Decisions!

I've made an upper management decision all on my own, after much deliberation over a 24 hour period of time and I am pleased with the result I have come up with. It is possible that not everybody involved is going to be equally pleased when they are going to be faced with it, without having been consulted and only being able to put their two cents worth in after the fact, but being the upper management I felt that I had to make an executive move and do something very drastic right now this minute. I'm talking about saving my sanity.

As I said in my earlier post, it is pretty obvious that the mega dose of antidepressants, and the second antidepressant that I'm taking along with it, aren't doing their job and probably never really have and that is why the dosage kept being increased, until it was passed the maximum amount allowable, and that is probably why I have kept suffering from depressions and anxieties and fears all along with regular intervals all this time.

That finally dawned on me yesterday, when I was in such bad shape and thought there must be a better way to live. There must be a better quality to my life. I went to my medicine drawer and looked through it to see what was there and found the box of antidepressants that I had taken for a while and that had helped me very much and had made me feel very good, but that for one reason ofr the other I had stopped taking. I knew that one of the immediate side effects of this medicine was that it took away your anxiety almost immediately, so I decided to take a pill and some time after I took it, my anxiety did indeed drop away and a great feeling of peace fell over me and I was as calm as the sea on a windless day.

This morning, when I got up, and the anxiety reared it's ugly head again, I took another pill and soon I was calm again and stayed that way until about 6 pm when it had worn off. All day long I had been thinking about what to do and I realized that the desicion should be to stop with the other worthless antidepressants and continue with the one that was working so well. I was undecided about what to do. Should I take another pill or wait to speak to my psychiatrist? I was feeling so lousy, though, that I made up my mind and decided not to take the the old antidepressants and to go ahead and take the new one that was working. I could not continue with all of them. I had to choose.

Instead of taking two kinds of antidepresants, and one of them at a mega dose, I am taking one antidepressant at a normal dose. I think that is quite an improvement. It's a much more realistic thing to do.

I don't know if I will have withdrawal signs. My psychiatrist will be able to tell me about that. It's a bridge that may need to be crossed. I do know that I feel very much better now and that I think I will improve tremendously the longer I am on this new medication. It does have to build up in your system after all.

I hope that my own personal experience as a patient puts something into the weight of my psychiatrist's willingness to go along with me, and although I don't have all the information, I do have my points of view and my willingness to try and give it my best shot. I hope I can persuade him. I can be pretty stubborn if I have to be.

So that is my executive plan, my upper mangement decision. I treasure my box of pills as if they are worth their weight in gold. There were a 120 in the box and now there are only about 12 left. I felt so much better today, though. I could think straight and make a plan and make a decison, however rash it may seem. It is a good plan and it will work out. I have faith.

That's about all I had to tell you about that. I know I will get all sorts of reactions to this warning me to be careful. I will be, people, I will be.

Ciao,
Nora

Testing...one, two, three...

I delete every post I start writing after about one or two paragraphs, sometimes more. I feel that I don't have a thing worthwhile telling you and that anything I do write down is just the same old sh*t I've written about a hundred times. I don't know why that is just dawning on me these past 24 hours. Why I never had that thought before. I must have been delusioned all this time and so convinced of my talent as a writer that I really thought I was saying profound things.

Tyke is doing much better today. He has stopped being sick to his stomach and has even eaten a little. His eye looks very good and it's not bleeding. That's what the collar is for, to keep him from pawing at his eye, but he figured out that he can scratch it with his hind paw. Luckily, he hasn't opened the wound and I'm keeping the collar on him until tomorrow. That's what the vet said to do. Tyke doesn't like the collar and gets frustrated by it. Well, he's basically walking around with a cone around his head. He can't play with Gandhi and he gets stuck between furniture, although he is figuring out how to work his way around it. He's a pretty adaptable, really, and inventive. He figured out how to eat from his bowl with that thing on his head, which was just a bit tricky, and he knows how to pick things up from the ground, although his nose is almost too short for the cone.

I'm okay. I just have to avoid doing anything that causes stress, so that includes a lot of things. I'm keeping it as simple as possible today. Writing this post and answering emails are the most complicated things I will be doing today, and keeping my thoughts as simple as possible. I have to keep my brain organized.

Of course, keeping my thoughts simple is not that easy, but right now I'm trying to think about my medication and how to best deal with reducing it, because I'm seeing my psychiatrist tomorrow. I think I have come up with a plan, now that I've pondered over it for a good while, and I really want to discuss it with him. I think it's a good plan and I find it hard to wait until tomorrow, but I will have to. I think I will be feeling much better soon.

