MOTH.ER.FUCK.ER.TWO.POINT.TOO

[Edited to add: it was an error with the nurse who called it in to the pharmacy. They are remedying the situation now. Still, my righteous anger applies to other incidents in the past and, no doubt, in the future. This doctor is still not in the clear yet.]

Just once I would like to have one month without medical drama. No new family illness, no mysterious blood sugar episodes, no bizarre side effects, no prescription refill fuck ups.

Especially no prescription refill fuck ups.

You may not remember, but christ I sure fucking do, why I broke up with my former doctor. When I interviewed for my new doctor, I discussed the whole pain medication history: how I had been on the same doseages for 5 years, how well it has worked for me, how I just needed someone downtown to be my primary care doc so I could continue what was obviously a solid, time-tested pain management regimen. She agreed that I seemed stable and was clearly not a drug addict looking for a patsy to feed her habit. We agreed that I would come in once it came time for my prescription to be filled.

I saw her on Monday and brought in the bottle of my last refill. She made a note in my file and asked if I wanted the refill in hand or just faxed to the pharmacy.

(For future reference: ALWAYS GET THE SCRIP IN HAND.)

I got a call yesterday, saying the refill was ready. I took the bus that went by my pharmacy and picked it up. I didn't bother to check anything. Then I got home and noticed the much smaller bottle than usual.

She shorted me 10 days' worth of pills. And made the pharmacist note specially that I was to "make this last the full 30 days."

OK, maybe it was just a mistake. Still? FUCKING BITCH. I can't help but think this was deliberate, that somehow she thinks that maybe I'm exaggerating just a bit and I really only need six a day, rather than the eight I've been on for 5 motherfucking years. Even if it is a mistake, there'll be 50 million hoops to jump through to get the rest and I'll have to pay full price because the insurance won't pay for it.

Once again, I can't sleep because I've gotten myself all hepped up. It's just so frustrating. I feel like I am constantly having to prove to every doctor I see that I really am in pain and that I really do need this medication. For as much as I joke about how great Vicodin is and how I'm such an addict, this is a real medication for me, like Wellbutrin or Levoxyl or Insulin, and I need it to live my life.

This doctor has known me for all of 1.5 hours. I've known this pain for 20 years. If she gives me shit, I swear I will tell her that I'm not seeing her for her medical expertise. I have other, better doctors for that. She is my means to an end. She is the cheapest way to get the medicine I need.

This pain isn't something that's all in my head. And I've been through enough that I shouldn't have to wait for hours on hold, to beg and plead and justify to some judgmental nurse with no knowledge of my background just so I can talk to the doctor and squeeze out of her a prescription for something that is legitimate and necessary. It's demeaning and embarrassing.

You know, my therapist says that a large part of my depression is fed by my insomnia. I would literally feel better if only I didn't have to deal with all this shit. I swear these doctors will be the death of me.

The day before the day

I have been using these solo nights in hotel rooms to cry myself to sleep. It's an indulgence I can't take at home, with the husband who will try to comfort me when comfort isn't what I need, and the cats, who I can feel judging me. But tonight a combination of a friend's picture and a song by Dido just brought everything tumbling out.

I haven't had many business trips lately. I spent my last one sobbing about my dying cat, and I will sometimes lay in bed thinking about how much more crying I have to do over him, but I'm careful not to think about him too much. My therapist says the biggest issue I have is my inability to grieve appropriately. My eyes will begin to well up for almost any reason: a person near tears for losing weight on a reality show, or a story about someone doing something heroic, or even hearing about other people talking about crying. And I hate that I can't control my emotions about issues that I have no real stake in. My emotional reactions makes me feel weak.

I don't hold others to that standard, but somewhere I picked up this fucked up idea that crying-- just my crying-- is a nearly inexcusable character flaw. I had a horrible day at work a few weeks ago where I felt like my head was being ripped open by the MRSA infection entrenched in my left nostril that ended up with me going in to tell the boss that I wasn't feeling well and I ended up bursting into tears. It was horrible. I felt like the worst stereotype of a weakling girl who cries at the slightest stubbed toe or dropped ice cream cone.

I wasn't planning on sobbing tonight, here in my hotel room in Seattle, but I saw pictures of a friend of mine with his new baby. He was so happy just looking at the baby. He may not even have been aware a picture had been taken.

