Been a homebody lately. Buying and repotting plants, learning how to care for them, saving seeds to plant in the spring. Welcoming the fall. It's beautiful here.

Content

I am at a point in my life where I feel content. I enjoy having L here with us. I like having people in the house. I am looking forward to Halloween and decorating. To going trick-or-treating. I enjoy my books.

We finally added something of our own to the house. We built a fire pit one night, on the spur of the moment. Our neighbors must think we're crazy. They are probably right.

We built a fire the first night. It was so peaceful to sit under the stars. Then later that week, L and his girlfriend were home. We all sat outside around the fire, toasted marshmallows and made smores. I love fall. I love the cool air, the crunchy, colorful leaves, and the smell of fire. I can't wait to decorate our house for Halloween and hand out candy to the neighorhood kids. Life is good.

Just a Little Shaky.

I seem to have leveled out mostly. I just get a little jittery right after I take a pill. My sleep schedule is a little off, but that's normal for working night shift.

I'm ready to go back to work now, and see how it goes.

I am also dreading the dosage increase on Thursday.

The Beginning

Yesterday morning, before going to bed, J suggested I call and make an appointment with my doctor. I've been trying to summon the courage to call somebody, anybody, for a while. I tried calling the only psychiatrists office in our town, but they are booked into July. I can't wait that long. So I called my primary doctor instead. He knows me.

I got an appointment for the afternoon. J went with me, but I asked him to wait in the waiting room. When the doctor walked in, he spoke to me in the most caring voice. He sat down and listened. And I just cried. I told him I just wasn't doing well, I am not coping. I have been fine for so long, but I am not any more. I told him I was giving in and going back to meds, and probably therapy. He agreed that both would be good, but we should start the meds as soon as possible to get me stabilized.

He gave me samples of Cymbalta and an appointment in 2 weeks. I felt so much relief because I can see the possibility of happiness.

I took the first pill at 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon. Within 2 hours, I felt slightly nauseated and a little dizzy. I was extremely sleepy, though, from missing my normal sleep time.

I came home and crawled into bed. I couldn't get comfortable. I couldn't stop moving. When I finally fell asleep, I couldn't stay asleep. Finally I got up after just a few hours. I sat at my laptop, unable to focus, unable to be still, the room seemed to be spinning. I felt like I was tweaking.

We went for a walk to burn off the energy. I came back so extremely exhausted. For dinner, I had to fight the gag reflex that tends to come with these meds. Never vomiting, just always feeling like I will.

I finally got more sleep last night. I feel somewhat disconnected, and still unable to stay completely still. I don't know about work the next couple of days. We will see. Right now I am just taking this as it comes. I will ride it out and hope for the best.

Maybe meds really can bring happiness.

i'm sorry.

I have a lot to apologize for. I have not been the wife I should have been. I have not been the person I should have been. I have let this depression go too far, for too long. I have maintained in most areas in my life. But those closest to me? The ones that are the most forgiving? They were somehow the easiest to let down, and I have hurt them the most.

I'm sorry. I'm trying.

Honeysuckle In Bloom

I love my back yard. Now that spring has come, I can sit out on my back porch and watch the sun go down. I smell the honeysuckle blooming just past our back fence. I watch birds fight over the same feeder, even though there are three more exactly like it. I can hear children laughing and screaming in the background, enjoying the last few minutes of sun before heading inside to baths and bed. The sound of their play lets me know that this is a neighborhood with life, and with hope.

Funk

I have been in such a funk lately. I want to get things done, but I just don't have the motivation to do them most of the time. My house is mostly clean, especially the revolving stuff like laundry and dishes, but my bathrooms aren't. And the dust? Oh my god, the dust. But I just don't get to it. I have been reading more, but I can't always focus on that either. And I feel like I am so out of touch with everybody. Even when I am being social, and in a group, I feel like I am floating out of myself, just watching it all happen instead of really being there. It's enough to make me wish for all the meds back.

But anyway, things have been busy around here. My M-I-L and I threw a shower for my husband's stepsister. Wow, that sounded complicated. She is getting married this Saturday. It was so quick, from the time of the announcement to the wedding date that most of the family has been asking when the baby's due. Classy, I tell ya, we are just so classy.

She has asked J and I to take pictures at the wedding. Both of us are kind of dreading it. She can tend to be a bit of a bridezilla, but you get what you pay for, and we're free, so I don't know what she thinks is going to happen. It should be interesting.

