I slammed my hands against the bathroom counter while sitting down in front of the shower and slammed my head against it a few times. Then I laid down on the bath mat and cried. I took the scissors and cut off my hair. No idea what I was doing, I just kept cutting and cutting until 80 percent of it was gone. I can’t look in a mirror to see my ugly face and what I’m sure is my ugly hair. I am useless, I am a burden. I can’t stand myself.

I had my first IV Ketamine session on Monday, October 13^th. As of today (10/23/25) I’ve had 5 sessions. I was originally scheduled for 6 sessions, but after talking with my provider she recommended 8 sessions, so my last medication session is now Wednesday, October 29^th. My anticipated return to work date on a part time schedule is Tuesday, November 4^th. I’m receiving short term disability, 60% of my regular salary, which is enough to get us through.

My “mood trend” scores have gone from 3 on a 1/10 scale on 10/05/25 to 7/10 on 10/23/25 which is a clinically significant increase in mood. I have another week and a half before this part of my medication journey concludes. We’ll see where I go from here.

Memories of Arches and Canyons

 I recently came across some notes I'd written during the trip to southeast Utah Mark and I took in early September 2012:

There is "something" about these red rocks, dry earth, and striated cliffs that is calling to a very primordial part of my soul. I sense that my soul has  known this place long before it took its current refuge  inside of me. Maybe my soul is hearing that "something" calling out to it, calling, "remember me, old friend? Wasn't it you who was here, helping to carve out these cliffs in the rushing, frigid water? Wasn't it you who was here, helping to heave great slabs of earth skyward, exposing this rock below? And wasn't it you, old friend, who was here, again in the rushing river, this time flowing away from the land, leaving nothing behind but sand and a few scrubby bushes? Wasn't it you who flew high overhead, seeing all of your work, calling it good, then leaving just as mysteriously and as silently as you came?"

The sky here is a shade of blue that I don't have the words to describe. My best is, "If God has eyes, and they are blue, this is the shade of blue they would be." 

It is so singularly clear and crisp, yet warm and inviting; it's the color that welcomes one to sit, to stay and to bathe in its light. It's impossible to be angry surrounded by this color of blue because it softens everything inside of each of us, urging us to flow in the sense of awe, laugh, be kind, and appreciate this awe, because far too soon this color will shift into a much colder attitude and appearance.

Laying on my back, floating with the natural rhythm of the Colorado River, I submerged my head enough for my ears to feel like I was melting in the river, my body slowly seeping into that cool, flat water. There were two spots along the river where there was absolute silence, the only exception being Rachael our river guide, rowing and moving the water out of our way at one spot and the other being when she pushed us through the water, not even the oars in their sockets made any noise, it was the river water that accompanied us that barely made us aware of where we were. 

This is what I still hold in my heart of the desert. 

August

 

August reminds us to go to that park, grill steaks, brats, and burgers along with fresh corn on the cob.

 August pushes toward one more time at the beach, community swimming pools, and running through sprinklers in the front yard.

 It’s when summer camps end, adolescent memories for a lifetime are made. The excitement of buying new “back to school” clothes, shoes, notebooks, markers, pens and pencils – depending on your grade, a new multi-function calculator, protractors and compasses. An FYI here: I graduated from high school in 1989, I know, I know, I’m entering my crone phase of life, but I’m not sure how all of the newest technology fits into this.

 If you are starting your senior year in high school, you likely had your senior pictures taken earlier this summer and start exchanging them with your closest friends first.

 August gives us at least one or two weekends for camping at the county park, one or two chances to swim in the lake, get ice cream from the camp ground store, finally summon up the courage to swim out to the sandbar and stand up in the water only mid-thigh high.

It’s one more chance to hear the woodpeckers battling tree bark, mourning doves cooing at sunset, which is noticeably earlier than it was at graduation in early June.

August weekends become the way of counting down the number of kids hanging out at High Cliff on bright Sunday afternoons
who start floating away, the only thing left is their impression in the dewy grass.

                                                      

                         

A Story of Connection

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.”