The sun has been shining all day, but it is only 2C outside and tonight it will be -5C, so it's quite chilly. It doesn't seem like it wants to be springtime yet. I did see a flock of geese flying north the other day. They must have been the optimists.

This post is taking me hours to write. I'm constantly distracted by my own thoughts and wander down a different path. I'm not worrying, I'm just thinking. You'd think by now somebody should have wondered why I have been depressed for months on end while I'm taking a mega dose of antidepressants. Make's you wonder, doesn't it? Maybe they aren't working at all. Depression, anxiety, stress, those are all the things the antidepressants are supposed to take away. Yet they haven't.

Ciao,
Nora

Fiction.

I can tell you about my day and I can tell you the truth or turn it into fiction. I feel like turning it into fiction, because it has been a rollercoaster day fraught with stress and emotions and I don't want to rehash it all here and make a soap opera script out of this post. It would be so dramatic. Maybe I can tell you some little facts without going into the details too much. That way I leave out all the drama and you can draw your own conclusions.

Today was the anniversary of my mother's death, which you all know was no ordinary death, so needless to say, I was confronted with that memory. Today I got the official announcement of my aunt's death in the mail and the invitation to her funeral service, which seen in print on a pretty card brought many tears to my eyes. Today Tyke had to be operated on his eye and he is lying here now with a big collar around his head feeling sick from the anesthetic. He is very unhappy. This morning at 6 o'clock I had a vodka and orange juice to calm my nerves.

The Exfactor took care of me for a long time today. He took care of details that I was too stressed about to handle. He was a great help. That's the end of the story about today. Finished.

The Exfactor figured out how to put the CD's in the computer so I could install the program for my digital camera. It was a mighty tricky thing to figure out and I never would have known it on my own. I knew where it was, but not how it worked. We couldn't find the CD to install the printer and the Exfactor thinks he may have it at his house. He said I could also try it through the internet. I won't worry about it just now. It's not a high priority yet.

I'm feeling all my feelings. There is hardly any barrier. Of course, there must be, because I still take lots of medication, but I feel so much. I feel grief.

I think I need to stop writing now and go spend some time with Tyke who does not seem to feel good at all. The poor guy.

Ciao,
Nora

Almost time to go to bed.

I have little moments that I cave in and I'm so tired that I could fall asleep in my desk chair, but a while later it clears up and I'm fit as a fiddle again. I'm finding it very difficult to walk away from the computer and keep looking for excuses to sit here and play with it a little while longer and there's always something I can do, even if it just means changing the wallpaper on my flat screen and looking to see how much space I have on my hard drive. I've run AdAware and CCleaner and got rid of a bunch of stuff that took up needless space, so that made me feel better. And so I sit here and do all sorts of little things that amount to not very much, but it keeps me happy. Tomorrow I have to be normal again. It's a rule that I have made up. On the weekend I'm allowed to be this obsessed with the computer, but tomorrow I have to be back to normal. And I do need to get a good night's sleep. At least what is a good night's sleep for me and as far as Tyke will allow it with his antics.

I feel like I've been in the Twilight Zone this weekend and unreachable for the world around me, although the world was not aware of that, because nobody reached out and touched me and I did walk the dog when it was time to. The poor animal didn't suffer too much neglect, except that I didn't cuddle him very much, stuck as I was behind the keyboard. I think my obsession is coming to an end now and I hope I don't become obsessed like this with anything else for a while, because I don't think it is healthy, athough many of you have told me that you are the same way when you have a new toy.

All I have left to do is install the programs for my digital camera and the printer and I'll let the Exfactor do that tomorrow. Those will be good jobs for him to do and I can take a step back and relax about it. I will not be so overly involved with my nose on top of things. That's how I imagine it anyway. I'm ready for a more hands off approach. It's really funny how you disappear into a project and lose track of everything around you just about and you don't focus on anything else but that.

It wll be wonderful to go to bed in a little while and try to read my book and hopefully fall asleep quickly and soundly and sleep at least for a couple of hours without interruption. I will take as many of Tyke's toys to the bedroom with me, so he won't be bored in the middle of the night. He does have a way of looking for mischief around 2 o'clock in the morning. If he can keep himself occupied, I will sleep through it. Unless he starts molesting Gandhi.

I think I will have a glass of hot milk. I don't have any honey, but I don't think that's necessarily an ingredient needed to fall asleep with. I would have some Bailey's Irish Cream, but I'm all out of that and I'm not about to go out an buy a bottle of it. I'd rather receive that as a gift on a special occasion and I may have to drop some heavy hints here and there. Isn't there a holiday coming up that would be cause for it? Isn't there a saint named Irene? I'm not a catholic, but I'm willing to ignore such minor details in exchange for a bottle of that good stuff. With my luck, though, I'd become addicted to it and have to go to AlAnon and do a 12 step program.

