♥ Sunny days and frozen yogurt ♥ An uncle’s recovery ♥ Quick Dallas road trip with mom and sister ♥ First visit to Bucc-ee’s ♥ Middle school track meets ♥ Netflix original series “House of Cards”… so good! ♥ Austin road trip ♥ New running group ♥ Holding a little baby boy ♥ Released to return to work ♥ Holding close ♥ Freshly mowed lawn ♥ Cheese, crackers, and wine ♥ New shoes ♥ Catching, cleaning, and baking my first fish ♥ Seeing a play with my favorite 16-year-old ♥
“I wanted to be one of those people who have streaks to maintain, who scorch the ground with their intensity. But for now, at least I knew such people, and they needed me, just like comets need tails.”
“You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that future keeps you going, but you never do it. You just use the future to escape the present.”
“There comes a time when we realize that our parents cannot save themselves or save us, that everyone who wades through time eventually gets dragged out to sea by the undertow – that, in short, we are all going.”
“When you stopped wishing things wouldn’t fall apart, you’d stop suffering when they did.”
“If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless.”
♥ Finding our dogs hours after they got out of the yard ♥ Finding out that our neighbors had seen one and kept her for us ♥ Making a thank you card complete with doggie paw print and pastries ♥ Pizza and Oscars with sister and friend ♥ High-school musical with mom and sister ♥ Having people to share my darkest times ♥ Making plans to road trip to San Antonio with my bestie next month ♥ Symphony night ♥ The biggest spring rolls I’ve ever seen ♥
I’ve never been accused of “over-sharing” (except when it comes to gross medical stories).
I’m the person that other people come to with their problems. Not vice versa. And that’s my problem.
What better way to fight through the isolation and despair that depression causes than to bring those who love you into the boxing ring? They can’t fight it for you, but they can be in your corner.
It makes all the difference.
*File that under “Lessons finally learned before age 30.”
My sweet, old birdie died yesterday.
His little life brought countless small joys to mine for almost 15 years.
I loved him, and I’ll miss him.
♥ Another job opportunity to interpret…. and do some case management ♥ Date night ♥ Walking Dead returns ♥ Snuggle time ♥ Planning a summer vacation with him and the kids ♥ Car shopping ♥ Sweet valentine ♥ Another gift he loves ♥ Driving a lost puppy back to his owner ♥ Seeing a mama duck and her babies along a neighborhood canal ♥ Venturing into a little self-employment on the side ♥ Plum tree is blooming ♥ Redecorating my office ♥ Reading ♥ New ride ♥
Depression and anxiety run in my family.
I’ve had run-ins with both here and there, but it was never so serious that I considered seeking professional help. I promised myself I would do so if it got to be a bigger problem.
It has.
It isn’t anything scary like suicidal ideations. I can get out of bed and do what I have to do. It’s just this dark, gloomy cloud that has now been over my life for over a month straight. I had one bad day a couple of weeks ago where I couldn’t stop crying.
I’m used to the occasional bad feeling. I can talk myself through it because I know there’s no reason for it. I can go for a run. I can hang out with friends and family. I can make sure I’m getting enough sleep and eating well. That’s how I managed it before.
It’s not working now. For one thing, I can’ t run for a while because of recent foot surgery. So that outlet is completely gone. I woke up sobbing after the surgery. I’ve cried easily ever since. Even having a normal conversation can lead to tears. I enjoy being with my friends and family, but that cloud is still there.
That one bad day was a combination of a big disappointment and those bad feelings. This time I couldn’t talk myself out of it. I had something very real to focus those bad feelings on, and I kept crying for hours. At least 5 hours before I felt like I could pick up the phone to make plans with friends and get out of the house.
I’ve also been dealing with anxiety while driving. I had a car accident right before my foot surgery. I hydroplaned and totaled my car. Now I have moments while driving where my heart races, my body tenses, and I feel like I can’t breathe. We’ve had a lot of windy storms lately, and the slightest shake of my new car reminds me of the accident and sets off those panicked feelings. I even dreamed that I wrecked my new car.
