RIP Dearest Chris

Dear Chris,

Tomorrow is your birthday, and like I have done for the past five years since you died, I will visit your grave in the afternoon, leaving a sprig of Rosemary, for remembrance, and plant flowers.



It doesn't seem that long ago when I got the call you had died. You were over at my apartment the night before you died, and we spent 7 hours talking. You talked about your divorce, and cried. You talked about the girl you had just started dating and you just couldn't get over your ex. I had just come home from the hospital a week before and was still shaking from the ECT. You cooked me a meal, and told me the funniest story about women and toilet paper.

You tried to cheer me by bringing over your favorite VHS tape, the one from Saturday Night Live with More Cowbell.
We laughed til we cried.



I had just gotten Holly and we discussed plans to get a kitten for you at the shelter that next weekend. You really fell for her. When you left, I handed you your Christmas present, a box set of Lord of the Rings.

You left at 11. You were so tired, so not like yourself, I begged you to sleep on the couch . You wanted to drive home, you had just gotten a new car and was itching to drive it.

The next day I woke up at 6 am. I couldn't reach you. I knew something was wrong. I tried to call you all weekend, sending you email after email, text message after text message. Nothing.

Monday morning I got several calls. One from work saying you had died over the weekend, no details known. An hour later a call from the Jersey Cops saying they found a Christmas card and the books in the car and gave me the third degree in my relationship/friendship with you. Then they told me what I already knew. You had died. Then the worst call of them all, from the owner of your complex, asking for my address. There was a letter in his apartment. To this day I have not opened it.


I miss you every day of my life, I don't think a day goes by where I don't think of you. And wish I could have said something, done something, tied you down to the sofa so you could sleep.

I wish you were still with us, not sleeping in the ground.

So tomorrow I will visit you and when I come home watch More Cowbell. And cry, and miss you.

Where ever you are dearest friend, have a happy birthday.

Depression in other languages, inspirational

The German word for depression is schwermut, which literally means heavy courage. I'm not sure how that word came to be used in that way, but I believe it is appropriate.

Musings on Anna Karenina

When Mark Twain was asked what book taught him how to write, he replied "Anna Karenina, Anna Karenina,, Anna Karenina".

I add to the list Miss Havisham's wedding cake.


It seems that Tolstoy, as urban legend has it, was writing a book with Levin has his protagonist, since Levin was a mirror image of himself.


Then one day he and the missus were reading the morning paper over breakfast and found a small blurb about a married woman who threw herself under a train because of her lover.

This fascinated Tolstoy. as he discussed it with his wife, over toast and coffee. What would drive a woman to such despair she would throw herself under a train?

That woman was reborn as Anna.


I was train spotting long before Irvine Welsh wrote his book in 93. I never jumped, but I was fascinated by the trains.

Blame it on my father. When I was five he bought me a Lionel train set complete with a locomotive that blew smoke.



[img]http://www.legacystation.com/Lionel06/pg6-7-590.jpg[img]

Again, I am not suicidal. Just fascinated. I haven't train spotted since my last relationship ended. I am afraid to, it's too close for comfort.

I just know I am tired, I am weary. I could sleep for 1000 years, with apologies to Lou Reed. I just want to go to sleep for 1000 years, and wake up iike Fry in futureama in a better place, even though since I read RUR, robots scare me.

Been sleeping

thank you all for your concern.

I have been able to get an average of ten hours each night for the last two nights.

Cycling down from mania to extreme depression, but I will be OK.

The old black dog has nothing on me this time.

Day 5, still no sleep

Sleep is still alluding me. It's day five now, I got an hour and a half, but cannot sleep. It's raining and thundering and lightning outside, so that should be good to cool off from.

But still cannot sleep. The cat sleeps, on her side looking lovely.

I slept on my side and had the strangest dreams I have had since I got off Seroquel.


My skin cannot stop itching, I took a shower and scraped it raw with the loofa. It bled and it is still itching. It's like it's moulting and I have fleas.

Maybe it's a good thing I am back awake.

I can lie back and listen to the sound of the rain on the roof. And scratch.