I realized I don't have any pictures of my dad and me like that. I have a few of us posing and his smile seems genuine enough, but I there aren't any like the picture of my friend and his son. Even worse, I'm starting to lose my memory of Dad altogether. I have a few real memories-- like the time at the campfire girl performance when I was six or seven. I was emceeing some sort of talent show where I had to pull a volunteer out of the audience and Dad just stood up, as if there was no one else who could do it (and he was right. I was planning on picking him).

I remember, sitting downstairs every day after preschool, keeping an eye on the polyester mustard curtains for his silhouette, and then running upstairs to jump into his arms. But I have very few of those memories I know I really experienced where it was just us two interacting. And even fewer that were happy.

My more specific memories are things like him yelling at me because he thought I stole his cigarettes and smoked them, when really I flushed them down the toilet because I knew they were bad for him. I remember him admonishing me for urine or blood tests with sugar levels that were too high. And I remember standing outside the sliding glass doors of his hospital room the day before he died, not allowed to go in because he was in ICU and I was only 12.

I do have one very vivid memory where the look on his face showed me that he really did love me. We were staying at my grandmother's house one night and during a particularly bad nightmare, I ended up sleepwalking down the street, waking up several blocks away from the house, on a street that was completely foreign to me. I was nine and it was dark. I sat on the curb and burst into tears. A man heard me and came out of his house and called my grandma's house after figuring out exactly where I should have been (not an easy thing when I only knew her as "Nonnie," which was not her given name and helped him not at all when he tried looking her up in the phonebook). He walked me out to his front porch and we watched as my entire family came running around the corner (I had only gotten a few blocks away). Probably the only look on my Dad's face I know I can remember accurately was the one he had at that moment. He was so worried and so happy to get me back. I don't remember if he carried me back to Nonnie's house, but he probably did.

I wish I had a picture of him to post for this entry, but as I mentioned earlier I am in a hotel room on a work laptop, and the single picture I have of him with me as a baby sits on my old desktop at home. Maybe I'll update it when I get back. Maybe this incident will have passed by then and I won't feel the need to be dramtically melancholy. I was supposed to go to bed an hour and a half ago, but that one Dido song made me get up to write this. It hasn't gone through much of a filter (I usually re-read each post 50 times before actually publishing), so I apologize for any run on sentences or incomplete thoughts.

And I'm sorry for getting you involved in this selfishly dramatic post. I'm posting this and going to bed without even reading it. I'm supposed to be at work at seven tomorrow.

Ever have one of those immune systems?

It lives on my nose, on the tip and back to the left. It has settled also in the bag underneath my eye, which dries out my eye enough for it to hang out there as well.

No, I'm not talking about an adorable tiny wombat named Benson (He moved to Newman's right ear. They get along pretty well, except for the fights about the phone bills). I'm talking about another MRSA blossom that, like all lumps worth their salt, hurts like a mothefucker and makes everything that happens throughout the day more irritating, more painful and more "I'm going to rip the head off the next person who makes eye contact with me".

I'm sure you've had days like that.

So I'm on honkin' antibiotics and taking 16 vicodin a day (what am I - an amateur?), and I have to stick a Q-tip covered with goop up my nose three times a day. As you might imagine, I am a joy to be around.

Oh, and I passed a kidney stone this morning.

So, I've been out of the office for the past two days, writhing in pain and cursing the day I was born, and I show up at work this morning and the boss expects me to prepare for the complicated training I'll be giving tomorrow, and get the handouts rewritten, and rewrite the curriculum. And answer the phones. And respond to emails. And babysit the douchbag coworker who I used to think might be useful until it became apparent that (a) he thinks he's smarter than everyone else [this is an IT guy, you're thinking, how shocking! Yeah, I know] and 2. he hates being told what to do by women.

Anyway, I think my boss is punishing me for being out sick 4 days out the past four weeks. We're all a little passive-aggressive in our loverly little group, but pulling this "get stuff that takes three days done in roughly 5 hours, so you can stand in front of a class of high-maintenence bone-headed computer users who want to learn more about downloading jebus quote screensavers and couldn't give a hooter's tip how Outlook works" thing is fucked up, even for her.

And? On top of that? She sends me an email and says "Oh, don't forget to wander around with a candy basket harrassing people into coming up with questions for you to answer." Sweet.

