An Update Written By Holly The Wonder Cat

Dear -

It's Holly.

Mom is not doing well from her lithium and other med cocktail. (Abilify, Rispardal, Topamax, Trileptal) I am glad I am only on catnip. The weather went up to 104 degrees F, we are on the top floor so it got over 110 at one point, and mom was just too hot. She tried cooling off in the bath tub with ice cold water but that didn't work as long as she wanted, so she was just walking around with her flip flops so she didn't step on any of my mousies. Then she tried to lie in bed and got really sick. Sick to her tummy, started to shake, grabbed the bucket and started to sweat really bad. And shake. She could barely hold the bucket.

But what scared her and this is why she called you because she couldn't call grandma- is mom started seeing bugs. Not like Mr. Bunny, but the creepy crawly kind. And she thought they were on her skin, and were creeping up all over her.

I can tell you, I have never seen a flea. So it's not fleas. Mom is scratching herself raw, going in the bathtub in the oatmeal bath, just crying absolutely miserable. When she closes her eyes she sees bugs. And she is sweating and shaking and keeps the bucket next to her.

She looks this up on the internet, and finds out it's a rare side effect from her meds. This is the second time it's happened to her, but it happens from the heat. Her skin is on fire. And she won't let me touch her, or lie next to her. I have to snuggle a few inches away from her. If my fur touches her skin, she literally cries. She is still drinking her water, but her urine is coming out black this afternoon, and she is crying in pain, doubled up when she is trying to pee.

Not like me. I use the box like a trooper. I am a good kitty.

She has to get a lot of water in her today, and it has to stay down, and she needs to pee normal and not see any bugs, and stop scratching. I know she needs/wants to changing the bedding, it soaked through with sweat. I hope she has a better day.

We are sorry we bothered you last night, I was just scared for mom, I really didn't know who else to call. I wish you lived closer so you could have come over with some fish and we could have tried to feed mom and I could have eaten off your plates. When mom feels better can you come over and we can rent a movie and the three of us can chillax? And I can show you my new catnip duckie.

I love you very much, you are a good human bean.

Your friend Holly.

Write

I Gotta write or I really will die. Dust off the book and write til my hands bleed.  Make pitcher after pitcher of ice tea and write. Write until the Phoenix rises again. The fog is lifting. Americans lover second chances. I gotta write. If I don't now I won't get a second chance again. I did it when I got sober. I gotta do it now I cannot be this depressed for the last four years and continue without being worm bait too much longer. Only Time Will tell. Write. Write.


ETA: Don't you love the 80s and the old 80s videos?

Weary

Some vignettes pondering as  I wonder if I am finally slipping out of my mental capacities. Non compos mentis. The lunatic is in my head

In no particular order. Seeing the Trade Center bombed twice. Volunteering at Ground Zero after the event and wondering if the smell of ashes would ever come out. Amsterdam with Pooky when Theo Van Gogh died.  Driving in the car with mom and dad when Nixon resigned and dad pulling off the road and telling us children to "Put a sock in it' so he could hear the news".  Watching Secretariat win the Triple Crown. Waking up one morning and finding my mother weeping because Bobby Kennedy had been murdered, unconsolable. Me studying for my American History final and hearing about John Lennon and weeping, unconsolable.  Being an infant in my mothers arms and mother was listening to the radio and heard that JFK was murdered in Dallas and she stuck me with a diaper pin. Mom cried, and I cried. Watching the 84 Superbowl and seeing the Big Brother Apple ad. The one TV ad that still haunts me, after all these years. (That and the damn Goldwater Daisy ad which I saw in uni class). Popular culture- watching "Who Shot JR" and final epi of "M*A*S*H". School being cancelled for Luke and Laura's wedding. Loosing my virginity. Loosing my religion. Putting my cat to sleep as she lay in my arms.

Mom and Dad and Grandma and Grandpa staying up to see Neil Armstrong on the moon. I kept falling asleep on the old blue couch. Mom kept pinching me to keep me awake, so I could see it. I was a small child. I didn't see why she wouldn't let me sleep. What was the big deal. Mom said it was the biggest event of my life.  Maybe it was. I dunno.

