My doctor says she found cancerous white blood cells floating around my body again. They appeared in a blood smear done back in August. She doesn’t plan to treat it until certain symptoms appear – which based on the slow, chronic nature of my disease, could still be a while. I was symptom free in August (besides the hairy traitors showing themselves in my blood), and I’m symptom free now, so we’re waiting. We’re looking. One day we’ll be seeing. I got this news after my little nap in her lobby yesterday. Cheryl was pissed we didn’t find out sooner. [...]
depression
Going against the grain
Weather wise, it was a great weekend. Emotionally, it wasn’t so great. Depression had the claws out. And yet, it was a productive weekend. Determined to do something, I did – a project I’d been putting off for cooler temperatures. Unfortunately, this meant while many of you were enjoying the mild weather, I was crawling around in our attic. Why? I’d been meaning to expand our network to Adam’s room and while I was buying cables, I decided to go ahead and buy enough to upgrade the rest of our network – making it gigabit ethernet “ready.” Why? In my [...]
Status
It’s not as bad as it sounds, or will sound (if you can make any sense of it). This week I’ve been sick (again/still – pick your adverb) and between medications. I’ve been weening myself from caffeine, on doctor’s orders, and I’m suffering the consequences. My meds of choice for headache are no longer part of the arsenal – due to the caffeine, so I’m doubly screwed. The doctor who recommended I stop the caffeine (not all at once) said I should go see my primary about my headache medication, and like an idiot I didn’t rouse myself to do [...]
When people care
My wife is worried about me. From a purely selfish standpoint, this is a good thing. The depression bug hasn’t run it’s course and the stay in bed headache is on day number three. “Headaches don’t last this long.” “They have before.” To be honest, I’m fully reclined on the Lazy-boy in the living room right now (not in bed). I know it’s not my fault, but it hurts when I hurt people. It means I have to work extra hard getting back to good working order.
My silence
How would you feel if your spouse didn’t speak? What if it was a coworker or a friend? Would you impute something to their character or nature? Would you interpret it as arrogance, disdain, or indifference? Would you conclude something was wrong? Would you wonder if this person was burdened with a problem in their personal life? Would you ask this person if something was wrong? How would you feel if this person usually replied, “nothing,” though not convincingly? I think about it quite a bit. When I’m depressed I spend a lot of time not talking, or saying as [...]
Love thy couch
Pre-post warnings are not a good way to win over readers. I recognize this, yet I ignore it. If you’re here you’ve probably either learned to overlook my poor habits or you find them a little endearing. Oh my! The headache meds are working just fine now! All of my posts start with a single sentence. When you write you probably start with a single sentence too – unless you have a punctuation problem, but stay with me. My posts start with a single thought. When I sit down to type I’ve rarely thought things through or done research of [...]
Feeling sinking
I’m feeling up and down right now, and that’s the problem. I’m up four hours before I’m supposed to wake up for work (it’s a little past 2am here as I write this), and I’ve yet to get a whiff of sleep. I’m up because I’m down, for reasons I can explain and others I can’t. The last few weeks have been tough. The last few months have been tough, but for different reasons. Cheryl finally convinced me to see our doctor, but the outcome was a little different than she was expecting. I’ve been treated for panic/anxiety disorder in [...]
It’s all my fault
You don’t want to read this post. Why am I writing it then?Therapy.I have a theory for why I’ve been feeling down lately, and the title to this post is a strong clue. Since it’s apparent no one else is ever at fault for things that go wrong, the logical conclusion is it must be my fault. When everything is your fault and you accept responsibility – even if it’s just a small part of your subconscience doing the accepting – it’s really easy to hate yourself.Take one guess where this is leading. Did you guess something related to healthcare [...]
Living in the not
Have you ever felt inexplicably irritable? For a week or month at a time?Now it’s time for the truth. I have an explanation, I’ve just been reluctant to talk about it. It feels like an excuse. Part of me lives in fear… like if I say it out loud a mob of disturbingly happy people with “The Secret” will bombard me with platitudes. Then, on top of feeling grumpy, I’ll lose my lunch. The best damn yogurt I’ve had all day.Oh, I’ve talked about the reason. I just haven’t copped to feeling run over by it. (At least, I don’t [...]
Something Lost
Your mother wasn’t feeling well last night or this morning, so we called her doctor. The pain was worrisome but not unbearable. The doctor took us right in this morning and gave your mother an ultrasound to see how you were doing. I have no medical training, but I knew enough looking at the monitor to know we will never get the chance to meet. I noticed the nurse wasn’t saying anything, and I got the sense it was deliberate. Your mother was looking at the screen too, but I couldn’t tell if she knew what I knew, and I [...]