So today's been a pretty "everything is sucky" day for me. I hope you enjoyed my whining. Be sure to tune in next time for a one-woman play about missing the bus and the new shoes that don't fit.

MOTH.ER.FUCK.ER.

First off, I'm sorry I had to lock this shit down for a bit, but I foolishly put this URL in my Twitter profile, and That Woman has started to follow me. Because she's crazy nosy. I guess it's possible she didn't click on the link because she didn't know what URL meant, but there was a sharp increase in hits on the day she started to follow me.

I don't know why I'm so freaked about this, but I don't want her knowing stuff about me. I'm less concerned about her finding the stuff I wrote about her, but I really don't want her to give her fuel for her ridiculous snotty remarks about things like my stupid health or all the embarrassing moments I've been posting.

If it turns out I'm being paranoid, I'll reopen it. I just like thinking that she'll try to come back to read it and find that she's been locked out. It seems sufficiently passive-aggressive.

[ETA: Obviously, the lock has been lifted. Who the fuck really cares, I thought?)
======================================

Second off, and what I really need to talk about, is how much I despise my Primary Care physician (PCP) and everyone in her office. She decided that, because I haven't been to see her lately, that she would more or less cut me off from my vicodin until I made an appointment.

She filled a partial prescription that would last 5 days. That ran out smack dab in the middle of a three day weekend. Thanks for that, you jerk. I had to wait to refill my prescription until Tuesday, day 2 of having NO PAIN MEDICATION. That's so awesome since my leg and hip pain has gotten significantly worse and I have been officially diagnosed with Fibromyalgia.

I hate my PCP.

She couldn't have done this when she refilled my thyroid medicine the week before? Of course not. She could have had a lawsuit if she did this with my insulin, because that's good medicine. No insulin would kill me. No vicodin just makes everything extremely painful, thus punishing me for being on a drug that some people use recreationally.

I really hate my PCP.

I spent Tuesday on three marathon phone calls, telling my story to three different people who all gave me wrong information. Yes, the doctor is here-- have your drug store fax the info. Then? No, the doctor isn't here after all, but they see the info from the drug store and it's "In her queue". Lastly, I got an on call nurse, who told me there was nothing she could do and I'd have to wait until tomorrow, because even if I left a message for the on-call doctor, he wouldn't be filling any prescription for me. They don't do that sort of thing.

I really hate my PCP and her nurses and assistants.

I spent the night tossing and turning physically and mentally. I spent my sleep time angrily reliving the days interactions, adding even more to my stress and my anxiety.

My god, I hate my PCP.

I woke this morning determined to get this shit out of the way. I called at 10:00 AM and was told it "was in her queue" and she'd get to it in the afternoon, after she saw her patients. I asked that they try to expedite it, since this was day three of my not having my legitimate medicine for a legitimate disease. She reluctantly said she would.

I hate the nurses and assistants in Internal Medicine.

I called again at 3:00 PM to remind them again. It's in the queue, yeah yeah yeah. It was in the queue yesterday and we know how that worked out. I called again at five minutes before their office closed and was lectured that she would get to it.

I really really hate my PCP's office and everyone in it.

It's almost seven now, she is not in her office and there is no prescription at Walgreen's.

I will hitch a ride with my husband tomorrow to Beaverton so I can throttle every god damn person in Internal Medicine, grab my medical records-- built over 9 years and roughly the size of the OED-- and hightail it to my rheumatologist to take over everything. I swear I'll even get my pap smears from him.

That's how much I hate my PCP.

Disappointed horse*

I try not to be high maintenance. I try to be nice to any food servers or customer service folks. I don't want to be one of those people.

But sometimes, when it's my birthday, and the waitperson is one of those too-friendly types that sit next to you to take your order, and call you 'hon' and spend 10 minutes racing around a nearly-empty restaurant giving other people who arrived later than you their bread while you sit, blood sugar plummeting, sometimes I just get grumpy. And that was my main emotion during my birthday dinner. 

When our waitperson finally came to take our order, I ordered what I thought was not a difficult option for an Italian restaurant: cheese ravioli and a salad. 10 minutes later, the salad was delivered (but none of the promised bread). We sat eating our salad, all the while watching the waitperson flit from table to table (3 others in all), handing out bread and pouring more water to all the other tables but ours.

