synergy

New Year

2007-12-31T17:43:00.000-05:00

I'm realizing that it has been almost a year since I've written anything in this space. That's a good thing. I have come to realize that I use this space when things spiral beyond my control and I need to have some type of outlet for the feelings, frustration, anger, and fear that I can't/don't share with others. I don't share those feelings for fear of scaring people away from K. But there have been minimal reason to feel that way.

We walked down to Starbucks this afternoon and sat outside drinking our mocha and gingerbread lattes laced with an extra shot of caffeine. As we sat there, our conversation turned towards a discussion of the year 2007. We both agreed that it has been a good year. Professionally, both of us have made strides in our fields. Personally, we've continued to be very happy together, disgustingly happy. We spent a lot of time traveling this summer, too much time. By mid-October, we were both ready to stay home and not move off the home front for months, which is what we did until Christmas. Well, I had a couple of work trips, but nothing too stressful.

There were no nasty surprises on the health front, well there was one. K continued to improve. This past spring, the psychiatrist moved her off the Paxil and on to Zoloft to help her facilitate weight loss. She took the move very well with only one or two bad days. Only problem with the Zoloft is the accompanying nausea that she has every time she takes her dose. As for the weight loss, K finally became serious about doing something about two months ago and went to see a nutritionist. Since then she's lost about ten pounds and intends on losing much more. After talking to the nutritionist, K began to increase her level of physical activity and walk much more. I've always been a big walker and enjoy it, but K never would go with me. She always complained about pain in her feet. Well, we went to get her fitted for new athletic shoes and discovered that she had been wearing shoes 1.5 sizes too small. She had always purchased a size 7.5, so she never thought that her foot size might have changed. She's now wearing a 9 and not complaining about foot pain. K's interest in increasing physical activity came from a bit of a shock that she is pre-diabetic or diabetic. The doctors haven't fully decided. At this point, they have agreed to back off on medication and give K an opportunity to control it through weight loss and exercise. Her blood sugar will be checked again in two months to see if she's made the necessary changes.

My health has been mostly good, except for the flaring GI problems. They have been ongoing for me over the past few years and surfaced again. I have a great doctor, but unfortunately, she doesn't take insurance. A 30 minute visit runs $250, which my insurance covers about half. Good part is that she is always accessible and willing to work quickly to solve my problems. The main problem seems to be a combination of acid reflux and gastric paresis. Gastric paresis means that my stomach doesn't process food. So I'm on a medication that activities my stomach muscles to send food to the intestines. The one that I can tolerate isn't sold in the US, so I have to have the prescription faxed to a Canadian pharmacy and then shipped to me. But my stomach pain is completely gone using that medication.

The biggest surprise about K's illness is that it never entirely recedes to the back of our consciousness. She is always vigilant to ensure that she doesn't get overtired or overstimulated. Schedule is paramount. Whenever we travel, she needs a minimum of one day to recover from even the shortest trip. While she's doing great, it's never not there. Our families don't understand or realize this vigilance. They are surprised when she's unable to do something because of the illness or she's unwilling to push her limits. We don't talk to them about the day-to-day management, and they don't realize the far reaching impact of the bipolar.

Tonight we are off to celebrate the incoming New Year. We're heading to a friend's party and then moving on to a Chuck Brown show. We're the guests of our councilman. It should be an experience. I haven't decided what one wears to a go go show. I guess I'll be plundering the closet for the right outfit in a couple of hours.

Happy New Year to everyone, if everyone hasn't given up on me. Here's to a wonderful 2008!

Uncertainty

2007-01-15T10:11:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting much over the past few months. Much of that has to do that K is much better and there remains little to write about on that front. The question then becomes, what do I do with this space? It appears that its original purpose as an outlet for me to deal with caretaking duties has been fulfilled. However, I find myself still clinging to the idea of the blog, despite my apparent disinterest in actually writing anything.

As stated, K continues to do very well. She's been taking Provigil (www.provigil.com) with great results. (I'm using Safari and can't add hyperlinks in it.) It is a temporary measure, but we're hoping that it will be enough to get her through the winter without missing work. Though, she did get a bit off schedule during our trip at Christmas and missed a day of work upon return, as she was unable to get up.

We have a pyschiatrist appointment on Friday. It will be the first time that he's seen her, since prescribing the Provigil, which he actually did over the phone. I think that he's going to be very pleased.

K's also upped her visits to the personal trainer to twice a week. Don't even ask what that is doing to our bank account. But the benefits should be tangible. Meanwhile, I'm continuing to work on getting my tail to the gym and exercising it. I took a few weeks off over the holidays. I didn't gain weight, but I certainly lost some toning. I have been SORE after that past two visits to the trainer.

I'm happy. After looking a retrospective of 2006, I only hope that 2007 is as good. Things came together really nicely last year. Not that everything was perfect, but it was good. I start a new job tomorrow. Same organization, but different boss and different work. And there is still a strong possibility that I will completely leave my organization. I'm waiting for some budget issues to be resolved. But the job I begin tomorrow is located at the same facility where I have worked the past seven months, which means public transportation. I love being able to leave the car sitting at home for the week.

That's the quick update. Nothing earth shattering. I now need to spend some time figuring out exactly what this blog means and if I should shut it down or morph it into some other type of outlet.

2 Months

2006-12-12T08:00:00.000-05:00

I had no idea that it had been two months since my last post. Doesn't seem as if so much time has past. And lots has happened. This has to be a short post, because I need to get ready for work in 15 minutes. I am meeting my boss downtown, so I get to leave almost two hours later than normal. Very exciting.

The K update. She's doing great. She missed her first day in six weeks yesterday due to a bad cold. This was the longest stretch that she has gone to work, since prior to her heart attack. In October, she went through a bad spell of wanting to sleep for 18 hours a day. She couldn't wake up and go to work. After only going to work for about 2-3 days in a two week period, we had the pscyhiatrist give her another med. Enter (cue the drums)

PROVIGIL

Okay--any med with the name PROVIGIL can only be spelled using all caps. It is a medication to promote wakefulness, normally used to treat narcolepsy. The military has also tested it with Air Force pilots and they needed only a few hours of sleep over an 80 period. But, K is taking a lower dose.

It has done wonders. It does not affect her mood. But she is able to get up and get moving in the mornings. Even on the weekends, she is frequently up by 7 am, which previously was unheard of. She goes to work every day. It has lifted this constant tension that both of us had on a daily basis as to whether she would be able to make it to the office. It was one of those tensions that you don't even realize that you have until it is lifted and you feel lighter.

The other change that the doctor made is that he told K to stop using her light box. When she was really ill, it made a huge difference in her mood. This winter, K would sit in front of the light and after turning it off, she would crash. It was a crash that would occur over a 20 minute period and I could see it on her face. She would go from being fine to being in a black, black mood with anger and unable to get herself out the door. She stopped using the light at the same time she began using the PROVIGIL. That makes it difficult to parse out the individual effects, but there has been a dramatic switch in K's ability to function.

Several downsides exist to the PROVIGIL. !) It will only work for a few months. Hopefully, she can come off it in the spring. 2) It is addictive. 3) Insurance won't pay for it. K takes half a pill every morning, which is $5.50. A monthly dose costs about $150 or a bit more. It is not an inexpensive med. But, it works. And really that is the only thing that is important.

Okay--I need to go change into my suit and get going. Otherwise I won't have time to make it to Starbucks before having to meet my boss.

Friday the 13th

2006-10-13T20:28:00.000-05:00

No, nothing bad has happened. Actually, it's been a good day. It's just that I'm tired. K and I are away on a long weekend in Chicago. She's visiting family and we're staying with some close friends. They are busy putting the kids to bed. Yesterday was bad, but K handled it better than I did.

We had tickets out last evening. Our flight was delayed and we didn't even arrive at the airport here until after 10 pm local time. I had started out exhausted from a long day and even longer week at the office. (Yes, I need to deal with the job situation.) My temper was short, but K was fine. She took the lead and pulled me through and dealt with my short-temper. I did sleep well last night, despite the constant work dreams, and then napped this afternoon.

Things are going well. Due to K's concern and the raising of the lithium last month, we have another psychiatrist appointment scheduled for Monday afternoon. It's very unusual for her to have another appointment in a month. She's been on the three month cycle for some time. But it's fine. We don't mind seeing him. He's entertaining and seems to enjoy the appointments as well. Fortunately, K's mood is vastly improved on the higher dose of lithium. I guess she started metabolizing it faster due to the working out, but at least the problem appears to be solved in the short-run.

My mood in regards to K is fine. What continues to take its toll is my job. I have begun taking some concrete steps to find something new. Or I've begun thinking through the steps. I know what my weak areas are; lack of management experience is the glaring one. But with some luck, I'll be able to get a position that can help me fill in that gap. I could also use some more project management technical experience, but that will probably come through one of the these other positions. We'll see. Any move will take a long time to set up for a number of reasons. I guess what I ought to do is pull my resume in order, so I can look for jobs outside my organization as well.

Nothing else. K's been wonderful about my job. She's not put any pressure on me about my hours or stress. That's good. Previously, she's always been against me taking something that would have longer hours or greater stress. But her health is good enough that she no longer depends on me to do things. Also, the car stays at home, so she has access to the car even if I'm at the office. She likes knowing it's there, even if she doesn't choose to use it.

That's the quick update. Things are good. K is with her family right now bonding with the niece. That's also good.

As the light fades . . .

2006-09-24T09:04:00.000-05:00

The longer K has bipolar, the easier it becomes to see the cyclical nature of it. Now, as we head into fall and the shorter days, she's already struggling more in the mornings in order to able to get out bed and make it to work. A couple of weeks ago, she began using the sun lamp in the morning. A few days ago, she upped the lithium by 25% in hopes of feeling better.

The lithium increase is not only linked to the shorter days. About six months ago, we began to go to a personal trainer and K upped her level of physical activity. The result is that her body seems to metabolize the lithium more quickly, so she needs a slightly higher dose. At least, we're hoping that some of the dips in her mood will be stabilized by the increase.

Recently, I haven't been the easiest to live with. My job stress and insecurities seem to be reaching all time highs. The insecurities appear to be unfounded. No one tells me that I am doing a bad job, but I still feel that I am constantly ready to drop something. Good news is that I leave the office every night between 5:30 and 6 pm and I begin each day at 7:30 am. It isn't the hours, but I don't have a free moment throughout the day. I no longer am able to even hold a five minute personal conversation, because I get pulled away to deal with something. The stress is very high, not only for me, but my co-worker as well. Both of us are beginning the discussion about finding another job. For political reasons, I probably have to stay where I am for another four months, but that may change. Meanwhile, I drive K nuts by agonizing over the situation.

We are also looking into doing work on the house. The structural engineer came this week and told us that our house is solid enough to support a green roof. A green roof requires that soil and plants are on our roof to capture rainwater and better insulate the house. A much costlier approach towards our roof than a traditional roof, but K is very much in favor of it. We also need many other expensive repairs. K tried to warn me the dangers of buying a house about 130-150 years old. What we didn't realize is how little maintenance had occurred. Also, things like plaster have a 100 year life span and now it is literally at the breaking point.

My mom is in town next week. We've been slowly cleaning the house to prepare for her arrival. But we have more to do today. I also want to hit the farmer's market this morning to purchase our fruits and veggies for the week. We have been going to the farmer's market the past few weeks and I really enjoy. The only catch is that we have to make the time to do it.

The other thing going on is that my term as vice president of the neighborhood is coming to an end. There have been offers to sponsor my run for president. I'm tempted. The current president is excellent in some areas, but he's not good about running the meetings and keeping people engaged. Likewise, he doesn't share information. I barely know what's happening at times. I could do a much better job of being inclusive. But I don't want to commit to at least a couple meetings a week, especially with my current job situation. I was almost sucked in the other day.

K and I are doing more again and going out during the week. Political fundraiser tomorrow night, which should be interesting. I haven't met Eleanor Holmes Norton yet. Things like that are keeping us busy.

Things are good, though I need to bring my stress under control.

Role Reversal

2006-09-16T12:23:00.000-05:00

Last night and yesterday afternoon, I ended up getting so wired about work. My coworker was getting her ass kicked and I had the day off. I got the feeling that she wasn't getting to everything and I did offer to come in over the weekend to help out, but she declined my offer. Even though, I ought to have let the whole thing go at that point, I couldn't. Instead, my anxiety about the situation continued to increase throughout the day. As a result, by bedtime I was wired.

K insisted that I take .5 mg xanax before going to sleep. Okay--three vodka tonics don't affect me, but give me .5 mg xanax and 9 hours later, I was still only barely able to crack my eyelids open. I guess it worked, since I slept well all night. I also decided to spend an hour at home, okay it's been two hours, working on things remotely. This puts me into a better position for Monday morning. And I took care of one task that I believe was overlooked yesterday. It was putting together a bunch of good news stories prior to my boss speaking on Monday morning and again at lunch.

This morning we went to the personal trainer. I was somewhat concerned about slipping and cracking my head open after the xanax, but it turned out to be a good workout. Now, we have a wine tasting party this evening, and I am sure that we have some chores to do prior to that.

Visit to the Doctor

2006-09-15T13:43:00.000-05:00

K had her quarterly visit to the pyschiatrist this morning. We were both exhausted, despite the visit not being until 10 AM. It was a good visit. The one concern is that K is not doing as well as she could be. She's somewhat down due to the changing seasons, which usually hit her pretty hard. A couple of years ago, we purchased a sun lamp, and she uses it on a daily basis pretty much from September until April. Instead of immediately increasing her medication, the psychiatrist is hoping that the sun lamp will improve her enough, so a dosage increase won't be necessary.

The fact that K is off is a subtle thing. It expresses itself in small irritations and exhaustion. Nothing serious, but also, they are warning indicators that shouldn't be ignored. By addressing it now, hopefully any further backslide can be forestalled.

So, K does not have a three month hiatus from the psychiatrist. She's going to return in a month for review of where she is. She's fine with it, but I know that she would certainly prefer if the visits remained on the quarterly schedule.

On a more personal note, we're looking at how to cover some much needed home repairs. Everything is expensive and I keep feeling as if we are trying to drain blood from a turnip as we try to figure out how to pay for it all. The roof needs to be done this year. K would like to have us install a green roof with little seedums up there to help the environment. I'm not against it, but there's definitely a cost premium. It is also difficult as both our neighbors have overlapped their roofs onto our roof. In each case, their roofs will have to be disturbed in order for us to have our's redone. Pain in the ass. Fortunately, we get along well with both sets of neighbors. There have been times when the relations have not been so amicable.

The basement drama is slowly, too slowly, drawing to a close. The last piece is the waterproofing. We're hoping that we can move forward with that the next 4-6 weeks. Once we complete that, we'll be able to move everything back down there and begin to truly organize the space without problems from the leaks. I can't wait.

We're slowly reaching an equilibrium. My job continues to be a source of anxiety for me. I believe that I will remain in my current position for the next few months. Then I'll have to see. But this was a difficult week for very stupid reasons. However, what ends up happening is that the pressure gets slowly cranked up throughout the day. I had today off and my coworker faced the pressure cooker for her entire day. I feel somewhat guilty, but she also left me a week before we had a huge conference a few weeks ago, so my guilt is somewhat mitigated. I just hate the anxious feeling that seeps through my entire body. Working out helps relieve much of it, but I didn't make it to the gym this morning.

Life interfering with Blogging

2006-09-10T14:34:00.000-05:00

Lately, things have sort of spun out of control, not with K, but with my own life and job. The long absence has not meant anything other than that I haven't had the time to sit down at the computer and type. Nor have I had the luxury to even think things through enough to effectively blog about them. Though, the blogging processes does help me sort out my thoughts.

Any case, K and I have both been busy. The last week of August, we each had to travel for work. It occurs rarely that we travel for work and it's especially unusual that we had to be out of town the same week. It was unfortunate in that the dog had to head over to doggie daycare. It's cage free, but still at $50/day I am not thrilled about sending her. I had been organizing a conference, which had me going for 12 hours a day at the office. Now that it's over, I'm trying to cut back to about 10.5 hour days at the most. The new job continues to take a toll and I am sure that it will be this way as long as I am in it.

More important that work, today is K's birthday. She's 44 years old. I declared this K weekend on yesterday afternoon. We took her motorcycle in to the shop yesterday. We had been led to believe that it would cost about $500 to get it up and running. When they ran all the numbers, we're looking at a $2200 bill, for a bike that is worth significantly less. K turned to me and asked if she should junk it. My answer was an emphatic "NO".

The motorcycle represents a side of K that has been deadened even prior to the heart attack and the bipolar disorder. Her interest in getting the bike up and running shows her psychological and physical health are good. Psychologically, because she has the confidence to ride the bike in an area with awful traffic and confusing roadways. The physical health because of the balance and strength required to safely ride a motorcycle. To encourage that improvement, I am willing to pay any price. The bike also fits her and she knows it intimately. She bought it new in 1984. It is far safer for her to start riding again on this bike than purchasing a new one that would not be as familiar. I realize that she still may decide in favor of a new bike and we'll sell this one in a year or so, or she may decide to keep it. I wasn't thrilled with the price tag, but that is as good a place as any for the money to go.

When we were at dinner last night, K said that she felt that we had crossed a milestone by getting the bike to the shop. It was a lifting of a burden. The bike had been rotting in our parking spot for the past four years. K saw it as a milestone on the way to full health. Also, it made the benefits of working out clear. Yes, we are continuing to work out with the personal trainer. (Note: I've lost 10 pounds over the past six months. I'm now in normal BMI. I would like to lose another 10 and I am continuing to work on it.) K could tell a difference with her balance and strength when she helped the tow truck guy load the bike on the flatbed to go to the shop. It's the working out that will make it possible for her to even ride it, when it returns in four weeks.

The other sign of health is that we are beginning to work on the house. Last weekend, we ripped down the plaster in half of our entryway. The other half is mostly drywall and will be less of a mess. But we are interviewing contractors to put on a new roof. We are deciding how to pay for all the construction. The insurance settlements for the basement are starting to come in. One claim is settled and the other is almost there. We should finish it up this week. After we receive the checks, we will be able to go ahead and have the basement waterproofed, which is the final piece of the project. We feel able and ready to take on new challenges.

I'm very happy with the current state of affairs.

Does Absence make the heart grow fonder or just forget about you?

2006-08-06T15:11:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lengthy break between posts. I didn't even really realize how long it had been until I logged in to write this post. I've been in class, out of town, and still trying to figure out the new job.

We took a long weekend and went to see K's family about two weeks ago. It was a good visit, but a bit crazy. Not only was her family around, but a cousin with her family and three kids, various family friends, and my mom were all in the mix as well. K handled it better than I expected. She got tired, but nothing too extreme. The frustrating part was that a couple days after we returned home, K was hit with PMS.

PMS hasn't been so bad lately. Previously, K's PMS would keep her out of work for 1-2 days and basically send her to bed. This time she ended up sleeping for hours on end. It's frustrating for her and for me.

The other factor is that I used to drive to the office every day. With my new job, I am now taking the subway. This means that K is left on the bus. Usually, it isn't a problem. But when she struggles, having to get on the bus is enough to keep her from going to work. The heatwave over the past week kept K at home one day and she worked from home one afternoon due to her fears of the heat. It's still hot, but the humidity has broken somewhat making the outdoors a bit more bearable.

The one source of conflict occurred this morning. I recently finished a Masters certificate in project management. K completed the course last year. In order to be certified, it is necessary to take an exam after completing the course work. I didn't really want to take the classes and was sort of forced into them. K on the other hand really wanted to take the classes and worked very hard to get into them. However, due to the problems with her job last year, she never received any recognition for the work that she completed.

What it comes down to is that I am in a position to take the exam. I don't particularly care whether I am certified or not and I am only taking the exam because I've done all the work. For K the certification is more important, yet no one is pushing her to take the exam and offering prep course. I end up feeling guilty for my opportunities and the way that I am treated at the office. K feels angry about how she is treated and we both end up not able to easily communicate about it.

This whole scenario is one disadvantage to working in the same place. The differences in how we are treated are highlighted. K doesn't blame me and isn't angry with me, but I am uncomfortable with her comments that I have led a charmed existence. I've worked very hard to make it where I am, though I will admit that I have had some luck as well. We got through it today and everything is fine. Just another one of those things that I don't like.

We recently passed our nine year anniversary from the time that we met. July 31. It was my second week on my new job with this organization. We met and hit it off. September will be nine years that the two of us have been together. Seems difficult for me to believe. K is an integral part of my life and everything that we do is intertwined. I can't even imagine my life without her.

Nothing much else to report. Various tidbits of information, but nothing too earth shattering. I mainly wanted to get back into the practice of writing again.

Tired

2006-07-15T18:44:00.000-05:00

Being exhausted probably has a lot to do with the latest infrequent of posting. I've been on high stress mode with my job and K's spending a lot of time calming me down. Finally, I'm starting to settle down a bit. Unfortunately, I have a new boss, who started and went on two weeks vacation. He's back in the office, now I'm going to be out for the next week and a half. Not great timing, but it was set up prior to my moving to this position. No one has complained about my absence, it's only my internal pressure getting to me. I did volunteer to come in for a meeting after 4 pm one day to remind them that I am still around.

K, on the other hand, continues to do really well. She's taking the bus to-and-from work, despite the miserable heat and humidity that we're going through. A week ago, I thought to myself that maybe I have adjusted to living in the almost-South. A few hours south of us is where the "real South" begins. Then, the humidity struck. I'm not as miserable in it as I used to be, but it is still bad. I'm not used to living here.

But K's doing great. She constantly says that she won't be able to continue to take the bus when the heat gets bad or in the winter, if it gets too cold, etc. But she manages to keep doing it. At times, I think she ought to take a taxi, but she is stubborn about taking the bus, now that she is able to do so.

Part of the reason that I'm so tired is that we went to the personal trainer this morning. As usual, he kicked my tail. Bad part is that I was still sore from my lunges last week, where I about died. There are still knots in my quads, which isn't a good thing.

We're invited to a party tonight, but I already went to a professional BBQ today, and I just don't believe that I have further energy to be social. I think that we are going to be lumps and sit around and watch tv.

Next week, on Thursday, we are off to fly out to see K's family. My mom will be coming down one day to spend the night with us, as she's only 90 miles north. It should be a fine visit, and I'm looking at getting away, even if only for the long weekend. However, a number of K's relatives . . ..

Need to stop blogging. K just suggested that we head off to the Nordstrom's Anniversary Sale. Suddenly, I'm feeling less tired, though not by much.

Diminished Blogging Opportunities

2006-06-25T13:45:00.000-05:00

I realize that every week, I begin my post by saying how busy I was during the previous week and this weekend is no different. Except, I was exhausted enough this weekend to have to spend a couple hours napping on Saturday afternoon to try and recover. I am feeling better today, just in time to prepare for the week ahead.

K did well all week. I had a bit of a hell week. My organization was part of a giant government emergency management exercise, and I ended up having to coordinate a lot of the work. That also translated into working 13 hours on Wednesday as part of the exercise. But I think that the evaluators are going to rate us relatively well. Not great, but there were things that I was unable to fix at the last minute. But we did not embarrass ourselves. It did mean that I wasn't around a lot and when I was around, I felt ill from stress. I'm also somewhat stressed about this upcoming week, as the new boss starts on Monday. However, I'm working on getting through it all.

Although K did well, there were a few rough spots. Friday morning, she became very frustrated and angry, but was still able to go to the office. And then ended up having a good day. During the week, she was able to build a spending plan for the two of us. That has been something that I have been unable to do and I am thrilled that she took the lead. The other good news is that she used to be unable to deal with our expenditures and now she's building the spreadsheets.

Yesterday, she was on the phone with her sister. We have plans to go visit her family in a few weeks. Unfortunately, K's cousin and her family intends on visiting the same weekend. K gets along very well with her cousin, but K would like to have her parents to herself, as she sees them so infrequently. Any case, K's sister spoke way out of turn talking about how upset their mother is with K being gay and how to handle it with the cousin. Well, the cousin has known that K is gay longer than K's parents, which is going on 15 years. K's sister told K how happy K ought to be with the level of tolerance the parents are showing. K was stunned and hurt. Her family is one, where these things can never be discussed publicly. Personally, I believe that K's parents are okay with her sexuality and that the sister misrepresented the whole conversation. The conversation with the sister got worse as she talked about how worried their parents were throughout K's 15 year marriage, etc.

