Oh wait!  Is that PIE???

Anyway.

Basically, quick update is that I’ve not really accomplished any goals, and I actually have to squint my brain to think if I’ve even made any goals recently.  That’s probably not a good thing, but on the plus side – I’M STILL ALIVE. 

I really should make this post more interesting with pictures and links and whatnot, and maybe later when I’m not in the midst of getting ready for work (or more accurately, avoiding getting ready for work), I shall post a real post.  Not a more coherant post, because hey, it’s still me.

In the meantime…

PIE!

And if I were more savvy or had more time to fiddle with things, maybe you’d have a picture of a piece of pie.

Quick update:

• Started/finished phlebotomy class.  It was super awesome!
• Started looking for a phlebotomy job.  Totally not awesome and getting less awesome with each rejection.
• Started working at Arby’s because I seriously need money.  Not so awesome, but not as bad as I feared.  Actually, it’s better than OfficeMax, suprisingly (except for the pay).
• Still looking for a phlebotomy job.  Meh.
• Going to run the Summer Breeze 5K on June 18 (day before my bday) to celebrate the 5k in 100 days program. (#5kin100days on Twitter.)
• Eating half a bag of starbursts in one sitting = NOT awesome and falls into #reasonswhyIdontloseweight.

I will make more of an update later, maybe.  I’m tired, I didn’t get a nap in, I still need to do laundry (like seriously), and I’m going walking with John in a few.

I did some googling, and apparently being full of woe means that you are a serious person who sees the unfairness in the world and tries to make it better.  Having far to go means that we have so many ideas and want to do them all, and because of that it takes us much longer than everyone else to get to the end (goals or heaven, whatever).  (Apparently we are easily distracted, as evidenced by that fact that it took me five minutes to get to this sentence after the previous one.)  Maybe this isn’t such a bad thing, although it seems like a bad thing when you see where you want to go, and you see the yellow brick road, and yet you just can’t stay on track.  (Is that mixing a lot of metaphors, because really I don’t care at this time.  Check back tomorrow.) You wander off the road and get attacked by flying monkeys or evil trees; you get scars on your body and scars on your soul; your faith gets tested and shaken or even destroyed, but eventually you get there.

How much easier would it be if we could just stay on the shiny path!  I know for myself that I just can’t.  I have to know what’s on that side trail, or what’s behind that rock, or see how far the creek goes.  Most of the time I just find biting bugs, or twist my ankle on rocky paths, or get lost and lonely in the dark.  Sometimes, though, I find something so extraordinary that everything else fades into distant memories.  At least until I get bit by another bug.

I wonder, though, how extraordinary the find would be if we didn’t have all of the bad things for comparison.  Would we be able to have those moments of seemingly perfect joy, if we didn’t have all those soul-sucking weeks of darkness?  I don’t think so.  Then again, I’m sure this entry doesn’t make sense to anyone but me, and if I come back and read it later, even I won’t know what I was talking about.

Maybe those kids born on the other days of the week should stop and offer us a ride, and maybe a sedative.

Anyway (yes one of my favorits words), I realize I haven’t updated in a while, but since I put my blog link on Bring Change 2 Mind‘s facebook wall, I figured I should update it occassionally.

Mentally I am trying to recover from what seemed like a 2-1/2 siege on my sanity. It had nothing at all to do with brain chemistry and everything to do with external factors. The external factors have been removed, so things are on an upswing.  Well, at least in a sorta upward motion.  Gradual.  My pdoc decided at my visit in May that he feels that the most current dosages of my meds are working at an optimal level for me, so we’re going to see how that goes when I go back in August.  I thought that I’d have to go in earlier, but most of that was just stress from the previously mentioned sanity siege.

Physically, I just give up.  I mean, once one thing gets fixed, something else goes wrong.  I had to have a physical and get some immunizations before class starts so I can participate in clinicals.  I went in to the doctor, got checked out, got my first Hep B shot and a Tdap shot, TB skin test and some bloodwork to make sure my liver was handling all my meds okay.  Of course I had a reaction to the Tdap shot and thought I was going to die of the flu or something, but that got better.  TB test came back negative, which is weird because I stopped getting TB tests back in 1994 when the Navy said I was positive and I had to take months and months of INH.  Anyway, for some reason the doctor decided to check my vitamin D and TSH (thyroid) levels as well.  A few days later I get my lab results in the mail along with two prescriptions – synthroid and vitamin D.  (Also, who sends lab results in the mail that say, “Oh your TSH levels are low and so is your vitamin D – take these to the pharmacy.  See you in a month.”)  So right now I’m on 25 mcg of synthroid daily and 50,000 iu of Vitamin D weekly.

