Tag: healing

Torn….part two

Terri

I had a few other things I wanted to talk about in my last post, but as I was writing it the other day I was feeling a bit overwhelmed and just really wanted to get what I had written out there, and published. There are a few other things that have pushing and pulling at me lately, too.

But first, I do want to say thank you to everyone who read my last post and especially, thank you to those of you who left your thoughts, both on the blog and on facebook and in text messages. They really help and give me new perspectives to think about, and a couple even brought tears to my eyes, so thank you. I really mean it.

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Mother Nature does some amazing work. This photo doesn’t even do the sunset from this evening, justice.

One of the things I love about where I live are the amazing vistas. Vistas that you don’t see the likes of on the east coast because the topography is just so different. But you also get those vistas because towns are few and far in between. National park areas or recreational areas are kind of spread out, out here. And for me, I have to admit, it’s taking some adjusting, and not necessarily in a good way. I lived on the east coast for my entire life, and there, you don’t have to drive 75 miles to get from one small town to another small town. I have to travel about 120 miles to get to the nearest decent-sized city. In Massachusetts, where I lived until last year, that kind of drive would have taken you almost completely from the easternmost side of the state to the western side of the state. Seriously. It would have. I remember well driving the MA turnpike and seeing the signs saying about “Boston – 156 miles.”

Can I be honest? I love the desert vistas, but I miss trees. When I wrote an earlier post on reflection about my time driving to home from my family in Clarkdale, AZ, I posted a picture of a gorgeous spot I found on the drive through Oak Creek. I felt comfortable there because it reminded of the woods you see back east. A friend commented that in my list of spontaneous words that came to mind as I sat there was the word “green.” She might have been onto something.

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the amazing sky over Lone Rock (picture unedited to show true colors)

At times when I lived back east, I wished for more quiet. Now that I have that quiet, in spades, I wish for more stuff to be going on, or at least, for the opportunity to have  more stuff going on. I like the simplicity of a small town – I don’t have lots of options for entertainment, so that saves me money, but god, it would be nice to have that option at the same time to go see a museum or an event or even a farmer’s market!! Really! It would be nice to have more than one option for Thai food, or more places where I could get vegan friendly food (we have two supermarkets and one of them is found in the Super Walmart.)

Things were definitely, DEFINITELY more expensive in Boston. Rent was more expensive (although the town where I live might surprise you – ahem, my apartment is $800/month), but then again the salaries were higher, or at least mine was. Vet bills were more expensive, but then again, I had the comfort of knowing that if something happened suddenly with the furballs, it was a quick uber ride or zip car rental to get me to the emergency vet. It didn’t take over two hours to drive there if the local vet’s office was closed. And that, trust me, is super scary. Taking Bonkers to the vet about 3 weeks before he died because he couldn’t poop was super scary. I had flashbacks of the night I drove Sebastian to that same vet, all the way in St. George (only 75 miles away at that time), only to arrive there and find out he had died on the way. I never want to go through something like that, again. Any parent, fur or otherwise hates to see their kid not feeling well. The fact that my kid just happened to meow to me instead of speak English, and that he had fur didn’t make it any less stressful. Parents and kids come in all shapes and sizes.

For the past few days, I’ve had this yearning to simplify my life again. Go through the clothes and really break them down even further to what is only necessary. If I was living in a Class B or a van, what would I then find to be necessary? Would I only keep about two weeks worth of clothes, or even less?

Part of me knows that to live in something so small would end up being difficult, and it would remove a lot of the creature comforts that I like about living in an apartment. Since I moved out of the RV and into the studio, I have absolutely loved being able to step into a normal size bathroom, with a normal sized shower and if I want to stand in there and let the water splash over me for a few seconds after I have washed and shampooed myself, I can do so. I know that I won’t run out of hot water within a matter of seconds. In the RV, I worried about using up too much propane in the process, and to do that meant wasting money. (Don’t get me wrong, I still take quick showers, but there is a certain luxury to knowing you could stay in there for a bit longer if you wanted to.)   RVs are notoriously poorly insulated and so I really do appreciate the thickness of the apartment walls, and how well they keep this place cool even in 100 degree heat as we have experienced the past few days. Rvs are much smaller, and thus, my animals would have much less room to roam. And I think you all know how important my furballs and their happiness and safety is to me.  Having had two of them get out from my apartment scared me shitless while they were gone and  I couldn’t find them, or get them back. Living in an RV or a Class B, I might be terrified of their escaping every time I opened the door. I couldn’t have a baby gate right inside the door as an added barrier to escaping, as I do now in the apartment.