It would be nice to smoke a joint right now and become totally mellow, because I always sleep so well when I do amd wake up completely refreshed. I don't want you to get the idea that I do that a lot. As a matter of fact, it's been a few years, but sometimes I dream that I do, so I guess I have a hunkering for it. I only need to take a few drags for it to take effect and I feel great. The only problem is that I get the munchies and want to eat anything and everything and that is kind of hard when you have a gastric band. But one of these days I'm going to smoke a joint again in the company of someone I trust and get very relaxed. It's the nicest feeling I know. It's better than getting tipsy. I heartily recommend it. It's too bad the coffee shop two streets over closed. Now I would have to go all the way downtown.

All this talk about alcohol and drugs make me sound like a junkie. And I have my own official drugs that I'm trying to get off of. I'm doing really well on my reduced dose of antipsychotics. I notice no ill effects, unless being obsessed with my computer is an ill effect, but like I said, I think I'm over it by now. I'm actually feeling very calm now and completely back to normal, whatever normal is. I just wish I felt a little bit more sleepy than I do, because I seem to have gotten my second wind. I must not give into that and proceed with my nighttime ritual as if I'm very tired and ready to go to sleep. Once I have my pajamas on and I'm in bed things will change and I will realize how tired I am.

I do have a backache from sitting in this chair behind the computer all day. It's right in the middle of my nack where that weak spot is. Right where my back is crooked. I would like to wear a corset to straighten out my back so it would never hurt again and I would have the correct posture, but I suppose I'm too old for that. I'm beyond repair. It would help, of course, if I paid attention to how I sat in the chair and didn't slump like I've a tendency to do. Perhaps it would help if I put a pillow behind my back to force me to sit straighter. I will try that tomorrow when I won't be sitting here all day. I think it might be interesting to take an X-ray of that spot in my back and see how my discs are lined up there. At least I'm never kealed over to the left anymore. That problem seemed to have resolved itself and I think a lot of that had to do with my emotional state of being.

It seems to be impossible to stop writing. I want to bring this to an end, but am reluctant to and keep thinking of things to write about. I am postponing bedtime because I'm afraid that I will lie awake and will not be able to go to sleep. I'm also undecided if I should sleep in my bed or on the sofa with the TV turned down low, which also seems to work well and keeps Tyke happy. I think I'm not so very fond of sleeping in my bed, for whatever reason. On the sofa it has a less official character and it doesn't seem as if I'm down for the count and have to put in a long night that I can't make come true. I always wake up and am bothered by the claustrophobic feel of my bedroom, even though I sleep with the door open. I would like for the sofa to be a bit more comfortable and I suppose that this will be the criteria for my next one. How comfortable does it sleep? It has to be a wide sofa to lie on comfortably.

When I was a little kid, and I was sick, my mother made a bed for me out of the Morris chair. Of course I was little then and fit on it and it was very cozy and right by the stove to keep me warm. I thought that was the best thing about being sick. The back of the chair folded down completely and I could lie down flat with pillows under my head. She put a sheet over the cushions and a blanket over me and I felt like a princess. I have something like a Morris chair myself now and it is my favorite chair in the apartment. It folds down completely too, though I'm too big to lie down on it. I bought it at Ikea and the minute I saw it I knew I had to have it. Nostalgia.

I'm starting to yawm. That's always a good sign. Pretty soon a certain kind of weariness should fall over me. I think I will go put on my pajamas now and take my medicines. Then I will have my glass of hot milk. There may only be repeats of the news on TV and text television, but that's okay. I don't need anything exciting. I'm curious to see how long I will sleep. I'm hoping for at least 4 hours. That would be nice. Luckily, there's always the computer.

Have a good night, you all.

Ciao,
Nora

How not to go nuts...

My email program wasn´t working. I wasn´t receiving any emails at all and I thought that was highly suspicious. I know that none of you ignore me for that long. Your comments to my posts come to me by email, so I knew there had to be something there. I finally called the help desk after I couldn´t figure it out for myself and a very nice young man and I worked the whole thing out together and got everything working again as it should and it wasn´t an easy job. So, he is well worth his money and somebody ought to say that to his boss. Too bad I didn´t think of it until later and I didn´t catch his name.

Did I tell you yet that there was no word processor program and that I downloaded Open Office in American English? It is freeware. I don´t know why they are giving it away, but they are. You can get it in many languages. Oh yes, I added a weather forecast to my status bar, so now I don´t have to look out the window to see what the weather is like. It is 1C and the sun is shining.