By now I had drunk half the wine. The hypoglycemia and brand new old age and lack of bread were beginning to put me in a bad mood. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the waitperson start to approach us (without bread in hand). She kneels down next to me and puts her hands on our table. 

"So here's the bad news, honey,"  she said. "Apparently our cheese ravioli are bad. Just... bad. So we need to find you something else to eat."

I blinked at her. It had been 25 minutes since she took our order. How long did it take to determine a bad ravioli? I guess I appreciate that they didn't serve me putrid, salmonella laced pasta-- or whatever made the dish unservable-- but could they maybe have figured that out sooner? While I looked at the menu, she started yelling out other options-- all of which I didn't want. Sausage? No. Calamari? No no no. She sneered when I told her I didn't eat red meat or sea kittens, like I was purposely making her life more difficult.

She started pushing this butternut squash ravioli, which seems to have avoided the other ravioli calamity, with some sort of spiced cream sauce that didn't sound like my kind of meal. Instead I chose the chicken parmesan. She shook her head.

"Oh, honey. That takes 20 minutes to cook. You don't want to wait that long." I considered saying maybe I wouldn't mind if we maybe had some fucking bread, but I didn't want to be a bitch. Again she pushed the butternut johnsons. The Husband was ever so slightly rolling his eyes (he thinks I'm picky at restaurants, but honestly-- I don't try to be), so I gave in and ordered the dish, even though it was built without any individual ingredients I actually liked. I asked if we could please get some bread.

"It's coming up," she hissed, "It's about ready to come out of the oven."

The dinner finally arrived, and one bite later I knew I was not going to eat it. So now The Husband and I are both in bad moods, eating (or in my case, drinking) in silence. 

Later on, our waitperson came by and I requested a box to go. She looked at me sternly and said "Only if you liked it." 

OK - wait a fucking second. I didn't like it, but I let myself be talked into ordering it, so it's on my head. Why the hell would you care if I liked it or not? If I said no, would you have taken it off the bill? I thought not. 

If she'd brought the bread and cut back on the attitude, I would have chalked up this whole thing as a bad choice. But she doesn't get to judge me for that. I tried my best to be nice and unassuming. I didn't throw the dish on the floor in a tantrum. Maybe I should have.

So, I had a really crappy night. The next morning I called in sick to work, and not just because I had a sore throat (though I did, for a time). Mostly I was just depressed. That single experience, where I had the pleasure of paying $60 to leave a restaurant hungry and angry, ruined my birthday. I know part of it was my fault for thinking that just because it was my birthday everything should have been perfect, and it was also my fault for not sticking up for myself and maybe sending the dish back for something more suited to my apparently difficult taste buds. 

But goddamn it, she could have at least brought the bread in a timely fucking manner.

* To make sense of this entry's title, please click here. Please, please click. There.

So it's been decided. His red blood cell count is 9% and he's very very weak.

We could start him on a therapy of injections 3 times a week, but that wouldn't necessarily take effect for another month. We don't want to put him through the stress of more vet appointments.

I can't justify putting him to sleep because he's still himself and he's not in pain.

. . .

. . .

. . .

So now we just wait.

Well this is getting ridiculous

I woke up this morning to Phlyd staring expectantly at me. I got up and walked to the kitchen, with him close behind. I scooped out the food for Tbone and Newman, then put a small amount on Phlyd's plate.

And he dug right in. Having finished that bit in under 10 seconds, he looked up at me expectantly, then back down at the dish, then back up to me, even more expectantly.

I'm not sure how much more I can take of this. Lst night was the fourth time I've been certain I'd need to put him down, only to have him bounce back from the brink of death.

Don't get me wrong-- I'm ecstatic that he is doing better than last night. But I'm beginning to think he's toying with me just to get the cheap white-trashy cat food that he loves, apparently.

So, here we are:

Phlyd - eating and sleeping and being much more Phlyd than usual.

Me - a fucking basket case.

Not sleeping

I will not sleep at all tonight, because I'm going to be thinking of what I have to do tomorrow. Even though I know it's for the best-- he's not really himself any more. He's old and his entire body is failing. All the medicines have stopped working and he's so weak he hardly moves. Anything the vet could try to do won't keep him from starving.

I feel like I'll never stop crying.

