On these days I came home from picking up children from school. Got home around 4:30 and took a fourteen-hour nap. This led to some difficulty with Getting Anything Done. Feels like my head needs flossing. Or that I have become a stuffed animal. And light hurts. Maybe I am becoming a vampire as punishment for reading too many trashy young-adult teen-angst books. Sue me. I didn't read them when I was a teen. I don't even know if they existed when I was a teen. I think my asthma doesn't like the recurring sinus infection routine. I am pretty sure that if I treated my asthma I would be better able to bounce back. Not feeling bouncy now. I am closing my left eye to keep most of the light out of my head. I wish I knew where my prescription sunglasses were. I could pretend to be a celebrity ducking the paparazzi. Or not. Sweet. I just realized that I can type without looking. So apologies for any typos. I have been taking my meds. And that is about it. I think I need to call doc today about fatigue. Whether it is a side effect of combination of meds, when I am taking them, untreated asthma, or some other thing. Because I do not like needing to sleep this much. Also, don't know when I next go in to see therapist. I should call them too. This is on my list for today:
I am having a disconcerting, upsetting (but not active) longing for the days of Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms. If I could be a Social Eating Disordered person the way some people can be social smokers, I would totally do it. But I don't do things half-way. All in or all out. Doing a project on emergent reading. I had youtube do automatic closed captioning for me and I came across this lovely bit of nonsense: boy Made dinner for a friend today. Mostly felt fine with only minor sinus headache. Took meds in the evening. Nothing more to report at this time.
Grateful Crap: That there is not a snow emergency on our night plow route where my friend's car is stranded. Daily Convexions: took meds in the pm (150mg sertraline, 450mg bupropion) Still did not call for renewal. Also need to fine out when my next psych appointment is. Why is it that bad habits are so much easier to develop than good ones? Maybe they aren't. But when you forget to engage in the bad habit you don't notice and feel bad about it later.
Oops! I forgot to eat massive amounts of chocolate today! Oh crap. I didn't leave the cream cheese on the counter all day. Dang. That makes four days running that I haven't forgotten to do something. (Like this would ever happen!) So in changing the habit of when I take my meds from morning until evening, the blog stuff isn't helping me remember, so much. If I write in the morning and say that I am pretty sure i WILL take my meds, that doesn't have the same punch as writing later that I have already dosed myself. I have not forgotten to take my medication, but I may have doubled up one or two days-- not sure if I had taken them or not. On the list of things to do tomorrow; 1. Put pills in pill minder (I found an unbroken one) 2. Call for refills (get on auto-refill through the mail) 3. Dang. I forgot what 3 was. 4. Oh yes. I will write earlier in the day-- but I will not post until after I have dosed. Ha. Grateful Crap: oxygen Daily Convexions: took meds ate leafy greens went to meeting took a nap I have continued to take meds in the evening and I will do so for a while. Friday kids and I were home for the day. No school. Too Much Snow. I decided to go over to a friend's house-- in my neighborhood. Not too far away. Not having to go on any major roads, but not winding through back roads either.
