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.