I’m currently at the point where it feels like every day is a struggle.

Saturday night I didn’t even want to get off the sofa to shower and go to bed–and a hot shower is usually my favorite point of the day. I’ve got a week and a half till I go back to the doc and can hopefully get my meds changed.

Wish it was this week, because I am really sick and tired of being cranky and irritable and miserable and incoherent and just plain depressed.

To add insult to injury, Grandmom keeps thinking I’m mad at her, because I’m not talkative. It’s almost enough to make me want to take up residence in the basement, just so I’m not reminded of how badly I’m failing to deal with this damned bout of depression.

But it’s the start of another week, and I will keep plodding, knowing that at some point I get to switch from existing to truly living.

That day cannot come soon enough.

I’ll keep posting throughout the week, but don’t expect brilliance or anything. At the very least I’ll try to post pictures.

Or if you’re really unlucky, I’ll post code.

How patiently the cats wait for the Treat Lady to dole out the goodies!

We met my aunt at Hancock today for the Grandmom exchange. Hancock is about halfway betwen our houses, and Hepburn’s is a nice place to meet, since I can buy fresh apples or whatever they happen to have in stock, as well as apple butter, jams, apple sauce, honey, and many other local products.

They also have fresh pies, but we refrained from buying one of those (much to Grandmom’s disappointment.)

To entertain myself on the way out I tried to get pictures as we were driving along. Stuck in the backseat on the way home, I txt’d everyone to death.

Here we are several miles away from the cut.

Getting ready to go through the cut. The sides are high enough that we lose satellite radio reception while we pass through.

Sky was very pretty.

Here’s a sight familiar to anyone whose been driving this road since it was Route 48–and perhaps even when it was Route 40. Good thing Noah didn’t move that slowly. (See Eric: still there, and still completely unchanged.)

I’m also pretty sure that Noah didn’t make his ark out of steel girders driven into the ground.

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve been having issues with my depression recently. This isn’t a new thing–I’ve been dealing with it since I was sixteen–but events over the past several months have conspired to push my mood further and further out of my control.

I’ve been trying to do everything I’m supposed to, and met with only limited success. I think I’ve plateaued (Wait. Does plateau refer only to an upward rise or does it also count in downward spirals? Nevermind. You know what I mean.)

What does this mean? It means I have very little patience, very little tolerance, and everything frustrates me. My home situation makes this a serious problem as I’m not discussing my problems with my grandmother, because she will immediately assume she is the cause of those problems, and then she’ll get upset and feel extremely guilty, and then I’LL feel even more guilty and feel worse…. and you can see where this is going.

Why I’m bringing this up is because Grandmom is now in Virginia spending a week and a half with my aunt. What I am hoping is this will give me some true downtime to try and get myself back together, and start the long haul back up to normalcy.

Where I’m having difficulty is that I keep debating whether I should ask my doctor to increase my prescription. Yes, I’ve been under a lot of stress, and that stress is receding, so in theory I may be able to climb out myself. On the other hand, I may simply be making things harder for myself by thinking I can do it all myself.

Tough call.

Starting Friday I’m taking three days off work for a mini vacation. I’m going to get a massage and pamper myself on Friday. Probably go out to dinner and maybe even lunch. (Drinks are a toss-up. Alcohol and I are not best friends when I’m depressed, so I try and avoid it to avoid the stupidity that goes along with it. But it is relaxing in extremely small amounts.)

Do I need anything? No. I just want to share this because it’s what’s going on in my life, and as I said when I started writing about depression, until we can be honest about mental illness and our issues with it, those of us who suffer will continue to feel stigmatized.

It shouldn’t happen, but it does.

So I like to speak up, because there are still many people who can’t talk about their mental health problems, because their employers and family or friends wouldn’t understand.

I don’t think my situation is unique or special. I just hope that by talking about my problems, perhaps I can convince just one person to see mental health as something to be treated the way we treat diabetes or high blood pressure, not a personal failing.

Because let me tell you, it feel like a personal failing from the inside, so the last thing we need are people on the outside reinforcing that idea.

This wasn’t supposed to be a tirade. I don’t really need to gather any excess anger or indignation. I just like to occasionally explain the world from my point of view.

I found some more pictures to scan and add to the Pics from the Past Post.

Additionally, I found a picture that summarizes how I like to think about myself.

What you can’t see in the picture, is that the flower girl and I were jumping up and stomping down.

Kinda like moshing for toddlers.

That’s how I like to see myself, jumping around with a little kid, dignity long flown out the window.

Also?

Worm Boy!

Yes, that’s my brother.

And a worm.

To the best of my recollection, Brian did not, in fact, eat the worm.

So Jeri asked everyone to post pictures of their childhood and teenage years.

Problem is I don’t have more than a couple pictures of my childhood. Got pictures of my Dad and even my grandmother as kids. But I think I only have two pictures of myself. Found some more pictures and scanned them. I really need a new scanner. And some new photo-editing software.

So you’ll get a little bit of everything here.

