Loss or Victory?

I am sitting in bed after attending the weirdest Christmas Eve service ever.  It was a pretty building.  Otherwise, weird.

I am thinking of a year ago.  I was in the hospital, was pretty miserable and Christmas Eve was spent playing stupid games, coloring (I hate coloring but it keeps my hands busy), wondering what the menu meant by "holiday cocktail".  I was also terrified.  I had no idea how life was going to work.  I was very aware and frustrated by my cognitive issues.  I knew my bipolar was worse than ever before.  I was scared to death because I knew I'd see Dr. Brain the next day and I didn't know if she would be angry when she read my suicide note (that I hadn't realized it was) and knew that I hadn't gotten help like I was supposed to.  I had gotten to the point where I was willing to admit that I couldn't work but had no idea what to do with that or what would happen next.  I knew I was very, very sick but not really what that meant.  I knew that I would be kept in the hospital until I was deemed no danger to myself and that this could take a while.  I remember someone telling us that we should remember this and know that next year Christmas Eve would very likely be better.  For a room of suicidal people that's a pretty big thing to believe but I do remember thinking there was validity.

I am doing this now instead of the traditional New Year's, by the way.

The year in list form looks like a really sad, really hard year.  It was.  And for much of it I thought I would not stop regretting telling about my suicidal impulses.  There is so much I don't remember and that probably makes it harder because some positive things are forgotten.  I do know the year included the day that I got my last short-term disability check and denial of long-term disability.  There was frantic applications for food stamps, Medicaid and SSDI.  I was so sick but I got a crash course in SSDI regardless.  There was the day I resigned from my job.  There was the day I had to go clean out my desk, a day so painful that Dr. Mind made me call him twice and I wasn't allowed in any store that sold tylenol because I wanted so badly to overdose.  There were the tearful, sobbing conversations with him on the phone from the hospital, conversations where I had to confess that I'd broken the only promise I'd ever made to him.  Later there was the in person conversation where I told him how ashamed of my choices and that I hadn't kept that promise.  That day he was nothing but kind and was so spontaneous and unguarded in what he said that I knew he meant it when he said that I was ok.  There were the days that I had to accept money from my mom, many times.  I had to give up my insurance and go through the emotional discomfort of applying for program after program to assist with medical costs, including seeing Dr. Mind for only the agency charge.  There was the weirdness of using food stamps the first time.  There was the mixed joy/deep sadness that accompanied my SSDI approval through the computer identifying me as a 100% going to get it case.  That's a point of pride:  even the computer said I worked as long as I could.  There's the frustration of repeatedly being required to file for Medicaid when I'm not eligible unless I spend 95% of my income in a month on out of pocket medical expenses.  There was the locked up.  There was humiliation then just frustration with a complicated routine of giving me access to limited amounts of my meds. There was the fear that I would never go a year without  wanting to hurt myself and would always have to deal with my meds being   And then there was PTSD therapy and months of pushing and being pushed to face head-on exactly what happened.  And while I never did succeed at showing emotion or expressing it about much of this I am not haunted by it so much.  Nightmares are rare.  There was finding out that I was the one person who shouldn't use Mirena because of hormones despite the miniscule amounts.  There was the decision to have the hysterectomy and the difficult discussions with my surgeon and her nurse about bad experiences from my first gyn surgery as well as the cognitive impairments that came after the surgery.  This resulted in the best care I could have imagined and also got an anesthesiologist who is a huge expert of MAOIs so they could be as careful as possible.  After a seemingly eternal wait in which I scoured my entire house out of nerves I finally had the surgery.  Recovery was 100% different and I know now that when we say people's pain should be controlled it really should.  I didn't expect the surgery to be as difficult as it was and so I had 2 months of living at my mom's, followed by the painful decision that in another year and a bit I will be moving here.  I don't know where I"ll live just yet but I can't afford a mortgage, utilities, etc. and I need to be near someone.  Yet giving up my home........one of the things I never thought would happen.  There was the death of our dog and our barely making it back to say goobye---and a rough last day.

