TGIF. I have had a good week over all, but my therapy about dysfunctional family dynamics has taught me to look at how all groups interact. Right now, two young faculty have been showing signs that something or other has made them cranky when around me. In meetings, passing in the hallway.

So I'm being mindful and trying to shift interactions to the positive to see if that might help. However, as an old faculty member this week my physical damage is wearing down my endurance. My PTSD recovery led me to be a hospital chaplain for ER trauma patients, but on that job I mistook diabetes symptoms to be PTSD symptoms. I worked with low blood sugar for a year pushing myself too much, and ended up with 60% permanent kidney damage.

In turn that caused permanent nerve damage to 2 disks in my back, to both feet, and to my fingers. In my feet and back it means chronic pain, and it's been bad enough that I'm on crutches at the moment.

I can't take painkillers other than Tylenol (not even aspirin) due to my kidneys, so pain control is psychological for me. Getting rest helps. Thing is, I'm kind of fatigued living on that 40% of kidney function, and I've got my grouchy young co-workers to see in a meeting today. They're nice people, they've just been in a bad mood for a couple of weeks and somehow I'm playing some kind of elder role bad mood depository role in our workplace family system. I take it usually as a kind of a backwards flattery most days, because it means they see me as strong and a guy they can gripe at.

But I'm in pain today. I've been on crutches all week for spraining my left ankle, but all day so far I keep having nerves flare up in my right foot. It's generally bringing my own overall coping skills down. I need some couch time to rest, binge watch some mindless tv show, take another nap, and just be cranky myself and old right now. I'm at work, though, so I'm venting here, knowing that's the next best thing. Thanks for listening.