Thursday

Phlyd and his Squishable friend, Sadat.

I have had quite a time with Phlyd these past couple of days. For those of you who haven't been following along, he has congestive heart disease and failing kidneys, and is on many medications that cancel each other out. He is on a diuretic to combat the liquid around his heart, but his kidneys need all the fluids they can get to continue to be of any help at all. I am supposed to be sprinkling this anti-nausea powder on his food so he will stop losing weight at an alarming speed, but he's nauseated so he's not eating.

I'm a dismal failure at administering his sub-cu fluids, and during the week most of my interactions with him are to shove pills down his throat or poke him with an enormous needle. Wednesday night he began leaking a foul diarrhea all over everything, so all the surfaces in our house have been covered with newspaper and old towels. The other night it got so bad we had to lock all the cats out of our room just so we could get some sleep.

So Wednesday night I had a break down. I was angry at myself for fucking up the fluid administration and being frustrated with him because I'd run out of both clean bedlinens and patience. All he wanted to do was sleep in between us (although he hadn't been sleeping either-- more like sitting listlessly and looking scarily like he was waiting for death), but we had to get up every hour and try to find more things for him to leak on that we wouldn't accidently roll in while we slept.

Thursday it looked really bad. He barely moved, he wasn't interested in food or scritches and I couldn't even think about my options without sobbing. He wasn't himself, and that was one thing I told myself might be a sign that he was on his way out. So now, not only was I a terrible nurse and a bad mother, I had to take into consideration things like "can we afford another vet bill" and "can I get the time off work" when trying to decide if now was the time to put him down.

The husband took the bus to work so I could have the car and I cried the whole drive across town to the vet. I didn't have an appointment, but I knew he was too popular at the vet for them to turn us away. If I had to put him to sleep, I figured they would all want to say goodbye.

I carried him up to the front desk and before the receptionist could say anything, I burst out in tears and told her my cat was dying. [My god, I can't even type this without tearing up again.] The manager of the office, Merry, saw me and ushered us both into an exam room. I spent 10 minutes sobbing into her shoulder.

I hate crying. I don't even cry in front of the husband. I suppress my crying emotions so much I don't think I've ever really had a cathartic crying experience. I will always hold back. I don't know why. Thusday morning was absolutely the worst emotional experience I've had in twenty-five years.

I left the vet's office with encouraging words from the vet, who said at the very least they could get him hydrated to see if that might get him to eat. I still cried all the way back home. I went to work assuming I would get a call that afternoon telling me to come in and say goodbye. When the vet called with an upbeat update, I was relieved but pessimistic. I would need to be administering more fluids more frequently and add another syringe full of nasty medicine to his already full pre-meal schedule.

He was OK that night and seemed to be OK on Friday, but after another sleepless night of leakage and no sleep, I fell back into the same horrible I'm-killing-my-cat feeling. I started crying again as soon as the vet returned my call, so they kept the office open late just so I could bring him back.

They gave him an injection of something for his nausea and administered more fluids.

And I'm pretty sure they did some sort of voodoo, because he's not just eating, he's demanding to eat. He's not just sleeping between us, he's snuggling up and purring nonstop and batting us on our noses with his paw if he thinks he's not getting enough attention. He's back!

I continue to fail in new and ingenious ways

Seriously, it shouldn't be this difficult.

The alternatives include taking him on the bus to a vet appointment every other day, or hiring a tech to come over administer the fluids. Or putting him down, which my mother a bit too enthusiastically recommended.

But I can't get the fucking fluids into the dying cat. What. The Fuck. Is. My. Problem.

Remember how I said the cat thing wasn't so bad?

Now every time I insert the needle and start the fluids, it comes out of other holes like Bugs Bunny full of buckshot.

I want to kick the table across the room and rip that fucking plastic bag apart with my teeth. I'm so frustrated I want to break every inanimate object I come across.

I'm going to call around to see if there are any vet techs I can hire to come do it for me, because I am obviously completely useless at most things.

Cat's doing better, I'm doing worse

Was finally able to deliver the phluids to the phlyd, so I'm not crying every ten minutes, and he seems to be eating all right. So, yay on that front.

But, our house got burgled this afternoon (while we were in it) and the gaddamn crap-ass ugly melon-ranching dipshit thieving motherfuckers took both iPods, the husband's phone and his wallet.