Yet just like that Christmas Eve they said would show how much better all following ones would be, this year that until about June I thought would have few good spots, it has had them.  Even though this is a year my life has hung in the balance much longer that that hospitalization and I have lost things that were so important to me that I no longer know who I am, there are good moments.  There are many, many memories of time with my niece and the wonder that is observing a  baby become a toddler become a child.  There has been the knowledge that no matter what that little girl loves me, sick, post-surgical, tired, whatever.  I got to see what it is like for a little girl to grow up loved like crazy during the time I was reliving the opposite experience myself.  I found the gift my grandma left me in the diaries, the gift of a story clear enough although not explicit of what happened when I told on my grandfather and what my grandmother's role was, and the horrible hurt she felt.  Finding that was one of the most healing things I experienced this year. There was the learning to cry, if nothing else, about what happened to me as a little girl.  I remember a day that Dr. Mind was demonstrating what emotion sounded like with my words and I was crying which I had been avoiding for a while and he quietly asked if I wanted to cry and I nodded so he went deeper into it and it felt sooooooooooo good to know that he got it.  It's been a year of tears, but that's a good thing compared to when I can't cry.  Mostly I have to have Dr. Mind to cry, but I do it.  It's been the year that I finally learned to enjoy music and relax to it.  It's another year I got with my elderly, renal failure, getting less strong cat.  It's when I learned that Dr. brain is not going to greet worsening symptoms of my illness with anger but she will hold me while I cry.  I learned why we have assistance programs and was humbled as I used them, knowing that anyone can ultimately wind up unable to live as we plan.  I moved past wanting to die and started trying to figure out living.  It's been a year of working from reading children's books to adult books, even though I often read the adult books 3 times before I truly get it.  It's a year of finding what the minimums are and living there.  And there is benefit in seeing life that way.  There are good things that come from asking for help.  It was a year that Dr. Mind spent extra time with me along with seeing me twice a week for most of the year and yet without earning anything for it.  It's the year I found out that I'm the longest term patient at the counseling center as well as the longest term patient Dr. Mind has treated.  It's a year that I've learned a great deal about the kindness of other people.  It was a year with a trip to the beach and a chance to see the ocean angry and completely different than I've seen before.  

It's been quite a year.  But I am so glad that it isn't a totally bad year.  I doubt that I'll remember this year fondly but it is certainly been a learning experience that I've come out of better than I went into it.

Sure beats last Christmas Eve when I battled insomnia and got nowhere.

I'll add this to my list

I am going o write normally here because I think it is time to let the families in CT begin to grieve without scrutiny and because we won't know much else for a long time. I am re-reading blogposts to make sure none that are too detailed in what happened to me are up. I have decided pretty much that I'm going to keep blogging although there may be times I don't post as often anymore. But I miss it when I don't and some touch times are coming with the meds and that will make me want to write. I'm reading about the trauma therapy I did this spring/summer. One of the things I'm noticing is that there is actually a degree of trauma left from facing things that head-on. One of the things that has annoyed me greatly of late has been that I worked very hard to look people in the eyes. Now I don't just struggle with strangers but I barely ever look at Dr. Mind. Right now I'm working on knowing what color shirt he's wearing after each session and looking if he reminds me. I don't think he wants to push it so it's an ongoing battle. I am not saying that what we did was bad or that I'm not extremely glad we did. I just thing that some of the reason I've spent the last 2 weeks crying and have felt awkward with Dr. Mind more frequently lately is that what we did was tough. He had to go from being one of my safest people to pushing and demanding at times, being gentle at others and I couldn't possibly guess when. It was hard and yet it did work. I have so much less anxiety about stupid things and so much less PTSD. I rarely have flashbacks or bad nightmares. Maybe I just hate that someday those kids who survived and parents who survived and those who had to work with the horrific scene will all face such things and i'm realizing because I'm thinking of them how painful, yet how effective this was. I don't know. It's just what was heavily on my mind. Copyright 2006 www.masterofirony.blogspot.com