I want to thank the following friends who cared for me while I am having problems with my meds, my sanity, and very well may be going into the hospital in the next few days. I value each and every one of their friendship more than mere words can say.

In no particular order.

Caught in my bipolar burble
SemiCrazed
Coming Out Crazy
Chronic Impending Disaster
Finding Optimism
It's Quite An Experience
My Medicated Cartoon Life
Sonya's World
Struggling With The Elephant In The Room
Letting Go
Interchanges and Connections
Non Breaking Space
Red Pill Junkie's Blog
Agitation of Hand's Strength of Words
George the Duck (well, his human)
and lastly but of course, not leastly,
Life By Misadventure


And my friends too numerous to Name on Twitter.  I'll see you all on the Dark Side of the Moon.

FDA APPROVES DEPRESSANT DRUG FOR THE ANNOYINGLY CHEERFUL

Thanks to the Onion. Of course.





Hat Tip: The Healthy Skeptic

Absalom, Absalom

I dreamed I was pregnant, woke up and I'm numb. Wish I could write but too depressed to even do that, everything I touch dies. May is my waste land. I kill all I touch.

I'm sorry, I just cannot stop thinking about my son. I don't know why, I haven't thought about him this much in years, the poor thing never had a chance and lately he's been in my dreams. Maybe he's been reincarnated this time successfully as a person. Maybe he made it.  All I know is right now I miss him so much I cannot write, all I can do is cry the blue out of my eyes and the pain is excruciating. I've always been told that a parent would die for their children. I believe it. I would have died for you, and I never met you. 

I Got A Video Camera-Here's Holly!!!

Ok... Cannot resist. Happy Weekend. Back to regular blogging business tomorrow. Enjoy my girl today.

Equilibrium

Right now, I am quiet. Grounded. At peace. All is right with the world, and I feel at one with the universe. At least until the fuzz ball wakes up from her nap and demands her supper. But right now all is as it should be.

My father is home, resting. He is as fragile as a day old colt. Which makes me wonder because he is looking forward to watching the Kentucky Derby tomorrow. My dad and horses. Before he met my mother, he owned part of a race horse with several other army buddies. It didn't last very long, one summer, it ate up too much of their money, they wanted that money to spend on cars and girls. Ah, times may change, but young men's desires never do. Cars and women. Gotta love men. My dad never looked at the women, he just loved the cars and the baseball. The only woman he ever fell in love with was my mom.

My brain is fried. Fried , too much going on, sensory overload. I don't know what it's like for others, for me, I am just exhausted. I feel like I could sleep for a thousand years. Too tired to write, too tired to read. The last two or three days I have become addicted to Twitter. I will be there for the next day or so till I  get fully back on track- back with my med cocktail, and my family. Please join me, the hyperlink is on the side bar. I look forward to your tweets- as does Holly. Cats need tweets too.

Milestones And My Dad

Something amazing happened over the last few days. When I first set up the blog, back in October 2007 I didn't know about stat counters and what so when I finally put one in  four months later, I lost a lot of hits. Math was my worst subject in school, I still have nightmares about Alegebra!; but I realized allowing for this four month stat- I hit a magical number last week.   To that I am grateful and humble.

I've spent some time over the last two weeks or so re doing the blog roll- it's gotten bigger. I took off several blogs who's bloggers stopped blogging. And added a few blogs that I thought were wonderful.  I also added a one or two to the funny blogs list.  What amazes me is how many new people are coming into the world of blogging and how talented they are. So many of them are in their late teens and twenties and so full of hope with the diagnosis. How things have changed in the twenty or so years since I was told by my p-doc that I was "Manic- depressive"  then several months later "Bipolar type 1" and I would never be able to live a normal life and my parents should think of placing me in a state hospital or nursing home. We have a long way to go to banish stigma, but look how far we've come in twenty some years!