But for now, I am sitting by my open windows, listening to a light thunderstorm that has blown in. It's barely thundering, and the rain is just heavy enough, and constant. I've never been a fan of storms, but this one sounds absolutely tropical.

How Did It Go?

J had his interview this weekend. From what I can tell, it went OK. I think he was/is really nervous about it, and is second guessing himself. But from the sounds of it, he answered the questions well. Now he has to take the GRE, and we wait.

I also went to see my grandmother this weekend. It was short. She looks a lot older. She was slumped far down in her chair, and she looked unkempt. Its hard to tell why. It could be that the staff wasn't expecting her to have a visitor that day. It could have been that she wouldn't let them do anything with her. She used to refuse baths when she lived at home. I don't think she gets as much of a choice now.

She didn't recognize me at first. I didn't really expect her to. She can barely see any more, and my looks have changed quite a bit over the last few years. She asked if I was still working. I asked when was the last time my uncle had been by to see her. She said it had been a while. He travels to Kentucky to work during the week, "and he makes $25 and hour!" I didn't have the heart to tell her that I make more than that, without shift differential, without overtime. She probably wouldn't listen or care anyway.

So we are home. Stinky missed us. He danced around with a piece of rawhide. Poor baby, probably thought we had left him forever.

I still haven't been back to work. I have been extremely tired and unmotivated this week. Sunday night we went and saw Cloud Cult play. I had never even heard of them, but we all loved it, and I now own several of their CDs. Monday we just needed a night to veg. It was nice. Last night we had every intention of going to work. Then I was having trouble sleeping. Then we planned on just working eight hours. We ended up staying home.

I'm getting really stressed about staying home. I worry about the money I could be making, the money I need to pay bills and get ahead and install a french drain. But I feel so dark. I don't want to interact with people. I don't want to take care of the house. I don't want to go anywhere. It's an accomplishment to go take a shower.

And then there are days like today. I need to sleep. I have to work tonight, and the rest of the week. I have to. There are no choices. I have to make money. I was exhausted on the couch, so I went to bed. As soon as I drifted off to sleep, something woke me up. Now I am wide awake. I laid in bed for a while trying to sleep. I can't. And for every minute that I am awake today, I get more anxious. For my lack of sleep, for the stress of working, for the exhaustion I will have to function with tonight. And with the growing anxiety, I get further from sleep.

These are signs of my depression. The inability to stay awake at times, then the inability to fall asleep.

Good Morning

There is something nice about waking up early in the morning. Now don't get me wrong, I don't usually enjoy it. But this morning, I woke up on my own a little before 5am. And I didn't die. I woke up feeling rested. The house is quiet, even though J and Stinky got up with me. I feel like I have all the time in the world. I know that I can take my time checking email (not like I don't do that anyway), take a nice long shower, straighten my hair, pack, and even straighten up the house before we leave today, and still have most of the day before me and not feel like we are racing the clock to get somewhere.

It's a nice feeling. I may need a nap this afternoon, but I feel like I will have time for that as well. And now we can go to bed at a decent hour tonight and get up early in time for J's interview tomorrow.

Now It's Not So Scary.

J got a call from the doctor today. Turns out the X-ray didn't show any pneumonia. Now they think he just has an upper respiratory infection. So he's still sick, and still feels like crap most of the time, but it isn't nearly so scary.

Tomorros, we drive.

Sick.

I still haven't gone to work this week. J is still sick, and tonight we will probably stay home to continue in the quest to readjust our schedules to coincide with normal people.

J has been sick for the past, oh, I don't know, three or four weeks-ish. First it was basic cold stuff. We all had it. Mine was mostly sinuses. Then it cleared up for me and the brother-in-law, but J just kept on sniffling. Then last Monday, he said it felt like it just settled in his chest. Then the hacking began. It sounded awful. Even as a nurse, with all the gross things I deal with, I hate the sound of coughing, especially when it is productive. This was bad. But I love him, so I lived with it.

Then that Wednesday night his sats were down. The respiratory therapists heard him coughing and went to find the source. They checked him out and even gave him an updraft, which made him feel even worse. So Thursday we trekked into the doctor's office to get him checked out. He was seen as a walk-in, thankfully, because otherwise I was taking him to the ER. They did a chest X-ray, which showed a little bit of bronchitis. It also showed an enlarged heart. That is troubling, although not entirely unexpected. He has high blood pressure, which is now well controlled. But we don't know how long his heart has been this big. This is the first time anybody has ever done a chest X-ray on him, which I find hard to believe. I also feel a large amount of disappointment in our medical system that this wasn't done before.