Problem? I couldn't get my car out of the driveway. The wheels were frozen in pools of slushy snow that had iced over. I tried for an hour to get the car to move. Nothing. Managed to get the car out only after spouse returned and braced against the garage and all but lifted the vehicle out of the rubber-scented ice ruts. My slapstick routine for the day: I stood up from the couch and got my foot caught on a computer power cord. To avoid pulling the computer off the table, I went to extreme measures to free my foot. These efforts succeeded in saving the computer, but somehow caused my left foot to become stuck in the hem of my right pant leg. Which made it quite difficult to keep my balance. I flung my arms out to try and regain equilibrium. Instead, I flung my phone through the air with great force. It flew directly into the mantel, bounced off the wall and landed neatly on my coat. Practically in the pocket. Saturday spent an unnatural amount of time tidying up (with help of other family members). I even tackled a pile of Unopened Mail and found only one or two Scary Things. If I were to make a horror movie, the bad guy would be constructed out of unopened envelopes addressed to me. Good things rarely come in envelopes. Much like good things rarely happen in hospitals. Are there exceptions? Sure. But don't count on it. Then I chickened out of game night at a friend's house. I really did not want to go out on the roads (although I've heard they were much better). The governor of the state mobilized the National Guard for areas south of here and urged people to stay off the roads unless absolutely necessary. The state patrol reported 1,900 spinouts, 680 crashes, 66 jacknifed semis, 60,000 people without power to their homes due to the storm. My rule-follower mindset and my natural inclination toward hermithood got the better of me. I don't think the game/people avoidance is a Depression-related thing, but who knows. Even when I am not Depressed I struggle with the idea of on-purposely being in social settings involving more than four people. No doubt Freud would label this pathological, but I'm not sure I agree. I just really really really do not like making small talk (and I am very bad at it). Groups of people behave differently than individuals. They become something else. Grateful Crap: Feeling Better on the sinus infection front. Daily Convexions: took meds at night both days tidied up some laughed a lot Feel kind of okay
Not really sick Not Too Depressed Try to accomplish Everything Burn out on Doing Too Much Collapse in exhaustion and sleep for twenty hours Toys, books, clothes and rubbish somehow multiply (Copulating under the couch?) Daily routines begin to jump ship Fall ill or tilt into Depression Laundry, dishes, and scraps of paper lord over the entire house Cackling, crackling, smelly in piles and heaps and overflowing bins Maybe can't find a child for the mess Maybe lose most of my files for a class I am teaching and have to recreate the wheel Maybe worry that camera crews will show up for some humiliating before and after show Feel sick or Depressed about the state of Everything In My Life Be overwhelmed at how much there is to do Wait until I Feel Better to do Anything Realize that Things have progressed to the point where They Will Never Be Done So Spend three hours coming up with a new organizational system for the toddler's clothing (Sorted by size, color, frequency of wear, and degree of dressiness) That no one else understands and can never be replicated And that I will have forgotten by tomorrow Or possibly give the cat a bath Then somehow, someway Return to feeling kind of okay (My inner Martha Stewart is very bossy dragon-lady and has ridiculously high standards, but she is lazy as hell and never comes out to get the real work done. Useless wench.) Grateful CraP; While listening to KD Lang's rendition of Leonard Cohen's "Bird on a Wire"... Three year old: Where is her dad? Me:? TYO: She's all alone. Her dad should sing with her. Then she would feel better. Daily Convexions: tidied some. And I promise to enlist help of all family members for at least 15 minutes today to get rid of the flotsam and jetsam that have accrued during my convalescence. Note: so far I am liking the meds in the evening. have not felt crushingly tired in the afternoon (although there are too many variables including recent bouts of recurring sinus infections. Ugh. Having a ridiculous uptick in stupid vocabulary vomit. Time to stop.) slept 3 hours last night (not for lack of trying) because i could not relax my neck and shoulder muscles (which were preventing my head from exploding) enough to sleep. did you know we produce one quart of mucous ever day. saw doc who could diagnose me from across the room (where I had turned off the lights and was napping on the reclined examining table). New/different antibiotic. I still wish they cultured things to see if the infection was viral or bacterial. prohibitively expense i suppose. and most people don't want to hear "you'll just have to get better on your own. go rinse your nose."