I've tangled with K's sister before. K's sister believes that it is her responsibility to manage K and keep K from doing anything that may upset their parents. My attitude is that the sister does not and should not control access to K's parents. I told K that next time she wants to know what her parents think about something that she needs to go directly to them rather than through her sister. K was trying to find out more about the cousin's visit, and it turned into a distressing conversation. By the time K hung up, she was prepared to cancel the entire trip. I don't think that we are going to do that, but I am pretty angry as well. The other thing is that the sister is the one with the baby niece, who K loves. So that makes K feel a bit as if she can't get in a fight with her sister without endangering access to the niece. A big, bloody mess.

The good part is that by this morning, K was able to think clearly about the whole conversation and ignore what her sister had to say. Her parents have made it very clear that they are proud of her and have accepted me as a member of the family. (Throughout the entire conversation, K's sister emphasized how much they all like me.) I think that K needs to focus on her parents actions, not on misrepresentations from the sister. I think K has reached the same conclusion.

Then today, we were coming home from breakfast and shopping and went to pull into our alley. Due to a construction project gone bad, we only have one access point into our alley, instead of two. Frequently, the access is blocked by illegally parked cars. The drivers park them for a moment to run into a friend's house or the local ethopian coffee shop. For us, it is a flashpoint. This time K's temper got the best of her and she yelled at the woman that if she parks there again, K will blow up the car.

These exhibits of rage always take me by surprise. I expect that they should be over by now. Instead, there are infrequent flashes of it when K gets overtired or hungry. I don't even know if they are easier for me to bear. What I have learned over the years is that they don't last. K is currently down for a nap and she'll probably be fine when she wakes. But those minutes when we are going through the episode are agonizing. I can understand that K wants to yell at the inconsiderate driver. I don't even have a particular problem with it. I do draw the line at threats. That's where it moves to inappropriate and dangerous. We live in a city where people are killed or injured for such language. Of course, K is well aware of it. She usually curbs her tongue when she's worried about physical retaliation.

I don't feel helpless in the face of these episodes, but I still hate them. I'm still surprised that after all the progress that K has made, that the disease is still capable of taking over her brain and causing these reactions. It's the K that I don't like. It's the one that is made of stone and doesn't care what her impact is on others. And to me, it is the one that I never seem to know.

Tensions

2006-06-17T20:47:00.000-05:00

Perhaps, I should find something better to do with my time at 10 pm on a Saturday night, but at the moment, my activity is writing this entry. K and I have had a busy and tiring week, and are taking some time this weekend to try and recover.

Last weekend, we babysat the 5.5 month old niece for three days. It went very well, other than that she screamed each time we tried to feed her. But she did sleep 8-10 hours each night. Still, we were exhausted from the additional responsibilities. It wasn't a great feeling to start off on Monday morning feeling worn out. K had her cardiac stress test on Monday and did very well, except for the drop in blood pressure and panic attack from the test.

What proved to be the challenge for the week was K's reaction to my job. In my new job, I have access to the top people in a 13,000 person organization. I work for one of the top executives as a special assistant. K's jealous. She's not interested in doing the job or anything, but she feels diminished by my new position.

I went to her therapist with her today to discuss the issue. We had a blowout on it Wednesday night, where K got very angry with me or with herself. In any case, the results weren't good and K ended up missing work on Thursday as a result. K admitted that she is struggling with my new position. She's proud of me, but my success brings up her feelings of inadequacy. We moved towards resolving them.

K admitted that she doesn't want my job. She wouldn't like it nor does it play to her strengths. I have to say that the job has me very edgy as well. It's high-profile and if I screw up it will not go unnoticed. One example is this upcoming week will be especially bad, as we are doing a giant exercise. It's an exercise that we should have been prepared to do and are not. I've spent the past week trying to prepare what should have been done incrementally over a period of months. Not a good situation. Unfortunately, I have also gotten a key role in the exercise, which I shouldn't have. But I'll survive.

We talked through it with the therapist and K and I felt better afterwards. K is working on seeing that even when I am successful, my success doesn't diminish her or cut her out of my life. That's not what I want. She is not a second-class citizen, which is how she feels. We've gotten through so much together and we will continue to do so.

Exhausting, Crazy Week

2006-06-09T13:31:00.000-05:00

Things have been good, but crazy. K's doing great. We saw the psychiatrist today and he was very pleased. In fact, he used words like "wonderful" and "amazing". K was commenting on how suddenly she feels able to do all these things that she wasn't able to do previously. Things like ride the bus without fear or anxiety, work out with a personal trainer, and spend time with friends. He said that what happened is that the hard work that she has put in over the past couple of years is finally paying off.

What he said (which sounds a bit odd) is that the brain cells had to be retrained after her illness in order to do these things. He said that the cells are complex and take a very long time to retrain. But that K's managed to do it.

What he emphasized this visit and had not previously emphasized was that bipolar is a cyclical disease. K's doing very well now, but she still may be hit with a bad cycle again at some point. This is a bit different than things he's told us previously. Before he said that the heart attack and K's extended untreated depression afterwards were the triggers for her bipolar disorder back in 2003. Now, he seems to be saying regardless of how well she's doing, the bipolar still may come back around to bite her in the ass. He did say that it may not happen or that the next episode may be very mild compared to the last bout. Either way though, we don't want to hear it. We want to hear that it was an exceptional event, which will never occur again. Perhaps that is wishful thinking. I guess it is wishful thinking. However, neither of us is planning on worrying excessively. Instead, we'll assume that she will be well enough to handle whatever comes along.

I finally started a new job this past Monday. It is in my same organization and only a 4 month assignment. But I have significantly more power and it will be a great developmental opportunity. I'm hoping that I can use it to spring to another job somewhere else. Not an unreasonable hope.

The thing is that my new job is very high-profile and political. I already have been warned about a number of people in the organization and know that there are others who won't cooperate with me. I have been stressed and anxious this week, but I'm hoping it goes well. I keep worrying that I will be shipped back to my old job. I'm more enthusiastic about my new position than I was initially, but in many ways it remains the lesser of two evils. However, it will be a great line on my resume.

The other thing is about the new job, K's a bit envious. One reason is due to the nature of the job that it is prestigious and high-profile. Second reason that there is a problem is that I am working for the guy, who put her through hell with her reorg last summer. She remains very bitter and doesn't want me to like the guy. It's awkward when you work for someone not to like them in the least. The thing is that I do like the guy, I'm just not sure that he should be leading a 4500 person organization. But he's being replaced in a couple of weeks with someone else. That's part of the problem, no one in the organization knows their roles and everyone, including me, is jostling for positions and power. I've already begun working a couple of contacts to try and get in a good word for me with the new guy.

Moving on from organizational politics. . . More exciting to K, the infant niece has shown up for the weekend. She arrived last night wailing after a long day in the car. Today we took her to the psychiatrist with us and went to breakfast afterwards. Now, she and K are both upstairs taking much needed naps.

Even a few months ago, it would have been difficult for me to contemplate changing my job due to the effect that it would have on K. It's a sign of progress that she's been able to adapt and not freak out about the impact it is having on her routine. Rather, she's excited that I will no longer be using the car every day and will limit the impact it has on the environment.

Things are going really well and I am trying to take the time to enjoy them and acknowledge how hard we have struggled to achieve this state.

Responsibilities of the Patient

2006-06-01T15:21:00.000-05:00

Over the months, K and I have had a number of discussions regarding the responsibility of someone, who is ill. During the throes of illness, it becomes difficult to know when a caretaker should give up and when they should continue to fight. All activities become overwhelming and difficult instead of being able to easily move from one thing to another. One of the most prominent memories that I retain from K's illness is a feeling of complete exhaustion. Much of that time is in a memory haze or fog. I believe that the fog is my body and mind protecting itself from the pain that the memories bring.

But let me return to my topic. At what point does a caretaker have the responsibility to say, "I can no longer do this."?

I strongly believe that the patient has the responsibility to do as much as they can to get better. Some days that may mean that they are only able to swallow their medication when it is handed to them. Other days, it may mean going to a therapist or calling the doctor. The responsibilities should be determined by the patient's illness and limitations. However, my key message is that the patient has a responsibility to try and get better.

If there is no effort on the part of the patient, how can the caretaker keep going? Mental illness is not a disease that can be cured by outside forces. It is necessary to have external involvement to make it possible for the patient to address their problems. For example, someone needs to be on medication before they can begin to change their habits to reduce the likelihood of another episode. But, in the end, the changes have to come from the patient.

I believe that there are firm guidelines as well regarding the role of caretaker. I'm not willing to remain in any situation when my safety may be compromised or I am subject to either emotional or physical abuse. There was also a point when I had to admit that it was time for me to get help. K's illness was having a profound effect on my ability to function and I was not longer able to go it alone. The third thing is really the idea that the patient has to continue to help themselves.

L's Caretaker Tenants

1. Never accept any type of threat to personal safety from the patient.
2. Never accept physical or emotional abuse from the patient.
3. Realize that you cannot do it all and accept help, either personal or professional.
4. The patient must be willing to help his- or herself.

These are tenants that K agrees with. She feels that I have no obligation to remain if she's unwilling to do anything for herself. We are fortunate in that we didn't have children in the house or other obligations throughout the period of K's episode. Instead, we were able to focus on her health. Other obligations change the mix and make it more difficult to focus on the one, who is mentally ill.

These are really some thoughts that have been swirling in my head over the past few months and it seemed to be the time to put them out here.

Aimless Weekend

2006-05-28T12:59:00.000-05:00

It's a four-day Memorial Day weekend, and both of us are off balance. No discernible reason, expect it's possible that PMS is taking a bit of a bite. Yesterday we seemed to spend the entire day sniping at one another. It would go underground for a few hours and then one of us would explode about an absurdly minor issue. Today is a bit calmer, but we still feel somewhat directionless.

It doesn't help that Rolling Thunder is in town and it makes it difficult to go out and do things. However, we should be able to make it to the pharmacy and grocery store without running in to too much traffic. If we can get the motivation to do even that.

Yesterday, we stopped by Whole Foods and picked up a bone-in roast and a buffalo steak for dinner. Neither of us had the motivation to cook either item, so we're having them for dinner tonight. I don't know if I will like the buffalo steak, but though it was worth trying. This morning, I dragged myself and the dog out to the part for a long walk. I was successful in exhausting the dog. She passed out in front of the fireplace on her blanket. After the run she had this morning, it may take her two days to recover. In addition to getting to play off leash, she was able to wade in the creek. In a couple months, the water will be too dangerous to let her go in. Some parasite or algae grows and is poisonous to dogs, but it is still early enough in the season to let her play.

I'm babbling. I hope that I'll feel better soon.

Memorial Day Weekend--Friday

2006-05-26T07:13:00.000-05:00

Today is starting to seem like the first day of summer. Despite the earliness of the day, the air already feels sticky and humid. Not a big surprise, since the summers here are miserable with humidity. The bigger surprise is that it has taken until Memorial Day to feel this way. Actually, we've had a lovely drawn out spring. It almost seemed unnatural that the weather was beautiful for weeks on end. Not the norm. But I would expect that we will begin to revert to more normal weather patterns again.

K and I have no specific plans for the weekend. It's a 4 day weekend for us--wooo hoooo! We have today off and don't have to return to the office until Tuesday. Lots of little things on the to do lists, but nothing big and distasteful. We are looking forward to doing things around the house over the next few days.

My week has been confusing. Nothing to do with K, but the job situation is confusing. From Tuesday through Thursday, I attended a training course in another facility. Part way through the day on Tuesday, I was told by someone else that I was being moved to a different job. All the information went along with a possibility that I had been exploring, but I hadn't told anyone about it. That the gossip chain had picked it up showed that there was probably something actually happening.

No date has yet been set, but I am moving up to share a Chief of Staff job with someone else. It's significantly more power and influence in the organization. An organization that is in serious flux. The only thing I hear from everyone is that there is no one to actually do any work, because we are so understaffed. And we are in the middle of a round of buyouts.

I'm excited to be switching jobs, though I am still resolved to leave the organization entirely. I'm hoping that this assignment will help me make more contacts to achieve that goal. What hit home is how happy I have been for the past two years in my current office. As I have said, my office is being disbanded and many of my favorite people have left or will leave, mostly retiring, in the next month. But this week, I ended up crying over what I am going to be losing/missing. I'm not the only one. My office is going through the grieving process as well. It's very difficult going through all the changes.

K has been slightly concerned about me. She knows that I am grieving for my office. But it has also manifested itself into a grief for what happened with her between the heart attack and the spiral into bipolar disorder. As we watch TV shows, on either DVD or through iTunes, I overreacted when a character is killed off. This past week, I break out into uncontrollable sobbing. I don't think it is fear over K. Instead, I believe that I am mourning the days when I didn't know enough to be frightened.

K's illness opened up an entirely new world of possibilities for me. That sounds absolutely ridiculous, but it is true. I didn't know enough to be frightened. No one in my family has died or even been ill. I've never been exposed to the fear and uncertainty that comes when a loved one is confronting the unknown. K's illness exposed me to the feeling of vunerable. I think I am crying because when I see someone on TV die, I can imagine how their friends and family feel. Actually, I can probably only imagine a piece of what they feel, but that is enough to make me break into tears. I don't want to feel that way. K's dragging me off to her therapist tomorrow to discuss this together.

Another topic, which may be on tomorrow's therapist agenda, is my job change. One of the things that has discouraged me from changing jobs in the past few years has been K's illness and resistance to change. My current position and the previous position have allowed me the flexibility to leave at a moment's notice when K has needed me. Fortunately, that hasn't been necessary for almost two years. But for about a 15 month period, it was very important. The other thing that she has relied upon is my giving her a ride to work and up until last summer a ride home. She works within two miles of the house, but K has fought taking the bus for years. This past spring, she began to take the bus home. She picks up a transfer and provides it to me as a voucher to set up the coffee for her every night. It's a way to reward her for taking the bus.

This job switch will require K to change her commuting habits. She will have to take public transportation both ways to work. I will as well, but I am looking forward to it. The biggest difference is that she isn't too upset about it. I know she's concerned, but we are talking through different ways she can do it. Right now, she trying to convince me to go out of my way, so she doesn't have to take the bus alone in the mornings. I would prefer not to, but I may do it for a little bit to make her feel better. The fact we can even have the conversation and discuss the alternatives is a huge change.

Sometime later . . .

Something happened this morning. It may be PMS, but I'm not sure. We had a personal training session set for 10 am. K got up and ate breakfast. Then it was as if a switch was flipped in her brain and she began to struggle mentally. Ultimately, she didn't even make it to the training session. She took half a xanax and went back to sleep. I hope this was a very temporary blip and that it is not indicative of how the rest of the weekend will be. Though, if things are bad tomorrow again, she has an appointment with her therapist. I'll have to remind K that this will be her three year anniversary with the therapist. K saw her for the first time 3 years ago on Memorial Day weekend. I remember K was extremely doubtful and I was surprised that anyone would be seeing clients on the Saturday of Memorial Day.

Okay. . . I did make the personal training session. He works me much harder when K isn't there. Between sets, I usually stand gasping for breath. What he does is string three or four exercises in a row and keeps me moving from one to another. I need to go have lunch.

By the way, I posted my e-mail address in comments a while ago, but here it is again. synergylk@gmail.com Feel free to e-mail if you would like.

Weekend

2006-05-22T10:49:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to be a bit more regular about writing. I enjoy it and it is an opportunity to reflect. This is my only chance to do so at work, as the rest of the week I will be in training with no access to a computer. My Blackberry keeps tabs on my e-mail, but no surf capability from the Blackberry.

It was a good weekend. About halfway through preparing the Friday dinner menu, I feared that I may have undertaken more than I could handle in two hours. But it all came together at about 2.5 hours. Only criticism was that I put too much salt in the biscuits for the strawberry shortcake. I'm not sure if I can blame the recipe, since I didn't actually measure the salt. I dumped it in my hand and poured it into the dough.

K's schedule was definitely disrupted Friday. Our guests stayed until about 1 am. We went through 2.5 bottles of wine and I ended up somewhat hung over the next morning. Not terrible, but it has been a long time since I was careless enough to get a hangover. The bad part about it was that we got up at 9 am and had a personal training session at 10 am. Against all odds, I did feel better after the session.

Saturday, we spent in the backyard. I planted my little plants in the borders, we cleaned up a broken flower box (assholes keep running over the bricks and shattering the box). We have the biggest parking spot in the alley. So when people with large vehicles roar down the alley, not bothering to find out if they can exit at the other end, (they can't), after reversing down the alley, they use our spot to turn their overgrown, gas guzzling pigmobiles around. Yes, it is a sore subject. My flowers have been ruined, the motorcycle hit, and our fence almost torn from the ground by these people who cannot maneuver their vehicles in small places. Why do you need a huge SUV when you live in a city that has snow once a year?

Back to business--K and I were extremely productive outside. It was great. Then in the early evening, a friend came over and he and K tried to get her motorcycle started. It hasn't been run in several years. The bike wanted to start, but just couldn't quite pull it off. K was disappointed by not distraught, which is a huge change. For a couple of years, she couldn't even uncover the bike because she was so upset by how it looked. When she moved here the bike was in perfect condition after living for years in a garage. But here, it is kept covered outside. Perhaps, if it is running and she wants to keep it, we'll spring for indoor storage next winter.

On Friday, we are intending to get a tow truck to take it out to the cycle shop that we've selected and leave it for them to work on. After it's running, we'll take the time to straighten out the plates and inspections. Bureaucratic mess that we usually don't get in to, but it happened this time.

Saturday evening, we ended up hosting another small dinner party. Seems like even making burgers, baked beans, salad, and appetizer all took a lot of work. Not quite such a late night, but 11 pm is late enough if you are accustomed to being asleep by 10 pm.

Sunday was another beautiful day. We headed out to Home Depot and loaded up the car with mulch. K got a hedge trimmer that she's coveted for ages. I have no clue what she's planning to do with it, as we have no hedges in sight. But I won't let her buy a chain saw, so this may be the surrogate.

I spent a couple hours weeding and mulching the front yard. Amazing difference. This year, I went with the black mulch instead of the regular. I'm tired of the mulch fading and looking icky after a few days. I'll see if the black mulch continues to look good for a longer time. I am not a fan of Home Depot, but we had gift cards and the Lowes is way too far away.

This morning, we both bounded out of bed and headed to the office. Actually, I didn't quite bound. I took an ambien last night and was too tired to make it to my am workout. But I did make it to work on-time, and that counts for something.

K and I both commented throughout the weekend, how much we were enjoying the time together and the luxury of being able to work on the house and appreciate the weather. K was also able to do a lot more, partially a benefit of her weight lifting and increased physical activity.

Dinner Party Tonight

2006-05-19T14:06:00.000-05:00

Tonight we have some friends coming over. We get along well with the couple, who now have a new baby. Always an excuse to drink, in my case. But we share a number of interests and always end up having a good. For a long time, we would only manage to see each every 6 months, despite living less than a mile apart. But recently, we've decided to make a concerted effort and schedule dinners every six to eight weeks.

As I mentioned, K has been in a foul temper. Even this morning, she was on the irritable side. But this afternoon on the phone, she's sounding more like her well-tempered self. That should make this evening more entertaining.

I've been working on the menu and need to go shopping after work. I am cutting out of work early. It's my early day anyway, I only worked 8 hours today. Normally, I put in 9 to get an extra day off. It's off to Whole Foods to pick up for food for the following menu. I've been hitting the William Sonoma site for the recipes.

hummus and toasted pita (hopefully, I won't burn the pita in the oven this time. Last time I set off the smoke alarm.)
Goat Cheese stuffed cherry tomatoes

Coconut Lime Shrimp
Zucchini and Tomatoes Baked
Coleslaw

Strawberry Shortcake

Since I haven't actually even purchased the ingredients for any of this, I need to get my tail to the store and get home to start cooking. Though, it shouldn't be too difficult to pull off in a couple of hours.

I'll also be breaking out the Wokka. Last time, these guys just had a taste and then I ran out. But we have a new bottle. Very difficult to procure. It has to be shipped in from Chicago, because no one sells it around here. But the stuff is amazing. I really wanted to try some of the cocktails this time, but I'm not sure that I'll have the opportunity. I may just have to stick with the tonic and lime combination, which is excellent and simple.

Well, I need to run. Wish me luck on the cooking.

Mild Flashback

2006-05-18T12:33:00.000-05:00

This morning was a slight flashback to a couple of years ago. Nowhere near the extreme intensity, but still a tinge of the past. It makes me wonder how I ever survived K's illness.

K's been suffering from bad allergies. Though the weather is cool, we keep the a/c running in our bedroom and in the downstairs to try and filter out some of the pollen as it enters the house. Regardless, she's been in quite a bit of pain from her sinuses and her head is very congested. She missed work last Friday, this past Tuesday, and again today. Today, she fortunately had a doctor's appointment to have them take a look at her. With luck, they will prescribe something to take away her discomfort.

But K was on the edge of anger today. Rage is actually the more accurate word. Yesterday we had a brief spat about something minor. Then this morning it felt as if I had to be very tentative to keep her from exploding. I pointed that out and she did acknowledge that she was struggling. I hate those moods. I hate feeling as if I'm going to be yelled at regardless of what I do. It occurs infrequently these days, but I hate all of it.

I left to head off to work. Not that I was terribly enthusiastic about going. I'm the only member of my work group under 55, and retirement is starting to sound good. My perspective is distorted by all these guys, who will retire in the very near future. About a block from the house, my cell rang. K was calling to see if I would call in sick and spend the day with her.

Her call was a sign that she was feeling pretty awful. Alternatively though, I dislike the pressure to change my schedule and stay with her. I told her that I had a deadline (which was the truth) and suggested that she take a xanax and return to bed. She did that.

I checked in around noon to make sure that she was up and ready to go to see the doctor. She was and sounded a bit better, but we didn't speak for more than a moment.

I don't know if it's the pain from the allergies or if she's having PMS or what is impacting her mood. She normally takes Paxil to control the PMS symptoms. A few months ago, she moved from taking it a few days a month to taking it daily. But the past couple of days, she stopped taking it. Paxil interferes with her libido and she was tired of it. She will take it when she suspects that PMS is lurking. I suggested this morning that her mood may be a result of the lack of Paxil. She was going to take it again today and see how she feels. It seems to work fairly quickly. Libido versus evil temper--it's one of those faustian trade-offs that people with bipolar are constantly negotiating. Do I want to remain poor and unknown and let god have my soul or do I sell my soul to the Mephistopheles and become wealthy and famous? Do I want to be interested in sex and have an evil temper so no one will want to be near me or do I want to be well-tempered and not be interested in sex? What a choice.

June is fast approaching. The past three Junes have been bad. I don't know why. It's been different reasons each year. I'm hopeful that this year it will break whatever curse is on that month. I'm busy planning to go strawberry picking to make jam and strawberry cake and strawberry soup. Yum! Last year, I pick 11 pounds. I think I might do a bit more this year. Then I would have some extra to freeze. But I won't make the mistake of leaving the freshly picked berries in a parked car with the inside temperature exceeding a 100 degrees. The berries were okay--but I'm pretty sure that they would have been better without the heat bath.

Things will get back to normal. I'm feeling fussy and whiny for a number of reasons today. I wrangled an invitation to a breakfast tomorrow morning to go with a friend. He writes to me today that he is being sent to Dallas for the weekend. Now, I'm trying to decide if I should still go, since I am not actually in the invited group. But the head of my larger organization is speaking and I'm trying to worm my way into his office as a chief-of-staff. I'll consult a co-worker or two and see what they think.

Sunday Afternoon

2006-05-14T15:02:00.000-05:00

I feel as if I have been neglecting this blog. Actually, there's no question about it. I have been neglecting this blog. But it seems as if out life has picked up its pace and we are busy doing other fun things. However, I am taking the time to post this afternoon.

It's raining outside. Spring has been beautiful. Normally we go from 50 to 90 digress within a few days. But all of April and May have been wonderful. The temperature is in the 60's or 70's, no humidity, and long beautiful days. I have not taken advantage of the weather as I should, but I am appreciating it. I just paid all the bills. I have no idea how we manage to spend so much money keeping a household running. When I first moved out into my own apartment back in 1997, I had $1300 a month after taxes to pay everything. Now, with well over five times that amount of money available every month, it still seems as if we spend it all. Fortunately, the retirement and savings amounts are all pulled prior to the money hitting our bank account. But I am needlessly griping. It's due to extravagance like going out to dinner three times in the past week that we spend so much. Lately, we have been very good about cooking at home, but the past few days we were either with other people or out and about.

That brings me to my best news. K is doing wonderfully. It struck me the other day that she is much more comfortable with herself. The constant self-hatred that she had battled ever since we met and long before I knew her has gone. It's replaced with a feeling of confidence. She's not always happy with everything that she does. For example, she's not happy about her weight. But she feels able to change it and doesn't have deep self-hatred about it. Part of it is working with the personal trainer has made her realize that she can change her body and she is physically capable of doing things. But the change really stems from the work that she has done with her therapist over the past three years.

I told K all of this. I also told her therapist during her session yesterday. Her therapist confirmed my observations with her own. K's therapist believes that K will soon be able to only come see her when there's a problem. K's not sure that she's quite ready to be released from therapy, but they are going to once every three weeks.

I hope that I don't regret these feelings of happiness and optimism. I don't believe I will, but I do feel slightly superstitious about K's illness.

The two of us remain disgustingly happy. May 5 was the 5th anniversary of our commitment ceremony. We went to the mountains, but only stayed one night, as the pollen was so bad neither of us was able to breathe. K's still suffering this weekend. Right now, she's curled up in bed trying to feel better. I suffered throughout the weekend, but have started to feel better over the past few days.

My job search is continuing. No word from the three applications that I have submitted, but it usually takes about 8 weeks before there's a chance of hearing anything. It hasn't been eight weeks for any of them yet. However, my current organization keeps offering me alternatives. Most of them have been unappealing, but last week they finally presented one that does interest me. I am curious to see if it actually comes through. I am hoping so, because the position has a number of advantages. 1. Closer to home. 2. Developmental opportunity 3. I won't have to work for the SOB, who I worked for a few years ago and will have to work for again beginning in July. 4. Work should be more engaging. 5. I will have significantly more power in the organization in the new position, though it won't technically be a promotion. In the end, it won't be enough to make me stay, but it will be enough to keep me happy while I look for something else.

I am thoroughly sick of my current commute. I could take public transportation, but that lengthens my commute from about 75-90 minutes to about 120-150 minutes. 2.5 hours is much too long to spend commuting, though I would be able to read. The challenge of the commute is that my office is not within walking distance of the train. Once I am dropped off in the deep suburbs, I have to then catch a shuttle for the last few miles. The shuttle only comes every half-hour and takes another 10 minutes. It adds quite a bit of time on the end of an already long trip. But driving is becoming increasingly more challenging. Traffic has worsened, so it can take me 45-60 minutes to get home at night. Also, not a fun way to end a long day. Best answer, and the one that I am working towards, is to find a job in the city. I keep hoping one will soon materialize.

Yesterday, K and I had a fun day. A colleague of mine gave me tickets to see Golda's Balcony. I didn't know and still know very little about Israel during the 70's, but the play was excellent. Valerie Harper was a one-woman show playing Golda Meir. She did an excellent job and it was thought provoking. Guess I need to do some reading on my history. We attended the matinee and then headed over to another part of the city to hang out and wait for another friend to join us for dinner. It was good. K asked me on the way home, if I am still frustrated by our lack of activity. I had to laugh. It's the opposite. Instead of doing nothing, we are doing so much that the house is a mess.

After returning home, we headed out to sit on the front porch and watch the pedestrian traffic and the neighborhood. It was tranquil until the several police officers suddenly ran by us with drawn weapons. At that point, we decided we were better off in the house. We never did figure out what happened. I'll have to e-mail the Ltd. and ask. But the police helicopter spent about 30 minutes searching the alley behind our house and our backyards with their searchlight. The police entered a couple buildings across the street, but in the end no arrests were made. Usually, there is a gun shot or yelling or something before the police show up. This time, it was perfectly calm until patrol cars and officers materialized from the darkness. And we had just been talking about how the neighborhood is getting so much better. Well, it is, but there are always a few set backs.

My mental state is good. I am happy and content. I would like a new job, but that has little bearing on my general state of mind. I begin to wonder if the title caregiver even applies. My thought is that it probably does not. K doesn't need a caregiver any more. I only hope that she never will need one again. I can't decide if I am being realistic or lulled into complacency. But over the past few years, I never would have believed that we would have reached the point where we are today.

Catching up

2006-04-28T16:52:00.000-05:00

I know that I warned you all that I would be gone for some time, but even I didn't expect that I would end up being absent this long. Or at least it feels like, though I realize my last post was only 12 days ago.

Right now, I am enjoying the spring weather. Normally in this part of the country, spring passes us by. It will go from 50 to 90 within the span of a few days. Not this year, instead, the weather has been lovely in the 60's and 70's, with long beautiful sunny days. Today is one of those days, and K and I are off work and able to enjoy it. I am sitting on the front steps with the laptop balanced on my knees and observing the rush hour traffic backing up for the light at the corner with a beer next to me. K is upstairs napping.

April has been an exceptionally busy month. It's rare that I feel that I can only concentrate on one day at a time, because if I think ahead it would have overwhelmed me. Now, quickly approaching the end of the month, I have done everything that I set out to accomplish and I am happy about it.

My job application was submitted on Monday afternoon, 10 hours prior to the midnight deadline. I have no perspective on how well it was done, but I know that my first and second level managers believe that I have a shot at the executive training program. I will be pleased if I make it to the interview stage.

In addition to working on the seven essays from hell, I have been conducting informational interviews and networking for the month. That networking has led to further contacts and further networking. The one thing that no one ever mentions about networking is that it takes forever. Not only does it take tons of time to meet with people and chat about what you would like to do, but it take time for them to pass along the resume and speak to all their contacts. I'm not really complaining, but I do realize that the networking will probably only lead to the opportunity to apply for a job. Though, it will be an opportunity to apply for a job with the person on the other end already recognizing my name. At least, this is my theory. It hasn't played out that way yet.

The job stuff would have been quite enough, but we also spent a lot of April socializing. K's family came for Easter, including the 14 week old niece. K's brain has been fried with baby hormones. She can't get Anne out of her mind. During the visit, the baby spent two relatively quiet nights with us. Even though they have been gone for two weeks, K's thoughts constantly linger on her niece and what she is doing. My guess is crying, feeding, or sleeping, but somehow I think that my answer isn't quite the sentimental one that matches K's thoughts.

K had a good visit with her family. Probably the best visit ever with her sister. K and her sister have never been close. The tension in the relationship was captured early on in a photo of K at 6 years old holding her 3 year old sister in a chokehold for the camera. Things never really improved till the birth of Anne. K and her sister are both making a concerted effort to improve ties between them and I know that K is relishing knowing her sister as an adult.

K was a bit lost after her family left. I was exhausted and somewhat irritated with K. K's brain stopped functioning in the presence of Anne and she didn't help me manage the guests as well as she should have. We've discussed it now and I think things will be better for the next visit. We will see them in July, though K is busy plotting as to how she can take off for a weekend and head out to see the baby.

The personal trainer time is starting to pay off. K doesn't think that she's lost weight, but she has stopped snoring at night. That's a big plus as far as I am concerned. Also, she's beginning to sleep without ambien every night. My take on the sleeping without ambien is that her body is responding to the exercise and naturally falling asleep more easily. K's lifting the weights at the personal trainer's, and she is walking more. This past week, we even went for a bike ride. It was her first ride in years. We have one planned on Sunday to the farmer's market.

Yesterday was exceptionally busy. K and I attended a work related training program and open house for the first part of the day. Then, she came to hang out at my office for a few hours, so we could attend a farewell reception for one of my colleagues. It was a very good reception. K had the opportunity to meet some of my co-workers, whom I have spoken of for the past two years. She knew my old office, but had not met anyone really from my new office. They had the chance to put the face on K's name, since I talk constantly about her.

It was also a bittersweet reception. Over the next few months, the majority of the attendees will either be leaving for new jobs or retiring. I don't think that the group will be together again the way it was last night. It's not a secret that everyone is searching frantically for a way out of the organization. A number of people were even loudly joking about banding together to help me search for a job. A couple people in from our regional offices appeared somewhat shocked about the openness of the conversation. But I've had a very good two years with this group. They are fun. I've grown professionally and personally. I've been well treated and my professional work is extremely well-respected in the organization. I couldn't have asked for a more supportive environment. It's upsetting to think that it is being dismantled. Instead of regrets, I work to remind myself that I have been fortunate to have this situation at all. K keeps telling me and everyone else that I lead a charmed existence. The past two years have certainly felt that way.

It's been a good month. But I am glad that May doesn't appear to be anywhere near as busy. The highlight is that K and I will celebrate the 5th anniversary of our commitment ceremony next Friday. We've heading to the mountains to take advantage of the opportunity to use a friend's cabin for the weekend. This way the dog can join us and explore the land and chase small furry animals.

The good news is that with all the activities, K's illness has played no role. It seems as if she is only becoming stronger and more stable. I have no reservation about saying that, but a small part of the reptilian side of my brain wonders if I should not praise our fortune for the danger of bringing on bad luck. I am not worried about the long term, but I do have some reservations about the month of June. For the past three years, June has proven to be the most difficult month of the year. I hope that we are able to break the cycle this year. Sitting in the spring air, I believe that we will.

Still Out Here

2006-04-08T20:55:00.000-05:00

Is it pathetic to be sitting on the couch reading other people's blogs on a Saturday evening? K and I are taking it easy. Last night, we hosted a dinner party after work and I didn't get to bed 'till after 2 am. K had the sense to go to bed around 11 pm. Then we had a personal training session this morning at 10 am. I did better than I expected. Fortunately, I didn't have a hangover, though I probably deserved one for mixing Wokka, wine, and Johnny Walker Blue. K had given me the blue for my birthday in January and we bring it out when we have guests. The bottle is going quickly. I think that we need to find another good scotch that is somewhat less expensive. I don't want to be cheap, but $200/ bottle is quite a bit.

K is really getting into the working out. This past week, she's been focused more on walking and trying to keep moving instead of sitting around as much. At today's session, there was already an improvement in her stamina and flexibility. I felt better as well, though I know that I will be hurting tomorrow for it. Now, K's working on figuring out how to fit three 30-minute walks in during the week without killing herself. All this activity does have a bit of a downside. Since she's just getting into it, she missed two days of work last week as a result of exhaustion. I wasn't shocked, but I know that it frustrated her. We also had house guests last weekend and stayed up way too late with them. Yes, there is a theme that when we entertain, we don't stick to our early to bed schedule.

(Side note: Should we have washed the dog food container before putting in the dog food? We are discussing a dog that picks garbage up (occasionally) and eats it and licks her ass. K says that we shouldn't bother and my take is that we ought to at least make the attempt.)

Last night, our guests got a bit rowdy. K pulled out a copy of the butch test, which provides biased judgments on whether you are considered butch or not in the lesbian community. It was entertaining as K was the only lesbian in the room. We had two heterosexual women, one heterosexual man, and myself, bisexual woman. Despite K being the lesbian, one of our guests was pushing hard for points and wanted desperately to be counted as butch. She did better than I did. I believe that I received the "Bumbling Bisexual" category. When I last took the test a few years ago, I was "Alluringly androgynous". However, since that time I have begun to get manicures, pedicures, etc, for which you lose points. Despite all the competition, we did have an enjoyable evening. It was abruptly brought to a halt when our guests 3 month old daughter decided it was time to head for home or howl. No indication of the child's sexual preference at this stage.

The good news is that K's bipolar is low key. She's doing well. She's been even more affectionate than usual of late, which is nice. We remain disgustingly in love even after 8+ years of togetherness. Things are good and hopefully they will remain so.

Just for full disclosure, K has been reading over my shoulder as I have typed this entire post.

New York Times articles

2006-04-04T13:04:00.000-05:00

I'm hitting major writer's block in regards to my job application. I have two of the seven essays completed. I've been working on the third, but it seems as if I can't focus. As a response, I thought that I would blog for a moment.

The New York Times has carried two excellent articles related to mental illness over the past couple of days. The first one discusses an implement to treat drug resistant depression. It's still in the testing phase and is extremely expensive, but the anecdotes from the article sound promising.

The second article is a discussion of whether impulse behavior can be bad or lead to mental illness. There seems to be a fine line between positive and negative impulse behaviors.

These articles are available free for two weeks, then you have to pay a nominal fee, if you aren't a Times Select subscriber. I finally gave in and began to pay the $7.95 a month to access Times Select. I was too frustrated by not having access to all the columnists.

K is doing relatively well. Today she's asleep. We miscalculated with our guests this weekend. On Friday and Saturday nights, we stayed up too late. Then Sunday we napped after their departure and ended up sleeping till 6 pm. Do you think that either one of us was able to go to sleep at 9:30 pm? Not bloody likely. Also with the beginning of daylight savings time and my period, we reached a confluence of events that wiped us both out. My manager kicked me out of the office early yesterday, as I looked so miserable. The exhaustion probably is feeding into my writer's block as well.

I've been doing better about not getting wired with K. She has leave and I know that she hates to use it, but there are times when she is unable to make it to the office. Today is one of them. I called the house at 1 pm and she was still sound asleep. I'm hoping that she'll be better by the time I get home. The other part is that K wears a hormone patch. She's been very poor about changing them weekly, as required.
That may be affecting her mood. Last night, she began to get wired, but was able to catch herself. We also made sure to take the time and put on a new patch.

Nothing else of interest. I really need to keep working on the application.

K pumping iron (no pink weights)

2006-03-31T22:28:00.000-05:00

A week ago, K suggested that we should return to the personal trainer that I was seeing a couple of years ago. K didn't go with me at that time, but K has finally decided that she wants to take control of her physical condition and begin improving her physical condition. Today was our first session working out. She was thrilled that she was able to do anything. The trainer is extremely encouraging and willing to take it slow with K. Unfortunately, he doesn't feel that way about me. I'm exhausted, as K basks in her happy glow.

I think that K's greatest triumph with the exercise routine is that she can use real weights. About 2 years ago, I purchased some weights for her to use at home. To her mortification, the 2 lb weights are bright pink. Today, she was able to use 3 lb weights that were black and stainless. They looked exactly like the weights I was using. She was thrilled. Actually, she did great. I think this was a wonderful idea on her part. I'm happy to return to the trainer to improve my condition and K will benefit as well.

Lately

2006-03-29T20:28:00.000-05:00

I haven't been writing much lately. I keep mulling over whether my lack of interest in writing means that I am done with the concept of blogging or if I should try to ride it out and see what happens next. Thus far, I keep coming down in favor of riding out my lack of creativity and seeing where things go over the next few months.

Part of my silence pertains to my job. My organization is collapsing around me. The business line I work in remains profitable, but the senior management is fleeing the organization like rats scuttling off the rotten ship. Either to retirement or to other organizations. This has left me with feelings of abandonment. Now, I have decided to join the exodus and start looking for another position. My manager is retiring on June 1 and his goal is to get his last two employees jobs outside the organization. So, he's reviewing my resume, cover letters, writing samples, and everything else that I need to submit for jobs. We had a strategy session today as to what I ought to be working on to get the best job. It's great having the support. My 2nd level supervisor is busy sending out my resume to the people in her network, who I would be interested in joining.

But all the writing and focus on the job search reduces my blogging time. It will continue to be further reduced, as I am starting to work on a giant application package. It includes 7 essays on subjects such as leading change, leading people, business acumen. It's an executive training program at an organization where I've wanted to work for years. The package is due on April 24. I'll try to write in the meantime, but I may be very quiet over here.

PTSD?

2006-03-15T13:04:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to write about a bad week that K had, while I was taking care of my mother. The original posts can be found here. K didn't make it into the office once the week that I was out of town. Not a good thing. I wasn't so frustrated, as I was 800 miles away and not confronted with it day after day. She was very frustrated by it.

During that week, K made a special trip to her therapist to try and get her out of whatever slump had occurred. That session brought out an interesting diagnoses from K's therapist. Previously, she had diagnosed these episodes as depression, but she apparently felt that they never quite fit into the depression box. This time, after discussing some of K's childhood memories, she said that she believes that K's been suffering from intermittent bouts of post traumatic stress syndrome.

The only reason that I didn't laugh out loud is that I have an incredible amount of respect for K's therapist. K has been diagnosed with PTSD as the result of a physical (not sexual) assault that she suffered as a teenager. Afterwards, she had a psychotic break and was institutionalized for a week as she suffered from hallucinations. It was that hospitalize, when she began to smoke and didn't stop for 27 years, January 1, 2003 when she awoke in the ICU after her heart attack.

Okay, I've digressed. But K's therapist believes that K's episodes are caused by PTSD. She also believes that PTSD will be much easier to treat than intermittent bouts of depression. I hope she's right. Since that week, which was almost 4 weeks ago, K's made it to the office daily, as she had been doing before. K & her therapist have also been working to combat the PTSD.

Things have been going really well lately. If anything, I've been the grouchy partner. My stomach, after behaving for a few months, has given me a bad couple days this week. That makes me into, in K's words, a snapping turtle. I groused at her for things that I shouldn't have. I have been pleased that I am back on track with exercise. I'm going to the gym 4 times a week, 3x cardio and 1x weight lifting. I think it may slowly be starting to make a difference.

We are also beginning to be more social. Tonight, Ayelet Waldman is in town. She is an author (wrote Bad Mother blog) and
suffers from bipolar. We going to hear her speak. Tomorrow, there's a neighborhood get together and Friday we have tickets to a play. A definite change than last year, when we rarely went out and were usually too tired to do anything.

K has a visit with her psychiatrist on Friday. She's looking forward to telling him that she's reduced her trileptal by half and rarely takes either xanax or ambien. This is the plan that they set up in December to get her off some of the more tranqualizing meds and it's made a big difference in K's energy level with no negative trade offs. It will be great to report positive progress of the past three months.

Sunshine

2006-03-03T13:05:00.000-05:00

The dog and I are curled up in the sunshine. It's cold and windy out, but the sunshine is nice and warm. Today's my day off, and I'm home after I had my 2nd CT scan to look for liver problems. Unformatted, I fear that this new scan isn't going to give very good information.

First, I'm a wimpy patient and have a tendency to whine about things. This scan requires about 500 ml, maybe a bit less, to be shot through an IV into your arm in the span of 20 seconds. The pain and burning were incredible. I forgot that I was supposed to be holding my breath and staying still. Instead I was writhing on the platform and clutching my hair with the hand without the IV. Not a pretty sight. I'm hoping that they got enough information, so we don't have to go to the liver biopsy stage.

K is off to even colder places to take care of the baby niece for the weekend. Her sister had her gall bladder removed and K offered to come out for the weekend and help. As I've posted earlier, this is K's first trip alone to her family since she moved out here 6.5 years ago. I am left home alone, which I've been eager anticipating.

I'm not anticipating it because I want to do things without K, but rather I would just like to have the space to myself for a while. Today is somewhat busy, but I didn't' schedule anything for myself tomorrow. I'm hoping that once I get past this lethargy that I'll be able to do some work around the house either organization or start working on fixing our entry way, which looks awful.

Basement is still not finished, as it still leaks. But the windows were installed last weekend. First time since we've lived here (7 years) that there are windows in all five openings down there. Hard to believe, isn't it? New windows look great, but I still hate contractors.

Over the past month, but really in the past week, I've started to confront the realization that I need to find another job. I'm treated well, but my organization is turning into a ghost town. The entire senior management chain is ready to leave and this situation is starting to look bleak, even though my job is fine. It seems like it is time to move on. Another thing on my to do list is to update my resume and then I can start sending it to some colleagues for feedback. I'm thinking about the possibility of switching sectors from public to private or non-profit. Though, I would like to stay in the public sector. I'm trying not to be swayed by the money, despite its temptations. I'm finally starting to clearly think it through, though I don't know where I'll end up.

Valentine's Day Gift

2006-02-24T10:54:00.000-05:00

K gave me my Valentine's Day gift before I left town to nurse my mother. I know that this is a bit late, by about 10 days. But I thought I would share the text. It's a etched square of glass with the words:

YOU are always with me,
a PARTNER in life enhances
my accomplishments and helps
me realize my dreams. Forever
CARING, forever SHARING,
you redefine the qualities of
LOYALTY, devotion, and LOVE.
Whether you are listening from
the heart or inspiring by example,
your contributions to my life
surpass being significant.

It's professional enough that I can have it out on my desk, where I can see the glass, while I work on my computer.

I'll write some more later today or over the weekend.

So far away. . .

2006-02-15T09:27:00.000-05:00

I left on Monday morning to head to the land of snow and ice to help my mom out for a few days. I was supposed to leave on Sunday morning, but my flight was canceled due to the snow and ice that had made it's way to my region of the country. But other than having to get up at the god awful hour of 4 am to make my flight, everything went smoothly.

My mom's surgery went very well and she was released from the hospital about 24 hours later. Now she's quietly sleeping at home to continue to speed along the recovery. I'm relieved as I am heading home on Sunday pm.

What has me worried right now or a bit worried is K. After weeks of getting up a going to work every day, she hasn't made it one day this week. She also missed last Friday due to a physical ailment. She says that she's unable to get over the hump to go into the office. It seems as if it is partially due to my absence, but at this point I believe it is something more. What more, I have no clue.

I'm trying not to worry about it. She repeatedly tells me not to worry about it. She had 30 hours of leave going into the week, so I guess she'll be down to zero or close to it by the time she makes her way back to the office.

I don't feel any guilt about not being there. K must be able to do these things by herself even if I am not there to give her the extra shove in the morning. Even the extra shove is no guarantee that she'll make it in. Instead, I'm irritated that it took her until Wednesday to contact her therapist and update her on the situation. At times like these, even when I am right next to K there is a distance separating us. It is a psychological distance as she withdraws into herself. I can't reach her.

Yesterday, I woke up and thought about giving K a call at the office to say hi and chat for a few moments before I got up. But I held back, because I didn't want to be disappointed if she hadn't made it in. This morning, I thought about doing the same thing, but once again I held back to prevent disappointment. I hate having to stop myself and think through "Should I do this or am I setting myself up to be angry and upset about K?"

One of the things that I have been working on over the past few months is my reaction to K's behavior. For a while, I was getting extremely angry with her over her absences from the office. It wasn't good for either of us. Instead I got extremely upset and riled and K was even more upset with herself and felt that she couldn't turn to me for support. Recently, I have been doing much better with it. However, today I can feel the same feelings of frustration and anger welling in me. I'm trying to let it go. And I am succeeding. I have to trust that she knows her limitations better than anyone else.

The other part of the scenario that bothers me is when is this going to end? K has her job. Recently, she's been engaged and making progress on the project and on coalition building throughout her organization. Yet, these bouts of malaise or illness still strike. When does this piece of the bipolar or the depression go away? It seems as if it has been with us forever. I know that it is less frequent and that K has managed to build up some leave, but it feels as if it is all swept away when she misses more than one or two days of work with this crap.

I'll work on letting go of my emotions.

Out of Touch

2006-02-10T14:15:00.000-05:00

I haven't been blogging lately. No specific reason as to the halt. It just seems as if I haven't had anything particular to discuss online. I mean, I can bring up the irritating things like, I weigh more than I want to, 2 lbs heavier than my recorded heaviest weight. I'm not thrilled. I have to lose 5 lbs to be back in the normal BMI range at 24.9.

Sunday, I am heading out across country to the land of cold weather and ice to help my mom out for a week. She's having surgery to have her bladder tacked up. Since her problem stems from childbirth, I figure the least I can do it go and assist for a week. I'm thinking that maybe I can work on my resume and job search strategy. My office is in the midst of a large reorganization. The section where I work will be relatively unscathed or so we think. But another office will likely lose 50% of their workforce. Not a good sign for continued employment. I may not go anywhere, but I should at least think about the possibility. The management hopes that enough people will take early-out and buy-out options so layoffs are prevented. I prefer to be prepared.

K's doing fine though battling an intenstinal bug. She's out today, but my guess is she'll work next Friday rather than use leave for today.

Nothing else.