Lastly, blogging will be spotty for the next few days, and there is a very good possibility it may stop for a week or so. I also apologize if I won't be visiting any blogs.  A very beloved family member was rushed again to the hospital last night and the prognosis does not look good. I am praying he has, like my cat, nine lives, and still has one or two left in him. But alas, I fear, this may not be too much longer.  Get well dad. You have to see the Yanks win one more World Series before you get to Heaven.

(I like this photo. It really does look like me when I was a little girl, and my dad... doing the thing he loved the most in life... baseball and being a dad and a husband).

My Heart Is Too Big But It Won't Break

I have been so sad this week. I don't know if it's sad, depressed, melancholy, acedia; the semantics don't matter. My proverbial pen is sterile and dry. I've been unable to write.  A comment on FB, a comment on one or two blogs so people know I am alive, but mostly off the computer. Mostly just trying to chillax, trying to read, though it's reading the same sentences and paragraphs over and over again.


I keep thinking of this line from Supertramp's The Long Way Home-"Then your wife seems to think you're loosing your sanity/ oh /calamity/ or is it you're way out?" Well, I don't have a wife.  Or a husband. But substitute parents... or my beloved cat, and you get the idea. They were singing about a mid life crisis. I haven't had one of those yet. At least I don't think so. Don't have a fancy sports car, or a Ken doll in the front seat. Wouldn't know what to do with a boy toy/Ken doll anyway. Besides, any girl knows Ken dolls aren't anatomically correct. And I do want a boy friend, even if he would be a boy toy, to be someone I can discuss current affairs, politics and understand the  current Picasso exhibit at the Met with.

I can't read the news anymore. It's breaking my heart.  Take for example the news in NJ over the last few weeks. A dad throws his 3 month old daughter over the South Amboy bridge (12 lanes). A 15 year old girl allegedly takes her 7 year old sister to a party and allows her to be raped by several men at the party, while she drinks in the other room with some other party goers.  New York gets a second Kitty Genovese case where people walk over a dying hero taking pictures of him dying with their cell phones but cannot call 911. My mother is upset over the affairs in Arizona- with immigration laws. I see something else- a divide in the country not seen since the Civil Wars of Lincoln's time. Coffee Parties, Tea Parties- Not relating to Snapple or Starbucks.  And what got me to tears? Bret Michaels. Yeah. And I am not even a Poison Fan. Instead, I am a fan of that stupid VH1 franchise- the Flavor of Love/which begat Rock of Love, which begat I Love New York, which begat Charm School, I Love Money, etc.... all the shows that got me sane when my relationship ended that I watched over and over and over. And I get choked up and teary eyed over Bret Michaels. He who sucks spit with countless ladies (including one I interviewed back in the day I was an entertainment writer). All I can think of is he is my age, and he's got two small children.  He's smart- has anyone seen him on Celebrity Apprentice? If he hadn't gotten into rock and roll, he clearly could have been the CEO of some Fortune 500 company- he really is that smart. Maybe not the book smarts, but certainly the street smarts.


So why would I break down over Bret Michaels? I'm not a Poison fan, like I said. He's talented. I bought his latest song w/ Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana. It's good. But I feel like-  It's like an episode of M*A*S*H, I recall. Hot Lips/Margaret is upset with her nurses during the episode, they keep breaking down in surgery while patients are dying. She keeps telling them to buck up, understand it's war, patients die, get a spine.  The nurses hate her and gripe about what a b**ch she is. Then at the end of the episode, a stray dog that a Margaret has been feeding gets run over by a truck. And she goes into the shower and cries like her heart will break. Over the dog. That's how I feel. All the news stories for the last few months have been causing me to bend, almost loosing my father and the loss of my friend caused me almost to break. And then something like a Celebrity death- or close to death reminds me I am about to break, stop, breathe- you are going to break. Cry now. Take care of yourself now.


We all have to do that. Everyone has breaking points. Here's one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite novels.


"If you saw Atlas, the giant who holds the world on his shoulders, if you saw that he stood, blood running down his chest, his knees buckling, his arms trembling but still trying to hold the world aloft with the last of his strength, and the greater the effort the heavier the world bore down upon his shoulders -- what would you tell him to do? I don't know. What could he do? What would you tell him? To shrug.", