I Cleaned My Room!

 

 

I am surprisingly happy to say that the med dosage change is going well.  I have not gone insane.  No major mood swings, both my children are still alive and I feel good.  I have to admit I was expecting some issues and I am happy that I was wrong.  In fact the only side effect I have been experiencing is that I am more tired than usual.  Hopefully this means I don't really need them.

     The side effects of not taking them when I am supposed too are less than  before.  Honestly that makes this all worth while.  I think I stayed on Cymbalta as long as I did because I was afraid of the withdrawal effects.  At times it has been so bad that I couldn't function.  It wasn't depression it was the dizzy lightheaded feeling that overcomes you until there is nothing else you can think of.  I won't miss that feeling ever.

     I tackled my bedroom this week too.  I know — how boring!  Why am I sharing this with you?  First of all I never have been one to clean my bedroom.  I love a room of chaos I think.  When I was a child my room was a mess.  If I don't make an effort to clean it chaos wins everytime.  Well, there have been time when I was so depressed that I couldn't get out of bed.  I wouldn't do anything.  I wouldn't clean.  I wouldn't be me!  So it thrills me that when I am reducing my depression meds that I cleaned and rearranged my room.

Okay I admit it, I had ulterior motives.  My bookshelves are full and some of the things I own do not have a home in my room.  I have gone from a house, to a duplex to a smaller house and now to a room in a house.  My things have been weeded through, given away, thrown away and sold.  I look around my room and know that this is basically all I have left.  There are some things here and there elsewhere, but this room is what I and my thing have been reduced too.

     There is not much else I can sell, and believe me I could use the money.  There is not much I have that I don't grasp onto with an iron fist.  I lost so much in the last year losing anything else I view as important is not an option.  So I look at the books on my dresser because there is no room on my bookshelves and I made sure I could fit one more bookshelf in my room.  One more place to be home for things that mean a lot to me.

     So cleaning my room right now is a big deal.  That I wanted to do is a big deal and that my things have a place to go is a bigger deal!  That I am living in a house where the work I do is appreciate is glorious.  When I do the dishes and I get a thanks, my life is perfection.  I don't need my meds anymore.  I just need to be who I am and be around people who appreciate that.

    I need to introduce you to the newest member of my family, this is Hip Hop!  He is so cute and snuggly.  If you have been keeping track there are now two dogs (Tango and Hip Hop), five cats (Simone, Oliver, Cinder, Mitten and Munchkin) and three tarantulas (Hannah Montana, Strawberry and Red Knee) in our house.  I think we officially qualify as a zoo now.

So Many Worries

Tomorrow I need to get my father to the VA hospital at 7 am for bladder surgery.  He has bladder cancer.  He has had it for a long time and it seems more of an annoying cancer than deadly.  Of course that can change.  Every year or so he needs surgery to remove growths from his bladder.  No chemo, no radiation, nothing like that, just surgery every so often.

Of course usually Mom is the one who deals with this.  I only know what I have been told and I found out accidentally.  So I am sure there are things about his cancer that I don't know.  Dad is not a fountain of knowledge on the subject.  Then again he might be but just can't tell me what he knows because he can't get his brain to allow his voice to say the words he wants to say.  Mom can barely talk because of the tracheotomy so it is hard to get information out of her right now.  I wasn't prepared to deal with cancer, then again I wasn't prepared to deal with my mother almost dying five times.

Dad has been out of sorts these last few days.  I know the surgery is on his mind.   He has been getting ready for it for a week now.  Usually he doesn't know what day it is and thinks he needed to go to the hospital for the surgery over and over again.  He has been having more trouble sleeping than usual.  Today he came downstairs after bed to see if I knew his ID number for the VA.  He couldn't remember if he had the number right.

I am worried that I will over sleep.  I don't wake up well, I don't do mornings well.  If I could sleep all day I would.  Maybe I should stay up all night.  Probably not, I am sure driving on the snow covered roads while falling asleep isn't the best idea.  Of course that is just the beginning of my worries.

This is a surgery, he will be put under anesthesia and there is always a chance that he won't wake up.  I made sure to take him to visit Mom today, just in case.  Ugh, I hate even thinking that.  But one thing I have learned in the last few months is in the blink of an eye life can change.  The wind can knock a person over and cause a cascade of one health crisis after another.  A surgery can not go as planned.

Of course the house is quiet tonight it is my ex's night with the kids.  So my mind can easily dwell on all the bad that can happen.  I wish the kids were her to distract me a little.  I almost brought B back home because D was yelling at both kids and she claimed to not know why.  I tried to talk to him to find out what was going on, but he refused to speak to me.  Sometimes he can be just as bad as a pouting child.  So I don't know what was going on.  She wanted to come home and if I didn't have to take Dad to the hospital so early I would have gotten her.

So many worries and I try to focus on the good, the fun and the happy.  I had a visit from a friend today.  We grew up on the same block.  She helped me do some deep cleaning because my hip has been preventing me from doing a lot.  It just doesn't prevent me from worrying!