Anyway, after I got the email program to work again, I got a slew of emails and comments and my heart knew such happiness. It was a true cornucopia. Then I got very busy answering them all and I probably didn't do them justice necause there were so many of them. I promise to write very long and thoughtful answers in the future.

I did end up taking a nap on the sofa, which was to be expected after I had so little sleep, but I woke up quite refreshed after an hour and a half. I guess that was all I needed to get my second wind. Needless to say, I did not vacuum the sofa today, that was a half assed plan that I'm not capable of bringing to fruition. I will do that later this week after I've had a good night's sleep. It was cute that I thought I could do it. Oh, what silly ideas I get!

I've got to organize myself a bit for tomorrow, because there are things I need to do, such as make copies of a bunch of paperwork and get all of that in the mail and prepare a paper swap, the last one I'm participating in, because they turn out to be a lot of work and an expensive hobby. Tyke needs to go to the vet tomorrow afternoon and the Exfactor is also coming over and he can help me with some things that have me stumped about the computer, such as where do I put the installation CD's? I see a slot that they ought to go in, but no way to get one in. It is very strange! Doubtlessly, he will have the solution. I'm counting on it. I did get everything else right, so it's okay if I don't know this. I can be a helpless female sometimes to the deferment of the Exfactor's superior technical mind.

Oh, the sun is shining on Tyke's window where he always looks out and I haven't cleaned it yet. It is a mess. I must get out the glass cleaner and polish it right now. The whole neighnorhood will be digusted with me. Well, that will be a household job that can't wait.

Have a lovely evening and remember, a new computer will make you forget your obligations, so don't be in a hurry to get one. Or take a week's vacation and then play with it. Have your better half provide you with provisions, because you won't have time to eat. And you will neglect your children.

Ciao,
Nora

Sunday morning.

Well, I've slept. It wasn't a heck of a lot of sleep, but it was some sleep anyway, and here I am bright eyed and bushy tailed, drinking my first cup of coffee and having my first cigarette of the morning. Outside the sky is bright blue and the sun is shining and it looks like it is going to be a wonderful day. That reminds me that I have to add the weather forecast to my browser, but that rain that was predicted never did materialize. I told you so! I could have dried the laundry outside after all. Makes you wonder why I need the weather forecast, doesn't it? I guess I like to see how wrong it can be.

I added the email addresses to the email program during the night, or should I say, in the wee hours of the morning? That would be more correct. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, that's how tired I was, but it was a good kind of tired, an all over exhaustion, which is why it is so surprising that I'm up and about already. I guess I was hunkering for a good cup of coffee. I have no other explanation for it. It wasn't Tyke who woke me. For a change he slept late too and was as good as gold. He did take up position on the windowsill just now and got ready for another barking session, so I put a stop to that in a hurry. He was very disgusted with me, but is asleep at my feet now. It is Sunday morning and I don't want him making a racket.

The new computer is a little bit addictive. I keep wanting to play with it, but I really have no reason to, except when it comes to downloading and uploading things. I have no business hanging out here all the time other than that and I do have a life away from the computer. I'm like a kid with a new toy and I want to know all the ins and outs about it immediately. Never mind that I have all the time in the world to do so. I have to remind myself that I don't have to do everything all at once. There are other things to do. I have a dog to walk and a household to run and cat barf to clean up. I'm going to make a special effort to shut it off in a while and do something completely different. But first I'm having another cup of coffee. Like the saying goes, I can't walk on one leg.

Tyke is having his breakfast. He is forced to, because every time he walks away from his bowl, the cats come to eat from it, so he has to quickly run back to it. That will teach him a lesson. If he times it right, he will be done by the time I'm ready to take him for a walk. Then our walk won't be in vain. I'm looking forward to it because of the sunshine, although it is a little bit cold out. I will have to wear my gloves.

I'm planning on vacuuming the sofa today and then taking the covers off the cushions and washing them. It is a plan. I don't know if it is actually going to happen. I thought I might do it in one of my spare moments. I'm assuming I will have those if I can pull myself away from the computer. Doubtlessly, with a little bit of effort I can, or otherwise I will have rectangular eyes again and a sore back from sitting here. And a sore rear end. I think I need a pillow to sit on, because I was aching there earlier and I do have a well cushioned bottom.

Well, without much further ado, I will end this post and get going. I will get dressed and finally take my medicines, because I haven't even done that yet. Then Tyke and I will get some fresh air. It will put some color on my cheeks, no, not those that I just discussed.

Have a great Sunday, everyone. I still don't know if my email program works.

Ciao,
Nora