Wisdom of the Old South

 This is what I’ve learned since arriving in Savannah on Thursday May 8th:

Go out there

Go to where the grass turns into a tarnished gold 

and the tree stands 

languishing and weary with the weight of itself 

Go to where the meadow ends and 

the living things are nearly gone and 

where there seems nowhere else left to go 

and then keep going.

Just a little beyond the lost trace 

of a trail, keep going 

just a little bit further than it makes sense to.

Keep going just a little past that place 

you had decided was the farthest you could go.

And then watch as your unfathomably inextinuishable

hope rises,

hungry and wild, once more.

While most of the time she was in good spirits,

on occasion it all turned to one great desert.

At these times, she would find a need 

to call upon the moon dragon 

and go off,

reminding herself of all the magic in the world.

Winter Meditation

I am the one

who craves frigid silence

beneath winter stars.

 

Hiking on snowshoes across snowfields,

broken only by the tracks of

deer and rabbits,

ears at attention from my crunching on the new-day snow.

 

In that winter world

I am the one who communes with the mountains, worships at the frozen pond in the gloaming.

Dwelt uninvited,

until I laid out my tarp and sleeping bag

among the stands of cedars.

Another 366 Days Around the Sun (Leap Year)

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 💕

                                                                Rexford Mahi Sack

                                                        Me & Mahi Mahi deep sea fishing

                                                        Smathers Beach Key West, FL

                                                        Sun Drop at Fausto's Food Palace

                                                            35th Class Reunion Poem

                                                                    Class Photo 1989

                                                                     Selfie with Sid

                                            Appleton West High School Diploma June 8, 1989

                                    

                                                            

   

It Didn’t Feel Like 35 Years

 It didn’t take long last night before it felt like it couldn’t possibly be thirty-five years since we graduated from high school. No. Nope. No way. Nuh-uh. Thirty-five years, really? Thirty-five years…huh.

There were not an enormous number of name tags at the Registration Table. In 1989 The Post Crescent declared that 380 students were graduating from Appleton West High School on June 8th. For some reason, I always thought there were 444 kids in our senior class and the way I remember it is because that’s the number of days the US hostages in Iran were held in captivity. Yeah, that happened when I was in 5^th grade, but the correlation is unbreakable for me. Yet I’ve heard rumors that our class size was closer to 477-478. I understand that class size doesn’t equal graduation size. Then there’s this nebulous piece of data that had something to do with kids getting caught cheating on the Physics final and they were prohibited from “walking” during the commencement ceremony? Trust me, I was never in any sort of Physics class whether it be high school, college or graduate school. That’s something that could likely be mis-memoried. Hey, I like the sound and definition of that new word I think I just created. I know the correct grammatical term is mis-remembered, but mis-memoried seems more emotional to me, and if the displayed poem and Talisman articles out for display last night are any indication at all, yes, I go with the emotional!

I remember writing the “censorship” article. The Valentine’s Day article though? Not one thin string of memory can reconnect me to writing that. Last night I literally cringed when as reading the article and kept referring to female students as “chicks”.

MY UNDERGRAD MAJOR WAS WOMEN’S STUDIES FOR CHRIST’S SAKE.

AT AN EAST COAST LIBERAL ARTS UNIVERSITY.

Just goes to show that a person can have her consciousness raised and become much more aware and sensitive that how we refer to each other can be deeply telling about our own crap at the time. Read the article and you’ll totally understand what I’m talking about.

I haven’t gone to all of our reunions. I missed twenty-five and thirty. I was at number 20 though because that’s when the people I was closest to in high school were invited over to my parents’ house where while we were in high school, we either a) spent a lot of time in my parents’ basement or pool, or b) didn’t spend a lot of time there but the time that was spent was memorable in some way, or c) you were at my graduation party on June 24, 1989 and if you were, the first thing that comes to mind is Wowzers.                           

There are SO many classmates that I would love to see again. Some of them had nametags at the ready last night. Others didn’t or haven’t at the reunions I attended. I’m not going to name them here, but God-damn Matt Thompson, Adam Hardt, Robb Bosser, John Falcus, and Pat Van Derhei you need to get yourselves to our next one. We’re not going to live forever, you know. It’d be nice to see you again before I die.