Living in an RV again – it would force me to live even more simply, but then again, it comes with its own challenges, not to mention the fear of something breaking down and then my responsibility of having to repair it. It allows one to travel and see more sights, but it also means having to start over a lot. Starting over in new places and meeting new places, hoping again to find a community of like minded people and possibly facing the disappointment of not finding it.  My sister in law said to me the other day something to the effect that maybe there is no “one” place for me, but a lot of “this will do for now” places. She’s pretty intuitive, so maybe she’s right. I don’t know, time will tell.  But I think, for now, the RV idea is out. It’s tempting because of the romantic simplicity aspect that comes with it, but I also know it’s definitely not an easy life in the way of creature comforts.

One last thing that has me torn some days, and I have written about this a lot in the past, is whether or not to take an anti-depressant to help my anxiety. I know that it definitely helps to “level” things out, but I also want to just free my body of artificial materials like medications, as much as I can. I do take an allergy medication, and that I pretty much know I need to take (it’s over the counter so it isn’t expensive), because of the pets and pollen (yes, we get some in the desert) and dust, and well, basically fresh air, lol. I don’t want to feel like I need a crutch, and in truth, most days, I don’t. I don’t want to second guess my reactions to stressful situations. So  I seesaw back and forth. Currently, I’ve not taken it in a few weeks.

Have you ever noticed how many commercials there are on tv for various drugs, including ones that are for combating side effects of chemotherapy? Why is that, don’t you think? Is it because the pharmaceutical field wants to have us buy medications we might not need? Don’t get me wrong, I definitely needed to take prozac at one point in my life, and for that, I consider it a miracle drug, but now I question if I still need it. Many days, I ask that question and find myself saying, “nope, you don’t.”

A friend shared the following with me the other day and it was like the author was talking to me, or in my mind! I thought a lot of you might find it helpful too: What to Do When You Don’t Know What to Do (by Emma While).

I’m going to leave you with a link to a post I just read titled, “If you Don’t Know What to Do With Your Life, Read This” of which the final two lines are so perfect (wish I could have come up with them, but the author, Michelle Kennedy Hogan, deserves all the credit.

“At the end of your life, you won’t regret trying things and failing, but you will regret not ever trying at all.

Close that laptop and go get your life.”

And with that,  I thank you for reading, as always. Hope you enjoyed the sunset pictures – they don’t do that actual sky justice.

 

Allow Me to Explain

Terri
For the longest time, this guy was v. Reminded me, it's ok to just sit and be still.
For the longest time, this guy was v. Reminded me, it’s ok to just sit and be still.

A good friend wrote to me after my last post and was worried I would be upset with his response to my last post – that he just finds it hard to picture me as being depressed. Far from being upset with him, I felt very touched by his words, and supported, and it just proved to me how far I’ve come. That’s also how I felt when reading people’s comments on my last post, either here on the blog or in messages sent to me. I think when you share parts of yourself, people know when you’re being real and when you’re not. I hope to be able to do that here on this blog as I wean myself off my anti-depressants. Btw, I take two – Wellbutrin and Prozac. I also take Prozac for anxiety, so that will be the second one I will try to go off of. I’m too scared to try both of them at the same time, and they do different things for you, anyway. So, I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who reached out. It means a lot to me.

I currently take 60 mg of Prozac, which I understand is on the higher end. I used to take 80 mg but that dosage had the effect of making me feel very “blah.” I really didn’t care about much. Enter Wellbutrin, as we chopped the Prozac back to 60 mg. It took us a little while to get the dosage right, so I’ve been taking 100 mg of the extended release (or so I thought. I just looked at my prescription tonight and I think it’s actually Sustained Release, which I consider to be a positive.)

So here is what has happened to me in the past when I tried to stop taking Prozac. I was seeing a psychiatrist, who, while she was very smart, didn’t always have the best, shall we say, bedside manner? We tried cutting down my medication to 40 mg, and after a few days, I felt as depressed as I did before I started taking them. I was dating someone long distance then, and remember having a difficult time trying to describe to him how I felt. I was afraid I was going to go back to the person I was a few years before then, and of course wondered, would he still love me?