Here I am with my grandmother and grandfather at Coopers Rock. Yes, my hair was really blonde when I was little.

This picture was taken in Baltimore, of me and my grandfather. Again my hair is really blonde, and notice that it’s been wild all my life. I was three or four at that time. No older because Popbo died days before my 5th birthday.

Me and my brother, Brian. Aside from the decor, I don’t think it’s particularly obvious this picture was taken in the 70s. Don’t be fooled by that look. He was plotting something horrific.

Yes, yes I was queen of the circus. Feel free to continue to address me as royalty if you like.

This might help explain my overwhelming desire to dress in monochromatic solids. Maybe 5th grade here? Hard to tell, as I didn’t really grow much until high school.

I was a bridesmaid when my friends Del & Kathy got married. Del told me he’d kill me if I wore my boots to the ceremony, but said nothing about the reception. Yes, I dyed my hair very red for about six years.

This is a picture of my Dad (on the left) and his cousin and best friend Billy (on the right).

This is the 4th of July, my grandmother is the kid in the middle, the adorable blonde girl is her sister (my great-aunt Doris) and the other kids were her friends, one of whom came to her 90th birthday party.

This is one of my favorite pictures. This is my Dad’s cousin Billy, taken at the house where both my grandmother and father grew up. I think Billy took the most charming pictures, and I’m very sorry he died as a child.

Dad is doing GREAT!

Saw his family doc this afternoon, who was surprised at how well he was doing. He tires easily, he’s still sore, and he’s lost a lot of weight (more than 40 pounds since summer) but in the grand scheme of things he’s doing great!

I won’t need to take any time off next week, because he’s perfectly fine to be home alone.

This is all a huge relief, and makes the chaos and panic of Christmas almost worth it, since this seems to have solved the problems he was having, and for the first time in awhile he seems back to himself, which is nice to see and hear.

Dad is still doing well. He got put on a liquid diet today, so that’s a step up. They also removed his Foley Catheter and his epidural.

He was delighted they removed the catheter (as were well, but for a different reason) and although he was glad to have one less tube sticking into him, once they removed the epidural, he started to feel a lot more discomfort than he had previously.

Yesterday he was talking about going home Monday. After they took out the epidural, less talk of going home.

Also, since he has not yet eaten solid food, not too sure about him getting sent him.

So, we’ll see. I know Mom will be glad to get out of the hotel she’s in, and Brian, Michael and I will be glad to not have to drive to Wheeling, but I’d rather he stay in longer than go home too soon.

Dad was in good spirits yesterday–partially due to the fact he’s still getting an epidural.

He hoped to have liquids for breakfast this morning, at which point we’ll see how his innards are really doing, and if there will be any “seepage” in his small intestines.

We played several games of Oh Hell, which was made all the more fun since Dad was kinda loopy, “the Queen of Spades is thirteen points, right?” No.

Michael and I forced Mom to go out to dinner, and plan to do the same today and tomorrow.

Although the hospital has wireless, there is none available anywhere but the lobby, so no Internet access while we’re at the hospital. Which is ok because we were mostly too busy playing cards and laughing at Dad being loopy. (And yes, we have video.)

So we’re back to Wheeling today. And tomorrow. And I’ll be going up for however long he’s in the hospital (at which point I’ll be switching to caffeine, since I get dazed on the Internet, which is no good.)

So, to put things all in one place, things went well yesterday.

The surgery was very late getting started (scheduled 11:30, started ~2:30), and only two visitors were allowed in the surgery prep area at a time, so my brother and I took turns, while Michael sat in the waiting room reading this books, playing with his phone, and after we switched to the main waiting room, playing on my Netbook.

An hour before surgery they gave him an antibiotic, as well as something to “relax” him. For my mom, I used my phone to take video of Dad unable to operate a newspaper.

While he was in surgery we all took turns with the netbook (Erin, my mom thinks Lana is adorable), I read some of the magazines I brought, and we ate lots of string cheese and clementines (Clementines! Yum!).

He came through the surgery fine–in fact, once we finally got to see him in recovery, he was more coherent than he’d been after the relaxant.

The doctor was able to do most of the surgery laproscopicly, but had to make an incision to remove the tumor–he said the tumor was about the size of his fist (and he had a large fist). The tumor had apparently been growing for several years, and was embedded in a portion of Dad’s small intestines, so they also removed about a foot of small intestines.

To doctor believes he was able to remove the tumor without harming or damaging the structures around the tumor (excluding of course the removal of part of the small intestines), so the only concern is to make sure that the small intestines were completely closed and aren’t leaking–we should know within five to six days if that happened.

There is a chance the tumor might come back, but it would again take years and years to grow, so it’s not really a concern.

The important thing is that this tumor is not cancerous, so there is no chance of it spreading, although it could return. The surgery went well, and although it will take several days for his bowels to wake up and get moving again, all is well, and we are extremely relieved.

Thank you all so much for your thoughts and good will. It’s nice to be able to spread the worry.