First off, I looked up hypothyroidism and was amazed by the list of symptoms.  It was like a lightbulb literally appeared above my head.  I never had any idea that there was anything wrong with my thyroid because I thought everything was explained by the fact I am getting old (like it or not, mainly not), side effects of my meds, or that I am just lazy and overweight.  I know it’s probably a little bit of everything – all connected in a massive web, but how much of it started with my thyroid?  Or was my thyroid affected by everything else?  It’s like the chicken and the egg, except it’s a lot more eggs.  Or not.

Because I had a positive ANA titer previously, it’s most likely that I have Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis, an auto-immune disease that attacks the thyroid cells.  It’s also the most common form of hypothyroidism.  Only more bloodwork will tell, although really, I’m going to be giving a lot of blood for someone who is supposed to be learning how to take blood…

This all makes me wonder how much of my BP is really in my head, and how much is because of my thyroid?  And why wasn’t my thyroid checked before doctors started tossing me prescriptions for anti-depressants and mood stabilizers?  There was no google back when this started, and silly me didn’t even think there could be a connection.  Then again, I’m not a doctor.

Also frustrating is that, no matter what the outcome happens to be, I will still be taking some sort of medication EVERY DAY.  Every day until I die.  UNTIL I DIE.  In my mind I can see all those little pills (except the trazodone, because those suckers are HUGE) falling from some giant hourglass above my head, surrounding me and covering me until I’m buried and all there is to see is a giant mound of pills.  The weight of those tiny pills just adds up, and I can feel that weight pushing me down.  I don’t want to be pressured by all that, and I don’t want to see myself as just a giant mound of pills.  I think it’s just easier to pretend that one day I’ll be cured of something and I won’t have to take those pills anymore.

So, denial it is, same as usual.  Which reminds me in an oblique way that it’s time to take one of my meds.

New xpack for EQ2 came out, so of course everyone knows where I’ll be for the next serious bit of time.  I can’t help it, plus I start training to be a volunteer guide on Friday.  Do I get to count that as volunteer work on my resume?  I may slap it on there anyway.  Right now the server is down, so I’m pondering whether to eat or take a nap.  I may do both.

I got a call from United Behavioural Health (UBH, the mental part of the healthcare) today.  Apparently my old T (and yes, I quit seeing her because I kept feeling like an idiot and it seemed like she kept pushing that if I just changed my way of thinking, then I’d be magically better.  I know cognitive therapy helps, but I’m not currently comfortable with cognitive therapy.  The case manager on the phone suggested that it may just be that I didn’t feel comfortable with her, but at least he was nice) sent assessment stuff to UBH that I an acute patient and that I need more help than she can give and some other serious stuff that I don’t remember anymore (apparently she felt the same way about us not clicking, which is fine, but I dumped her first, nyah nyah).  As soon as the UBH guy pulled up my file, he got all stuttery and serious and started asking me if I was suicidal or homicidal and whatnot, which obviously I am not or I would not have returned your phone call.

So I guess I’m more mentally ill than I had thought.  Which is initially kind of cool, but then I think that I must be mentally ill if I think that’s kind of cool, which makes it less cool.  The UBH guy seemed really concerned that I’m not seeing a therapist (I don’t know what’s in that paperwork he has, but boy howdy it must be scary, which is kind of cool as well) and he wanted to give me this long list of people I could call.  I realize I need therapy, but $200 a month is not an option for me right now, as I’m still jobless (but looking every day).  I told him I was still taking my meds and seeing the pdoc (although it’s like every 3 months atm hehe).

Not that I want to take my meds anymore.  I’m tired of taking them every day.  I’m not having side effects from them anymore, and I’ve figured out my eye blurriness is a result of too much EQ2.  I’m getting to the point where I feel like I don’t need them anymore, because I feel perfectly fine.  This is probably where the T comes in.  I told John I don’t feel like taking my meds anymore, but I suppose I should add to that next time that he needs to remind me to take them if I start thinking I’m all better again.  The weird thing is that now that I’m on my meds, I can tell when I’m actually having PMS instead of being all confused all the time.  Why is this good?  Because I know that the PMS is hormonal and will only last about a day (for me), and it’s not a symptom of my mental illness (which still sounds creepy), merely a sign that my period is coming in a day or two.

Anyway, that’s the state of things at the moment.

I’m too ill to find/keep a job, but not ill enough for disability.  It just sucks. 

I’ve applied to like 15 or so jobs since then.  Hopefully one will bite.  I’m hoping it’s one of the ones I really want, instead of the desperation jobs.  Heck, even Lane Bryant didn’t call me back.

This all sucks, and totally turned my mixed episode into depression.