Sounds irrational, right? You see, this is how coming off of anti-depressants can feel to some. You can feel just as depressed as you were originally, if not more so. Your thoughts start to run together all in a jumble, and it’s very hard to put a stop to them. Everything I ever felt insecure about, well, it all came rushing in at me. When I tried to talk to the psychiatrist about how I was feeling, I remember her saying, in a very snappish sort of tone, “well, Prozac has a long shelf life so if you’re already feeling that way, then no, you’re not ready to come off of them!” I remember feeling like I was a failure. Yes, I was still damaged goods in my mind, I thought. I’m a weak person that can’t be happy without a little help of medication.

Earlier this year, I tried to cut down on my wellbutrin and asthma medication at the same time. I was and am worried about what these medications will cost when the time may come that I don’t have great health insurance. I called my pharmacy to ask what these would each cost if I didn’t have health insurance. Well, Wellbutrin was around $50/month, Prozac was about $15/month, and I forget how much Singulaire is, but I know it was steep. Great, I thought, just one more stress or monthly bill to worry about. So I tried. Unfortunately, I then caught a cold and if you’ve ever taken asthma medication or have been diagnosed, you know how quickly an innocent cold can go into your chest, and how hard it can then be to get rid of it.

Did I also mention that when I tried decreasing my medications, Boston was also have its worst winter, as in EVER?? And that I also suffer from SAD (you know, seasonal affective disorder which a lot of folks get in northern climates where we are always vitamin D deficient.)  Yep, not a smart time to try coming off of any mood-changing medications. I just didn’t like how I was feeling. And that made me feel, again, that there was something wrong about me, something was lacking, because I couldn’t seem to steer past these feelings.  Now, I do understand that if  you have had two or more depressive episodes in your  life, you are that much more likely to suffer a third, or that sometimes you stay on them as maintenance medication. So I gave in to thinking that, that they would be to me as high blood pressure medication is to others. And who knows, maybe I do need them as maintenance medication, but then again, maybe I’ve not tried hard enough in the past. Maybe I really wasn’t ready then, but am ready now.

I’ve been reading up a lot about what to expect as potential withdrawal symptoms, I found this article to be helpful in laying it all out there where coming off of Prozac is concerned. This article about coming off of Wellbutrin was also helpful.

Why do I think this time might be different, you ask? Well, it’s summer, and I always get a mood boost when the days are longer.  I’m starting to read a lot about how the foods you eat can really affect how you feel both inside and out. My diet is cleaner now than it was in the past, with no dairy or meat. I have these several weeks off for recovery from my surgery, and I know that part of that healing is physical but there’s also a mental component to it.  This gives me time to really get in tune with myself and my feelings, and I’m able to spend all day with my furballs, who always make me feel better. I’ve got the reservoir out back that I can go sit at when I need to think, or just be around people (one reason I’ve loved my evening walks lately.)

I thought about all of this a lot tonight as I sat on a bench at the reservoir and just watched the daytime slip away and darkness’ approach. I listened to the wind in the trees, and the water lapping up on the shore, with the occasional runner or walker passing by me. I felt more at peace than I have in a while. I know I’m NOT damaged goods anymore. I know I’m in a better place. I know that I’ve got dreams now and am not just sleepwalking my way through life. And I know I’ve got people who love and support me and care for me, both online and off. I know that some of you reading this may have gone through this before, or something similar and I know that some of you will understand. It’s ok if you don’t comment, as it just helps me to get these things out there. And I now know that some of what I might eventually feel is just my brain and body resetting itself. I know now that it will be temporary and not a statement about who I am, and will be, permanently.

Those of you who are runners will understand that it’s like when you’re a runner, and the weather suddenly starts to get disgustingly hot or humid and all of a sudden, your runs all turn to complete crap. You know it’s only temporary and that it’ll suck while you are slogging through it, but eventually your body and mind adjusts and you push through it. You know that eventually the cooler temps will return, and then you’re simply gonna FLY!

A complete stranger told me the other day (as I helped her get a baby turtle off the running path and to the safety of a rock near the water) that I had good energy around me. I choose to take that as a sign.

As always, thank you for reading and if this has helped you out, or you think it might help someone else, please feel free to share it. Thank you, and have a great start to the work week.

One of my favorite spots on earth.
One of my favorite spots on earth.