Not By Meds Alone

2006-02-02T14:52:00.000-05:00

One aspect that I have struggled with throughout K's illness and now her recovery is my own role. I realize that she probably would not be as healthy today or even be here today if I hadn't been there to coax her along and provide a solid link to the "real" world. The meds enabled her to follow and regain control, but our relationship was instrumental to her regaining her health. However, that also creates a schism in my own thinking.

I don't want to necessarily be the reason that K is alive and be the reason she wants to continue to live. The pressure of that responsibility is more than I want to bear. Also, I feel as if my personal freedom is inhibited by her reliance on our relationship to bring stability to her life. What if our relationship goes bad? What if at some point I want to break up with her? Where do I balance my responsibilities for my own well-being against my responsibilities to K's health?

Fortunately, I have not been in a position where I have to answer any of those questions, because I don't know what my answers would be. Her illness brought me closer to those questions, but strangely enough at that time I was so wrapped up in her that I didn't have to face those questions. My fear is that someday I may have to answer them and I don't know how I will do so.

My thought right now is that I will remain with K unless I feel that I am putting myself at a personal or psychological risk to do so. She knows this. I hope that I never have to put this theory to the test. Right now, we are disgustingly in love. A close friend of mine flew in from Seattle for my birthday weekend and she had tears in her eyes as she was talking about the happiness that K and I bring to one another.

But, when the relationship becomes overshadowed by the events of mental illness, these questions are ones that every caretaker has to ask and some must answer.

What brought on this line of thinking is an article in this week's Newsweek from Jay Neugeboren addressing the impact of relationships in his brother's mental health.

K believes that her relationship with me and her therapist are what enabled her to reach her current level of health and mental stability. I agree with her. There are lots of old proverbs out there that if you save someone's life you continue to be responsible for them or perhaps there are no such proverbs and Hollywood makes them up. Regardless, I'm not quite sure how far that responsibility goes.

Some good news is that K has consistently gone to the office on every day she is supposed to since the beginning of the year. 2006 is going great for us. Whatever mild depression K had been in seems to have lifted and she's back to normal. Also, she even has about a week of annual leave stored up allowing her to take time off, if she so chooses. This is a completely different place than where we were at the end of December.

To highlight how well K's feeling, she's even planning a trip to Chicago to visit her niece without me. It will be her first trip to visit her family alone, since we left the city 6.5 years ago. It's a testament to how much work she's put into her relationship with her family and the impact a new baby can have.

Catching Up

2006-01-20T14:39:00.000-05:00

As you may have gathered, things have been busy for us lately. Last weekend, we drove cross-country to visit the new baby. This week, I spent a week in training. The class finished up around noon on Friday, so I've had the afternoon to play. Right now, I'm sitting in a cafe with a mug of tea and taking the opportunity to do a bit of writing.

K and I went through a rough patch with her work attendance in December and earlier this month. Finally, it reached a point, when the two of us were unable to discuss the issue together. K felt incredibly guilty and I was angry, as my previous posts have made clear. When we became unable to discuss the problem, it was time for us to head off to K's therapist to help us communicate. I know some therapists won't treat the couple if they are treating the individual, but Dr. M has made it clear that I am welcome to sit in if K and I consider it necessary.

The result was the I was able to express my frustration with K's inability to go to the office and I gained a better insight on why it is so difficult for her to make it in at times. I knew that K was having a difficult time listening to the discussion. As soon as her job attendance is broached as a topic, her preference is to withdraw and tune out the discussion. She did concentrate and listen to what I had to say and my concerns. I also acknowledge that my anger with her struggle isn't helpful to either one of us. The result was that Dr. M believes that K is still battling with the depression that she's had most of her life. We also discussed some ways that K may make it to the office for partial days, if she's feeling too tired in the morning to go in. We didn't reach a complete solution, but we began working towards one. The result from that session is that K has made it in to the office for the past 2 weeks without missing a day.

The only other humorous thing to report is that K went to the doctor yesterday. She's somewhat overweight, has had a heart attack, and takes blood pressure lowering meds. Besides those things, she eats salt constantly. However, due to her lithium intake, her salt tests low in her blood tests. The resident suggested to her that she eat a bag of chips to help her salt levels. Somehow, that doesn't seem quite like the right answer. I could see saying "Perhaps you want to eat some nuts or add more salt to your food." But the idea of a doctor recommending high calorie, high fat chips seems unbelievable.

I'm feeling good. My 33rd birthday is on the 28th and K has already begun planning for it. Nothing else happening.

Aunties K & L

2006-01-16T18:16:00.000-05:00

K's sister had a baby right after Christmas. She's the only one of the three siblings who has reproduced and will likely remain the only one with a single child. She's the youngest at 40, not the best time for the first baby. But, the baby arrived and is healthy and happy. K and I drove out 700 miles with a dresser on top of the Jetta to see the baby this weekend.

K was smitten. She didn't want to let the baby go virtually the entire time we visited her sister. She cooed, fed, changed, and adored the baby the entire time, which is good.

The other good part is that we seemed to have been able to make the trip with no repercussions to K's mental state. There were a couple of danger areas. First, a long trip in a very short period of time. It was 12 hours of driving on Thursday and on Sunday. Second, we had the excitement of seeing her family. Third, there is a new baby and the accompanying hormones to send her tailspinning. But none of the bad seems to have taken place. Rather, we are slightly tired and mildly irritably, but that's the extent of it. Yippeee!

Not as Good as It Gets

2006-01-05T16:44:00.000-05:00

I've been meaning to write this post for the past few weeks, but haven't been able to find the time. Warning: Lots of med and doctor visit talk in here. Right now, I should really be putting a project plan together for work instead of blogging, but the blogging won out for my last few minutes in the office.

K went to see her psychiatrist a few weeks ago. It was another frustrating visit in terms of scheduling. We had actually scheduled the appointment for Dec. 9, directly before we left town to go to NYC. We show up and the front desk people immediately say "Hope you aren't here to see Dr. X. He's been out of town for a week on a trip scheduled since October." This is the 3rd or 4th time that this has happened to us. The front desk didn't call to reschedule the appointment, because K had scheduled back in September.

We were ultimately able to get in on 12/17 and we let the doctor know that we are continuing to have scheduling issues. He mentioned that it seems to keep happening to us that they screw up. I pointed out that some patients may be too embarrassed to mention the screw-ups to him thinking that it might be their own fault. With both K and I standing there when she schedules, we know that it isn't on our side. The only good part is that we live 1.5 miles from the doctor's office, so it isn't a giant problem.

Last December, Dr. X told K that she is in full remission. We weren't quite sure what this meant, but we figured it was good. What we didn't know is whether full remission meant that things were as good as they were going to get or if K could continue to expect improvement. We assumed that it meant that any remaining symptoms, the irritability, exhaustion, lack of sex drive would remain with her. The exhaustion has been the most difficult to deal with as it impacts K's ability to function. At least once a month, she sleeps 18 hours a day. On the weekends, she sleeps 10-12 hours a night. It interferes with her ability to go out and do things. Finally, we mentioned it to the doctor.

Overall, the doctor was pleased with K's progress. He said that every time he sees her she's doing better. That's good news. Then I brought up my concern about her exhaustion. He responded by saying that K's main problem has been anxiety and depression. Thus, her meds have been tailored towards a sedative effect. As she has gotten stronger and healthier, she has also been over-sedated. He immediately developed a plan to reduce the sedative effect of her medication.

Basically, he is hoping that in 3 months when she sees him again that she will be mostly sleeping without the Ambian. Next, she is supposed to reduce the Trileptal down to once a day, then she is supposed to reduce her intake of xanax. K has started doing this all simultaneously. Just reducing, not eliminating. But the Ambian and Xanax are already as needed. And she had made the decision to increase the Trileptal as a response to her increased rage due to her job. Now that things are settling down, she feels confident that she can return to the lower dose.

The positive message that I left the doctor's office with is that he continues to expect that K should improve every time he sees her. Where she is today is not as good as it gets. Rather, we can hope for better things in the future. That was my best Christmas gift. (Yes, that is a sappy line, but it's true.)

2005-12-30T20:11:00.000-05:00

Usually, I don't post when I am angry, as I was when I wrote yesterday morning. This evening, I'm no longer angry, but sad. It seems as if off and on I spent the entire day in tears.

K didn't make it in to the office again this morning. She had asked me to drive her in last night, but then this morning she said that she could tell her thoughts were distorted. She said that she was standing outside of her body and could feel that her thinking wasn't right. I didn't even get angry. I rolled over and went back to sleep after holding her a few minutes.

I'm sad and upset. I want to blame most of it on my period. The last few months, it seems as if my period is draining all my energy as the blood is released. Not a pleasant image, but accurate. Additionally, we continue to have leakage problems in the basement and learned that there should have been more prevention work done prior to the concrete floor being laid. Now, we may have to deal with continual dampness and seepage. K offered to call the contractor and handle it, but I couldn't face the thought of even having the conversation with him. We tell him exactly what to do and what materials to buy and then he and his little contractor friends don't follow the directions, screw up the installation, and it doesn't work. The sump pump that they installed a few weeks ago makes a very irritating high pitched scream when it's on and last night continued to run despite there being no water to pump. Needless to say, I'm not in a good mood.

I'm feeling pretty hopeless right now. Things, non-specific things that I am unable to define, are not good. I'm still on the verge of tears and K's wired as well. K suggested that we take tomorrow to spoil ourselves as it's been a miserable year between her job and the basement. We're not sure what we will do yet, but it will be something nice like spending the day in bed.

January 1 is the anniversary of K's heart attack. It will have been 3 years since the attack and when she quit smoking. She would like me to make it k-creature day to celebrate the day rather than mourning the changes that the heart attack brought to our life. My thought is to start the day off with a nice brunch and then go one from there, maybe a movie (one actually in the theater) or something else special that we rarely do.

One last bit of news, K and I are aunties. Her sister had the baby on Wednesday afternoon. Everyone's doing well, and I believe that we will try to head out there in two weeks.

2005-12-29T09:40:00.000-05:00

This morning I am very disappointed, frustrated, and angry. What keeps going through my mind is what are the boundaries on living with someone, who has bipolar? Where do my responsibilities begin and end? What are her responsibilities?

K didn't make it to work again this morning. She missed yesterday and with the exception of one week, she's missed two days every week this month. That's not a good record. Her absences result in her having no leave and she has to take leave without pay at a time when I am very concerned about money given the cost of the final bits of the basement. But I don't know how to address any of these things with her without making her feel any worse than she already does about not being in the office.

I've been home for the past two days on vacation, as my mom is in town. I know that it is more difficult for K to go to the office if I am not going in. The biggest hurdle is that she has to take a cab rather than being chauffeured to the door. But I don't feel nor do I believe that K feels that I should have to go to the office every day just because she likes having a ride. Also, I like to sleep in occasionally and take advantage of having the house to myself, which still happens infrequently.

This morning, K's voice was tight with anger. I kept my mouth shut, as I knew that if I began to speak I wouldn't be nice. Right now, I want to curl up and cry, but I am also playing the balancing act with my mom. I don't want her to turn against K or worry about me, which makes me afraid to show any type of weakness. Thankfully, my mom leaves this evening. I had hoped that her flight would be mid-day, but it isn't until 7 pm.

I also question my own reaction. Is it fair for me to be so angry with K when she's angry with herself? I believe that she can't go to work, but I also want to shake her and say that she has to go. Now that she has this job, her brain is telling her that she doesn't want. I'm not that sympathetic. Lots of people do jobs that they don't want to do. K can always look for a new position if she feels that strongly about it.

I am wound very tightly and it's no surprise that I seem to have continual stomach problems.

Quick Note

2005-12-28T19:50:00.000-05:00

I keep intending to take the time to actually write a longer entry, but thus far, I haven't been able to get to it. Probably a direct link to my mother staying with us since last Thursday. But she's back on a plane tomorrow, so I'm hoping to have a little free time sometime in the next few days.

The important news is that K did well over Christmas. She's continuing to battle exhaustion and slept the entire day today instead of going to the office. I post more on that when I get the time to write. Needless to say, I find it frustrating. I'm controlling my temper, but I hate seeing her so run down and the lines on her face.

I had a good Christmas as well. It was quiet wiith just the three of us. We pretty much stayed in almost all day on Christmas Eve and then most of the day on Christmas. Our one foray was to take the dog for a walk down by the big Christmas tree downtown.

Today we went and had afternoon tea at one of the fancier hotels. Tea, as usual, consisted of way too much food, even though we did moderate our ordering. Fortunately, we had planned for it by having a light lunch. I enjoy tea, as it is a chance to sit around and visit without any pressures. As we left the hotel, we stopped by the store Pink to look at the shirts. I need another raise before I can start to shop there. The regular price of shirts was $140, on sale cost $109. Youch! My mom scooted into Talbots to buy a couple pairs of pants on sale. She lost 40 lb about 9 months ago and has been slowly replacing her entire wardrobe.

Regardless, I've been mostly off work and don't intend to return until next Tuesday. In two weeks, K and I have to drive across country and deliver a dresser to K's sister. As it turns out, K became an auntie today (guess we both did) as her sister gave birth to a baby girl. K's been turning the idea of an auntie over in her head. Not sure how far she's gotten in her thinking about the entire thing.

I promise that I will get around to writing more. I just need to take the time to do it.

Washington Post Chat

2005-12-20T12:54:00.000-05:00

Here's a link to a chat on bipolar and other mental health disorders that occurred earlier today on Washington Post.com.

Nothing was terribly new, though people did tell a lot of sad storied that highlight the poor state of mental health care. The really useful part of the chat is that the doctor mentions various support groups.

Bipolar Week at the Washington Post

2005-12-20T12:39:00.000-05:00

Actually, it may be more accurate to say Mood Disorder week at the Washington Post, but in any case. . .

Today the Post has an article on cyclothymia, a disease that I have never heard of, which is the little cousin to bipolar disorder. The same types of sypmtoms, but they are milder. Here's the link to the article.

Might be of interest to some of you out there.

Also, I am happy not to be in NYC today with frigid temperatures (though not for Blondzila) and no public transportation.

Article

2005-12-19T12:58:00.000-05:00

I know that I've been quiet recently. K and I were away for the past week. She had a class and I tagged along to NYC to get free hotel and get to know the city. Lots of fun, but I froze to death.

Any case, I wanted to draw people's attention to an article from the Washington Post that was in the Magazine over the weekend. It details the writer's manic episode and crash.

In some ways, the confusion and the fear hit home from watching K. But in other ways, the writer's experience was very different. She continued to function throughout her crash, unlike K, who hid in bed.

The other aspect of the article was that despite excellent descriptive language that was used, can anyone really understand the spiral and confusion, if they have not lived through it or witnessed it?

The other day, K found a diary that she had kept through her illness. The words rage and fear were repeated over and over again. But I don't think K adequately described the illness for someone to understand without the first-hand knowledge.

I'll try to be better about writing.

Exhaustion

2005-11-30T14:54:00.000-05:00

I have a level of exhaustion that I can't seem to shake. K and I both stayed home yesterday and slept. But even though I rose at noon, I still felt drained throughout the day. I'm at work today, but I still feel fuzzy headed and unable to concentrate on my work. I want to put it down to "that time of the month", but in the back of my brain, I feel that I'm making an excuse for how I feel.

K's probably feeling even worse than I do. She stayed home again today to sleep.

I don't have an explanation. I spent a lot of time over the Thanksgiving weekend running around with my mother. By Sunday, I was tired and we dragged ourselves off to see Pride and Prejudice I highly recommend the movie.

The basement is nearing completion and only requires a few more hours of work. But every interaction with the contractors is draining. We hate having them in the house and we hate having to go over the work and comment on it. I was ready for them to be gone months ago.

End result, I'm tired and sleep doesn't seem to be taking the edge off the exhaustion. And the next few weeks are packed with activities that we can't avoid.

Thanksgiving

2005-11-26T11:18:00.000-05:00

It was a good day. We were roasting the turkey, baking pies, and preparing the potatoes for mashing. As I was peeling away, the peeler slipped in my hand and sliced the top of my middle finger. I have to say that I was extremely impressed by the blood splatter pattern that I managed to create in the kitchen. Needless to say, it hurt like hell and I was out of the kitchen for the rest of the food preparation.

Well, K can cook, but she isn't so enthusiastic about doing big meals and she and my mother had to step into to take over. Everything came out very well, but the trouble began with the clean-up.

I don't know if it was that K was pissed that she had to wash dishes or what exactly happened. All of a sudden, her mood switched from fine to black. She explained it as if a light switch had gone off in her head and turned everything black. She basically went immediately into a rage state and retreated to our room. I just assumed that she was angry about having to wash up, but I think that was only incidental.

I worry about my mom seeing this side of K, because I don't want her to worry about me in this relationship. It does concern her. She fears that I am putting myself in a bad situation and having to bear K's illness and moods. It's a natural reaction on her part, but I don't want her having to worry about it. I don't know how to reassure her that things are okay.

K was in an absolutely foul temper. She took a miligram of xanax, which is unusual. Normally, .5 mg. is plenty. K also didn't want me to leave her alone. As I went to leave the room, she lashed out at me to get me to stay and talk to her. After it happened twice, I finally asked if she wanted me to stay. Even though, it was evident, she was unable to express that desire.

I find it demoralizing. She's in remission, yet PMS is still able to take her unawares and affect both of our moods. It didn't ruin the holiday for me, but it certainly cast a pallor over it. Is this how it will always be? I also don't like her relatively new habit of lashing out at me. She never used to behave that way. The way her behavior came across was that she was being an asshole due to my injury.

On top of the xanax, K took 10 mg. ambien to help her sleep. I was exhausted and promptly went to sleep. When I got up the next morning, I found clear evidence that K had been wandering around the house after I went to sleep. The frightening thing is that she had no recollection of having done anything. I assume it was the xanax/ambien combination, but still. . . . She stuffed a rag in a switch box to block the cold air from entering the house and then the next morning commented on how dangerous it is to do that. Yet, she didn't know that she was the culprit.

Things are better. Friday, K felt better though not yet back to normal. All the permutations of what might have happened run through both our heads. Is it that she hadn't put on the hormone patch for the past week? Is it that my mom is staying with us, which is always hard on K? Is it that she forgot her meds (for the first time ever) about 5 days ago? Is it PMS, as my period will start in the next week or so?

The result is this endless list to discover the variable causing the problem and fix it, yet I realize that there is no way to handle all of the variables and they aren't predictable. It's sad and frustrating.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2005-11-23T13:44:00.000-05:00

Okay--I will admit that I am waiting to be released early from the office. K's group got to leave and she's been home for a half hour already. I went in to check if there were any early release updates, nope. I was informed that I was fortunate not to be walking out with additional work.

Thanksgiving will be good this year. Lots to be thankful for, especially K's health and the resolution of her job situation. She received the paperwork today confirming her transfer to a permanent position. The basement is nearing completion and our contractors should be painting today. My mom is flying in to spend the holiday with us. We have heat in the house and the basement is insulated, which is great as there's a major cold snap outside.

Each of these things sound small and petty, but they add up to happiness and comfort in my life and home.

Our friend R is continuing to struggle with the death of his brother. He saw his psychiatrist yesterday and I hope it provided him with some relief. He and his partner are going to R's family for Thanksgiving.

I've spoken briefly with our friend S, who had the pyschotic break in late August and we visited over the Labor Day weekend. For about 5-6 weeks, she wasn't returning e-mails or phone calls and just wanted to be left alone. She's being somewhat more social now and not feeling as depressed. She says that she is flat and not really depressed, but not feeling great either.

We are being released at 2:30 pm. Happy Thanksgiving!

Update on L's medical issues and More Mental Health Trauma

2005-11-19T16:29:00.000-05:00

Blondzila kindly reminded me that I hadn't taken the time to update any of you on my own medical concerns. A few weeks ago, I had the experience of a fiber optic cable being snaked down by throat to photograph my stomach. K stayed home to chauffeur me to and from the hospital and to take the time to pamper me after the procedure. It was actually a good experience having every wish fulfilled and getting to select the movies for once. K likes thrillers and I like comedies, so we were able to watch my choice. Though one of my selections was Closer, which proved to be a dismal selection. Any case, I am digressing.

My stomach was being snaked due to unexplained stomach pain that I have intermittently suffered from over the past 2 years. Obviously, this wasn't a daily onslaught of pain or I might have gotten off my ass to go see the GI specialist before the 2 years had passed. But K finally forced me to go.

The doctor's initial diagnoses was that I am suffering from acid reflux and have Barrett's esophgus. Well, turns out that he was mistaken. I sent him an e-mail this past week, as I had not yet heard my biopsy results. He called me later in the day and reported that everything was completely normal. Good news, except it doesn't exactly explain the pains that I have had in my stomach.

When I went for my exam in early October, he put me on Protonix to reduce the amount of stomach acid. I griped and groaned about taking a pill and made K set up my pills for me for a couple of days. But I have gotten past that and am willing to set up my own pills now. My sympathies for everyone with a heavy med regime increased greatly. I'm also taking calcium, which helps with menstrual cramps, a daily vitamin, and an allergy med. But back to the Protonix.

The doctor, reasonably, asked me if the med had been helping at all. Naturally, I wasn't able to give any sort of coherent answer, as the pain is so intermittent that it is difficult to tell if the med is helping or if I haven't had another bout. So, as a result the next steps are that I will have a CT scan done in early December (took a month to get the appointment), see the doctor a week after the scan, and continue with the Protonix for 6 months to see if I have any more pain. Personally, I think the whole thing is related to stress and will go away at some point.

Further news:

In August, I wrote about a couple of friends, who were having difficult times with depression. (I would link to the post, but I am using Safari, which makes it difficult to do that.) The male friend, R, is working on his undergraduate degree in a city about 8 hours away. His partner lives here and the two of them carry on a long distance relationship. R has suffered from depression for a long time and has fought hard against taking any sort of medication. His older brother was diagnosed as bipolar and had a drinking problem. So there is some family history of mental illness. Let me also add that we had met all of R's family, which the exception of the older brother.

Last Sunday, a mutual friend stopped by to let us know that R's brother had committed suicide two days ago. We were shocked, as the last news we had heard, R's brother had stopped drinking and was on a regime of meds to help with the bipolar. Last night, R and his partner E showed up at our front door.

R was gray. His face was drawn and lined. His entire affect was deflated. He was wearing a bandana from his brother on his left wrist and his brother's motorcycle boots. R is the type, who usually would have a feather boa thrown around his neck and rarely wears boots of any sort. We invited them in and decided to go out to dinner together. The conversation stayed on fairly light subjects until we returned home from dinner.

R was struggling to make sense of his brother's behavior. He could not understand how his brother could kill himself and leave his 15 year old son without a father. There was guilt that he hadn't been there for his brother and that maybe this could have been prevented. (Let me add that R's brother lived in an area of the country with a severely depressed economy, heavy drinking, and little understanding or access to mental health treatments.)

K spoke very openly about her own two attempts at suicide. Both occurred years before the two of us met. The second time, she came very close to succeeding. She spoke of the unbearable pain and that her actions weren't meant to hurt anyone else. Rather, she acted to try and stop the hurt. I tried to explain how K's thinking had become distorted, when she was in the depths of her illness, and she felt that the best thing she could do was to leave me and free me from my commitment to her. She wanted me to go away, so I would hurt less and she would be free to do as she wished.

We spoke of the meds and the difficulties in finding the right combination. Turns out that R's brother had stopped taking his bipolar meds due to the hallucinations that they gave him. He was also using xanax heavily and stopped using it cold turkey. Additionally, he began to drink again. He had been drinking for several weeks at the time of his suicide.

I don't know if our words helped R. I haven't seen him today. I can only hope that we were able to offer some perspective and insight as to his brother's motivations at the time of his death. I also hope that R begins to seriously address his own depression and realize that he doesn't have to live in pain. And I hope R is able to stop hurting.

Wonderful News

2005-11-17T11:23:00.000-05:00

Sorry that I haven't been more communicative of late. Between house projects, colds, and visitors, it has made it difficult to keep up with my blog. But I did want to share some excellent news.

After 11 months of uncertainty and agony over the state of K's job and career, she was told today that the temporary assignment that she's been working on will be made permanent. The paperwork is already in process.