So we left with antibiotics, an inhaler (sweet Jesus those things are expensive), and Mucinex. Within a couple of days he was feeling better. Then the antibiotics ran out. The cough came back. Back to the doctor. Now they say he has pneumonia. More antibiotics, more sprays, and another X-ray at an imaging center.

I'm tired. I'm off schedule. We still get to go for the interview this weekend. Hopefully, J will feel better then. He really needs to be at his best, even if his best is achieved with drugs right now.

I will get to go visit my grandmother while he is being interviewed. The one I am not crazy about. I know this, the visit will be quick. I am only going to fight off any guilt I have in the future when she dies. I will have seen her one last time.

Long Week

It is good to be home for a night or two. This has been such a long week. Monday, at work, we had dueling code rooms. Neither patient made it. Tuesday I finally admitted to my husband that I need help and I would be ok with it if he called someone and made me an appointment and just made me go. Otherwise I don't have the motivation when I really need to go, and don't feel I have a need to go when I am feeling good. Wednesday I had three patients all night, but my husband called and said his O2 sats were lower than they should be. Thursday we had him at the doctor and got some health news I wasn't expecting. More on that later, maybe. Friday? Not terrible. Then this morning I came home to beer cans and a beer pong table in my kitchen. Certain people are lucky to be alive after that one.

Now? My house isn't clean, but its not dirty either. It's "lived in", which is fine by me. Tomorrow, maybe a much needed haircut. Work a few days, then off to the CRNA interview with J. Hopefully this week will be better than the last.

Trapped

They brought me a patient this morning. Unresponsive, on the vent. Eyes open, just a reflex. Later, I went back in the room and his eyes were closed. I spoke, his eyes opened. They were so sad. He's still in there. But he can't move anything. Can even move away from pain. He is trapped in his own body.

He was there because he shot himself in the head.

Jesus Camp

You want to see a scary movie? Watch Jesus Camp, a documentary by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady. It looks at fundamentalist Christianity by focusing on 3 kids, and it follows them to a camp in North Dakota where they pray, worship, and are indoctrinated.

It was one of the scariest movies I've watched in a long time. My husband and I were both switching between hiding beneath our blankets, or staring with mouths gaping. We even paused it multiple times to discuss, something we rarely do in the middle of a movie. Maybe it's because we've both lived it. It's a lot scarier being on the outside looking in. I could relate to these kids and the dogma that surrounded them. Except imagine all the little girls with freakishly long hair and skirts down to their ankles. That would be me.

Part of me wants to show the film to my parents. There is a fear, though, and a possibility, that they would not see anything wrong with it, and then would demand a conversation to discuss why i do. A conversation I am not yet ready to begin.

Yes, they make caramel lattes.

My mother lives in a neighboring state so I don't get to see her as often as I would like. But she calls me, and I call her, and for some reason we both can talk on the phone for longer than we would for any other person.

This morning my phone rang. I recognized my mother's special ringtone, so I drug myself half out of sleep and answered it. I was greeted with, "Sorry to wake you up, but I'm at Starbuck's. What should I order? What was that thing you gave me to try last time?" My mother can never remember what to order. My first question: "Hot or cold?" Hot. That narrows it down a bit.

So I start racking my brain for hot drinks I normally drink at Starbuck's. Chai, and . . . chai. She didn't like my chai. That's not it. Probably something my husband drinks that I suggested knowing she would like. Latte or mocha? I suggest both. First mocha. "I don't see that on the menu," she says. "It would be under cafe mocha," says my sleepy brain. "Oh, there it is. Was that what it was?" "Maybe a caramel latte?" I reply. "I don't see that on the menu either."

Then I hear the voice of her friend calling out to the drive thru speaker, "Do you make caramel lattes?" I cannot hear the answer, but I know it already. My mother quickly orders a tall, thanks me, and lets me go back to sleep.

I love my mother. And I love that she asks me for help with Starbucks.

And no, she's not old. She's only 47.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Things here have been busy, but great. We are in the house, finally. We expected to be able to move in starting Saturday, January 4th. Instead, we got the call on the first. Being night people, we loaded up the SUV with dishes and started unpacking. By 4am Wednesday morning we had the entire kitchen moved over, washed, and placed in the new cabinets. The next few days are a blur of moving, packing, unpacking, errands, and Lowe's trips. Rooms have been painted, new furniture has been delivered, and new projects have been planned.

I love this new house.