I guess we should be happy they didn't take the bigger score things, like our Wii and our Bose, but it's sometimes hard to see the silver lining on a shitty thing like this. We spent the evening cancelling credit cards and cell phone accounts and being really really frustrated. The assless fucktards managed to use the debit card to either buy a cell phone or pay a bill (in which case: good move, shitheads) and then they went all out and bought Tri-Met tickets.

So, master burgling artists these people are not, I'm thinking.

Still, though: FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKITY-FUCK FUCK FUCK.

Involving neither work nor imminent death

Another definition of depression: how you feel when you know that those fantasies* that you've been building in your head** to occupy your time*** while on the bus-- or keep yourself from slamming your head on your desk-- will never come true.****

* Like the one about accidentally running into the drummer of your favorite band (who's cute but seems to live in the continual shadow of the lead singer who you are sure is a dillweed) and you give him directions to Powell's, which he appreciates so he invites you to coffee and between sips of vanilla latte laughs at all your jokes so you exchange cell phone numbers and emails and you start up an endless thread of text messages that binds you closer together than any one night stand would ever do.

** You know, the one with a place in the back, near some unused corner of your Occipital lobe, where you keep your plans for the bookstore or bar that you're going open up in a sleepy part of that European city you like so much where you can play your cool playlists that make all the famous comedians who come in regularly bob their heads in time to while asking you how you came up with such cool names for the cats you let wander unfettered through the bookshelves or bar stools.

*** Time that normally is spent composing the comment that you're going to leave in that blog that's both widely-read and beloved by all; the comment that forces the blogger to cede the point in defeat and generates hundreds of reponses declaring that your comment alone has "won the thread".

**** Not even the one where you don't say something unimaginably stupid to that one cute barista. Not even that one.

No witty title today

Almost 18 years ago, I was on my way into the health food store where I worked. I was going into my junior year at UCSB and had just moved into a bungalow in downtown Santa Barbara with my boyfriend and a coworker who later became "my crazy ex-roommate". As I headed up to the office to start keeping the books as usual, my future crazy ex-roommate stopped me.

"I can't believe you're not coming in here with the kitten."

Kitten? I saw no kitten. "What kitten," I asked predictibly.

The one in the box at the front doors, the one the guy was trying to give away. She hadn't finished her sentence and I was already back outside. I'm not sure she realized that by mentioning the kitten was a tacit approval to bring it home.

He was a little black scrap of a cat-- probably a few days too young to be away from his mother, but he was mine before I even picked him up. He was the last in the box, so I got to keep the box as well. I raced up the stairs to the office, enlisting a coworker on his break to keep an eye on my new buddy while I ran to Trader Joes next door for some basic kitten supplies.

He sat unnamed on my lap all day, purring the whole time. When it was time to leave I hid him in my backpack and smuggled him onto the bus. He was a perfect little gentleman and didn't make a peep. I honestly don't remember the boyfriend's reaction, but this kitten was so adorable he couldn't have put up much of a fight. I remember us laying on the bed, throwing out names with this little purring ball in front of us:

"Jeremy! "
"Hillary! "
"Boob! "
"Phd! "

That was it: Phd (pronouced "fdd"). It was perfect.

We already had 3 other cats, but it didn't take the others too long to stop hissing at him and start letting him snuggle up (even Tisha, who was a year older and even that young wasn't really into other cats). He purred constantly. Seriously, he was always purring. I'd never met such a sociable cat. He adored our other black cat, Neighbor, and was heartbroken when she was killed by a car. He grew up quickly and his enthusiasm for food soon turned him into a really thick, really long dude (that's what she said?).

I have had him for nearly 18 years, minus the year he was living with the now ex-boyfriend. Everyone who meets his immediately loves him. It is impossible not to love Dr. Phlyd, of the Rangoon* clinic for the terminally pantless.

All our cats are seniors now (Tisha's a year older than Phlyd-- she will outlive us all). But Phlyd (whose name gained an L and a vowel, courtesy of a roommate, a New Orleans Saints fan with a penchant for yelling out the cats' names like a European sports announcer celebrating a goal unit at the local sports arena).