When feeling sick, it is probably not a good thing to have interesting things to say. So, I got nothing. Rested as much as possible. Tried to drink enough. Remembered (occasionally) to take pain medication before headache became bad enough to cause tears. I make a terrible patient. I am whiny and demanding and horrible. I do nothing. I sit around moping about how awful I feel. And occasionally feel guilty about this because it is just a cold. Really. But sometimes "just a cold" can really knock you on your ass. And there is always the second-guessing of whether I should stay home or go to work-- don't want to stay sick. Don't want to make other people sick. Also, don't want to miss work. (Not the least because I do not have any "sick days" as an hourly teacher.) When I am not so whiny. When I can hold my head upright for more than a few hours. When my voice doesn't sound like razorblades. When I am ready to start again-- start with the whole Kicking Depression's Ass thing-- I will tackle tracking what I eat. I think. We'll see. Grateful Crap: "I won't wriggle out of my panda blanket" and also "Do we have a stoplight? Yep. Oh. Now we have a golight." Daily Convexions: slept/rested will remember to take meds tonight will call doc to see if/when they want to see me or if I should just expect to be sick until the snow melts. In April. I slept all day in two-hour increments. I would wake up, look at the clock and say, "Sheesh! It's twelve o'clock already?" then I would close my eyes for only a minute. Honest. Then it would be miraculously two pm. Repeat repeat repeat. It is my belief that someone let the word out that I was a fantastic host, and now every bacteria and virus in the area has decided to move in. On a semi-permanent basis. Or it could just be the same dang thing hanging on forever and ever with brief periods of time (a day or two?) where I feel fine. On the plus side, I feel too wretched to be Depressed. Ha. Changed to taking meds in the evening the previous night. (Sunday). I'll try that for a while and see how it goes. Impossible to gauge now with baverioviralblah. Grateful Crap: the three-year old clinging to my arm as I type. Meowing and Rawrfing. She cannot decide whether she is a dog or a cat. These crises of faith come so early these days. Daily Convexions: slept A Lot. took meds (in the evening) 150mg sertraling, 450mg bupropion. I accidentally didn't take my meds yesterday until quite late. And then I forgot to not take the bupropion. But it certainly did not keep me awake. I was asleep before midnight. I woke at 6:30 and was (I am ashamed to say it) peppy. Unfortunately I also took my bupropion this morning, without thinking about the fact that it says to take once every 24 hours and it had been just over eight hours. Unfortunately because I was wondering if taking it at night would work for me throughout the day, or if it was just a Bad Idea. Now I will research instead of doing random drug trials on myself. I might even run it past my doc, just for kicks. At the risk of being super whiny, I think I am getting a cold. Some new layer of stuffy sickness. Either that, or Sinus Infection is not convinced by the current run of antibiotics. Grateful Crap: not sure yet. the day is yet young. Daily Convexions; took meds in the morning (150mg sertraline, 450mg bupropion) posted without letting too much time go in between So after collecting a month's worth of groceries at Buy-in-Bulk (taking some liberties with the name). After standing in long Saturday morning lines while women in fashion-forward tops, sparkly black leggings, designer sunglasses and only a frosted cake in their cart push past everyone else without really looking at anyone and saying "excuse me" in a way that clearly means "excuse YOU" so they (okay, she) can get in front of the proletariat with their overflowing carts. After my friend's groceries have been rung out at the register. And so have mine. After we have filled two carts with a mixture of hers and hers groceries in canvas bags. THAT is when I realize that I do not, in fact, have my checkbook with me. Even after saying, "Hey, this time I am remembering to bring my checkbook!" Announcing this proudly on my way out the door. I was very convincing. My friend believed me. I believed me. No problem, says the lady at the register. Just use your debit card. Right. Except that I still have not gotten around to getting a PIN for this card (a replacement for the one that took a solo ride on an airplane-- heading for Detroit while I was bound for Orlando). Then a cloud of disappointed Buy-in-Bulk workers surrounded me frownfully. Shaking their heads. Voiding out the purchases and whisking them away to a cold-storage room until such a time as I could ra Sad thing? This is exactly what happened one month ago. Except that time I wasn't getting a month's worth of groceries and my friend could put my stuff on her card and I could write her a check when I got home. Not so this time. Called home and spouse began the search for the missing checkbook. Hoping I hadn't dropped it Someplace Stupid. It took a really long time for him to call back. Where was it? Not twelve inches away from the bookshelf where I got it. On the floor. UNDERNEATH my French horn. It of course started snowing heavily and we were nearly out of gas and cars were sliding into the ditch. One even bent a tall highway lamppost to the ground. All told the trip took six hours. Admittedly it included coffee before and lunch after. Still. Grateful Crap: friends (and family) with a sense of humor Daily Convexions: took meds, but not until 9pm talked with a friend laughed super hard about every bump in the road |
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K. BuchananQuaker, teacher, parent, |