This news brings us relief from the underlying tension that we've been suffering from and the overt tension that struck me over the summer. During the summer, I felt immobilized from fear of what would happen if K would lose her job. Not only the negative impact to K, but my general concern over our finances and how we would continue to afford our lifestyle. Through K's patience and her therapist, I managed to lower my anxiety and trust that K was healthy enough to withstand any blows.

K was right to convince me of her health. She's withstood the uncertainty and the poor treatment in her office to triumph and come through with a permanent job. She's done this without even coming close to a relapse. Most importantly, she's found a work group, whom she likes and who like her in return. Now, if she chooses to look for another job, she'll have the luxury of doing so at her own pace.

Other news, our basement home project is moving forward again. This time it's moving at a very rapid pace. Unfortunately, it appears that we have to rip out the kitchen floor and the bathtub to put in new flooring before the basement can be fully completed. Not what I accounted for either mentally or financially, but we will discuss it more tonight to get some cost and time estimate.

I'll write more in a day or so, but right now I want to savor K's success.

Step in the Right Direction

2005-11-03T09:18:00.000-05:00

The New York Times published an article talking about how some insurance companies are starting to focus more resources on the prevention and treatment of depression.

I like that the insurance group is starting to encourage doctors to diagnose and treat depression. The one piece that does concern me is that so many primary care doctors don't seem to understand anti-depressant drugs. Either they don't explain the side effects to their patients, so the patients stop taking. Or the lag of 4-12 weeks before improvement is not adequately explained, and the patient becomes impatient with the lack of results.

I know that psychiatrists are in short supply, so the primary care doctors become the responsible parties. However, I would like to see this emphasis accompanied with further training on depression and the medications.

Another Home Experience leaving me with Crap in my Hair

2005-10-30T18:11:00.000-05:00

Believe it or not, crap in my hair is a sign that everything is right in the L&K household. It means that we have the energy, inclination, and time to undertake home improvement projects. Or it means that we are running out of money and need to try and save as many dollars as feasibly possible to pull the basement out to its completion. Actually, it's the combination of the two.

As any regular reader of this blog knows, we've been undergoing the basement renovation project from hell for the past 12 (read that, 12!!!) months. The sad part is that we aren't done, though we are nearing completion. Everything continues to be more expensive than what I have budgeted for, so after receiving the quote of the windows, 3 windows (basement windows) @ about $650/each, not including installation, we decided we had to take some things into our own hands.

We had a couple of options. One was to buy cheaper windows. We got another two quotes, but in the end, the cost differential wasn't enough to truly make it worth putting crap into the house and risking the wrath of the Historic Preservation board. The other was that we manage the installation ourselves and save about $600-800. The windows will still run us almost $2K.

Today we undertook the first step of the do-it-yourself plan. Let me add a disclaimer. I'm clueless. I would never undertake this type of project, except under the tutelage of K. She coos to me and says it's easy and I'm resting my head on her shoulder in the morning. So we merrily trot down to the hardware store to purchase the needed materials to undertake the project.

All we had to do today was get good measurements of the window opening size. I realize that those of you in new homes are thinking, "How hard can it be?" All you do is measure the opening. Well, in a historic property, nothing is quite so simple. Even having the opening to measure wasn't easy. Two of the three window openings had no glass. The frames were rotted and falling out of the windows. We had the pleasure of ripping them down completely and having the shit sitting on top of them fall onto our heads. The falling debris consisted of bricks, brick dust, mortar dust, accumulated dirt, and any other small stones or whatnot that had collected on top of the wood throughout the years of neglect.

By the end of two hours or so of work, we had demolished all of the old frames and were able to take semi-accurate measurements. We're fairly convinced that we are capable of installing the new windows when they arrive. Though, we still have to call in the measurements for the actual order. Then it will take 4-6 weeks for the windows to be built and shipped. Finally, around Thanksgiving, we should have the new windows and be able to embark on the next phase of fun in attempting the installation. In the meantime, I crammed up foam insulation into the three open windows. Our house is without a boiler, due to the previous contractor mistakes made last March and we've been surviving through the use of space heaters to keep at least the dining room around 65 degrees.

The good news is that we are talking about and feel as if we are able to tackle these home improvement projects. The windows were the first on the list. We're also intending to re-hang and refinish the front basement door, seal and paint our two security gates, and strip and rebuild part of the front basement windows. We'll see how much we do complete. But in the meantime, we've scaled back the statement of work for the final phase of the basement to something smaller, and hopefully less expensive.

We both took tomorrow off. I have an endoscopy procedure scheduled as the result of stomach pain over the past few years. I'm not thrilled, but K gave me my choice of movie rentals today, and I have a line up of the Incredibles, Eulogy, and Closer to watch today and tomorrow. It's the movies that K doesn't like and usually complains about if I try to rent them. But she's pampering me. One interesting thing is that she thinks it will be very strange to see me lying on the hospital granny waiting for the IV shot and that she will be the one retreating to the waiting room. The new role of caretaker is one that she is not accustomed to playing, though she's excellent. Right now, she's making a giant pot of chicken soup for me.

I need to go shower and get the crap out of my hair.

Nothing Behind the Eyes

2005-10-25T18:04:00.001-05:00

K has been struggling with the shortening days and the dark when she rises in the morning. Added to that difficulty, she's continuing to have problems with her job and found out today that the position that she had hoped to get had been cut in the budget process. She also is contending with my PMS, which is always a trying time for her.

Monday she didn't make it to the office. She was up and ready to go when the pump a porta-potty truck showed up at 6:30 am to pump the toilets at the construction site across the street. Whatever was going on with her, this flipped the switch. She went ballistic and actually went as far as to go out and yell at the truck operator. According to city regulation, commercial activities are not allowed to begin until 7 am. That outburst ruined K for the rest of the day. Before I left for my breakfast meeting, she had actually managed to crack a smile, but it was too much for her to make it in.

The frightening part for me was that I looked at K across the dining room table last night as we ate dinner. I couldn't see her in her eyes. They were blank as if whoever lived behind them had died. Usually, I use the lines on her face to gauge her level of pain, but this time the lines weren't telling the entire story. She told me that she had hidden herself to escape the pain. It probably also related to the 1.5 mg of xanax that she had taken to get through the day.

Fortunately, this morning things had improved again. K felt well enough to get to the office, where she was promptly told that her position had been cut in the budget. She's still not going to lose her job, but the permanent job that she had hoped for will probably not materialize. Her manager is going to fight for the positions, so there is some hope. By this evening, she did seem to be okay. She's upstairs watching a movie while I am trying to get a fire lit on a cold, wet night. The fireplace is winning the battle and the fire is barely hanging on.

I don't know what to think about K's job situation. It is a great disappointment that it appears is if a permanent position will not materialize as quickly as we had thought. K's been going through this reorg for 10 months and is fairly sick of it. It doesn't help that my office is also in the middle of reorganizing and despite my position being secure, it is no way clear where I will be working or what I will be doing in the near future.

Back to some happy news, I had a wonderful time in Germany. My German returned more easily than I had expected. I had the opportunity to visit with friends, relax, go hiking, visit a wine festival and not worry about any of the day to day things. When K picked me up from the airport, I didn't want to hear about the neighborhood or the basement. I wasn't ready. I think it took 36 hours before I was even willing to begin thinking about such things again.

My fire seems to be doing better. One reason for the fire is that we have no heat in our house. Our boiler was ruined by the basement boys in the spring and we are negotiating with the contractors for them to replace it. But in the meantime, our house is hovering around 60 degrees or so. The only saving grace is that the heating bill is going to be soooooo high this winter that any time we aren't using natural gas is good. Tomorrow, we are planning to go and purchase a second space heater of the larger variety.

I'm doing all right. I have my endoscopy scheduled on Monday. They are going to snake my stomach in hopes of finding whatever has been causing me intermittent stomach pain for the past 2 years. I'm assuming it is stress and nothing more serious. Hope I am right.

Nothing Behind the Eyes

2005-10-25T18:04:00.000-05:00

What the F*ck is going on?

2005-10-13T09:18:00.000-05:00

Okay--This may be a short post because I'm heading to a luncheon in 1/2 an hour and then going home to pack to head out to Germany. I won't be back in the States until the 21st. Things will probably be quiet on the blog during my trip.

Another friend of ours is dealing with serious mental illness. This is on top of the one who had the pyschotic break and the other who wished he was dead. This friend, we don't know very well. Not only is she having thoughts of suicide, though no plan; she isn't even able to access the health system to get help. K got very angry over the situation yesterday after reading about S's attempts to get help.

First, S is in her late 20's, had a law degree, and is currently looking for a job. Job searches are emotionally draining in the best of times. She's been looking for a position for about 4-6 months and having no luck, despite excellent credentials and resume. It's sapping her energy.

We were helping her work through some job stuff over the weekend, when she told us that's she's seriously depressed and has some suicidal thoughts. Naturally, we were very concerned. She's been seeing at therapist, who recommended that she go see a psychiatrist. Well, she has no money (due to lack of a job) and her health care will only cover the visit, if she's diagnosed with something severe.

Our thought was to suggest seeing an internist, in hopes that they would prescribe anti-depressants. S could then find a psychiatrist. We suggested that she make an appointment with K's internist, who is excellent. K's internist is so good that she is not taking any new patients. Meanwhile, S made an appointment with urgent care to try and get immediate assistance.

The resident doctor in urgent care listened to her for 50 minutes, which is great. She then got the attending physician. The attending told S that she needs to see a psychiatrist. Duh! The attending had no solution to the fact that S couldn't afford to pay a psychiatrist. It also sounded as if the attending would not prescribe any meds.

What do you do? S can't afford to pay and she also can no longer afford to see her therapist. This is someone, who is well-educated and cannot navigate the system to get help. What does someone do without those resources?

K and I came up with a list of possible solutions:

1. Pay for the treatment on a credit card (don't know if it's a possibility)
2. Emergency room--but what's to say that they won't hospitalize her due to the suicidal thoughts?
3. City services--don't know if there is anything or if S is willing to go that route
4. Contact DBSA for suggestions

K and I discussed paying for S to go to the psychiatrist, but we can't finance S's health care, even if she would accept. S is working temp work and is interviewing for other positions. K's treatments alone cost us about $500 out of pocket every month.

It's a miserable situation. If you have any ideas, please comment.

I guess I also don't understand why so many of our friends seem to be struggling this year. We met all of them independently and they don't seem to have any common elements other than mental illness. It's hard to see people in such pain.

Better Days Have Returned

2005-10-11T12:53:00.000-05:00

After my post last week, K did make it in the office on Thursday and Friday. Saturday, she promptly slept until 1 pm again. But in the end, we had a busy and productive weekend.

While, I'm gone, K's going to have to handle a few things. She's already working on having the tires on the car replaced. I've known for some time that we needed new ones, but I wasn't able to deal with the logistics. Then, we got a flat tire, and suddenly no longer even had a spare. Yesterday, K took the initiative and went to a garage around the corner. Actually, it's an auto sales hut with rudimentary garage facilities. He repaired our spare and removed three, yes three!, nails. There's been a number of contractors parking in our alley and they are careless with their nails and screws.

As it turns out, K can purchase the tires online and have them shipped to the garage. They will mount and balance them for $15/tire. In all it works out to be a savings of $200 over what we would have paid to go to Goodyear. Additionally, I don't have to do anything or wait for the car to be serviced. Needless to say, I'm very pleased.

A few weeks ago, I was elected to the Vice President position in our neighborhood association. The neighborhood association is not a homeowner's association. It is not mandatory and it is a place to bring the residents together to work towards solutions of common problems. The big annual outreach event occurs during the week I'm in Germany. I spent part of the weekend putting together flyers and a program. K will have to finalize that material after I leave.

I know that K will miss me while I'm gone for a week. But she's handling more of the chores around the house and fully able to deal with the neighborhood work. Despite missing me and wanting to come, there's no fear in her eyes at the thought of my absence. She plans to get up and go to work every day, just as she does when I am at home.

I am starting to get excited about my trip. I've been doing a lot of preparation and running around. After the doctor this afternoon, we are going to the AAA travel store to pickup plug adaptors for my cell phone and iPod. Yes, I have to visit the GI Specialist in an hour. K finally convinced me that I had to take the pain in my stomach seriously rather than writing it off to stress. Naturally, my stomach hasn't hurt in several weeks, so it will be difficult to describe the pain.

Things are good.

Days that are not so good

2005-10-05T09:29:00.000-05:00

Despite everything I write about K being healthy, and much of the time she is, there are days that are not as good. I hesitate to say bad, because bad is a relative term. The days that aren't as good are still significantly better than bad days one or two years ago.

Regardless of label, K's been going through her standard two days a month, when she doesn't mentally feel well. I'm including an e-mail that she wrote to her therapist yesterday afternoon. Her therapist responded saying that this is the time of the month when K struggles.

The mornings have been a struggle. I have made it to the office both yesterday and today but the fight has been tough. It was even tougher this morning because I woke up in the middle of the night ripped from a nightmare about suicide. Once I woke up I felt like committing suicide. I could see myself going through the steps and really thought it was real and that I would do it. I was an observer of sorts. Needless to say this scared the hell out of me. I really was afraid of what I might do in that "not quite awake" state. Upon fully waking I took half a xanax so that I could calm down and sleep. Last night was rare in that I was exhausted and didn't take a sleeping pill. I fell asleep very fast. Anyway the memories of it were strong this morning. I used my sunlamp and fought the good fight and made it in. I felt very snappish this morning fighting the bad stuff and that is something that I have to use a lot of energy controlling when I am weakened. This afternoon I am very tired (time to go home) and I am having to deal with frustration by clamping down on my emotions. Work has been fine all day and I don't see that as a stressor this week.

I guess my anger/frustration/irritability is the problem when I am tired. It really bothers me and I keep most of it inside---some of it seeps out though and splashes on L.

Well, how's that for an update?

K didn't make it to the office this morning, but she believes she'll be there tomorrow. The cause for celebration is that this is the first day she's missed in a month.

I'm okay with it. Sometimes I react badly when she struggles, but I'm working on my emotions. I see this as a bad day and that she'll be okay by the time I make it home tonight.

Forks in the Road

2005-09-28T15:06:00.000-05:00

I've been spending time thinking about what if's. What if K would not have survived her heart attack? What if our relationship would not have survived her battle with bipolar disorder? These thoughts have been fueled recently by my own introspection, but also by outside information.

My own introspection has been making me mull over the past couple of years. No real reason to do so, but I feel as I am in a bit of a funk. I haven't been interested in writing and I haven't had much energy for working out. On the plus side, I am remaining active by walking, taking the dog to the park and yoga. What's bothering me is that my brain feels foggy. I'm doing things, but my energy feels slightly low. I am sleeping better than I was for a few weeks.

The outside part of my what if dilemma is connected to recent readings. Tracy in Time for Your Meds and her partner broke up as a result of the changes that Tracy had undergone from her illness. That thought opens the flood gates to think about the dark days when I couldn't see K. She wasn't in her body and I was unable to find her by looking in her eyes. I was lucky, she fought hard and returned to me. But how could I have handled it if she wasn't able to return? I'm not sure. Facing the idea of leaving for my own protection is one that I don't want to consider. Fortunately, I didn't have to, but the possibility certainly existed during the worst months.

The next disturbing reading was in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday. It was an article about grief from a woman whose husband died unexpectedly of a heart attack just before New Year's Even. The parallel circumstances struck me. K's heart attack occurred unexpectedly on New Year's Day. Reading the language of the writer's grief and pain made me realize what would have happened to me, if K had not survived. My life without K comes close to being unimaginable for me. I can't see performing day to day activities without a great encumbrance of pain and grief. It was exceedingly difficult to even read someone else's rendering.

The final piece I haven't even read. K and I were discussing it on the way to the office. This week's Newsweek cover story addresses the Type D personality. It describes the impact of traumatic events in childhood, anger, and chronic depression on your heart health. K said that the articles hit home for her and made her realize that she should have died on January 1, 2003. But she didn't, she fought. The other point in Newsweek is that a loving relationship can made a difference in your recovery.

I'm working through these things slowly in my brain. As part of my defense mechanism, I had blocked off these other paths from even being considered. I couldn't face thinking about what would happen if. Now, I seem to be in a place where I have enough distance to think about these fears and work through the implications. I want to view it as another sign of health.

Not Writing (Though apparently making up for it tonight)

2005-09-22T19:37:00.000-05:00

It's fairly obvious that I haven't been writing lately. No particular explanation other than I have not had the urge to do so. Somehow, I have felt unsettled recently, though not necessarily by any particular event. In fact, things are good and fairly low key.

First and foremost, K is doing well. No unexpected bumps or blips or any other pimple type description to apply to her mood swings. Rather she has been stable and happy for the past week or so. Furthermore, she's getting up every day and going to the office, even after difficult nights.

I'm a bit off balance. Even at work, I'm getting what I need to do done, but it feels as if I am in a slump. We're still reorging, as we have been since the beginning of the year. There's been a power struggle regarding where I'll be placed in the organization. There's a power struggle over who will have the functions and the resources, unfortunately, my senior manager has not been doing so well. She has a tendency to take the high road, while her two male counterparts play dirty. We'll see how it all plays out. Things change every day with the reorg.

Strangely enough, someone I met a few months ago, and I was impressed by him was arrested for unethical conduct. I was thinking about how I could use him to get to a job I want. Disturbing that my perception of him could be so wrong. I know that he's innocent until proven guilty, but when the FBI show up at your door step, well. . . there's something in the complaint at that point. A number of my colleagues were also impressed by him, so I certainly wasn't alone, but still . . . . It is somewhat disconcerting.

I've been thinking a lot as my trip to Germany approaches. I realized today that my frustrations regarding my own language ability are probably what drove me away from continuing to live in Germany and even continuing to use my German. I am basically tone deaf when it comes to language. I read, write, and speak German, but I have to learn through rote memorization. I don't have this innate language ability that many of my friends possess. I suppose my attitude should be one of pride and accomplishment that I've managed to come as far as I have with German, but I realize that my frustration and self-doubt drove me away. I fear that if I don't return now that it will be become too big a hurdle for me to cross.

Also, the trip will dredge up memories of a younger L, who never believed that she would settle down and find a life-time companion. It didn't bother me. I thought that I would continue to travel and find some exciting career. Instead, well, I'm settled. My career is going very well, but exciting. That might be a stretch. Though, if things work out, I would like to go and work on hurricane work for a few weeks. We'll see how the timing falls out.

All in all a number of things are floating in the L brain. Not sure where it will all lead or if it is even just a product of PMS. I'll settle down.

By the way, anyone else pissed that the New York Times has started to charge in order to read the opinion columnists?

Busy

2005-09-07T15:16:00.000-05:00

I haven't had time to blog recently, not due to craziness at work, rather the personal life has been busy. I've also been drained and not up for doing much the past few days.

Last weekend, we went up to see S. She's doing well, but it felt as if we spent two days yelling at her. She was released from the pysch ward with no diagnoses and her only med is Risperdal. When we saw her, she was starting the same behaviors that resulted in her hospitalization. The behavior is over-scheduling, not slowing down and taking time for herself, and appearing to be manic. Fortunately, S is one of those rare individuals, who can tell how much we care about her. She was able to see through her anger and hurt to see that our concern for her was the only reason that we were saying these things. Everything ended well, and she's settling down and working very hard to accept and live within the constraints of whatever she has.

On a more personal note, I've been having trouble blogging and writing recently. I wrote an e-mail to a friend at the end of last week that sounded incoherent. I reread it several times prior to sending it to ensure that I didn't inadvertently offend her. But my tone seemed and felt off. I have no explanation.

Part of my spaciness (very unusual for me) relates back to lack of sleep. Last week I struggled with sleeping. I took ambien two nights, but ended up feeling so groggy in the morning that I stopped taking it. K had a bit of a rough patch last week and she's also been having sleeping. I feed off her anxieties and it creates a nasty circle.

I made it to yoga last week and I'm also continuing to exercise. My other goal is to take the dog to the park when I return home from work at night. It gives me a chance to go for a brief walk and the dog something new to sniff.

I am so safe. . .

2005-08-29T09:19:00.000-05:00

There's a saying that one in four people have mental illness. Look around at your three closest friends and if none of them are ill, look at yourself. Just living with K, I ought to be perfectly safe, but after Friday there's no question about it.

I went to coffee on Friday morning with a close friend, R. He's K's symbiotic twin and R's partner is my symbiotic twin. R has battled with depression on and off for years, but refuses to take any medication for fears of what the impact to his sex drive would be. These days, he is in school in a different city and only comes home during vacations. For the record, he and I are the same age, although he would make a point of mentioning that he's six weeks younger than me. Though he has more gray hair. I'm digressing.

During coffee, we talked about the depression he's been in all summer and he comes out with the statement that part of the time he just wants to die. More information than I was planning on digesting with my morning caffeine intake. We talked about medication and he's more open to the idea than he has been. He realizes that he's ill and needs some help. On Sunday, K encouraged him again to find a psychiatrist and get some help. I'm hoping he'll make the calls, but he's been talking about it for a month or more.

That afternoon, I had an outing with my professional development group. We went inner tubing on a river, though there could have been more water. Everyone's' butt was scraped a few times. The drought has taken it's toll on water sports this season. I was tired and not in the best mood for an afternoon networking event, but I did fine and enjoyed the outing.

Heading home, I called K to check-in. She told me that one of our close friends, S, had had a breakdown and was in a psychiatric facility. Her mom had left a message on our machine with the name of the hospital, but it had cut out prior to her leaving the phone number. K spent over an hour trying to track the number of the hospital only to be told that they "could neither confirm nor deny" if S was a patient. K left a message, hoping for the best.

It turns out that S had some sort of psychic break. The doctors don't seem to be certain of the diagnoses, though they are playing with bipolar disorder, alcoholism, and something else. She's already been hospitalized for almost a week. K's been predicting for some time that S was flying too fast and too high and that the crash was imminent. Cassandra strikes again. [I've taken to calling K Cassandra after the Trojan princess, who was cursed to tell the truth and never be believed.]

We've talked to S a couple times, turns out K did find the right hospital. This weekend, we may head up there to see her, it's a couple hours by plane. S is dong well and feeling better. She moved away in March and I haven't kept in as close a touch, so I didn't see that things were heading for a collision. She does give me credit for pushing her, about 10 days ago, to talk to a doctor about her bouts with depression to try and get some help. But still, I feel somewhat as if I failed her. Though, I'm not sure what I might have done.

It appears that S will probably be released sometime this week. K's out of town till Thursday, but I'm looking at getting us tickets for Friday and heading up for a night to visit and offer support. S has been trying for years to get us to visit her home state.

The result of Friday is that I'm feeling battered and bruised. Friday night, I slept about 12 hours and remained groggy much of Saturday. K's doing fine, but what's going on with everyone else? Is this what growing up is like? My friends are reaching their early 30's and starting to fall apart.

I'm not in such bad straits as the paragraph above sounds nor am I actually that whiney. Reality and adulthood do feel as if they have struck hard recently.

Further progress

2005-08-23T13:48:00.000-05:00

K returned from her business trip on Friday and was completely wiped out. She reported that the group she's in, which is a developmental group, was referred to as "they". She's extremely angry, and rightfully so, that she's been put in this group due to her leave situation and not because she's lacking abilities. But even though the trip was worse than she anticipated, she recovered over the weekend and taking extra-long naps.

The stress from the burglary was continuing to take a toll. Every time we went to go online and realized that we had to go upstairs, we were reminded of the loss. On Sunday, our contractor agreed to purchase us a new laptop. We went and picked it up that afternoon. Since I was able to use my student ID card, we also received a free ipod with the computer. We're going to pass the iPod on to the contractor for his use, as he paid for the computer. We agreed to pay for the other items, once he replaced the computer. Now, our contractor is getting back into our good graces and he's making progress on our basement.

I would be remiss if I did not credit K for the actions in the paragraph above. She and I had been arguing about it and our emotions were running high. K picked up the phone, called our contractor, and laid out our frustration. She did not ask him to replace the machine, rather she asked what he would do about the burglary. He suggested replacing the computer himself. The replacement is helping heal the wounds.

K's security concerns have resurfaced. The new computer is locked to our radiator pipes and will remain locked down when we are not at home. I have issues with the idea of having to lock up our belongs when we aren't at home, but K is more comfortable with doing things that way. I no longer know where to draw the line, as I am starting to second guess myself on these things.