When I was first diagnosed

I've been trying to catch up with my favorite bloggers and their blogs that I missed during my illness. I was reading Stephany's blog,

http://bipolarsoupkitchen-stephany.blogspot.com/

when I came across a piece about the time you were first diagnosed. Strange that I can remember this like yesterday, it's one of the few things I can recall as vivid as what I was doing an hour ago and hasn't been blasted out of my brain by ECT.

I was 23. I just finished school and was supposed to start a PhD program in the fall. My life was spinning out of control, I had over 70 graduate credits under my belt and for the last 3 years all I had been doing is working on two Master's degrees at the same time, while being a teacher's assistant, tutored writing and history in the learning lab, cleaning houses and teaching sunday school. In the summer I took classes, lived on campus as a Residence assistant, and taught and tutored SAT prep off campus. I was treated as a peer in my department, and if they saw anything suspect, which some of them did, they just wrote it off to me being ultra creative and one of the budding geniuses they ever saw. Several professors were mentoring me as a protege, and all of them saw me finishing the PhD by the time I was 25, landing a job at some college or university and writing and publishing and teaching. And that was what I wanted for my future too. I had just finished my first novel, and was happy. The only time in my life that I was ever happy, truly happy was when I was in school. Only one professor, said to me "You're the next Sylvia Plath. You will be a suicide too by the time you are 33".

Yeah, right, I told him. Right along with Anne Sexton and John Berryman.

Then, that April my life started spinning out of control. By the end of the semester, I threw down my dissertation on the English Chair's desk and went back to the apartment I shared off campus with a female roomate and her fiance. And slept for several days straight, waking only to use the toilet. I hadn't been depressed before, never like this. Maybe it was residual from the rape the month before. Though I had thought about suicide before, I never attempted.

I had a bottle of Tylenol, 50 pills, downing it down with ice cold vodka and OJ. Gagged a lot, and semi regurgitated, but kept going until the entire bottle was finshed. I washed the glass I had used, put it on the drain board, and tucked myself into bed. And fell asleep.

Woke up in the Emergency room of the hospital. The guy I was dating at the time found me, unconscious and unresponsive. Apparently he called an ambulance and I had my stomach pumped. He stayed with me the entire time, but when the admitting doctor told me I *HAD* to go to the psychiatric hospital, he stared down in my blue eyes and told me he could no longer date me, now that I was about to be labeled "crazy" and going to the "nut house", I could keep f***ing him, but we were finished as a couple. This was the first but not the last of the boyfriends I lost because of my illness.

The first doctor in the hospital diagnosed me as unipolar- he was just dealing with the suicide attempt. He put me on Prozac, which had to be stopped after a few days because I literally felt I was crawling out of my skin.

The second doc I saw actually spent time with me and asked the right questions. And then I heard it. Manic Depression. He sugar coated it by calling it Van Gogh's disease. Maybe this would help amielorate the blow must of thought, knowing how much I adore Van Gogh. I don't know. Eventually Manic Depression was out and Bipolar was in. Now I was Bipolar 1.

I never accepted it, though I knew in my heart I was, my brain didn't want to accept it. I took my lithium like a good girl, and did the mandatory blood work required by the doc. And I went through all the other meds I went on, not questioning, just taking because part of me thought if I took these meds it would go away and I would be normal. I would have a normal life and live happy. if I just took the meds and ignored the diagnosis, I would be normal, and my life would be normal. I was the perfect consumer. I didn't question the pills, didn't investigate them, and even though most of them gave me terrible side effects I kept taking them because I just wanted to be normal and thought this would let me lead the life I was meant to live.

My family didn't accept it either, my father telling me to buck up, and try harder. My mother just told me to take the meds, go to the shrink and go to work, and in my spare time date. I got to be quite good at dating, mastering the art of the blind date. But I just didn't feel normal. The meds left me weak, gave me the runs constantly. They never told anyone else there was anything "wrong" with me, and I know this caused a rift in their marriage, my mother believing the meds and hospital stays and ECT would cure me, my father saying there was nothing wrong with me that hard work couldn't cure and I didn't need meds.