Perspective

Earlier this weeK I wrote that there are some medication issues I'm facing that I have been really upset about. As I've written before I rely on patient assistance programs through pharmaceutical companies which provide non-generic medications to low-income individuals. I also use various discount cards that help make some generics more affordable. Those that I can't lower the cost enough I am going off of. Some are being replaced with something else while others are being stopped. One med that I tried to stop and which seemed like a reasonable choice wound up having a role in my sleep. So it's all difficult trying to keep med costs from taking all my money yet having adequate meds. With the non-generic meds which tend to be the most important I have had assistance with most. Emsam, the antidepressant patch that really made an enormous difference in my life in the last 3 years, is non-generic, not commonly used and therefore quite expensive. I don't make the cut for their assistance program by a very narrow margin. They make no exceptions and the cost is far beyond what I could do or my mom could do. So in the last week I've discovered that I'm going to have to go off of it and onto some other oral MAOI. Oral MAOIs are more volatile than Emsam which is frustrating enough, but the recommendation is to have 2 weeks off any antidepressant, MAOI or not, before starting another. If you switch from an MAOI to another type of med you still have the wash-out period. I hoped I could be on oral selegeline, which is the medication in Emsam but the oral med isn't strong enough for depression (it treats Parkinson's disease). I don't know what is happening yet aside from I have about 2 months worth of Emsam and will have to wean off for quite a while. Dr. Brain hasn't given me a specific plan; this is a busy time for her and she may not know fully yet what they'll do since this is an unusual situation. MAOIs are used rarely, MAOI to MAOI is REALLY , unusual at point in time. Sometimes specialists at Cleveland Clinic in obscure things find ways to get meds adjusted a little more easily with the MAOIs. Based on coming off my prior antidepressant which wasn't even working well I know this will be really hard. In fact last time I landed in the hospital earlier than intended and not fully weaned because I wasn't safe anymore. We know that, so that may help. But it all depends how strictly they feel the rules must be followed. I've spent a lot of time this week crying about this. It seems so unfair in so many ways, most of what you can figure out yourself. I suspect I'm facing 2-3 weeks inpatient and that is something I dread beyond description. I was supposed to start reducing suicide precaustions soon; now they'll extend. On and on. The death of 20 children and 7 adults at the will of someone who seemingly had no reason, if there even could be a reason to kill 20 first graders, the loss and the horror and the increasingly horrible picture of what happened in there as it emerges is so awful that I realize that my perfectly valid upset about this medication thing is nothing. I am losing a medication that works in a very difficult to experience manner, plunging into stricer restrictions in diet and medications (my asthma meds are recommended to only use in emergencies for example but breathing is good), and still will be paying a good bit I think. My life will be messed up until about spring. And all that rightfully is upsetting. But I just was sending a facebook message to someone and mentioned that I'm expecting to have a tough winter and maybe we can make plans for spring. All I could think of was at least I have a spring. I don't remember the springs when I was 6 or 7 but I had them. I have springs I do remember because I have enough time in my life to repeat it enough to make it ok. And 27 families are facing no spring this year. It will come, but it will just be more grieving instead of the time of (hopeful) recovery that will come for me. It sucks but it's not that bad. Copyright 2006 www.masterofirony.blogspot.com

tragedy

There's nothing to put your own hurts and sadness into perspective than someone killing small children.  This is one of the reasons I don't have television; I don't handle these things well.  