What a difference a week makes, and other things

Terri
This face...how can you NOT love this face??!! I took this last night as she was getting ready for bed. She sleeps right next to me.
This face…how can you NOT love this face??!! I took this last night as she was getting ready for bed. She sleeps right next to me.

Wow. I had my surgery one week ago today. I remember waking up in the recovery room and being like “yep, this is what I remember the pain to be from the last time.”  They gave me one of those handheld control things where you can click on the button to give yourself a dose of pain medication when you want it. Seeing as I was in pain, every time it lit up, I pressed it. Later on, they told me “we couldn’t believe how much morphine you gave yourself. How are you awake right now?” and the best line from one of the nurses (and I think she was serious) was “do you do street drugs?” (I think my answer was obvious when it was clear I had no idea what she was asking. I was like “um, I’m a runner?!” once another nurse clarified the question for me. I admit, I was a bit insulted. It was taking everything I had to just stay awake and answer her questions, and now she’s insulting me for it? I got the impression she was very bothered at having to take care of me. (Luckily she was only there for one shift, of which most of it, I slept, due to the effects of the aforesaid morphine.) Everyone else was much nicer.

After a week of percocet (yay, I love percocet, and no, it doesn’t bother my stomach at all, as many people have asked), and ibuprofen, I’m almost out of the percocet but definitely feeling more like myself. I want to get out there and run and I look at the runners around the reservoir with envy, but i know i have to take it easy. Not walking up stairs seems to be key. When I do, it seems like my incision tightens up or something, and I’m reminded “um, you just had surgery last week, you know.” Anywho, it does appear that the swelling in my stomach is starting to go down. I’m still hoping for that flat tummy, and I will have it, only a matter of time.  (Yes, I am determined.) I am utterly convinced that my being in shape BEFORE the surgery is totally helping with my recovery AFTER the surgery.  As long as I don’t sneeze (as I did the other day and burst a blood vessel in my leg, wow, that hurt!) or laugh too much, the healing will continue.

My mom has been visiting since last Thursday and has been a huge help. She gets bored just sitting around so she already cleaned my entire kitchen so it looks like it’s completely brand new, much better than I could have done.  Makes me inspired to look inside my fridge now – it’s super clean and organized!  Of course, having my furballs around me 24/7 is also a huge help on my mental outlook. It’s going to be so hard to go back to work when my healing time is over!

This week I will attend a training session so I can start doing independent contract work as a bar essay review grader – basically what it means is that people who are studying for the bar can do practice essays to prepare for the real thing. Then I get to grade them, and I get paid for my work. I passed the bar in three states, so these three I will start with (and was glad to see they are some of the more high paying states) and then I will see if I have time to do grading for other states. Just have to get myself certified for each state in which I want to grade. Looking forward to making some extra cash and putting it toward my savings. Granted, a lot of the work for that won’t start to hit until after the middle of May when bar review actually starts, but by then, I”l be done with classes (by next week actually!) and then I’ll still be off work. Since I don’t plan on taking more than one class this summer (medical terminology), I figure I can use the time wisely. That and to sell off stuff I don’t use anymore, or donate.

My stress level has definitely gone down since last week or the last day of work, about ten days ago. I’ve been able to get caught up on schoolwork, and even finish everything for one class, although admittedly, the workload for that class was negligible. I think it’s being home so much with my animals who have such a calming influence has something to do with it. I wish I could always spend this much time with them!  I’ve also been able to watch a lot of youtube videos of financial vloggers and am getting inspired at their progress at paying off debt and also saving at the same time. I’m an information junkie and admit it, I’m always ready to learn about new things, tips or tricks, and especially when it comes to finances and animals. I’ll add links to some of their channels on this blog in case you are curious.

I’m putting together ideas for more posts on this blog – since I have the time, I’d like to be more productive with it, and also use it to discuss causes and topics that really mean a lot to me.

One other thing I did – as you can see below, I’ve been collecting change for a bit of time now. Added it up and had $36.31 in total, so tonight my mom and I rolled coins together. I put everything that’s rolled up in my little fire-proof safe. And from now on, I’m going to be more vigilant about picking up change I see – in just the past two days, I found 26 cents! (Hey, mock if you will, but every little bit does add up eventually. There are even blogs out there of people who update their tally every day of found change.)

Total = 36.30. Not bad for just being loose spare change. Always keep your eyes to the ground, you never know what you might find.
Total = 36.30. Not bad for just being loose spare change. Always keep your eyes to the ground, you never know what you might find.