And it didn't work that way. All the meds, all the different shrinks, other stays at the hospital, even ECT trying to bring me back to normal. I've lost jobs, lost countless relationships. It's always been the same. Good enough to f**K, never good enough to have children with, should they wind up like me. I tried to ease the hole in my heart and soul by food, but that didn't work. Alcohol made me comfortably numb like nothing else could, but it's been almost 13 years since my last drink.

So here I am struggling. The last year I've had to go a complete overhaul with the med cocktail and at one time I was on 9 different meds in my cocktail at the same time. This year alone, I've gone through two psychiatric hospitalizations, one regular hospitalization and one rehabilitation hospitalization from this illness. It's cost me the last year of my life.

All I have is my writing and my cat. I know I will never have a family of my own, or children from my body. I can deal with that, and I am accepting it, but I get so lonely sometimes. Some nights it is so unbearable I just lie in bed with the thought I need to hold and be held so bad I don't think I will make it til the dawn. I don't think I will ever have a relationship with a man again, I have friends who are men, but to have one that I can live with and grow old with, I think that will escape me, much to my chagrin and heart ache.

This illness may have robbed me of a life, but it won't rob me of ME. It won't destroy my soul. I came into this world half dead, backwards, kicking and screaming. That's how I want to leave it. Kicking and screaming, putting up a good fight.

Cymbalta cold turkey

Has anyone out there in the blogosphere gone through withdrawal?

I need help, and- I need help, dammit. I am not suicidal. The side effects here are driving me to distraction.

To top everything off, my .mac account seems to have been frozen. Apparently they are switching to something called Mobile Me. I cannot get anyone in Appleland to answer the phone.

So- if you know me in real life, (and I think only 3 people who read this do), write to my Earthlink or Gmail accounts. Or call.

I would give my right arm for a phone call.

But right now I am off to the gym. I don't know what else to do with all this energy.

3 am again, another dark night of the soul

Hello.
Is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me.
Is there anyone home?


Why do I feel like I am the last living person in the world?

Why this time is it overwhelming ? Why is it happening now? It's like the humidity outside, 100 percent cloying, seeping into every pore, making it impossible to breathe.

I would give anything for the phone to ring. But then it won't. I'm the only living girl in New York.

Holden Caulfield and Thomas Chatterton

Thoughts from a fevered brain:

Holden Caulfield- Don't ever tell anyone anything. If you do, you start to miss everybody

Isn't it strange that by dying Thomas Chatterton started the whole Romantic movement, yet as he lay dying from poison, he had a change of heart and wanted to live? And after Goethe wrote "Werner", and French girls were drowning themselves in the Seine in record numbers- the Paris coroner could tell which girls had a change of heart by how messed up their finger nails were?



I popped a sleeping pill and slept for almost 30 minutes. I won't be able to sleep tonight come hell or high water. I called the p-doc. She will get back to me in the morning.

I am going to lie back down in bed, turn on the radio and hopefully the voices of the mermaids singing I hear will go away lest I drown.

Cut off from Cymbalta, cold turkey

It's now entering the fourth night since I have slept. Weatherman says it will be another 2 days of this oppressive heat. 4 days running and four hours total.

I took a Klonepin about noon, after I got back from the gym. I was so tired but couldn't sleep. I had done 10 miles on the treadmill, 20 miles on the bike and climbed over 10,000 steps on the stair climber. Came home, showered, popped a Klonepin and fell asleep shortly thereafter.

Woke up 40 minutes later, The grass outside the apartment was being mowed and the noise was deafining. No use. I couldn't go back to sleep, and I was covered head to toe in sweat. Another shower, remade the bed with clean sheets. And changed clothes again, and went back to the gym. I couldn't sit still.

The p-doc called at 9am and told me to quit Cymbalta immediately. She thought maybe the Cymbalta was making me manic. I don't know. I said I was on 60 mg of Cymbalta, shouldn't we taper it down to 40 and then 20 and go slow?

No, she said, immediately stop.