Our Reunion Committee kicks ass. At each reunion there is something created in memory of those from the class of 1989 that we have already lost due to tragedy, accident or illness. I was shocked to find two names of boys I knew from junior high added to the memorial. I went to junior high at Wilson with them both. It’s hard tracking down anyone who knows the details, but really that information is to satisfy my own curiosity. It doesn’t change the fact that 35 years ago, they too walked across the stage assembled in our high school gym. 380 teenagers slammed into the gym, let’s average two guests for every graduate, that’s another 760 bodies, plus the representatives from the Appleton Area School District, staff/faculty/administrators from our own high school, I figure that’s roughly 1,200 people in that gym on a cloudy and damp early June evening. Wearing polyester robes over the clothes we were already wearing. It’s a gift from God, a mitzvah if you will, no one went down that Thursday night.

              
I wrote a poem dedicated to our 35^th class reunion and it was on full display last night. I brought markers so everyone in attendance could sign it or write something on it. At first a fellow alum and I stood there, saying, “What do you write on this sort of thing?” Then she said, “Is it like a yearbook where you write ‘Stay cool and have an awesome summer!’” My mind went racing with the number of variations on that theme I’ve written in yearbooks since 1984.                                    

I talked to and hugged a lot of people last night. It felt amazing. I spent more time with other people than the people I arrived with! All of the high school pettiness evaporated years ago, but it’s good to be reminded that high school is not the way life will always be. I know there were official group pictures taken by Brian Blazer (WTF Blazer? You don’t even say “Hi!” to me??) I’m over it, I really am 😊And I look forward to seeing those in the near future.

I bought an official copy of our class graduation picture snapped in the pouring rain at the Banta Bowl and I am already circling people’s heads and adding their names. 

At the time of high school graduation, I would be in the camp that wanted to selectively remember classmates and experiences. Then I started working as a School-Based Mental Health Counselor through the PATH Program of the United Way-Fox Cities and I was so excited for my first day at West that I walked into the Student Services Office and boldly said, “Hi I’m Kris Porath, your new PATH counselor!” Then I erupted in laughter and said, “Ok, no, I’m Kristine Sack and I’m your new PATH counselor, but the last time I stood in this office, which was across the hall by the way, my name was Kris Porath, class of 1989.” The three secretaries/administrative assistants looked at me as if I had two heads. I mumbled that I needed access to a certain room number and could one of them please let me in. How returning to that specific place, all those years later, brought me right back to the way I identified myself then is surely something Freud would have me on the couch for years analyzing.

So, thirty-five years have come and gone. What an exquisite life it’s been. Wouldn’t you agree?                                                    

Family

 Well, that’s an incredibly small and incredibly large subject, isn’t it?

 When I started putting this blog together, it was going to be a simple description of how I had been finishing the pad of Jumbo Word Finds that I ended up with after my Grandpa Krause died in February 2018. Ultimately it will be, but I had to explore a bunch of tributaries before I got back on the river this particular tribute to my maternal grandmother would become.

I’m a quasi-genealogy contact for my family of origin. That said, tonight I sifted through obituaries, funeral programs, printed material from ancestry.com, and database information that my second cousin on my paternal grandfather’s side had created. Yes, Bruce Schaepe, I will call you out because whenever we have been together, unfortunately it’s always at family funerals, we have created a pod of just the two of us talking about family history and genealogy. Bruce’s mother married a brother of my Grandpa Porath. So, his mother was my great-great aunt. Establishing family relationships at times makes my head spin. Tonight, I tried to organize some family documents into folders. So far, I have a folder titled “Krause” (my maternal grandfather), “Wilber/Ziemer” (my maternal grandmother), “Porath” (my paternal grandfather), and “Kuether” (my paternal grandmother). Yeah, I know, my head is spinning right along with yours.

Now, getting back to the original purpose of this blog: I hope everyone reading this can say, “My grandma was the best grandma EVER!” I can certainly say that without doubt. In my maternal family we have this tradition I have posted about before called “Gravehopping.”  Quick hits info: either the weekend before or Memorial Day Weekend we go to the graves of our maternal grandparents’ family, which now consists of three separate cemeteries, and remove the fake flowers we placed last year and replace them with “fresh” fake flowers.