But, I wanted to jump on here quickly and say that I don't understand how any human could cause such devastation, but in the hours and days to follow please remember than he acted with free will.  I've been writing a lot about "blaming" mental illness and I'm going to ask again that people not.  This man did something terrible and the whys and what didn't protect the children from this are the questions to answer.  His motivation is a lot more important that trying to excuse what he did by throwing out a lot of mental health diagnoses.  That will start as soon as his name is released and it is so beyond the point.  He murdered many small children and adults and the focus needs to be on how to stop that from ever happening again rather than trying to make it rational  when we can't understand what motivates such a thing.

My heart is breaking.  Little Miss Anne isn't that far from school and it's impossible to not imagine the child you love in that terrifying situation.  Praying for all concerned and for our country.  A shooting that has more victims than Littleton and one carried out with small children by someone who probably didn't even know his victims is beyond belief.

Low income and lesser quality of care

I am not ready to explain this entirely.  I need some more information from Dr. Brain first.  But today I learned that I make $173 too much to get help with one of my extremely expensive meds and will presumably be switching fairly soon (I have 2 months left, a lot of which will be tapering).  I'm probably facing significant time in the hospital and could wind up with a med that doesn't work as well, then in 15 months we'll have to decide if we want to reverse the process.  It's been kind of one thing too many and I'm really tired and frustrated with the whole thing.  I'm so blessed compared to many uninsured people but  it just shouldn't be that way.  If the only med that helps me is somewhat obscure then I should have access to it.

Anyway, more when I know more.  Too tired to go into it tonight.

guilty

In the last year I've swallowed my pride and accepted help. Help from my mom.  Help from pharmaceutical companies.  Help from Cleveland Clinic to the tune of at least $50,000.  Food stamps.  I am probably forgetting something. Oh yeah, Dr. Mind and his employer.  That's a huge one.  With all of those I had to get used to needing the help.  But it happened, usually as I saw I had no other choice, and I've been grateful for what I have been given, more so than words can describe.

There is one that still bugs me.  Backtracking, I had student loans throughout undergrad and grad school.  Most of my senior year and grad school were covered by loans.  My mom helped repay the senior year later when she was making more; at the time we had her teacher's salary and 3 people in college.  In the 12 years since I graduated a lot of that was paid off.  My final private loan was down to $300 when I learned I wasn't going to be working anymore.  However, that left the ominous BIG LOAN.  That was grad school mostly.  It was a huge amount initially (I don't remember) and seemed to never go down.  Partly this was because I had to put it on forbearance whenever I was on disability.  This resulted in the payments increasing from about $350 to $475 over the years.  In theory it would have been fine.  I took out the loans knowing that I would be making a good income.  And during the time before I was most ill I really did make a lot of progress.  I paid all of my loans at double the minimum for 2 years until my medical costs became prohibitive.  And then as the smaller loans were paid off and the big one loomed suddenly I wasn't working and wasn't likely to work for many years if ever.  So I went through a process called discharge.  It released me from the loan although there are a bunch of rules to follow and if I am well enough to have work within some time frame I'll resume payments.  I don't remember the details.  

I know that I didn't default on the loan.  I know that getting a discharge is quite difficult, especially for mental health issues and that getting one means that they truly believe I am "that sick".  Dr. Brain filled out a good bit of paperwork for them and like all paperwork in this thing she was probably blunt and descriptive of "Jen I met" versus "Jen today" and how hard I fought to work but lost.  But I keep reading about how many people can't pay those loans and I feel bad because I had a way out.  Granted it was a way out that came at enormous cost to me.  It was a way out I didn't want; I'd much rather be making those payments and working.  I think that application was the only one I did that was covered in tears.  I had no way of knowing that this would happen when i took out the loans.  I did know it was my only way to higher education and like I said, payments shouldn't have been a problem.  Had I never had to pay for $400 or more out of pocket every month for meds, `had I not had multiple forbearances that increased the payments, had I not become unable to work for the foreseeable future, those loans would have been paid off.  I paid 1/3rd of them, plus a bit.  I tried.  But reading that 11% of people with federal loans are significantly behind makes me sad because my discharge (not default like I keep wanting to say) at least would have been some money into the messed-up system.