So now it's the start of day four without sleep, approx 4 hours and ten minutes of sleep in the last four days. I can only blame the East Coast heat wave so much for my trouble. The other symptoms, well , I don't know if the exess sweating is from sitting here in an apartment who's thermostat is over 90 degrees, or it's from the Cymbalta. My skin feels like it's moulting. I feel like I am made of light and pure energy. This must be how a Superhero feels.

And yet I know I cannot read. I cannot listen to music because my brain is going to fast to absorb it. I am writing quicker than I can type and I type 60 wpm. I;m rapid cycling and mixed states at the same time.

And to top everything off, just when I thought it couldn't get any worse, I get a visit from Auntie Flo.

After everything I have been through in the last few months, it's enough to make me wonder if I am the reincarnation of Job.


Time to take another pill, hopefully sleep will come, and the mania will cease.

Still sleepless in Jersey

HI, the pdoc thinks it is a reaction from the Cymbalta and told me to stop it. So now I am just on Lithium.

She offered to give me a script for Klonepin, that should relax me and hopefully make me sleep.

I just took one. I know from past experience it takes about half hour to start working. So I will close off the computer, turn on the TV for a bit and stretch out on the couch.

It's going to be another scorcher, the heat wave won't break til Wednesday.

Nine Lives

‘Like the cat I have nine times to die'-Sylvia Plath


1. Birth
2. 4 years old- drowning
3. 12 years old- hit by car
4. 23 years old- Tylenol and Vodka
5. 26 years old- Asprin and Vodka
6. 31 years old- Carbon Monoxide
7. 39 years old- Hanging
8. 45 years old- Pneumonia

3 am Dark Night of the Soul

Even with the sleeping pills, I slept for 20 minutes. Woke up drenched in sweat, took a shower, put fresh sheets on the bed.

The moon is staring at me through slits in the Venetian blinds.

I lie in bed, trying to get comfortable. I put the sheet over my body, up to my breasts, adjust the pillow and close my eyes. And lie there. No good.

I take an extra pillow, lie on my left side in a fetal position. Hold pillow up to my neck and breasts for the top, curling my stomach around it's middle and my knees at the bottom. And hold it tightly wishing it was someone holding me, and I was holding him, tightly, my arms around his back, my legs entertwined with his. My mind is racing and it goes down to the proverbial gutter, I wish I was in someone's arms, him holding me, kissing me with long slow kisses, while something else is doing long slow strokes inside me.

It's the summer heat. Who this said person is, I don't know. I will never meet who ever it might be, my Mr. Right. That part of my life is over, dead. It's dead and gone, lady, it's dead and gone.

I am alone. At this hour of the night I feel like I am the only person left alive in the universe. My brain is raging, the heat in my apartment, hovering around 95 degrees is oppressive. My mind is playing tricks, and I want to fool the reaper, not fear him.

I try once more to sleep, but once again, sleep proves to be impossible. I lay on my back, my side, nothing. The air conditioning box spits out a cold blast every now and then but it barely makes a dent in apartment. I will lie back in bed, eyes closed, room lit by strands of moon and stars and wait til the dawn. Maybe, if I am lucky, I can get another 20 minutes of respite.

Quos Deus Vult Perdere Prius Demantat

3 days now and no sleep. Too hot to sleep comfortably. Lying in bed listening to the radio and thoughts race too quickly to make sense. No one is emailing me back to my earlier emails. Am I making sense or have I started babbling like an idiot, and like an idiot, turning manic, I am alienating my friends and the people I love.

Too late to call anyone. Too early to call others.

My thoughts are turning blacker and blacker, I tell myself it's a fever from a heat obsessed brain. You need to get some sleep and you will be better.

My rational self tells me your thoughts always turn black before your birthday. Get some sleep and it won't seem so black.

But sleep still alludes me.

The cat sleeps on the sofa, the heat doesn't bother her. She turns a paw in the air at an imaginary bird, and settles back down again.

I'm so tired, I would give my right arm to sleep.

Second day now and 3 hours sleep in two days. I'm going up and down quicker than the Cyclone in Coney Island.


Left a message for the p-doc. She just got back to me. She's phoning in a script for 5 sleeping pills.

She won't give me more lest I accidently OD. That is fine with me, my brain is on overtime.