That's one of the most frustrating results of the past six months. I no longer trust my instincts. It feels as if every time I say things will work out or they will be fine or they can't get worse then the opposite happens. I don't know what to think or believe as everything I think appears to be wrong.

K's job situation has stabilized for a few more months. Her temporary assignment was to be completed by the end of September. She discovered today that it has been extended to the end of December. According to the management, this will give the management more time to get to know K and the other two people. I assume that there will then be a possibility of a permanent job at that point. If not, K will be returned to the temporary group and start looking for another job. It's not an ideal resolution, but it's positive. K also received extremely positive feedback as to her work.

Nothing in particular going on, but a few things swirling. K's working to convince me to accompany her on Saturday to her therapy appointment. She thinks that we both could benefit from the conversation and it will help ease my fears.

Progress

2005-08-19T10:59:00.000-05:00

I spent some time this morning reading through some of my posts from last summer. I can see the progression that K is getting better and that my emotional state is returning to equilibrium. Not to say it's always easy, but the bad times now aren't nearly as frequent or extreme as they were last summer. One thing I did realize is that I haven't given any updates on some of our projects lately.

1) The basement is still not done. It's been 9 months at this point, maybe 10. 2 of those months were lost getting permits and inspectors. I thought this was pretty bad, until I talked to a neighbor last night. Redoing his basement took 15 months, not including the time to get the permits. The good part is that the basement is looking good and we're approaching the end. A few things to do and then the carpentry work begins.

2) The living room and dining room projects have been completed, were completed months ago. They look great. We're entertaining again, as our house actually looks acceptable.

3) As I've written about, K's job is still in flux. We thought it would be settled by the end of September and although there are promising signs, things won't be finalized then. But she's in a supportive group and enjoying her work. As a precaution, she is thinking about other alternatives if this position doesn't work out, so she's preparing for the positive or the negative decision.

4) My trips to the gym are increasing again. I made it three times this week and went for a long walk with the dog one night. I can sense that it helps me mentally. My other goal is to start attending yoga weekly. When I have done yoga in the past, it's had a very soothing effect on my mind and psyche, in addition to the physical benefits of strengthening and stretching my muscles. My intention is to go to the Wednesday night yoga class at my gym.

I believe that covers any loose ends that I hadn't addressed in a while. K's returning from her business trip this afternoon. No big plans for the weekend.

Evening out. . . maybe

2005-08-17T10:41:00.000-05:00

After my last post, I thought I ought to update that things are going better. First, I really wanted to go to Germany and I'm thrilled to be going. My waffling on the trip was more due to how it fit into the schedule and whether it would be a problem to leave K for a week. We talked about it before I bought my ticket and realized that it should be fine. Now I have my ticket and trip insurance in case antyhing should happen.

My concern about K stemmed from her job situation. She should be finding out around the end of September whether she will be hired permanently into the office where she's working. If she is dumped back into the temporary assignments, I was worried she wouldn't handle it well, thus I would not be able to go out of town for a week. She's convinced me that she'll handle it either way and she's already thinking things through. Once I was convinced that she would be all right regardless of the job outcome, it made my decision to travel much easier.

Today, K left to go on her business trip. Her entire organization (even the people they have told to find jobs elsewhere, though no one is being fired) is going on a retreat together. She's been dreading this retreat for the past 8 weeks, so it's a relief to finally have it arrive. I think that she'll do fine, although I would have thought differently 8 weeks ago. I'm believing that she'll be okay and that she's able to roll with the punches again rather than getting knocked out each time. As she puts it, she has her tool kit of medications, xanax, ambien, and trileptal. She has routines to calm herself down and ground herself, if necessary. Her coping abilities and self-analysis abilities have been vastly improved with help of her counselor.

Each of these things is convincing me that I can let go and she can swim on her own. [This post is becoming cliche central.] After seeing K struggle for so long, it has been difficult for me to truly believe that she's well, but it appears to be the case. The bipolar shows up occasionally, but her coping skills have returned and she doesn't immediately panic. Of course, I may need someone to remind me of this when she has a bout of PMS, but when I look at the long term, she's doing fine.

Now, I'll start the work on myself and releasing the built-up stress, tension, and anxiety.

2nd Guessing

2005-08-15T12:46:00.000-05:00

I'm driving myself nuts and feeling very stressed. Not sure exactly why, but I've noticed some behavior in myself that I don't like.

I've decided to take a trip to Germany this fall. I've lived over there for 2 years (at separate times) and haven't been back since I left in 1996. Somehow, the timing never worked for me to go. I've decided that I want to go and it will be good for me to get away. Decision finally made, though I did keep going back and forth on it for a while.

I began to track airfares. Exceptionally high, $700 for a roundtrip, nonstop flight, urgh! I had been hoping for $450 max. Any case, I was watching the airfare, and there was a sale that ended on Friday. Being worried about fares going even higher, I decided to purchase Friday. Then I was slow, so the return flight I wanted was already upped another $100. Anyway you get the point. So I bought for $700. I look at the fares on Saturday and they have been reduced to $560, today they are back at the same price as last week. It's maddening!

The issue isn't the airfare, irritating though it is. It's my inability to make a decision lately without questioning myself 10 times. Previously, I would make a decision and that was it. No waffling. Now. . . I seem to spend ages equivocating. K's noticed it as well.

Additionally, K's job situation is getting to me again. I'm stressing that we don't know what's going to happen to her. Her group puts a lot of pressure on her and the rest of the people to go to career counseling and now financial counseling. Somehow I have an issue showing my credit report and score to financial counselors paid by my employer, along with other personal financial data. What they are trying to do is help people make the decision if they can afford to take a buyout. K's offered a number of times not to forward me the e-mails and today I asked her to stop forwarding them. I become too upset reading them. Instead, I would like her to tell me when we are together, so I can have instant reassurance. That said, her job continues to go well, but I won't believe anything till I see the signed paperwork transferring her to the new group. Hopefully, it will happen in the next six weeks.

The end result of all my muttering and whining throughout this post is that I'm stressed. I went to the gym on Sunday morning. I slept like shit Sunday night, catnapping and up every 2 hours. Guess I should have taken a sleeping pill. Not quite sure what to do about the stress. I'll continue to go to the gym and see if that takes off the edge. Also, if the heat finally breaks tonight, I can go for a walk with the dog. It's been too hot to do anything.

Guess this is a whine that despite all the positive indications and K doing so well, I still managed to be stressed. What is the worst part though, is that this isn't my normal nature. Usually, I'm pretty low key. Urgh.

Holding Steady

2005-08-11T13:16:00.000-05:00

The week is uneventful, which is good. K returned from her business trip on Tuesday evening. She was buzzing quite a bit, but managed to settle down. Our blood sugar crashed, so we had a miserable time figuring out what to do about dinner. We even had agreed to go out, but we were exhausted to the point of not being able to decide on a restaurant. In the end, we made it and managed to eat, even if the meal did include fried mozzarella sticks. Yum!

K wanted to stay home on Wednesday, but I was concerned because she hadn't cleared it with her manager. We managed to talk about in calmly in the morning (these discussions usually lead to blow out fights and tears) and K decided to go in. Even though she's so tired today and yesterday that she can't think straight, she still made it to the office. Her goal is to take her day off tomorrow and recover, while I head into the office.

I've been exceptionally tired this week. Not sure why. My explanation is that I'm starting to worry a bit less about K. Slowly, I believe that she'll be okay and the job will work out. In the past, when I've come off long bouts (weeks or months) of worrying and stress, I crash. My crash takes two forms--1) I am exhausted and can't function. 2) I have terrible stomach pains for about a month. When I say terrible, when they hit, I go to bed. Lying down for a while or sleeping helps my system relax and they go away, but I can't continue to function with them. The first of those pains struck me this week. I'm expecting it to continue for the next several weeks.

K wants me to go to the doctor for my stomach. She's worried there is something wrong. I've been to my internist so many times with this complaint that he refuses to see me any further and wants me to go see a GI specialist. I've resisted for 2 years, because I know that the tests will be miserable and I truly believe the condition is stress related. But I'll probably give in soon and look for a good GI specialist to help me out, mainly because K gives in to pressure from me when I believe she ought to see the doctor.

I don't think K was thrilled with me last night. As she was getting ready for bed, I told her that I wanted her to take a cab to work this morning. She dislikes changes to her routine. But I had a breakfast business meeting and the timing was such that it didn't work to take her. I was also able to scrounge an extra hour of sleep, which made me feel much better than I have over the past few days. She survived and made it to the office without my assistance.

As I said, things are good. K's performing, despite the exhaustion. I'm doing fine despite the stomach. Our biggest thing lately is that we've gone out to eat or gotten carryout quite a bit recently. It's our fallback when we're too tired to cook. I'm hoping that we'll mend our ways soon and get back to the cooking routine.

Great Weekend

2005-08-08T11:31:00.000-05:00

Despite all our troubles last week, K and I had a wonderful weekend together. Saturday, we didn't have to do anything until 1:30 pm. So we stayed in bed and talked and spent time together. We haven't done that in ages, when we started dating we would stay in bed late on the weekends constantly, but these days it seems we always have other obligations.

I went with K to visit her therapist. The couple of fights we had during the week had disturbed me. K had forgotten them. Between the stress of her job and the break-ins, her short-term memory is non-existent. She had to change her computer password on Friday and didn't write it down. By Sunday, she had forgotten it and will have to call tech support to help her solve the problem. I believe it is one of the last effects from ECT that when her memory shorts out, it is completely gone.

Anyway, we had a good session with her therapist talking through a couple of issues. Then Sunday, K had to go to Philadelphia. She's there on a business trip until tomorrow evening. I had offered to drive her there and thought that getting out of town would be good for us both. We had a wonderful trip. After arriving, we played in that bed for a bit and then headed out to wander around Rittenhouse Square and have dinner. I headed home around 7:30.

The whole weekend was very relaxing and non-stressful. I spent the entire time smiling and laughing. Friday, we dealt with our contractors and it was a busy day. However, Saturday and Sunday gave me an opportunity to rejuvenate. K commented how happy I seemed throughout the entire weekend.

Maybe I beginning to put my fears to rest about K's health and job. I fear even saying that though, as every time I predict something the opposite happens. I'm feeling optimistic and hopeful.

Struck Twice

2005-08-04T14:14:00.000-05:00

Unfortunately, lightening struck twice this week, and we are burglarized again yesterday. This time, the culprit entered through our dining room window. They pushed in the air conditioner and came through the window. We thought the 15 foot drop would deter someone, but apparently not. This time, we lost some Dewalt tools. Financially, it wasn't as bad as Monday, but there was more damage.

K is at home today having the house measured for bars and a new security system installed. We had one, which was disconnected due to the basement. A mere $1400 later, we ought to be feeling safer. Between that and the lost goods, it's been a $5000 week. Urgh!

We did okay with this breakin, though K had a panic attack this morning. We're exhausted and emotionally drained. It's never good when your partner and the crime scene officer begin discussing getting together for drinks, because they have had enough time to bond.

It's difficult not feeling totally secure on the property. The bars will be installed tomorrow, which will make us feel more secure. We also thought that if we stop feeding the dog, she'll be more likely to bite anyone entering the property, because she CERTAINLY ISN'T DOING HER JOB RIGHT NOW! A pitbull/boxer mix, who doesn't manage to deter burglars.

It's been a rough week and we have a neighborhood meeting tonight to nominate officers for next year. Not thrilled about attending, but we promised. K's working tomorrow and I have the day off, so I'll get a bit more of a chance to recover.

Continued Stress

2005-08-03T13:42:00.000-05:00

After a miserable day on Monday, K and I were finally settling down in the evening and not feeling as bad. We wandered out to pick up some diet Coke for K at McDonald's, her favored supplier for Diet Coke. I don't think I've ever talked about the quantity of diet coke she drinks, but it is about a gallon a day. It might be a 1/2 gallon now, but it is still a large volume. And, she prefers it from the fountain. K is not low maintenance, though she claims I'm high maintenance as well.

We returned home and I plugged my cell phone in to the charger and asked K where the computer was. Turns out, after we searched the house several times, that someone has stolen our computer and digital camera. I started crying. It was too much after an awful day with K and then to find we had been burglarized.

The police came, took a report, and found a fingerprint. Probably nothing will be found. We didn't notice the burglary right away, as whoever broke in used a key. You would think that a key would simplify matters making it easier to track the culprit. Unfortunately not, as we have had so many contractors in the house.

There are some limits though. Whoever did it had to have worked upstairs at some point and taken the key to make a copy of it. It was our backdoor key, which we always leave hanging on a hook next to the door. The individual was likely in the house at 11 am, and one of the guys in the basement even heard the footsteps. But I don't know if we will find the culprit. Even if we did, the punishment would probably be very light. A burglars in our neighborhood, who burglarize 20+ houses by breaking in through 2nd story windows even when he had a broken arm, was only given 90 days and a suspended sentence. So. . . I don't hold out much hope.

K and I handle these things differently. I cried about it. K went to another rage state (just when she had been beginning to feel better) and became even more security conscious than usual. She's always pushed for us to be more careful with keys, passwords, personal information, and the like.

Tuesday we both stayed home to have the locksmith arrive. We ended up fighting a bit, but we settled down. Now, I'm trying to move past it and K is trying to be less fearful. Right now, K is angry with our contractor and wants to hold him liable for the break-in. I'm not so certain we can do that, but we'll discuss it with him on Friday.

The good news is that K's blips from Monday have receded. The Paxil is doing its job and stabilizing her. I believe the blips are stemming from PMS. The other good thing is that K is going to work on Friday, so she won't have to take any leave for staying home yesterday for the locksmith. We're starting to settle down again. It's good, because I'm sick of the rollercoaster.

RSS Feed

2005-08-01T13:42:00.000-05:00

Very exciting--I just added an RSS feed to my blog page. Not that I believe anyone is addicted to synergy to the point of needing every post the minute it comes out, but . . . you now have the option.

Note: I'm still feeling overwhelmed and exhausted. On top of it, the neighborhood association wants to nominate me for a leadership position. I'm planning on declining the nomination. K would have been nominated, but they took her health concerns seriously and didn't put her name forward.

Dangerous Blips

2005-08-01T12:41:00.000-05:00

Yesterday and today are the days when I wonder how long can I hold on in this relationship. I can't imagine leaving K or not being with her; however, the illness is once again rearing it's head and roaring.

I had a wonderful weekend with my mom and arrived home again on an early flight yesterday morning. K picked me up from the airport and things seemed fine. Within an hour of arriving home, she had lost her temper about our basement project and about the situation in our neighborhood. I couldn't take it; I fled upstairs and curled into a ball sobbing.

My reaction brought her out of her rage state for a time, but we continued to fight on and off for another hour. I had left a happy K and returned to a monster. She swears it had nothing to do with my absence, but I wonder.

This morning was a return to the mornings where it was a fight to get her to move. She got up, but then she stalled getting dressed, becoming more and more angry with herself. Finally, we got out the door, which was victory in itself. But by the time that happened, I was near tears, exhausted, and an hour late for work.

I cannot deal with the anger. It's worse when it's directed towards me, but it hurts when she directs it towards herself as well.

K had a meeting out near my office this morning. I dropped her off and said if she needed a ride over to the subway, I would be happy to pick her up afterwards around noon. She called and asked if I wanted to have lunch and give her a ride. But she was angry with herself that she needed to involve me in her plans and she couldn't do it on her own.

During lunch, we talked, she sobbed. At one point, she was crying because she didn't have enough xanax to kill herself. I didn't take this too seriously or sympathetically, as she isn't in a suicidal state. Nor is she close enough to one where I would worry about her. I have seen her in a condition when I thought she might kill herself, so I know where the line is.

What I did find interesting is that she says there are voices in her head spewing rage and hate directed at herself and externally. This is new. I'm also hoping that it is temporary.

I'm putting down yesterday and today as blips. Miserable, heart wrenching blips, but blips, not the new norm. I'm hoping that it might be a manifestation of PMS, which it could be. The reaction is not out of the ordinary for her when she has PMS. She started on the paxel yesterday. Or it might be the result of her job stress and feeling the need to perform. I'm not sure. I only hope that I'm right and it is temporary.

I feel miserable, exhausted, and saddened. I hate the anger. I hate not being able to anticipate what she'll feel like. In some ways, these mood swings are like living with an alcoholic. Not as bad, but right now there is a tension as to how will she feel and be behaving when I return home.

We go through these really good times, when K's happy and productive and I remember what things are like between us. Then this happens. K's worried that her episode of rage is going to rekindle all my fears, and it will likely have an impact on them. Right now, I feel too numb to even think about it.

The sad part is that yesterday was the eight year anniversary of when we met. Also, now I'm starting to reconsider if I can leave town for 9 days in October to go to Germany, as I had hoped to do.

When does the peace finally return?

Off to the airport

2005-07-28T07:49:00.000-05:00

Instead of blogging, I ought to be finishing my packing, as I'm heading off to see my mother this morning. I'll only be gone until Sunday morning, but it will give us a chance to catch up and K a chance to have the house to herself. A sign of progress, as this is the first time in several years that I've planned a trip and K hasn't spent the days prior to my departure agonizing about being left alone. Even when I went away for ONE night at the end of March, K missed work and worried herself sick about being alone. This time, I don't think she even thought about it, as she's involved her job and otherwise occupied.

The other exciting news is that K accepted a social engagement while I'm out of town. The girlfriend of a friend of ours took the bar exam earlier this week and is having a small dinner gatherine at a local sake bar to celebrate. K and I were invited, and normally K would decline the invitiation. But, she really likes our friend and she's going out on her own to celebrate. K commented that she believes it is the first time in 8 years, we will have known each other 8 years on Sunday, that she's gone out alone. Now, that's an exaggeration, but it has been a while. Another very positive sign.

I'm continuing to feel better, though K having issues with her job still sends a jolt of fear from my chest to my stomach, but I'm slowly adjusting. I've fallen off the gym routine this week, due to the oppressively hot weather. It's finally better today, but I would have had to go at 5 am and I couldn't bear to do that, when I have a day off. Instead, I rose a bit after 6 am to give K a ride to the office. I made her purchase me a latte at Starbucks for payment.

The turnaround in K over the past 6 weeks or so has been amazing. She's engaged at the office. We hit the Nordstrom's anniversary sale and bought her a new suit. She's still shopping in the women's section, but with luck she'll continue to lose weight and move back to the regular sizes. We won't even discuss how much I bought at the sale. I'm dreading the American Express bill this month, but I need the clothing for work. K encouraged me to keep the $500 suit, when I might have returned it. Gray wool pant suit with stripes and a beautiful jacket.

I've spent a long time whining on this blog that I want my partner back and she is. I thrilled. Now I need to call the office, finish packing, and head out the door.

Worn Down

2005-07-21T15:17:00.000-05:00

This week, despite having tomorrow off, has seemed endless. K and I have both been tired. We attribute it somewhat to a friend coming through town and staying with us Monday night. He and his partner lived next door to us for 2.5 years, when we first came to town. They had bought the house and fixed it up. Then they moved on to the West Coast and now, 4 years later have split up. Our friend was clearly a bundle of nerves and pain, even though he's been traveling across country for the past month. It has good, but very difficult to see him. It's never easy to see someone you care about oozing pain and looking miserable.

His visit drained us on Monday. Then my period has been lurking. Even several years ago, my period had no impact on me or my mood. However, these days it isn't as easy to manage. Right now, I'm feeling achy with cramps, and I still have an appointment to have drinks this afternoon. The only good thing this month is that the worst of it will be on the weekend rather than during the work week.

K's doing okay. She's worn down as well. Her job situation is going great. Except today, she had an update meeting where she and her current supervisor were told that the goal for everyone in this developmental group is to get them jobs outside of the current organization. Not the small organization, but outside of the agency.

Not a welcoming, warm friendly feeling? K was struggling not to cry. I immediately felt the lump return to the pit of my stomach. K did comment that she didn't want to tell me, as she doesn't want me to have the lump feeling. But she did. She talked to her immediate manager, who was angry and very willing to support K. I'm beginning to trust that K can handle whatever comes her way. The more she does it, the more confident I'm becoming.

We're having 2 of my coworkers for dinner tomorrow night, and K will have a chance to meet 2 of the people I work with daily. We're looking forward to it and have enjoyed being able to entertain again. It's a sign of health that we have the spirits and strength to do so.

Building Confidence

2005-07-14T14:28:00.000-05:00

As I headed home from the gym this morning (yes, the 4th time I have gone in the past 7 days), I realized that I didn't have a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. For a long time, I wouldn't know if K would get up in the morning, what her mood would be, if she had slept the previous night, etc. Now, I can guarantee that she will be up, cheerful, and preparing to go to work in the morning.

Knowing that she'll be functioning normally is slowly building my confidence. It will still take a while, but I'm starting to trust that things will work out with K's illness and with her job. The longer our routine is unbroken the more confident I will become. The stress is starting to ease away.

I am curious as to what caused her change. Is it that she is more engaged at the office, which seems to have made a big difference? Is it that the bipolar has receded further? Is it that her engagement at the office has lifted a situational depression, as K told her therapist? I believe that the last one is the answer. There has been a radical change in K and it seems have brightened her aura.

Let's up that the good times continue.

One last note: I came across another bipolar blog today, it looks good. I know a number of you have already found it. --Been Broken--

Good

2005-07-12T15:20:00.000-05:00

Things have been quiet and good, since K recovered from the abscessed tooth. Actually, to be technically accurate, she didn't recover from the tooth, rather the infection. The tooth is scheduled for a root canal this evening.

I'm making an effort to go to the gym. I've gone three days out of four, since last Saturday. I'm hoping that the exercise will improve my mood. K is also making an effort not to upset me. For example, when she sends an e-mail detailing the idiocies of her new management, she starts is by stating that she isn't upset. That helps me keep my initial reaction of fear under control.

The biggest change in K is she's happy. For a while, she was repressing it. Her theory was that if she's happy about work then it will be that much more difficult if things go badly and she doesn't get this permanent job. However, her therapist said that while K may believe that moderating her emotions will help cushion the fall, it doesn't. K should be happy now, because if a fall comes, it will hurt just as badly if she doesn't allow herself to be happy, as it will if she does. The information has given K permission to enjoy her happiness, and it is wonderful to see it.

I'm doing pretty well. I'm wondering a bit if my emotional ups and downs may be tied to PMS. It's a bit early, but it isn't out of the question. A thought.

I'm optimistic that the root canal will go well and K will return to the office tomorrow.

Good News

2005-07-08T14:07:00.000-05:00

K's back at work and feeling better. The tooth still requires a root canal, but the antibiotic is taking care of the infection and pain. It feels as if my K has returned to me.

K also had a discussion with her new temporary supervisor at work. This manager also faced problems from the same individual, who harassed K about her use of leave, so she's very sympathetic. The other good thing is she wants to work with K, so this temporary position can turn into a permanent assignment at the end of September.

I'm going into the weekend feeling tired, but optimistic and happy as well.

Over-wrought and Overtaxed

2005-07-06T15:33:00.000-05:00

K is suffering from an abscessed tooth and the Vicodin prescription from the dentist seems to be doing nothing to ease her pain. We woke the dentist at 1 am this morning to ask for help, as K was almost screaming in agony. He had us come in at 7:30 am, so he could drain the abscess. As of yet, the pain has not gone away. On the way home, I have to stop to pick up a prescription of Percocet for her and have it filled.

Does it ever end?

I only got a few hours of sleep last night. My stomach is in knots as I worry about K. She's constantly freaking out, because the pressure from her job not to miss any time. Right now, she's basically panicking, but she can't have xanax as it doesn't mix well with the pain pills.

Not good.

I feel as if we are being bashed by wave after wave of crises. This isn't how I want to live my life. I plan things out. I don't wait for a crisis to hit before I take preventive action. But, I have to admit, I don't know how to plan for these things. I don't know how we anticipate the next wave and prepare ourselves for the ride and the buffeting.

K keeps focusing on the bipolar is not the problem here. It is things like the tooth and her cold virus, which are causing the problem. Regardless of cause, the end result is the same that K is ill, she needs my attention and help, and she can't work. I know the details differ, but the same result occurs.

I'm tired, stressed, and angry over this situation. I'm tired of her calling me in tears, I'm tired of being the responsible one, and I want my K back without all the extras.