Oh well.  Disability was what I was supposed to do at this point and the humbling that goes with that may last a long, long time.

I am/I am not

I post this same thing periodically and it is always when I've run across the same thing:  someone scams someone/hurts someone/does something morally offensive and within days people start throwing the word bipolar around.

So I will continue to post about it because if one person bumps into this post and realizes how stereotypical and hurtful that is and how often people do it, maybe that one person will think.

I am:

• someone with severe mood swings and rapid changes in my mood
• inconsistent in my reactions.  Sometimes I can ignore something, sometimes I am extremely angry, sometimes I cry.
• easily wounded.  It's hard to justify cruelty when your mood doesn't agree with your brain.
• often tired and inconsistent in what I can do.  That's because the disorder affects energy levels along with medication side effects.
• someone who has hurt people when my irritability/anger has been too big for my control at that moment.  However I have learned to not do this.
• a person who works very hard to manage her illness with meds and therapy.  This involves 5-12 appointments per month, a lot of money, and a thorough commitment to wellness
• sometimes a psychiatric hospital patient.  However I go there when I am unable to safely manage my life.  I go there when I am unsafe to myself.  I go there as a decision made by my doctor and I am not taken there or held against my will.  The psychiatric hospital is not full of people who have done thing that are socially incorrect nor are they there because people on the internet/family members/other people didn't like their behavior.  The only way to be there against your will is if you intend to kill yourself or someone else.  It is not punishment, it does not rehabilitate people who have done bad things.  It is there to adjust meds and make you safe and functional.

I am not:

• someone who plots to hurt others.  In fact to do so would be very difficult for me as it requires intense organization.  Also I generally don't focus on schemes to get others or scam people.  I have bigger problems that take up most of my time.
• out to get anyone
• representative of everyone who ever had mental illness or bipolar specifically.  I don't behave like my illness, I behave like me, affected by the illness(es) I live with.
• a bad person.  I have an illness that is misunderstood and which most people wouldn't pick up on.  Depending on the day if you don't know you may think I'l a bit moody or that I'm quiet and tired but it is not tattooed on my face and people who do not know me well aren't instantly going to guess.
• responsible for the behaviors of others.  People like to say people who are jerks are bipolar.  Undoubtedly that's true sometimes.  But that's true for people who are completely well also.  In fact I find people with prejudicial ideas about me are bigger jerks than anyone I know how has bipolar.
• who you think I am.  Just like I can't read your mind you can't read mine.
• evil.  I am human and bipolar is how I am flawed.  How are you flawed?

I am just so tired of this. I wish people who just occasionally check on google what they are saying before they say it.

Mish-mash

First off, thanks Jean Gray for the Topomax reminder.  I already have so much trouble with word finding that I don't know if I'll be allowed to try this but I think we have to give it a chance because killer migraines don't do anything for my mood either.  Excedrin (ok, that word is in spellcheck?) Migraine isn't an option for me.  I haven't had caffeine beyond occasional chocolate in 5 1/2 years now because I was using it it keep my mood sky high so I could function during a mixed episode.  I was consuming so much that I had horrible headaches and swore I'd never do that again.  My doctors also really wanted me to avoid it because of the dangerous way I was using it and the psychotic reactions that resulted.  In fact that's when I finally started permanent antipsychotics.  Also, I'm not supposed to mix lithium and aspirin.  I thought that was the rule but it could be that aspirin has caffeine or some other health issue I have that says no aspirin.  I remember in college aspirin made me manic although I had no idea that was the cause and I got into a bad caffeine addiction with rebound headaches then too. 