I'm hot, sticky and miserable. Holly was gliding around the apartment with a piece of poo still attached to her bottom. Now my carpets smell of cat poo, and I had to scrub the hardwood floors with Murphy's. I don';t know why this happened, her box was clean. She never did that before.

Could she be getting old? Or is the heat bothering her?

I've been writing solid for the last two days, taking a few breaks, but mostly writing. Most of it seems to crap, verbal vomit, and I don't know if it will end up in my mac's trash can or I can salvage it with heavy editing.

I can deal with my life is shit. I can deal with the fact I;ll never marry, never have children, never have a career. I am making closure that this illness has cost me boyfriends and a shot of a family, as well as a career.

All I have left in this world are my parents, Holly, and my pen.

I thought I had talent. Now I don't think I do. I hope my feelings of despair are just from a sleep oppressed mind and not real.

Cause if I didn't have my pen, I don't know what I would do.

When Did Multiple Personalities Get Hot?

Was I sleeping when TV and ad executives decided this summer that Multiple Personalities would be the next flavor of the month?

First the other night, I was relaxing, watching TV, coccooning on the couch, when I saw the latest Dr. Pepper commercial . Now I DRINK diet Dr. Pepper. In the summer I exist solely on Diet Peach ice tea, Cherry Coke Zero and diet Dr. Pepper. And water. For some reason, taking Lithium in the summer makes me drink copious amounts of fluid that I should just move into the bathroom, with a mini refrigerator and just stay there, computer on my lap.

It's a cute commercial, bunch of college students in a psychology lecture hall, and the prof introduces the topic for class today. Multiple personalities.

Cut to cute college kid, with obligatory notebook, writing implement and a can of Dr. Pepper. He flips the lid and the can starts singing. He covers it and when he removes his hand, it sings a different song. It goes on for a few seconds, letting the viewer come to the conclusion, for the 23 flavors advertised on the can that is in Dr. Pepper each has it's own distinctive personality.

OK, it's not so bad. But on repeated viewings, it's really starting to annoy me.

Then a month or so ago one of the networks aired a remake of the 76 movie "Sybil". It came in the top 20 that week of television shows, quite a feet for the old Big Three networks as they keep loosing more and more viewers to their cable cousins.


Now Showtime, who gave us the dishy Henry VIII last summer, have gotten in the game, announcing that, they will have a new show premiring this January, called "The United States of Tara". It stars Toni Colette, who was divine in "Muriel's Wedding" as the lead, a suburban housewife with multiple personalities. Her husband will be played by John Corbett, the fiance in "My Big Fat Greek Wedding". Nice job casting Showtime, but really, a show about multiple personalities?

Have they ever met anyone with this diagnosis, or are they basing it on a blurb in the DSM IV and Sybil, throwing in a bit of "When Rabbit Howls?"


I'm sorry Showtime. I cannot afford to subscribe to your channel but I was first on line to rent "Weeds". You lost a rental customer in me, and even if I had the money to get a premium channel I will go with HBO, even if they no longer run The Sopranos.

Apparently now I am a Cougar

Dinner care of take out of Chicken Holiday. Too hot to cook. Too hot to do anything.


Ordered and waited around drinking a diet Dr. Pepper. The owner and I were talking like we always do, and the young kid behind the cooker turned and whistled at me.

The owner, Bruno, gave him a piercing look, and the kid said to his boss, "Hey Cougars find me irresistible. Wanna see?"

Meanwhile he kept staring at me. Then he says "Real or silicone?"

I'm hot and cranky, I've been writing all day since I got home from 2 hours at the gym. I go to wise acre mode and say "Why don't you touch and figure it out for yourself"

He cannot return on my comment and then says. "Cougars. I love them".

I pay for my food and tell Bruno- I am not a Cougar.

He asks me if I was in High School when the movie "Saturday Night Fever" came out.

I reply I was.

"You're a Cougar", he says.


i go home with my dinner, and look in the bathroom mirror as I rearrange my hair in it's scrunchie. I still see myself as I was at 23, just a few white hairs you can hardly see. Figure is turning amazing, thanks to daily work outs at the gym, which I must do or my muscles will atrophy. The other day in Stop and Shop some guy was staring at me and I said "take a picture, it will last longer". I am in the best physical shape I have been in since I was 23. I don't feel old. Yet I know I have a birthday upcoming. But I don't feel old!