Weekend

2005-07-05T11:23:00.000-05:00

We had a 4 day weekend, beginning with Friday off. Unfortunately, we also started off Friday with a major fight. It's rare that we fight, and exceptionally rare that we really go after one another. Friday's was one of our worst.

K and I had errands lined up in order to prepare for a dinner party we hosted Saturday evening. She was suffering from a sore throat and was exhausted from her week at work. When it was clear that I was going to have to do everything alone, I lost my temper. I'm very tired of feeling as if I have the responsibility to get things done, because otherwise they will languish. She even went as far as to suggested that if this relationship isn't working for me, we will have to break it off. I didn't like that at all.

The fight on Friday, which we did resolve and both apologized for, ended us both at her therapists on Friday. I also had to go to the hardware store to buy some parts for the rear security door. Some of the fasteners broke, when I slammed it. Not one of my finer moments. I should learn to work on my temper.

K's therapist normally only sees K, but she's been seeing us together to help us work through the stress of K's job situation. We talked through a number of the issues, specifically my frustration and fears about K's situation. She encouraged us to do several things.

1. If we can solve a problem by paying money to fix, do it. (For example, don't worry about spending money on prepared foods or going out, if we're too tired to cook.) Note: We are fortunate enough to be able to throw money at problems and not worry about the financial aspects of our life.

2. Try to plan out each day in advance. Know what we are going to eat, when we will be home, and work in downtime. This ruins spontaneity, but at the moment neither have any energy to use for spontaneous behavior.

3. If I need to talk about my frustration with our current situation, K should let me do so and not feel guilty about being the cause of the problem.

Those were the three suggestions that I remember. We left feeling like we could survive a bit longer. K's therapist was also surprised and unhappy to hear that K even briefly entertained the idea of ending the relationship. But I think it was only out of desperation that K made the suggestion.

Our dinner party on Saturday was a success. Everyone appeared to enjoy themselves. The only thing for us is that we were tired by the end of the evening and didn't get to bed until 1 am, much later than our usual retiring time of 9:30 pm.

Sunday was another low key day. I went and got a pedicure (K sponsored pedicure.) Then I wandered through our neighborhood checking out all the little shops and trying things on. I didn't buy anything, but it was interesting to see the new arrivals. We even have a new gay book store two blocks away. And I found a really cool, large apothecary chest at a used furniture store. I need to take K so she can check it out. That evening we headed to dinner, received stares from all the tourists in town, and went to a new grocery store. Another exciting evening. Actually, the exciting part was stopping by one of my favorite book shops and getting lots of interesting titles. I'm reading Prague by Arthur Phillips right now. Makes me remember my days of living in Berlin during the mid-90's.

Unfortunately, it looks as if lightening may have struck K for the umpteenth time. On Sunday evening, a sore or abscess erupted in her mouth. It's causing her amazing pain and she's taking ibuprofen to deal with despite not being able to mix ibuprofen and lithium. (I believe it can cause kidney or liver damage.) Will it never end? She's at the office, because she's not allowed to take any sick leave and she's making an appointment with the dentist for either tomorrow at lunch or after work to have it checked out. With luck (not that she's had much lately), it will only be a cold sore, but she's starting to believe it is tooth related.

What gets to K is that her more recent struggles have had nothing to do with either the heart attack or bipolar disorder. Instead, it's been the bad cold, which is resurging, it's the tooth problem, it's been her period reemerging after she thought she was in menopause. It's the day-to-day shit that everyone deals with, but seems to hit her harder. Part of the difficulty is that she cannot or is not supposed to take ibuprofen, which helps with a number of those problems. But I wonder when will we be in a state of calm and normal? I begin to question if it will ever happen.

Okay--enough of an update. I'm hoping to be better about writing again. A lot depends on how busy I am at the office.

Search String

2005-07-03T10:09:00.000-05:00

Should I be disturbed that one of the search strings used to find me was "mold smell in surburban vehicle"?

I can understand the "blind without my glasses or my contacts", but the mold smell I found baffling. Especially baffling, when I was 4th on the list. It amazes me how google searches things out.

Good (but tiring) week

2005-06-30T15:30:00.000-05:00

Today's our Friday. We work extra hours, so we have every 2nd Friday off. It makes a great difference in our pysche and in our ability to run errands.

I'm thrilled to report K's doing well. Actually better than well, but I don't want to jinx it. K's never had manic episodes where things go well, so I'm certain that she's doing well versus manic.

The great thing is that she's enjoying her job. It wears her out and she needs lots downtime by the end of the day, but she's getting up, going in, and is excited about what's she's doing. It makes me wonder if she had been more challenged at her job, would that have reduced the amount of time that she was ill? It's one of those questions that will never be and probably never should be answered. But it does linger given her improvement when she's pushed by external forces.

K agrees that she's doing better and even agrees that she should have left her old position some time ago. But fear froze K in place, so she couldn't move. Now, she's been forced to change and thus far the result is positive.

We're both worn out. Not much planned for the weekend, other than a 8-9 person dinner party on Saturday night. We'll be running around buying food and preparing for it over the next two days. However, it shouldn't be stressful.

I've been busy with work and finding professional mentors. I've two and a possible third. That will also keep me occupied over the next few months.

I'll also try to be better about writing.

wine (or whine)

2005-06-24T20:05:00.000-05:00

I probably shouldn't be blogging, since I finishing the last glass in a bottle of wine. A bottle that I haven't shared. However, my mood has greatly improved from earlier this evening. K and I were spatting a few hours ago. Also, I'm in the middle of making potato salad, which I committed to bringing to the professional development kickball game/cookout tomorrow afternoon.

We've gotten pass the spat, but the stress of the past week, as I stated earlier, her job, my feelings of responsibility and professional obligations, her illness, the house, etc. have given us a few reasons to be stressed over the past weeks. Somehow this week, everything seemed to come to a head.

I think the low point for me this afternoon was sitting in the car sobbing parked in one of the eight parking spots in the alley behind our local McDonald's. McDonald's is the only place where you can find parking in one of the popular neighborhoods near us, and they have 6 or 8 spots total. The cabs frequently grab them from everyone else. But the street can be parked to the max with every illegal spot in sight already taken and the alley behind McD's can have spots galore.

Any case, I'm digressing. K seems to think that I'm through and had it with the entire situatiion of her job and illness. That isn't the case, rather I'm stretched too far. I don't feel as if I can continue to stretch. To address this, we've decided to try a joint session with K's therapist tomorrow. I'm not sure that I have ever been in a full session with the two of them, but we've decided that it might help both of us reduce our anxiety. I have reserved the right to change my mind up until the last minute.

As I've mentioned earlier in this blog, I did go to therapy for six months to help me get through the worst of K's bipolar disorder. It wasn't fantastic, but it did help. We had to set ground rules that the psychiatrist would not probe beyond the situation with K, as I wasn't interested in going beyond that portion of my life. Once, she tried to probe into my defense mechanisms and the result was that I sobbed for hours after the session. She decided after that session that my defenses funtioned well and there was no need to probe them and cause me additional pain.

Different subject: When I took the Meyer's Biggs exam recently, it was confirmed that I am an introvert. I need people more that K needs people, but it drains me to be placed in unknown social situations. Tomorrow's kickball game/cookout has been stressing me out for the past 2 weeks. I could have managed to have gotten out of it, but I know that it will be good for my professional life to show up and chat with people. I was whining to my manager about having to attend. His sympathy was with me, as he hates these events. But he pointed out that when I'm an executive I'll have to deal with them. I guess the good thing is that he's assuming that I'll make it that far. We'll see. I'm still a couple levels below that title. However, with the retirements in the next few years, it may happen sooner that I think. Once again, I digress.

K and I worked through our differences this evening. She was able to use her sense of humor to convince me to stop crying. Then, we were able to go get dinner. I had a chicken gyro. Not worth it, I'll stay with lamb in the future. I am somewhat concerned that we go to the Greek place enough that they greet us as regular customers. And it's been several weeks since we last made it. One other thing, K and I both got complexes, as there was a group of attractive lesbians sitting in the next restaurant patio from where we were waiting for our food. We both felt overweight. For the record, I've been going to the gym 2-3 times a week and I actually was able to briefly manage 6.8 mph on the treadmill this week. The rest of the time was between 6.0-6.5.

Okay--my potato salad is calling and the wine has already been hitting, as you can probably tell from the post.

Feeling Better

2005-06-24T08:24:00.000-05:00

K and I had a long talk last night after I made it home from the office. I talked about my fears, specifically that I become anxious when I am concerned about her. She pointed out to me that she shows me her emotions behind the curtain.

K is excellent at maintaining a facade, a cheerful, professional, competent facade. But it tires her. When she speaks with me, she doesn't have to maintain the effort, so I'm likely to hear the frustration, fear, and exhaustion that she hides from the others. It's those emotions that I was worried she was showing to others. She reassured me that she isn't and I need to stop worrying.

K also reassured me that this project is her strong point. She takes piles of regulations, reads them, summarizes them, summarizes what her organization is doing, and writes a report. If all goes well, she'll also implement the changes detailed in the report as part of her new job.

This whole situation of the job and the continuing work being done on the house has put us both under way too much stress. K's therapist keeps emphasizing that stress is cumulative and that it is getting to us more the long the situation continues. The basement is moving forward, which is good. And K is slowly resolving issues on her job, another sign of progress. It just takes a lot out of me.

I would like to do nothing this weekend and Saturday afternoon I have to attend a party for a professional development. I don't want to go, but I figured that I have to go for a while. I agreed to bring potato salad, so I thinking that I may go to Costco and buy it, put it in a bowl, and take it that way. I know it's cheating, but . . . . Or maybe I'll forget about potato salad and make a large pan of brownies to bring with me.

Any case, I'm feeling better, though still tired. I'm also having my period which takes a toll on me mentally and physically, my energy is lower at this time of the month. But I'm moving back towards hopeful.

Endless Week

2005-06-23T13:04:00.000-05:00

This week seems to be going on forever. I'm tired, somewhat disheartened, anxious, and generally uneasy. There's not much happening that should cause the above feelings, but they continue to lurk in the background.

Last week, things exploded with K's leave situation. She didn't go to the office on Tuesday or Wednesday. She worked Friday and made up one of the days, but still she was out unexpectedly once again. Basically, the shit hit the fan regarding her use of leave. She has to provide doctor's notes for the six days she missed in the previous two weeks. That really should not be a problem, except that one of the doctors was in Urgent Care and she's had a bit of trouble getting a good note from him.

What has become clear is that her leave situation, with almost six weeks of advanced sick leave that needs to be repaid, is not helping her mental health or her professional outlook. It is being used against her in this developmental assignment and by the management of the group. K also worries about it.

So . . . she's decided that the best thing to do, instead of waiting to earn it all back, which would take three years, she wants to buy herself out of the hole on leave. We've heard two figures, one in the four digits and one in the five digits as to the cost. But if that's what it takes to help K get back on track, then that is what needs to be done. I'm fine with spending the money.

K's moods have been pretty stable and she's made it to work every day this week. But the leave situation is dragging on her. She's had to report on her progress in getting notes and working out all the problems to the management. It takes a toll on her even to talk about it. I hear it in her voice and then I become anxious.

I continue to struggle with the challenge of separating my moods from K's. I've been busy all week as well, but I know that some of my anxiety arises from the knowledge that she's uneasy. Somehow, I need to let let figure it out on her own without my involvement.

I am also concerned because she's been given a new assignment. It appears to be a good one, but it is in an area that she's only now learning. I can hear the uncertainty in her voice as she is trying to figure out how to complete her assignment, which is due at the end of September. The hope is that she will then be converted to the position as a permanent employee and her ordeal as a temporary worker will be over.

To combat my own anxiousness and fears, I went to the gym this morning. Too soon to tell if it helped or not. I'm sure it did, even if I'm unable to tell. As I keep telling K, we'll get through this. Our toast lately has been "Survival".

Going Backward

2005-06-13T11:24:00.000-05:00

I had thought or perhaps had hoped that I was getting better at riding out K's moods. This morning was a step backward for us both. Nasty fight with me pressuring her to go to the office. I won in the sense that she's at the office, but she's in a rage state.

The news from last Thursday that she won't have a permanent position rather a developmental assignment has returned her to the state she was in after finding out about her reassignment to the developmental division. I had hoped that we were past that anger, self-disgust, self-hatred, and all other negative emotions. K had begun to think about the reassignment as an opportunity rather than a punishment. But today she reverted to her negative thought patterns.

I didn't react well. Last week, she kept telling me that she wanted to go to work, but the cold was keeping her from going. She was really ill, so there was no doubt that she needed to be at home. Friday, she was ready to go in, but then she had the scare with her heart and we spent the day in the ER. Today, she woke already enraged and we had an extended battle, complete with screaming, shouting, and tears before I convinced her to get dressed and go to work. Now, she's in a rage state at the office, and I'm questioning if I would have been better off leaving her alone.

How to balance. . . if she had been as physically ill this morning as she was mentally, I never would have asked her to push herself. What confuses me is that K's self-hatred is almost worse if she doesn't go, since she views staying home as a failure. The right answer may be that I stay out of her decision to attend or not attend work. I've tried, but I find removing myself from the decision doesn't help.

I become angry that I go to work every day and she doesn't. I become tired of the constant self-abuse that she inflicts on herself in these states. My instinct is to step in and help, but there's nothing I can do and I can't accept that answer. Right now, I feel sad for her and somewhat sad for our relationship.

I'm ready for us to be past this anger and drama. I want to be part of a normal relationship. Actually, I want the two of us to return to an equilibrium and not be constantly faced with shifting circumstances. Basically, I'm tired of this.

False Alarm

2005-06-11T06:52:00.000-05:00

I need to write this quickly as I'm heading to the gym as soon as I finish.

Yesterday was a miserable day. Not only is it unbelievably hot and humid suddenly, but K had a bad scare with her heart. Thursday wasn't the best for her. She found out that instead of a permanent assignment, she will be receiving a temporary assignment at work. She was home sick still fighting the bad cold that she's had for 10 days, and right after she heard from her office, her ex-husband called. His mother is in the hospital and has been diagnosed with late stage bone cancer. Strange that after being divorced 7 years, and K living far away for 6 years, he still calls her first whenever a crisis occurs. So K was doing alright on Thursday evening, but she was upset by all the bad news.

Friday morning around 2:30 am, she awoke (and woke me) clutching her chest in pain with what she thought was bad indigestion. Her lithium gives her incredible heartburn, so she takes prevacid daily to combat it. Due to her cold, she was also placed on z-pack antibiotics, which also didn't seem to be agreeing with her system. I gave her several over-the-counter meds, but nothing seemed to help the heartburn. Finally, she asked me to give her nitroglycerine, which she has for her heart. At this point, she assumed that she must be having another heart attack, since nothing else was helping.

The nitro worked in 3 minutes and we both fell back to sleep. At 5 am, she was awoken with the same pain and took another nitro tablet. At this point, she announced to me that we were going to have to go to the ER to have her checked out, as she assumed the nitro would only help if her problem was heart related. I convinced her to let me shower first, and we headed out the door at 6 am for the ER.

We've had a number of visits to the hospital, since K's heart attack. Some of definitely been better than others, and yesterday was one of the worst. First, they couldn't insert the IV tube. They tried twice, and K ended up bleeding on her gown. Then she went into a panic attack and wanted to leave the hospital. That occurred a couple of times throughout the day. I convinced her to stay, but she wasn't happy about it.

Finally, after we had been there for 5 hours, and there was NO ONE else there, other than the guy that the two police officers were guarding, we saw the resident cardiology. We had been taken back immediately and they begin to work on K. But the difficulty with the blood drawing slowed everything down. Additionally, we were told that she would, at a minimum, have to spend Friday night at the hospital for observation. K wasn't happy about any of it.

The most interesting piece of news from the cardiac resident was that the nitro would have also eased pain from extreme heartburn. Apparently, the nitro relaxes any smooth muscle. K and I began to realize that we might be in the hospital for nothing.

Then they took her off to the heart center and move her upstairs around 11 am. I took the opportunity to head home (only about 1.5 miles) and let the dog out and pick up some food at Whole Foods. I HATE the hospital cafeteria. It's only a college campus so the campus center is only 1.5 blocks away, but I figured Whole Foods was a better choice.

I returned to the hospital at 12:30 pm. K wasn't on the cardiac floor yet, though I had been told she would arrive there in 45 minutes. Finally, at 3:30 pm, she got upstairs. They had worked her in, and she had been given a stress test, which was looking normal. We were becoming more and more convinced that this was not heart related. Meanwhile, K hadn't had any of her daily meds. Her lithium is an evening med, so she wasn't off that, but the rest of her medical routine was being severely disrupted.

After being in the room an hour, and we had made sure to request a private room, a nurse finally showed up. She asked K a number of questions, but she didn't really listen to the answers. Instead she would interrupt if K tried to elaborate. I could see K's frustration rising. Then they wanted to perform another blood draw, which brought on another panic attack. Nor would the nurse give K any anti-anxiety meds. K asked for xanax and the nurse said she would look into getting her something. Once again, K was ready to walk out the door. At the peak of frustration, the nurse came in and said that K would be released that evening.

Basically, we went through an absolute day of hospital hell for bad heartburn. We aren't sure if we should be grateful that it wasn't anything more serious or if we should be pissed if we both wasted a day when we could have been in the office. The sad part of the story is that the experience was bad enough that K will really think twice before she returns to the hospital with any type of pain. The other good part is that we now know for certain that there has been no detioration of her heart problem. Everything is the same as it was at the time of the heart attack, 2.5 years ago.

Okay--the gym opened 15 minutes ago, but I wanted to finish my post. I'm out the door. Sorry for the spelling errors, I'm using Safari, which doesn't really work with Blogger.

Clarification

2005-06-03T18:31:00.000-05:00

K has requested a clarification about my comment regarding "omni-present rage." K doesn't constantly show the rage, rather it is internal. I know that she's fighting it underneath the surface and exerting control over her emotions. The trileptal helps her manage the rage. However, it is not a case where the rage is bubbling to the surface. I only see the rage on occasion, but I know that she's controlling it.

Evils of Trileptal

2005-06-03T16:48:00.000-05:00

We had the day off, but due to a scheduling error at the psychiatrist's office, we spent the entire afternoon running around. But things worked out in the end. Original plan had been the see Dr. X in the morning and then have haircuts and visit with a friend in the afternoon. Well, Dr. X's office called yesterday and they had moved the appointment to the afternoon without telling us. Second time this has happened. Last time, they deleted the appointment entirely. Fortunately, the front desk people are good and know us well, so they accepted that it was their fault. Any case, hair cuts had to be moved up and we had less time to visit with the friend, but still. . . .

K pointed out to the front desk people and her doctor that patients, especially psychiatric patients, will immediately assume that they made a mistake in the appointment time and it can be very disheartening. This time K had them write down the time on a card to ensure that there is written, not just electronic, evidence of the scheduled time. We'll see in September.

K is still sick with her cold, though she's moving around more today than yesterday. So Dr. X wasn't fully convinced that she was doing well and checked in with me to verify. As usual, I was there with K. It makes things easier when I attend the Dr. X appointments. I know what's happening with her treatment and I can offer details that she may overlook or forget. Dr. X appears to prefer it as well. The three of us have developed a very good relationship over the past 2.5 years. I never went with K to see him before she began to struggle with the depression post-heart attack.

Any case, one of the meds in K's cocktail is trileptal. It's used to combat the noise in her brain and calm her episodes of rage. Normally, she takes 150 mg once a day, and twice a day, if needed. Ever since the job situation has escalated, she's been taking it twice a day to combat the omnipresent rage. It has proven to be extremely effective for her.

Well, she happened to mention to Dr. X that she has a rash on her hands that she believes may be connected to the trileptal. She's had it for at least six months, but it has started to spread, since she has regularly increased the dose to 300 mg/day. Apparently, there is fear of the Stevens-Johnson rash, which is the same as the rash, which may be brought on by use of lamictal. K was pulled off lamictal, because she was showing signs of a rash and Dr. X wasn't willing to take the risk that it might be serious rash.

At no time had anyone mentioned to us that Trileptal was a possible source of the Stevens-Johnson rash. Dr. X was ready to take away K's trileptal prescription and bodily search her for any pills that she might have with her. K was fighting back pointing out that she certainly doesn't want to have to change meds, while going through the stress of transitioning to a new job.

I brokered a compromise by having K agree to see a dermatologist and Dr. X would give her another prescription for trileptal. That satisfied K, though Dr. X was not completely thrilled. He made K promise to go immediately to the dermatologist and call him with the results of the visit. He tried to convince himself that he was worrying too much, but it was evident that he remained very concerned. He screwed up writing the prescription and had to write it a second time.

The other interesting thing he asked her was if she really wanted to lose weight. I guess there is another medication, similar to trileptal, which will help patients lose weight. The downsides are that (and this is a direct quote) you lose a few IQ points. Apparently it impacts short-term memory and your ability to find the right words. Dr. X said that doctors frequently say you lose weight on the drug, because you are too dumb to find food. K turned down his offer for this prescription.

I could tell that she was tempted, but ECT and the aftermath of losing her short-term memory and being unable to write and read were very traumatic for her. I wondered if the side effects would be worse for her due to the previous loss of short term memory. Both of us are fully convinced that some permanent damage was done to her brain by the ECT. Dr. X reassured her that it wouldn't be nearly as bad, but she figured the job situation required her to be as intelligent as possible. As for weight loss, once she recovers from her cold, she'll be joining me at the gym in the mornings at 5 am.

No big plans for the weekend, which is good as K needs some time to recover from her cold. Next weekend is Pride, so we might actually go out and do some things. K's not enthusiastic, but I'll work on convincing her.

I'm pleased that there were no changes from today's visit. We didn't expect any. Dr. X requested that K work on reducing the amount of ambien she's using. Right now, she uses every night during the week, and he would like her to cut back. The job situation has been taking a toll, and it should be easier for her once she's placed. She had hoped to find out today as to where she's going, but no e-mails have come through yet. Dr. X's attack on trileptal had us a bit concerned, but we'll keep an eye on the rash and hope that he is worrying needlessly.

Still in a holding pattern

2005-06-02T13:41:00.000-05:00

No news yet on K's job. We had a good weekend. We went south to a wedding on Saturday and it was a beautiful drive through the countryside and mountains. However, upon entering the town, where the wedding was held, we were immediately greeted with a roadside stand waving a banner "Johnny Reb's Dixie Outpost". It confirmed every stereotype we had of the area.

Sunday, we slowly headed home, stopping to visit college campuses and see a friend of mine. It was another perfect day and a 3.5 hour drive took us 8 hours, by the time we stopped for lunch, coffee, and dinner.

We had hoped that this week K would be placed in a new position. What she had been told was that there were 120 day temporary assignments and then she would be permanently placed with the group, if she wowed them. As it turns out, she's being requested by name from some managers to immediately be moved into a permanent assignment. This has done wonders for K's ego.

The new manager, who is guiding K (and other homeless employees) through the reorg process, is excellent. He and his deputy appear to care about what happens to the people and be sensitive to the emotional turmoil that the reorg has created. One of the best outcomes of this whole process is that K will be working for a better management team and she may have work that she find more intellectually stimulating.

K continues to handle this very well. Michele mentioned a concern that K may be entering a manic stage, but that isn't likely. K has never had a traditional manic episode. She would be happy to have a productive bout of mania. That's one reason that her bipolar disorder was difficult to diagnose. K's mania manifests as rage, of which there has been plenty the past few weeks. She is good about managing the rage through self-control and meds.

As I said last week, it's looking as if this entire situation will have a positive outcome for K, especially as she hasn't been happy or stimulated by her job in some time. As she is talking to the new managers, they are providing her with lots of positive feedback and are impressed by her background. That recognition is doing an excellent job of off-setting the negative feedback that she heard a couple weeks ago.

I'm thrilled to see her be able to stand alone again. I'm not missing the dominant role. Rather I would like her to be confident and take an equal part in our relationship. We're closer to achieve the equal balance than we have been since the onset of bipolar disorder. I'm also becoming more confident that K can react and survive any situation that confronts her. It's a good feeling.

Upbeat

2005-05-27T06:59:00.000-05:00

It's been a stressful week for K and for me, but we've weathered it well. As I began to expect, K was more worried about not knowing with the job rather than worrying about the future once she found out. Basically, last week was hell due to uncertainty. Once she found out that she was to be placed in the developmental group, she's been okay.

I'll go into more detail, but the synopsis of the week is that K has realized that the reorganization at her office may have a very good outcome for her professionally and get her out of her rut. Also, she's feeling more optimistic about the future. [Now, you can skip all my lengthy descriptions, if you would like.]

K went to speak to her new manager this week. He was extremely impressed by her qualifications and he said his job is to find her a permanent position in the organization. Hence, this helped to counteract the negative feedback she received last week. He also recommended that she find a mentor and develop a individual development plan to plan for professional development. It's amazing how those little comments can make you feel worthwhile and wanted.

The other nice thing is that this guy immediately wanted K to come and work for him on a massive project that he's responsible for completing in two years. By today, we are both feeling less scared and I'm starting to think that this reorg might have a very positive outcome for K.

One interesting thing that I realized this week is how little K talks about her job. When I arrive home, I usually share with her things that happened throughout the day or frustrations with one of my projects. She will occasionally tell me about some conversation, but not much more. Well, this week that all changed. Upon arriving home, K began talking for 1.5 or 2 hours to tell me everything about her day and the conversations she had been having with her potentially new managers. It made me realize that she could be much happier and more engaged at the office than she has been. It appears as if there are three possible places for her to end up and it sounds like each one would be a good fit and she would receive support.

One thing holding K back has been her sick leave situation. She used 6 weeks of advanced sick leave while she was ill. She's been paying it back over time, but she's also continued to use it at times. Right now she still owes 3 weeks. Any case, she's been terrified that no one would take on someone with a negative leave balance. Her new manager took one look at it and asked what was the big deal that she had 3 weeks leave outstanding. It was a huge relief to her and took a burden of guilt off her shoulders.

K's done a great job of handling this, though she is pretty worn down today. I no longer have the sinking feeling and knot in my stomach, which were there much of last week. My anxiety immediately disappeared. I rarely feel anxious for myself, as I'm confident that I can handle anything that comes in my direction. But I frequently feel anxious for K. Example: Yesterday there were a few explosions outside her building. Turned out to be nothing and I wasn't worried about terrorism. Rather, I was worried that K would react badly. I was in an all-day meeting and couldn't contact her till noon (several hours after the incident.) I didn't change my behavior, but I was concerned. She was fine. Only thing that irritated her is that security wouldn't allow anyone to leave her building.

I'm trying to move away from worrying about her and believing that she'll be able to handle things. I'm getting better. But it's hard to let go, when I remember how helpless she was during her illness. Still, I'm making progress and trusting K's instincts.

We're off tomorrow for a wedding in the countryside. Should be a beautiful drive.

Another Caretaker Blog

2005-05-23T14:59:00.000-05:00

I found a blog written by the spouse of someone with bipolar disorder. His story, as much as I read, sounds significantly more challenging than my life with K. We are both strongly committed to making the relationship work and we don't have any children to worry about. Any case, here's the link to Dan's Journal.

Is it light on the horizon or a fake dawn?

2005-05-23T12:03:00.000-05:00

K did get up and go to the office this morning, even though she had a rough night. I, on the other hand, had quickly drifted off to sleep clutching the heating pad. I'm trying to turn to heat to mitigate cramps, as my doctor is after me over to reduce my iboprofen intake.

But, once K made it to the office, she was told that she did score very highly for one of the jobs for which she had applied. So there MAY be something available. Everything was stated very tentatively. Apparently, it isn't certain if the person in the position is going to leave. She's worked for the manager before and he's very low key. Not a terribly good leader, but someone, who doesn't worry about you if you get your work done. The two of them get along well.

No idea as when there will be a definite yes or no, but she's working on positioning herself for the position.

Rough Ride Ahead

2005-05-21T09:01:00.000-05:00

It's going to be a difficult weekend. K's reacting very badly to news that she's been placed in a "developmental" division to give her an opportunity to work on her leadership and problem solving skills. I have to agree that I would be furious, embarrassed, hurt, and ashamed. She's all of the above at extreme levels.

I believe that she has effective leadership and problem solving skills, but she hasn't been focused on her job. For the past 2.5 years, survival has been her highest priority, and I would like to think that I have been her second highest priority. Her job has been a distant third. Also, for K, those two skill sets are the most disrupted by her bipolar disorder. Regardless of what the reason is, she's struggling with what she sees as a confirmation that she is bad.

I'm trying to ride out the wave. I'm hoping that once she reaches acceptance of what happens, then she'll be able to go ahead and focus on whatever assignment they give her to develop those skills. I've seen these cycles before. Previously, I would challenge every negative assertion she made, but I don't have the energy. Nor do I believe it helps. Now, I only challenge the ones which are absolutely ridiculous. The rest of the time I try to hold her and let her rant to get the anger out of her system.

In addition to the anger, it seems as if she is trying to punish herself by not taking either xanex or ambien. Of course, those meds don't solve the problem, but they do provide a mental buffer to keep the pain away. Finally, last night I was awoken at 2 am by the sound of her crying in anger and frustration. It turned out that she hadn't taken anything and had been miserable for 4 hours. I woke up enough to convince her to take some xanex, which put her to sleep in a few minutes. Then I ended up being awake for 2 hours in the middle of the night.

K has an appointment with her therapist this morning. I'm hoping that her therapist, who is wonderful, will be able to calm her somewhat and offer some perspective. I started out the morning by working off stress in the gym.

Yesterday, as we were picking up Greek take-out for dinner, I ran into my personal trainer, who I haven't seen in about a year. The best part was listening him tell me that he doesn't have time to work out and hearing him order french fries. But, seeing him made me realize that his help and routines are what kept me sane and off anti-depressants throughout the worst bouts of K's illness. I should have said thank you. Next time I see him, I will.

Catch up

2005-05-20T12:20:00.000-05:00

I know that I have been bad about blogging lately. Last week was insanely busy. I was gone most of the time, and by the time I returned home on Sunday afternoon, I was exhausted. Monday, I took off to recover, but I have still had to drag myself through the rest of the week. Finally, it's Friday afternoon and I'm starting to feel more human.

First, my week last week was great. I spent a couple of days at a professional development retreat, the kick-off for a nine month program to aid in networking and career development. I wasn't sure what to expect, but the whole thing went well. I was more comfortable with the group of 25 than I expected to be. I've been paired with a guy and it appears we will get along fine.

After returning home from the retreat, I had a night at home before heading to Smith College for my 10 year reunion. I was somewhat skeptical about the whole thought of going and had coerced a couple of friends to join me. I ended up having an excellent time. I had forgotten how beautiful the campus and region are. It was also special having a weekend to hangout and spend with friends. However, I was feeling ready to come home. After 10 years, I am no longer suited to dorm life, even life in nice house dorms.

This week, it feels as if things have begun to fall apart. K's job situation is coming to a head and she was to have been informed of her new placement by today. However, she's been out of the office on Thursday and Friday, since her rage has taken over. When she's not sucked into the rage, then she realizes that this may be a great opportunity to try something new. In the meantime, it's pretty stressful.

I have been walking around with a feeling of dread due to K's job situation. I have fears that she'll be out of work and we won't be able to cover our expenses. I am concerned that she'll become ill enough, as a result of these changes, that she won't be able to work. Every worst case possibility flits through my brain creating these dark, gloomy hallucinations to haunt any free moment. The knots in my stomach also are growing tighter as we continue down this path.

Part of the time, I am angry. Why is this happening? Why can't we be happy and stable and normal? I ready for all this to subside. K's rage and anger make it difficult for the two of us to communicate. Even knowing that is isn't directed at me, I still tend to react on a personal level. However, I expect her to be able to take her situation at work professionally and not put it at the personal level. Probably inconsistent of me, but that's what I would like her to be able to do.

I'm hoping that the weekend will bring some relief to us both. Once K reaches a state of acceptance regarding the job, it will make everything else much easier.

Underway

2005-05-11T15:20:00.000-05:00

It's a busy week. I was gone on an offsite for a professional development program for the past three days. I arrived home this afternoon, and I feel exhausted. I'm an introvert, so I feel that people can suck my energy levels and tire me. The majority of the group are extreme extroverts, who thrive on the feeling of community and togetherness. Though, I will say that even they were wearing out towards the end.

Tomorrow, I leave for my 10 year college reunion. So I get to see K tonight, then I will be off again until Sunday. The good part is that I am taking off Monday to recover from all this excitement.

K is feeling better. I was concerned when I left on Monday, because she didn't make it into work on Monday, but she was there yesterday and today. That's a good indicator that she's feeling able to handle things, despite her general unhappiness with the situation.

As part of my professional development offsite, I learned a few things about myself and my preferences in regards to work and structure. I'll talk more about that later and explain how that impacts my caretaking abilities.

For now, I'm signing off.

Back

2005-05-04T11:51:00.000-05:00

Okay, okay, I realize that I have been quiet for far too long. Last week was a busy week and it didn't help that K was out of work all week with a bad cold. I was ill for a couple of days with what I thought was food poisoning, now I believe it was an intestinal virus that is going around. The house felt like a sick ward.

Not too much to report. I received my promotion, which is good news. I also participated in the kick-off reception for a networking/development training program that I was selected to join. My career is going well. I keep hoping that it won't be a point of contention for K, as we do work in the same (albeit) large organization. Unfortunately, that leads her to compare our career paths, which have been different.

K's path has had many more hurdles and obstacles. Mine has been relatively smooth with only one bad manager or two tossed in the mix. What my promotion does is put me in a higher position than K, earning more money. When she's upset, she does focus on the difference a bit and with her office in chaos this is just another black mark against them in her mind.

We've somewhat resolved issues with the basement contractors. They are currently assessing the situation and will propose resolutions. But they didn't try to argue or defend their actions. We're not too irritated with them at the moment. We also, tentatively, agreed that they would push to have the basement complete by July 1 and provide us a schedule to achieve that goal.

Things are okay, not great. Our four year anniversary, since the commitment ceremony, is tomorrow. I haven't done anything and neither has K. We've been talking about going to dinner either tomorrow or Friday. We'll see.

Catching Up

2005-04-20T19:33:00.000-05:00

I completed the paperwork for my promotion this evening, two days before it has to be finished. Now, I'll have to wait to see if I am actually selected for the position. I'm hoping that they'll let me know sometime next week.

I was bad this evening. Instead of eating a healthy dinner of leftover grilled chicken, K and I shared half a package of fudge striped cookies. Now, I'm not hungry for healthy food. This is so rare that I'm not sure we've ever done anything like this before. But, I better scamper downstairs to make myself a salad to try and eat something healthy this evening.

K's doing well. The basement contractors appear to be doing the right things, for once. Nothing else to report.

Perspective

2005-04-18T13:55:00.000-05:00

When K was going through the worst of the bipolar and prior to her episode, back in 2003, I visited a psychiatrist for weekly therapy sessions. I went out of a sense of desperation. The situation at home was challenging me and I was beginning to worry that I would shatter from the strain it was putting on me.

The sessions were helpful. It took some time before I was willing to trust the psychiatrist or talk openly about the situation with K. I remember times when I would lose control and start crying to the point of being unable to speak or at times to even know why I was crying.

The psychiatrist did help me to gain perspective on the situation and to assert my own needs into my relationship with K. Mostly, I was subsuming my needs in order to make things easier on her. Without the therapy sessions, I think that K's bipolar episode would have been even worse on us than it was. After six months, she let me know that she didn't believe that I would benefit from further therapy.

She probably believed it was better to stop, since K was doing better and I had placed very tight boundaries on the discussion to restrict the focus only on to what was happening with K. I had no desire to go looking at any other aspect of my life. A couple of times when she began to prod my defense mechanisms, specifically my use of denial to allow myself to cope throughout a crisis, the impact was that I would struggle to regain my equilibrium. We decided it was too risky for her to touch those boundaries as that was holding me together.

As it stands, I still get tired, frustrated, and irritable with myself and with K. However, I no longer feel as if I will shatter, if one more thing in my day will make me come apart. I'm able to concentrate on my job and be productive. My entire being is not filled with anxiety over what the next minute, hour, or day will bring or what will happen to the two of us next. I don't have to get through my day by focusing on getting through each individual minute to minute. The contractors have taken their bite out of my ass, but it's not enough to impact my world.

As long as I believe that my equilibrium is not out of balance, I will continue on without professional assistance. But I do realize that if things become to great for me to muddle through, address, handle, or manage, I have the phone number to ask for help.

Doctor Visit

2005-04-16T11:14:00.000-05:00

I did go to the doctor despite feeling much better yesterday. I knew it was easier to make the appointment and go rather than face the wrath of K if I didn't. K came along with me to keep me company and make sure that I represented the situation adequately.

Basically, no sinus infection. The doctor believes that I am having a reaction to the acid being used in the house. I guess I'm not sure what to think, but a reaction to the acid is certainly a strong possibility. She saw no evidence that I had a sinus infection. Her only advice was to stay out of the house as much as possible.

The contractors are finished using the acid. Sometime today, they are to commence with the clean-up of the basement to stop all our pipes and fixtures from corroding further.

K also laid out some of the troubles I have had with sleeping for the doctor and convinced her to give me a prescription for ambien. Occasionally, maybe once every few weeks, I have a difficult time sleeping and stay awake about half the night. I have been known to take K's ambien, but K doesn't like sharing, as she has only enough for herself, as she takes it virtually every night. The doctor handed over 30 tablets and one refill, so we figured that was a success.

Last night, we watched 13 Conversations about One Thing. Depressing. Watching the movie opened all of my anxieties regarding K's job situation and money. Normally, those anxieties are only a small fissure in my brain, but sometimes things like the movie act as a lever and open the crack further, so it allows the anxieties to escape. I felt guilty inflecting K with my worries, but she calmed me down and reassured me that things will be fine. It was her turn to be pollyanna.

I think I was more susceptible to worrying as my period is kicking in for the month. That seems to have a negative effect on my mood of late.

This morning I got up and went to the gym. Now we're sitting around both feeling slightly grumpy and knowing that we need to go out and run a few errarnds, including going to the mall. I hate going to the mall, but I have a pair of pants to pick up from the alterations department that I bought a couple weeks ago. K's having some pain shooting through her eye. We're not quite sure if it is stress-related or now that it might be related to the acid fumes. It's a beautiful spring day, and I'm sure we'll feel better soon.

It seems as if the basement boys have arrived to begin their day’s work at 12:30 pm. We both jumped a moment ago, as a large crash emanated from the basement. Maybe it will be time to abandon the house in a little bit.

No more sledgehammer in the skull

2005-04-15T11:23:00.000-05:00

I'm feeling better today and able to at least look the world in the face. The base of my skull no longer feels as if someone has taken a sledgehammer to it. Bending over remains uncomfortable due to the pressure in my sinuses, but even that's better. Of course, this attitude adjustment could be due to 1000 mg. of acetaminophen and sinus medication.

All of this said, K nagged me into making an appointment with the doctor, so I'm headed out of the office at 1 pm to go visit the doctor. I'm just hoping for no antibiotics. I think K's concerned that this could be a side effect of the acid in the house, but she's coming along and will be able to quiz the doctor in person. Afterwards we get to go to the permanent farmer's market and purchase food for dinner.

The world is starting to look like a good place once again. Oh, and K has to take me to purchase my bribe for filling out her work forms for her last week. Or facilitating her completion of the work forms. I spotted a nice lime green bag in a shop down the street.

Mixed

2005-04-14T12:48:00.000-05:00

I'm sick, stressed, and mildly worried. Let's start at the beginning of the list. The contractors have been using muriatic acid to strip lead paint from the walls of the basement. I began having a reaction in the form of coughing about two weeks ago. Now, I seem to be in the midst of a full blown sinus infection with pain coursing up and down the right side of my face. This morning it felt as if someone has taken a sledgehammer to the base of my skull. Doesn't help that the contractors are still using the acid in the basement. I'm home from work today, but hanging out in a coffee shop rather than at the house, not that the contractors are working. Urgh.

Stressed due to the contractors and K. The contractors have managed to destroy about $10K of electrical wiring and god knows what else in our basement. We had new conduit and a new electrical box installed late last year. It's all rusted and pitted and will need to be replaced with new. So far, they don't seem to have destroyed the new boiler, though one of the pipes has sprung a leak. The only good news is that it appears as if the National Park Service ceremony, which was to be held at the house in May, will be postponed. Our ranger has been ill for months and isn't able to plan for the ceremony.

K is also causing me stress. She in a mild rage state. She is angry at the contractors for the damage in the basement and she's angry about her situation at work. She didn't go in yesterday. Today, I convinced her to go in for the afternoon, while I came to the coffee shop. I had intended on going to work as well, but my manager called me and strongly discouraged me from coming in. He prefers if we stay out of the office when sick, though, I don't believe that I am contagious.

My worries come regarding K. I'm concerned about her mental state, despite the indications that she's doing well. When does life return to normal? We had a slice of it for a few months, but that seems to have been shattered since mid-February, when the job nightmare began. She's starting to think about other jobs, which is very positive. I keep reminding myself that we have held together this far and we will continue to do so.

I feel like whining this afternoon. Whenever I am ill, my whine switch kicks on. It's a good that I don't suffer from a chronic illneess, as no one would be able to tolerate my constant whining long enough to care for me.

Realization

2005-04-12T18:49:00.000-05:00

As I'm sitting at the computer after completing my 2004 taxes, I had a realization. I'm dead tired and not feeling the greatest. I kept thinking that I would be able to escape the office early this afternoon and come home to feel miserable in bed. It didn't happen. Rather, I got caught on a useful, but lengthy phone call 5 minutes before my depature. It kept me at the office about 20 minutes later than normal.

K, for some reason, is livid with me. She was furious that I was late and won't explain any details. It may be that she's only tired, but her reaction is extreme. Due to the lateness and our own exhaustion, we chose not to try and cook dinner. She picked up fast food and I ate some frozen chinese thing from Trader Joe's. Right now, she's watching a movie and slowly geting over her anger.

However, returning to my realization, despite the disruptions to our schedule tonight and disruptions last night, we are still doing fine. Instead of freaking out, we're able to accommodate the changes and remain even tempered. That's a huge change from where we were in the fall and the contractors would drive us out of the house at night.

Of course, allow me to add, it's 8 pm and I'm ready to go to bed. Taxes are done. I have to pay in for Federal, but state is a return!!! Yippeee! I hate having to pay in, but even so, I'm coming out ahead.

The other good news is that I'm up for a promotion at work. I need to submit the paperwork and it isn't guaranteed, but having the opportunity is makes me happy.

K's job remains undecided. She had to reapply for her position. We spent the weekend writing essays, using every buzzword in the book. She bribed me to help by offering to buy me a new purse. I'm hoping we'll make it to the shop this coming weekend, so I can pick out my new green bag.

Enough babbling. I'm exhausted, but I will try to be better about writing.

Stress Continued

2005-04-08T11:47:00.000-05:00

I haven't been writing recently for a couple of reasons. First, the pace of my job has increased making it more difficult for me to have any free time in the office to thing. As a result, I feel brain dead by the time I return home at night and I am less likely to want to even look at another computer.

Second, the contractors have been using acid to remove lead paint from the bricks in our basement. Slowly the acid is having an effect on us and on all metal objects in our home. For example, I noticed this morning that the dog's water bowl is slowly corroding from the fumes. They have another day or so to use the acid in the basement and then the clean-up process begins. But there is a great chance that the contractors will have to replace thousands of dollars of electrical work in the basement and we're hoping that our new boiler will not have to be replaced a second time, as a result of their carelessness with the acid. The contractors, despite multitudes of promises, did not properly ventiilate the space allowing the acid fumes to cause corrosion. Urgh, doesn't quite cover it.

The third stressor remains K's job situation. We spoke with the attorney and until K actually loses her job or is demoted there is nothing that they can do. The good news is that the attorney said that the process, chaotic though it is, is proceeding at a relatively normal pace. We're still hopeful that K will retain her position. She continues to handle all of the stress quite well, but it is hard with the house also being torn up at the same time.

K and I were talking this afternoon. I decided that I am going to sign up for a weekly yoga class and get my ass out of the house. I was making it to the gym and will probably go this afternoon, because I can feel tension radiating from every pore in my body, but I have been bad about going over the past two weeks. I need to do something for my mental health and I know that working out is my best stress reliever. A few years ago, I never would have believed it, but I've changed my mind since then.

The end result is that despite the stress beating us down, we're handling it well. K hides by watching movies and I'm working on my own stress relief plan with the yoga and gym. We'll make it through.

Progress

2005-04-01T11:08:00.000-05:00

K and I survived my trip to Denver. I thoroughly enjoyed getting out of town for a night. I'm more relaxed and happier than I have been earlier this week. The trip was excellent except for a 100% full flight on the way home.

Quick report, K's feeling much better. She's at the office today and we have an appointment with the lawyers on Tuesday afternoon.

Denver

2005-03-30T21:15:00.000-05:00

Okay, today started out really badly. I intended to blog about it, but I couldn't actually log in to Blogger this morning. So I was saved from myself. My day improved as it went on. Right now, I'm sitting in a hotel in Denver with my loan-a-fish, whom I have named Bertie. The hotel loans you a fish for your stay, if you request one. I've gone shopping, picked out a white suit for my 10 year college reunion, and have attended the hotel complimentary wine hour and chatted with other people. I'm obviously changing as I get older. A few years ago, I would have hid in my room and not even ventured out for complimentary wine. Needless to say, the only thing I missed out on was the complimentary shoulder and upper back massage during the wine hour, but I'll survive. If I had more time tomorrow, I would go to the hotel spa, but alas, I have to return home after my meeting.

K is doing better than she has been over the past couple of days. She vascilated between rage and depression and is constantly worried that she is no longer in bipolar remission. Actually, I believe she still is in remission and these mood swings are within the tolerance for normal/remission. That said, it still doesn't make it any easier on me.

This morning I was thinking that normal couples must get up in the morning and not be immediately challenged with rage and anger. I still believe that, but I'm feeling less sorry for myself than I did 14 hours ago. Urgh, 14 hours, I better head down and get some dinner.

K is continuing to struggle with the job situation. She's rightfully angry over it, but the anger has been preventing her from going to work and impeding her daily activities. I'm hoping that tomorrow she'll be able to go to work. Her original plan was to work from home, while I was out of town. However, the work in the basement has begun again, and they are stripping lead paint with acid. Needless to say, it isn't so pleasant to stay in the house right now.

I'm frustrated and angry with K's struggle. I'm ready for our life to be stable, and I occassionally wonder what I did in a previous life to have earned this one. But that isn't fair. I love K and she brings out traits in me, which otherwise would be buried. She brings out mhy personable and playful side. She refers to the old L as remote and distant.

Okay, turn down service is to arrive in 30 minutes. I need to head out and find myself some dinner.

Rough Waters

2005-03-29T09:04:00.000-05:00

The job situation is starting to have a more direct impact on K. Today she didn't even discuss the possibility of going to work. She said that instead of the beast scrabbling at the door, it had broken through and taken over. Her face has the pinched, scrunched look that it takes on when the pain is too great.

More frightening, K speaks of killing herself. She was angry with me for not remaining at home with her today. As I turned to leave, she would let me get to the first landing and say "I want to die." What am I supposed to do? I returned to the bedroom and spoke with her, but I refused to play along and stay home. However, I'm facing rising feelings of anxiety.

My anxiety is increasing, as I planned a trip to Denver tomorrow. I'm flying out tomorrow and returning on Thursday evening, so it's only one night, but . . . Also, I feel I can't cancel. My manager is aware of K's illness, but I know he's thinking about some classes I want to take later this year, which require me to be gone from home a week or two. Once we schedule the classes, someone has to take them or we lose the money. I've reassured him that everything is fine at home, and I hate to have to caveat my reassurances. However, if I have to I will, but I'm also tired of giving up my plans in order to take care of K. Last year, I had to give up a trip to Hawaii to present research, because she wasn't well enough for me to leave for a week. When does it end?

I'm banking on K only talking about hurting herself and that she won't actually go through with it. I know she's extraordinarly angry with me for leaving this morning. I'm hoping to talk to her therapist and develop a plan and also determine the severity of this bout. I keep reminding K that it's only a day. A day doesn't mean that she has sunk into the throes of a bipolar episode.

I'm angry that her job is causing her to spiral and I'm fearful of the consequences.