I’m ready for some help.
It’s not that easy. I live in a small town about an hour and a half from a big city. The yellow pages list for psychiatrists is a very small one. Several weren’t seeing new patients. Even more didn’t accept insurance. They wanted $300+ for the initial visit and $150 for each follow-up. My own primary care office kept disconnecting me while leaving me on hold to see who they use for referrals.
I finally found one to see in two weeks.
If this doesn’t work out, I guess I’m driving.
♥ Bringing home the painting that I’ve had on layaway for 6 months ♥ Melt-in-your-mouth seared tuna at Outback Steakhouse… you haven’t lived until you’ve eaten this ♥ Getting closer to his 16-year-old daughter ♥ Picking out a new vehicle – leaning toward a truck this time ♥ His 12-year-old son started hugging me good night ♥ Listening to my dogs snore ♥ A quick recovery – might get to wear tennis shoes in 1 week ♥ Lots of babies on the horizon ♥ Knitting little clothes for those babies ♥ Picking out a great Valentine’s gift ♥ Being asked to interpret for a foster home assessment ♥ Making travel plans for this year ♥ Getting a head start on spring cleaning ♥ Reading ♥ Making them chocolate chip pancakes ♥
My grandmother and father gifted me with long, skinny, and bony feet. That alone would have eliminated being a foot model as a possible career choice, but I also inherited a matching set of bunions.
Those bunions have been a sore spot. They hurt throughout any preteen and teenage growth spurts. Just accidentally rubbing one foot on the other would send a burning pain up my foot. Later, they didn’t bother me much as long as I stayed away from shoes that put pressure on them. Right. As long as they didn’t touch my bunions a certain way, they were okay to wear. Shoe shopping was not fun. Tennis shoes were about the only kind that I could always wear comfortably.
It wasn’t until I began working as a nurse that my feet started to hurt regularly again. After three 12-hour shifts, I would feel that familiar ache. After a year on the floor, I was only able to wear my tennis shoes and one pair of flats comfortably. A couple of years later, I was talking to people who had a bunionectomy done. Five years later, I was ready to get it done. I met with the doctor to get x-rays and discuss my best options. I just needed to call her nurse to schedule.
There never seems to be a good time to schedule a procedure that will require months off work. A couple of months after that appointment, an afternoon motorcycle lesson left me unable to wear even tennis shoes without a lot of pain. That eventually subsided after a couple of days ,but the pain never completely left. I finally made the call.
The surgery day went smoothly. My sister took the day off to take me. Pre-op teaching was done, the IV was started, and fluids were hung. I remember nothing after the Versed except for a fuzzy memory of them strapping my arms down. I woke up crying in the recovery room. “Is it over?” “Yes, it’s over. Are you hurting?” Again and again the nurses asked if I was in pain. I couldn’t feel anything, but I couldn’t stop the tears. They wiped my face for me. I looked around at the monitor, but I couldn’t see since I had no glasses or contacts. I asked how the monitor looked. She told me my heart rate. “How’s the rhythm?” Sinus. I started shivering, and someone turned up the warm air that flowed through my surgical gown. I heard one nurse ask the other about my toes. She said she was going to call my doctor. “I work in telemetry. What are you calling the doctor about?” My toes were dusky, and they just wanted to make sure that was to be expected. It was. I asked to be sat up and for my glasses.
I was moved into another recovery area without all the extra monitors and oxygen mask. My sister was able to meet me there, and it wasn’t much later that we were able to leave.
My mom met us at my house, and together they helped me get into bed. The power was out. My sister lit some candles. We had forgotten to buy ice packs prior to the surgery, so my mother left to get them and came back with some Taco Bell for me – two bean burritos with no onion and extra cheese. I got out of bed later to watch Parenthood. And then I went back to bed. Still no pain, for that wonderful nerve block lasted over two days.
Moral of the story: nerve blocks are awesome.