Driving home, the radio station was playing "Dangerous Type". I loved that song, one of my friends back then said it personified me. Then I realized it came out almost 30 years ago.

Maybe I really am a Cougar.

I suppose there are worse things for a gal to be.

Bad dreams can't hurt you

It's just a dream. What you dreamed about is not real.

It cannot hurt you.

Relax.

Relax.


Breathe deep. And try to go back to sleep, oh fair one.

What Happened To Me-Going Through Hell

Hi all. It's been a while, yes, I know. Here is the Cliff Notes version of what happened to me.

I went in the hospital on Easter Sunday with Pneumonia,and 105 degree temperature. spent 10 days there. Went home to my parents house because I was too weak to climb the stairs to get into my apartment.


About a week and a half after I had been at their home, I woke up one night in the middle of the night like I usually do to empty my bladder. Only I couldn't rise from the bed, it felt like all my muscles had turned to jelly. I finally managed to get out of bed and promptly fell down. I was on the floor for about 3 hours. When my father woke up about 6 am he heard me shout and he and my mom tried to get me up. They had to practically carry me back to the bed. Of course I wet the carpet.

My mother called the p-doc and she said to go straight to the emergency room. I was examined, x rayed and sent up stairs to the hospital. I stayed there for four days, and got almost every test available, CAT scans (no, not a feline thing), MRI's, X rays. So much blood work I felt like my hands were sponges. I couldn't move the muscles in my mouth to eat, so I was hooked up to an IV. I couldn't move the muscles around my bladder, so I had a catherter. I spent four days in the hospital, and then they sent me to a rehabilitation hospital. I was moved in a wheelchair, in a special ambulance, because I could not walk, and could not move. I still had the catheter attached to me.

I spent 3 weeks in the Rehabilitation hospital. I had to learn how to walk again, how to move my arms again. I couldn't do anything for myself when I got there, I couldn't dress myself, put my hair up in a scunchie, hold a toothbrush, write my name (when I was admitted), and the worst (oh the ignomy) couldn't wash my self or go to the bathroom by myself. In fact, I went 10 days without making a bowel movement because the muscles down there refused to move. I cannot begin to describe that pain. I also threw out my back at the same time, as well.

I cannot tell you how much it makes you appreciate the small stuff. Taking your first steps in a walker. Being able to walk without falling down. Being able to stetch your arms so you can finally dress yourself. The delight in finding out you lost 43 lbs and none of your clothes fit anymore. The first time I was able to stand for a minute and take a quick shower, even with a walker was a big deal. And going to the bathroom by myself, oh that was heaven. Of course, need I forget, use my eyes (I was unable to see for a couple of weeks it was like I was legally blind), and speak. I could just reply in monosylabic words.

I left the hospital and spent 3 weeks at my mother's house where I was getting physical therapy every day and occupational therapy where I learned how to write again, (Use a pen) and move my hands to do simple things like brush my teeth.

When I was finally able to walk up the 17 stairs to get to my apartment, it was bliss. I hadn't seen Holly, my cat, in over 3 months It was sheer heaven to sleep in my bed, and after a couple of days I was able to sleep on my side! (I"ve always been a side sleeper).

I didn't have the dexterity to type for another 2 weeks, even though I was getting physical therapy for two and a half hours, five days a week. I also had problems with my eyes. It wasn't until last week where I was finally able to start reading. (A bookworm without reading is a terrible thing). I still do not have the upper body strength to take a bath- I cannot rise out of the tub. I still have problems washing my hair and taking showers, I can only stand for about one minute, without falling. Hence, my long hair was cut six inches, despite tears.

Well, I am back on line now and this whole experience has humbled me. It's brought me closer to my family and extended family (one uncle left and various cousins), who admire me for going through this. It's made me appreciate my friends more as well. Of course there is a lot more to tell, and I hope to do so later in this blog, but I said this would be the Cliff Notes version.

