So it’s finally Christmas Day, and there is much to be thankful for – like that this day will soon be over and eventually your extended family will be gone. Here’s hoping you get into one of those fantastic political conversations that always go so well!  Just think positive: Unless you are in a couple of states, it really doesn’t matter what you think or how you vote anyway!  

Why am I so relaxed about this?  Well, part of it is called Esketamine.  It’s a nasal spray.  Yes, that’s right, something I snorted into my sinuses has made not only made me happier but more relaxed than I have been in – EVER pretty much.  I have always worried, since I was a little girl, and my body has been in permanent fight or flight mode for so long I thought that was how it was. Because while I hadn’t been as sad and stressed as I was when I was working full time, I wasn’t – well anything much.  I was still a Mom, yes, but that was about all I could do.  I slowly got worse and worse until I didn’t go out.  I didn’t take basic care of myself.  My house looks like a bomb went off filled with someone else’s crap, cause surely I didn’t buy this?  So – I was thinking maybe there might be something more to life than this.

And so I tried the new treatment.  And it was like getting glasses for the first time, and realizing I was supposed to see leaves on the trees.

Maybe I should snort something up MY nose.

Did you know the leaves are incredibly beautiful?  I mean not when they’re swept into the gutter and filled with gunk, but before that.  Listening to Christmas hymns about the birth of new life and hope now fills my formerly anxiety ridden chest with air that expands into ever rising joy.  Stuff that used to worry me – like my in-laws on the holidays and how they don’t show up on time and you don’t know who is coming and they talk about how big their guns are (it takes two hands to hold that sucker up! Big Gun!  Gun Big!), just floated off of my back this time.  I learned the secret, gals. Be like men. Doze off in a chair.  It’s amazing how effective that is.  I even got offered a bed by my step-mother-in-law later.

Family dinners are always better with drugs!

That’s not all either.  You see, last year we lost several Christmas ornaments when our shed got blown over and all those carefully collected ornaments from years past got rain damage. So I put the ornaments in labeled boxes in our craft closet to keep them safe.  But then about a week before Christmas it occurred to us that maybe we should put up some decorations or something and we couldn’t find the tree, which is kinda the most important part.  After a search of the house, it was still in the shed, only this time it didn’t get rained on – unless you count golden showers.  As in the kind that come from tom cats marking their territory.

When ya gotta go, ya gotta go, ‘kay?

Those cats claimed that tree like no one’s business.  My husband still brought it in because he’s a guy, and well, he got us a tree didn’t he?  Problem solved!  Except it still smelled of cat pee. Thing One tried the Lysol trick, but Lysol is no much for tom cat on fake pine.  I was not going to put ornaments on that thing, so I mentioned to my parents that hey, our tree got peed on by cats.  Can we borrow one of yours?  Now my husband is normally dangerously laid back, but for some reason he decided this was the time to put his foot down and say that we were fine, and did not need another tree.  Why we loved our pee pee tree; it was OURs.

Again, normally this whole thing would have me much more upset but since I am better (this is Alice on “better”) the first thing I thought of was how I could take that old classic “Oh Christmas Tree” and turn it into “Oh Pee Pee Tree, how smelly are your branches!”  And then I could write a post about it.  Because who doesn’t think of cat urine when celebrating the holidays?  

What this tree needs is a little cat pee!

I was getting tired of the smell though, cause did I mention we also got two more turtles, making the total up to three turtles?  No?  Well, yeah there are three turtles.  And a leopard gecko.  I thought that was enough animal for our house without adding another special smell, so finally husband dear agreed to let my parents give us a small 3 foot tree which was just fine with me cause it’d take up much less space. My brave Thing Two took out the smelly tree to the garbage where maybe it will make a home for more alley cats.  Reuse, recycle I always say.

Then today a six-foot-tall package showed up from Fed Ex.  There was no return address.  We were starting to think maybe this strange gift was from Santa, before I realized that the six foot tall box must be the gift my friend of over 30 years, Ravin, mentioned sending to the kids.  Turns out I told a lot of people about the pee pee tree, and so in the spirit of the holidays, my old pal sent us a full sized tree.  What a way to end a story.  

Except not entirely.  I still have several treatments to go of the Esketamine, and am staying cautiously optimistic about the effects (as well as the bill), but so far it has worked a real Christmas miracle on me.  Since many people may want to know more, I plan on other posts telling about my adventures with unusual uses of anesthesia. I also, for the first time in a while, have plans and resolutions for the next year I hope to write about, saying we don’t get bombed by North Korea or whatever.  But this was a Christmas story, so I think I’ll end it here.  

Happy Holidays and a Pee Pee Free New Year!

Alice