Like me, he's always had some health problems. When he was 10 he got an overactive thyroid that had to be zapped by radiation, and he's always been a bit of a puker. About 2 years ago he developed a distressing cough, caused by an enlarged heart, which we have been treating with twice daily pills and liquid medicine. He is always a trooper, letting me clip his nails and swallowing his pills without a peep.

He has become a favorite at the vets-- every time I bring him in the receptionists, techs and vets alike yell out his name, much like the roommate who christened him. The doctors have a hard time listening to his heart, as he purrs too loudly for them to use their stethiscopes. He is beloved by all who meet him, as well he should be.

And now he is not doing so well. His weight has dropped from 10.1 to 8.8 in a month and a half. He spends most of his time underneath the table in the upstairs game room. He is still enthusiastic about food, but he doesn't eat much of it. He is a shadow of his former self, but he still purrs everytime he sees someone.

My heart is breaking. The vet is hopeful, but you can tell when she calls that she's putting a more positive spin on his condition. But his bloodwork shows his kidneys are failing. I can't tell if he's in pain (if he is, he's hiding it well), but he's so skinny I can't look at him without getting depressed. I can't even think about him without tearing up.

What am I going to do when he gets worse? Every time I drive him to the vet, I worry that I won't be bringing him back, even though the vets have not given any indication that he is near terminal. Whenever they take him to the back room to draw blood or just take him on the rounds to all the employees, I have to fight hard not to cry.

But right now I'm alone in this hotel room down at the end of the hallway, so I don't have to find a place to hide before I start sobbing.

*He is part Burmese and does, in fact, not wear pants.

I drink to stay warm, and to kill selected memories...

"And yet I can recall in great detail all of the really
embarrassing things that happened to me in the same time period. Not just the things, but the awful feelings that caused or were caused by those embarrassing things." -me, last night

I realized just now that this is a very good description of depression, at least the kind that I have. I haven't talked much here about why I am depressed, only that I am.

My secondary depression-- that is, the one that is relatively new-- is because of the medical issues my siblings have been suffering through in the past several months. In addition to me not being able to cope with my grief (which I seem unable to handle. I have unresolved grief issues from 1982), I also feel helpless. Helpless and useless. Both siblings have been diagnosed recently with serious conditions. Life-threatening conditions. And here I am with my nebulous sadness and intermittent back pain, and I feel like everything I think or write or feel is either petty or inappropriately self-centered.

You know, like that last paragraph.

My overlying depression, the one I think I've had since forever, is the one where I can't stop thinking about stupid things in my past. Any stupid thing-- it's not limited to stupid things I've done or stupid things I've said. Just stupid things. All of them. I think of stupid questions I've asked help desk people. I remember all the stupid things I've thought about people. I focus on stupid things I've written and stupid things I've sung. Stupid places I've gone and the stupid things I've done there. There are so many that I don't have room in my head for good things. I have to be prompted to think about times where I've done things right or I've done things I liked.

Is this a poem?

A haiku (or an haiku?)

Or just some complaints?

OK, that's enough of that. I'm getting depressed talking about depressed I am.

I'm all mixed up, I got nothing to say

I have started and stopped about 6 entries today, because I really want to write, but I don't really have anything to say. But I just finished re-reading some old journals and now I feel like I need to write something, if only to prove to myself I can write something that isn't whiny, embarrassing and forgettable.

I think the only positive thing I can say about my past writing was at least I was prolific. I could write pages and pages about nothing, and not in a Seinfeld kind of way. And I dropped so many names! In 3 days of entries (about 7 pages of writing, mind you. Oh, to have that time and energy now!) I counted 12 names-- and I don't remember anything about them. "Alex" threw a party, "Colin" was in a band. I mentioned 3 different Steves, but I can only remember one of them.

It's really distressing to read about things, written in my own handwriting, that I have no recollection of. I know my memory has been bad for a long time, and I know I've been hemorrhaging the details of my life-- one insulin reaction and vicodin tab and handful of anti-depressants at a time-- but I didn't think there would be such huge chunks of stuff that, even now that I read about them, seem new to me.

And yet I can recall in great detail all of the really embarrassing things that happened to me in the same time period. Not just the things, but the awful feelings that caused or were caused by those embarrassing things.

And on that note, I'm going to go to bed to focus on all my past embarrassments and not sleep.

What's the opposite of a second opinion?