And what brought all this on? A reaction to an anti psych drug, Haldol, that I was taking because my new p-doc was trying to find something to work along with my Lithium. I am currently on Lithium and Cymbalta and everything is fine now. I'm in the best shape of my life since my twenties, and happier then I have ever been since then as well.

The things we do to stay well and deal with this illness.

My Charlie Gordon moment

Driving to my local support meeting last night. Not a cloud in the sky, perfect weather, it is actually getting cooler.

I took the back roads to the hospital, where we meet, because if I take the main road through my town I have to drive through the main street of the town, and this town is famous for jay walkers. I am always sick to my stomach thinking I am going to hit one. I've never hit anything in my car, but I once had a bird fly into my windshield and flop on my hood, dead. It had me in tears the rest of the day.

Everything was lovely, I was getting in mode to lead the meeting, something I hadn't done in months. I was going down Hamilton Ave and I hit the light by the fire dept. Ok no big deal. There is a pedestrian crossing there, and a very tall, scarecrow thin man in filthy tattered clothes walked across the street. I hardly noticed him. He walked past the silver SUV in front of me, to the middle of the road, (three lane highway with large shoulders), towards the other sidewalk, then he turned back around, heading back to the SUV and fell as the light turned green. At first I thought the SUV hit the man, but no, he was several feet away from it's passenger side tire.

He just lay in the road, like a broken doll. After a moment, realizing he couldn't get up, I put on the blinkers, went to the shoulder. The SUV in front of me moved to the shoulder. I pulled my cell out of my handbag and called 911. Then I went out of my car and saw several people had already gone over to him. I had my cell in my hand and the man in the red car on the opposite lane, the first car at the light yelled to me he too had called 911. We then had the people behind us move to the shoulder so the ambulances and police cars could have the road to themselves.

I walked over to the gentleman because I am Red Cross trained in CPR. I wasn't needed, since this was 3 blocks from the hospital, there was a nurse in one of the cars who was with him. I could smell the alcohol on the man from 5 feet away, mixing in with the smell of dirty clothes and BO.

And while I waited for the ambulance and police cars to arrive, I called a dear friend who I consider to be the older sister I never had, even though she is only 2 weeks older than I.

I told her about the accident and started to laugh. I didn't realize I was making fun out of this poor guy. Yes he was drunk, and fell down, but this was my evil side. Yes I was having what I refer to as a Charlie Gordon moment.
Charlie Gordon, the protagonist in the book "Flowers for Algernon". In one scene in the book, when he is a genius, he goes out to eat, and sees a bus boy drop a tray full of dishes. Everyone laughs at the poor guy, including Charlie.
Then Charlie realizes the poor kid thinks they are laughing with him, not at him, as the kid turns to the diners and smiles. He realizes it wasn't that long ago he was in the same place.

It might have been years since I was a fallling down drunk, and I forgot.
Even though I never drank in public once I left college, that still could have been me. Unkempt, poor hygiene, falling down drunk in my apartment.

I should never have laughed. I hope the ambulance sends him to the hospital, where they can pump him full of fluids and hydrate him, give him a good meal and help.

But I know one other thing I left out. The guy was clearly illegal so he won't get into the rehab hospital, unless it is at state expense and I seriously doubt they will put him in there.

I gave my statement to the police officer who basically told me they would do all they could to help him, but he seemed tired and uncomfortable in the heat wearing his uniform. It was a long hot day.

I hope the man got help.

And I thank him, who ever he is, for grounding me again.By forgetting my past, I cannot have a future.

I've been away

Hi all

As you can see, I have been away from this blog for approximate 3 months. I am sorry.

I was first in the hospital with pneumonia for ten days and 105 fever. While I was recooperating at my parents home, I suffered from affects from a psychiatric antipsychotic drug, which lead to me almost dying, and healing at a Rehabilitation hospital. I plan on going into this in more detail in future blogs.


Thank you for the thoughts, prayers and warm wishes. I should be blogging full time in the next couple of days so keep watching your RSS feeds, and if you don't have a feed aggregator, download one, or get Safari.

-Susan