Christmas has come and gone. We are just days away from the end of 2016 and I can say GOOD RIDDANCE to it. It was not a fun year and we had some sadness, some heartache and a lot of little shitty things happen. My MIL passed away, Jax had that allergic reaction and is now suffering the consequences of that (high anxiety). My identity was stolen and a MasterCard was opened in my name. Now I will have to place a freeze on my credit which will be PITA every time I need to apply for credit.

Mid-year I had a root canal which turned out to be a fractured root so an aborted root canal lead to an extraction and dental implant (still an ongoing process).

The daughter of a good friend was diagnosed with leukemia. While she has "won the lottery of cancers" according to her doctors, treatment still has not been easy for her or her family. Six months down and two years to go.

A very good friend of mine was diagnosed with some uber rare form of breast cancer. She has had a mastectomy and is still awaiting word to find out if her insurance will cover the cost of the treatment and genetic testing.

My FIL is feeling lost without my MIL. I think it is so very sad that he put up no Christmas decorations. I know he was not feeling it but it breaks my heart a little.

The list of celebrities who have passed away this year has also been shocking. Maybe it is that most of them are all of a certain age but so many seemed to have passed prematurely. The ones that hurt me the most were Prince, Alan Thicke (I know you are thinking WTF?) and Carrie Fisher.

I have not been able to keep up with regular exercise or diet and it really has affected my mood. Or maybe it is (peri?)menopause? Whatever the reason, I am grumpy and have no patience for people. I have unfriended dozens of people from Facebook for infractions such as me believing they owe me an apology, to their politics (sorry but I do not believe that Trump's business "acumen" is just what we need in the White House), to people slighting other friends.

Let's hope that the remaining days of 2016 are not completely awful and pray, hope and wish that 2017 will not be nearly as bad as we fear.

Jax called me this morning to tell me that he thought he was having an allergic reaction and he was at the hospital. It seems it was not an allergic reaction but an anxiety attack. He told me that he had been struggling with eating from the dining hall since his reaction in October. When he called he was in the waiting room. Clearly they did not think he was having an allergic reaction because he had been waiting for over an hour. He was much calmer, had NOT taken epinephrine and had decided it was probably just anxiety.

He hasn't been sleeping much and yesterday was his big project where he was producer on a live TV show that the school of broadcasting put on (he did an awesome job). However, he stayed up very late to finish some work that he got behind in in the days leading up to the show and then he had a big cup of coffee (he rarely drinks it) and then started questioning whether the food he ate may have had peanuts in it or not. So the lack of sleep and the caffeine heightened his anxiety.

So after that hour and still siitng in the ER waiting room, he told them he was leaving and headed to the school's health and counseling office and was checked out by a nurse who said he was physically fine but she helped him make an appointment to see a counselor and a nutritionist. He also mentioned that he is not going to eat in the dining hall for a few days until he is less worried. He will go to the grocery store and pick up some food. I hope he remembers to get some protein! He is good about eating enough veggies and fruit.

I am so worried about him. Thankfully he will be home in just over a week and he has a month off school. Also, he has an appointment with the allergist scheduled for the week after he gets home just to talk to her and see if he needs to get additional Rx to maybe carry some prednisone around with him if it happens again.

He had some (a lot!) of anxiety around his allergy when he was 9, which is the age when children realize that death is real and permanent. He had stopped eating outside of the house and lost a lot of weight. I took him to counseling for a year where he learned some great techniques to calm himself down. To this day I know he uses those techniques but this is different since it stemmed from a REAL reaction. I am so worried about him!