(No picture today - blogger is being pooey)

My therapist has joined with that neuro-psych doctor to reveal to me that one of the main stressors in my life is my job. I don't know how much I'll be paying for my 2 visits to the neuro-psych doctor-- she who is "out-of-plan" and therefore subject to a $1,000 deductible-- but I'm pretty sure I could have told her that over the phone. Or by telegraph. Or in a greeting card. I don't think I needed 6 hours of tests and a second mortgage on my tabby to tell me that.

So, while we were discussing this Big Reveal last week, N-P doc asked what my *realistic* ideal job is, and I realized that what I have now is close to where I think my talents lead me. I thought I liked to be helpful, I thought I liked teaching people things, I used to be able to present myself pretty well in a public speaking setting. And yet? Those are the same things that drive me crazy now. I forget my train of thought so easily now that it makes my help desk duties and training sessions really painful.

*******************

There isn't much that will make this entry any different than any other "I hate my job" screed you'll find all over the internet so sorry this isn't too interesting. So, in light of the fact that about 3 hours have passed since I wrote those previous paragraphs, instead I will talk about

What Happens Now that I'm Back from Walgreen's

So, I just got back and I bought very mundane things: Some low-dose aspirin, the chewable kind that tastes like orange so I can chew my pill with my mouth open like a child; Revlon ColorSilk permanent hair color #54; some Russell Stover cream eggs (vanilla and maple cream); some Cadbury Cream Eggs for the husband; and some Arrid Extra Dry.

Nothing too fancy. And yet when I got home, I still wanted to rip everything out of its packaging and revel in its new stuff-ness.

I'm pretty sure my new deodorant high won't wear off for at least a couple days.

Pep boys pills, Beverly sills...oh boy. Oh boy. Uh-oh. Uh-oh.

When last we spoke, I was rambling about being depressed about my diagnosis of being depressed. After the neuro-psych diagnosed me as *really* depressed, my therapist suggested I try a mood stabilizer. At first I was optimistic, and then I was angry, then confused, then sleepy, then all the other dwarves and finally, after another 30 seconds, I figured it may be a good idea.

“I have a great mood stabilizer that I have many patients on,” she said. “It’s cheap and it has no side effects. Well, except for the possible deadly skin rash.”

But who’s ever said I’m not a risk taker? I decided to give it a try.

Because of this possible deadly skin rash, they start you out real slow, with 2 weeks at 12.5 mg, then two weeks at 25mg, then two weeks at 50mg, etc etc. After 3 days, I noticed that my chest felt like I had slept with 2 tons of something really heavy on it. I calmly called my therapist, on the off-chance that this was a bad sign. She called back and said that it sounded like it was affecting my heart in a bad way and that yes, it was most likely a really bad sign. She suggested that I stop taking it to see if the chest pain went away.

So now I am for all intents and purposes unmedicated and that is making me even more depressed and anxious. I’ve left 3 messages for her to call me back and get me something STAT. I’m freaking out enough that I’m using my vicodin as my anxiety drug. Not cool.

I am just about ready to demand Xanax by name. work is stressful enough that I don’t have time to ramp up to something. I need drugs. I need them NOW.

There are those who will wish you good morning. If it is a good morning, which I doubt.

For a while now I've been feeling like my brain has been non-cooperative. I can't remember a time when my memory has been worse (not to mention my jokes). Someone will say something and I'll think of a witty comeback or apropos pop culture reference, but I'll forget an important name or catchphrase before I'm able to say it.

As someone who prides herself on being on the witty end of the peanut gallery, you cannot imagine how troublesome this is. It's affecting my entire life: I don't call up friends, I haven't written a journal entry since November, I flake on a lot of extra-curricular activities for no reason.

So, I went to a neuro-psych and took a bunch of tests that included tests on memory, sequencing, facial recognition, math, spelling, grammar, hand-eye coordination. I felt bad taking it because it seemed clear to me that these tests were for people who had been in horrible car accidents, like in that movie The Lookout where the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun was really fucked up.

(Good movie, btw.)

Anyway, my test results not only showed that I had no damage to my brain, but also that I was "very gifted" and in the "top 6%" of whatever. And you know what?

I took that to mean that, once again, I was not living up to my potential.


That also means that my memory loss is due to "uncontrolled depression and anxiety". In other words, it's all in my head.

Awesome.