When my Grandma Krause (my mom’s mom) was able to go with us, when we got to the grave of her grandma, she always said, “She was the best grandma ever.” Every year I would tell her, “No, you’re the best grandma ever.” She would look up at me and say, “Oh, I can only hope so, Dolly.”  She ALWAYS called her five granddaughters “Dolly” when ending a phone call or a letter.

Back on the river and off of the tributaries: As I alluded to earlier, I have my Grandma Krause’s Jumbo Word Find Pad. I don’t know the date of my grandma’s last attempted word find, but the title is “80 Reunion Time.” The clues include “guest”, “memories”, and “mementos”.  Of the 28 words, she found 15. Today I completed 10 of the remaining words.

I left one incomplete on purpose. The word is “Farewell.” It’s in here somewhere, but I haven’t looked for it. Despite the number of years that have passed since Grandma Krause passed and where she lived at the time she passed, I like to think about one year when we were in Shawano, on the small front porch of the house on Smalley Street and Grandma said, “They must not have the stock car races at the Fair anymore.” My cousins and I shared a knowing look with each other and one of us said, “Grandma, they’re racing the cars right now. Can’t you hear them?” She answered, “Oh, no, but I’m glad that you can hear them.”

The BEST things about Gravehopping was that on Sunday of Gravehopping weekend, Grandma Krause would fry eggs over-hard for me in the bacon grease in her cast iron skillet. To this day, all of these years later, I have not eaten anything that comes close to how absolutely perfect these simple fried eggs tasted.

I have no idea who got Grandma Krause’s iron skillet, but I have my Grandma Porath’s iron skillet and I have yet to attempt the “eggs fried over hard in bacon grease.”  I hope that I have the courage to fry eggs over hard soon. In a way, it will complete the “farewell” Reunion Time.

How Will I Know?

When we lost Peanut on May 26, 2010, it was exactly one month later, June 26, 2010, that we brought Apollo home. If you knew me during the Peanut years, you know how completely devoted I was to him. Living in a household without a dog got lonely and when we chose Apollo and he chose us, it felt right. When I close my eyes, I can still feel his little puppy body curled up in my lap on the drive home. He was warm and I could hear him breathe. We picked him up in Wausaukee and had a significant drive home from his foster family’s house. I held him steady with my left hand, playing with his ears, looking out the window, contemplating his name.

His name. As someone who silently giggles when I come across “unfortunate” human names, this was a defining choice. His foster family named him Red, which was a no-go from the start. So, I’m doing some free association thinking and the movie Troy with Brad Pitt as Achilles floats into my thoughts, and how he fell in love with Persephone, the protector of the oracle of Apollo, the Greek god of light, their Sun God. The Romans worshipped Apollo as a god of healing. Light, the sun, healing…exactly what was needed in the vacuum of our lives that Peanut left. Not a replacement, but a healer. That’s a lot of expectation for an eight-week, nine-pound puppy, but fucking-a did he deliver!!

From the moment we got back home, his huge personality filled every shadow of darkness. It took two rounds of obedience classes to get him to honestly, the sub-par level in which he would listen and “obey.” We did get him kennel trained which was huge because Peanut wasn’t, and it eventually became problematic – like the time in Milwaukee when he got my new $1,700 eyeglasses off of my night stand and I woke to the sound of him chewing and destroying them a mere two hours after I fell asleep.

 It’s been 6 months and 10 days since we lost Apollo. I am finally able to look at pictures of him without crumbling into tears, although if I look at anymore than three, my thoughts wander to how much he was loved, how much he loved all of us, and how much I still miss him. Then the tears roll, like they are now.

Two weeks ago, I opened my Petfinder app and plugged in the info about what type of dog I was looking for (size, sex, age, etc.). Then I added our info (kids, other pets, type of yard, etc.). This is the website where we found Apollo. There are small-to-medium sized male puppies available for adoption. Some of them are part-terrier with wired hair like Apollo had. Some of them have the same black and tan markings that Peanut had.

While looking at pictures and reading puppy bios, it crosses my mind that I may be looking for a “replacement” for Apollo, and that if a pup has a different personality from his, which of course he will, I will be disappointed.

I just untangled my own answer right there.