Second, I am finally crying less.  Still crying every day but less.  Some today with Dr. Mind but I did talk to him about my freaking out about him leaving.  We talked a lot about how hard it is for me to consider losing the one person I really trust and how much that trust has increased in the last year and half as he's helped keep me alive, supported me through the hardest moments of my life and that I learned to trust even more and differently when we went through the PTSD therapy where he had to push me in ways he never had before and that I suspect he never would have considered if it weren't for the treatment.  He's never let me get away with avoiding things, which is another thing that makes me trust him because I manipulated a lot of treatment providers and I think that his refusal to let me get away with saying ever that I was feeling suicidal but I was fine was a major factor in saving my life last year.  I spent so much time trying to decide that the moment had come to take the pills that I knew would pretty certainly end my life and I kept hearing the echo of his voice saying "You have to tell me.  You have to tell me.  I will help you.  I will keep you safe but you have to tell me.  No buts, you have to tell me".  I remember fighting so hard against that years ago.  Last December the night I asked to go to the hospital was shortly after leaving his office.  I had to go to Walmart on the way home and was so overwhelmed in there but somehow my mind realized that I had to tell him but I'd missed my chance.  It was the promises I'd made to him that got me to that psych unit and then got me to admit that they should not send me homey  because I WOULd kill myself.  I probably should thank him for that.  Maybe I'll send him a card.  Anyway, just discussing my reasons for feeling this and having him agree with me helped.  I also learned he's never had a patient as long as me.  That's part of the bond also that I didn't realize; he obviously cares a lot and I think feels good about what we've managed to do and that when I first came to see him I had almost nobody I was bonded to and he's been one of the people who broke through that.  One of the things I can't imagine is not having someone who I can make a remote reference to something and have him understand without my having to bust through the PTSD to explain.  He still makes me talk about it but it's easier that he knows.  I do feel better that I have talked to him more about this and how tentative all this seems to be.  It sounds like he has several places that have expressed interest but no good idea what the prospects really are.  And he said there are other factors that could come into play.  I sort of got the idea that this his dream that's been delayed a long time but that he's not even sure he really wants it.  Maybe.  On the other hand I have to handle it when the time comes and he promised to try to not make that traumatic which my last several changes have been (4 weeks notice she was moving to Luxembourg; death; inability to diagnose; refusal to work with my faith-based values; refusal to admit I could have a problem not related to child abuse; phone call from children's services social worker that after 2 years of counseling she was leaving and was closing my case to protect my "decision" to remain in my home.  That goes a long way into not true land and sometimes I wish I could just confront that woman.  But it is too late and she was in a tough position because she was friends with my mom.  She was very wrong, but conflicted.

So I think there's still crying to come whether or not this happens but he knows now at last how much I'm struggling with this and a bit of the why.  And I feel reassured that it maybe is a little less likely than it sounded.  And all that can be done is wait to see.  He promised me that he will work with me on transitioning so I don't have the same kind of transition as I had with him.  We didn't have the same ideas and expectations at first and we worked it out but it was one more reminder that I was transitioning rather blindly.  That shouldn't happen again and surely if I do have to go through a transition it will not be while having months of lithium toxicity that was missed because I was vomiting up my meds, lowering my levels, over and over.  I was also in a horrible mixed episode and so he walked right into as bad as it got, except for the first month I was insisting I was GREAT, no problems without my mood even though I couldn't keep meds down, this was my norm or better.  It took a bit for him to catch on that all this wasn't true and then he was pretty forceful about fixing it, which is good but was hard when I was resenting him because he was still a stranger.  By 6 months in though I knew he wasn't a stranger but someone very good at treating me.

I am getting very sleepy.  I wanted to take a nap when I got home and then didn't because it was too late in the afternoon.  I think it's time to try for an early bedtime.

Good night.

Backlog/Jean Grey ?

I'm sorry, I have a number of comments and emails I want to answer.  This seems the best way to let everyone know that I will answer, I am still spending a lot of time crying and thinking about why I'm crying and it's a lot to handle.  My mom grieves differently than I do and that's added stress to grieving for the dog yet the tears have been for everything.  As of last night I had moved on to thinking a little about what I most dread, which is Dr. Mind leaving.  It's not certain, it's a long way off, but I'm getting the impression that it is more likely than he's said and that this is being gradually introduced.  And just typing those sentences makes me cry.  So thinking about it turns into crying myself to sleep.  I do not know how to cope with the idea of that kind of loss.  And I'm crying again so I'm not going there now.