I had two interviews with Build A Bear, and they were supposed to call me either late last week or early this week.  Is Wednesday still considered early?  John said I should go there and just check in to see what’s going on, but now I just figure they don’t want me.  Barnes and Noble is supposed to call next week to set up an interview, but I’m not holding my breath on that one either.

I started playing EQ2 on the Splitpaw server.  I remade the mystic I was playing over on Butcherblock, and everything was really exciting at first, getting back into contact with friends from Supreme and going out to kill lots of things, but now I’m feeling left out.  I suspect it’s my paranoia emerging again, but I feel like everyone’s talking to each other about things outside of guild chat while I sit there wondering what’s going on.  It’s like there’s not a place for me there, and they PL’d me in order to be able to have a full guild group. I’m not geared enough to join most of the raids, so I suppose that’s most of it. One of the people there always makes me feel inadequate and really makes me want to leave the guild. This is pretty much why I stopped playing in the guild in Butcherblock and just played with non-guilded alts.

Am I that uninteresting? Probably.  At least John still thinks I’m interesting.

Sleep has been scant the last week or so.  I just can’t fall asleep, and then I wake up too early.  I keep screwing up cooking projects and ruining pans and knocking things over and making messes.  I think I should just stay in bed until next year.

Anyway, foot is still being stupid, but I have two more episodes of Angel Season Two to watch, and then I get to laugh as John tries to play a football game on the PS2.  Oh!  And the heating guy is coming over today so maybe we will have a warm house at last and not have to huddle in the bedroom where our only sources of heat are three computers, a heating pad, and lots of layers.  John wanted to get a portable heater from WalMart, but I am deathly afraid of heaters, as well as deep fryers.

I rescheduled my therapy appointment today because 1) my foot hurts and 2) I didn’t want to pay another huge frikkin copay when I (and by “I” I mean John) had to pay a stupid $75 copay for the urgent care, which was hugely better than the $200 copay we’d have had to pay at the ER.  I could have waited until today to go to the doctor’s office since that copay is only $25, but I also owe them money from when they removed my mole-that-was-not-a-mole, so that would have ended up costing more money.  I hate that we have sucky insurance, but at least we have some insurance.  Of course now we’re going broke because of it all, and that just makes my tummy hurt.

John is so stressed out about the money situation that it’s starting to make me want to smack him upside the head.  It also makes me want to run away.  He’s havin a rough time at work as well, so he’s extra super cranky.  The work stuff alone has been enough to turn him into a spring wound too tightly, add the fact that his Grandma Miriam fell and messed up her knee and is in the hospital and might not ever come back home, our heater stopped working on Christmas Day, car insurance is due (he pays every six months so it’s huge when it’s due), AND his car is looking like it needs some expensive brake work.  Oh, and his filling are falling out and his mouth is messed up from the lost fillings and getting sores and he won’t go to the dentist because that’s more money that we don’t have.  So every time I go to the pdoc or therapist or have to get prescriptions refilled, I feel like I’m letting him down.  If I weren’t here, he’d have enough money to go to the damn dentist.

Last night we had an explosive non-fight (aka we got mad, he slammed some doors, and we did some ignoring until I fell asleep) because apparently I’m putting expectations on him and that’s all people ever do to him, and he doesn’t even have one person who doesn’t expect something from him, when he doesn’t put expectations on anyone.  Um, everyone has expectations for each person in his or her life.  Yes, I realize he’s stressed, but there’s only so many times I can offer comfort and advice and then watch him do absolutely nothing with it.  And I also realize that I probably have not been as supportive as a normal person could be because I’ve been dealing with my own stuff, stuff that he doesn’t really believe is a problem, so I get little support from him for that reason, plus pile on the work/money stress, and it’s really not going well.

Add to that the fact that I’m the one initiating any “sexy time” 99.9% of the time, and 99.9% of the time I try, I get rejected.  My brain knows that he’s under a lot of stress and all, but there’s only so many times I can hear “it’s not you it’s me” before I stop believing it.  Rejection is rejection, no matter how you try to sugarcoat it.  I’m tired of feeling like a roommate.  I mean how hard is it to just snuggle with me or spend like a minute kissing.  When I’m really upset, I feel like someone pulled a bait and switch on me.  I mean, two times a month?  So of course now he’s mad because I made him feel guilty.  We’ve had this talk before.  We’ve had this argument before.  I’m tired of it.  If you’re not going to bother to at least do a little something to try to make things better, and I’m talking like a miniscule amount of effort, then I’m done.  I’m tired of feeling like an unattractive fat cow.  You can tell me that you think I’m beautiful and sexy, but in the end, words are not enough.

I’m starting to feel like I need to get away for a few days.  Maybe I’ll do that once all the New Year stuff is done.