But anyway, the last week has involved enough tears to drown in.  I'm also becoming pretty certain that I'm into the menopause process (I HATE the term peri-menopause) and that I don't just have hormonal issues from my hysterectomy.  That was rather predictable as I'd had some hot flashes and numerous other signs before the surgery, but I go a week or so and nothing odd happens and I decide it was just my body reacting to surgery.  And then I'll have a week of several, or I'll play the fun blankets on, blankets off game.  Last night I woke up drenched in about a gallon of sweat.  And it turns out even my migraines are probably related.

This week is busy.  Dentist tomorrow, then decorating my mom's Christmas tree.  Tuesday I see Dr. Mind and go to get some yarn for the purple hat my niece requested and said she'll wear (she won't).  Wednesday I am planning to go to a new local support group.  I'm anxious about that; I'm not sure it will be a good fit.  Or it will be a great fit and I'll feel bad then because I'll have to accept more about myself.  Thursday I may go see my niece.  Saturday I go up to see Dr. Brain and have to get there early to have labs done.  Dr. Brain is going to be a LONG appointment.  It's been a long time since we've really talked.  Last month I was doing well from having no real stress (and because vicodin stabilizes my mood but I can't take it for that.  I noticed that two other times; when I sprained my ankle vicodin for 5 days had me leveled out and before my other surgery when I took it for a while.)  I also have to talk to her about trying Topamax to prevent migraines.  There is not a single med that treats migraines when they hit that I can take and the other treatment option involves making my mom drive me 2.5 hours to the only ER I have charity care at and then waiting who knows how long before I can go back for narcotic injections.  That doesn't seem really useful as I'd never make it all that time in the car without it getting much worse.  So, topamax goes from something that was deemed probably not good for me because of cognitive side effects, back when I was working and needed more cognition, but before I had so much memory loss. I don't know what she'll say but I do know that my asking will tell her how ugly the migraines can be.  Jean Grey, didn't you have success with that?  Seems like you and I talked about it once but that was when my dr. was saying that the amount needed to stabilize my mood would make me cognitively unable to work.  Since I managed to achieve that anyway I am hoping I can try for a low-dose migraine control and if I get a bit of stabilization then great.

For those who pray my cousin just found out she is pregnant after her 2nd IVF cycle.  Please pray that she keeps this precious baby/babies.  She's been through everything and never was pregnant before so this is huge.  Her last cycle failed 2 days before her sister gave birth and I know that had to hurt horribly.

I'll catch up on emails/comments over the next few days.  Right now I'm going to try to put my nativity set out if I can do it without tears.  Then I'm going to paint my toes gaudy, glittery fun.  I'm discovered that I enjoy having secretly garish toes.  Because my birthmark is deep purple and on my hand covering 2 nails completely and splotches around others nail polish hasn't ever been a good option there; it clashes and draws out odd colors.  It not only accents the birthmark it accents the 2 fingers that are most affected which are shaped oddly and the nail beds are deep purple meaning that if the color isn't dark enough there is a weird purple tint to the polish.  Not pretty.  But toes I can do and nail polish is cheap enough I can even afford to pay to play.

I guess first I am going to feed the cat.  I moved their food to the basement when it was re-floored and while she knows where it is when she is really hungry she kind of panics and forgets (her own cognitive deficits) and so this time of night I take her down in my arms and make sure she gets enough to not wake me in the night.

Hopefully I'll start mourning and move on to talking soon.  I think this is the week Dr.Mind and I talk about him leaving.  I'm tired of him implying I should say something and that thinking of it makes me cry.  I can't cry over this now.

Ok, cat is about to self-destruct.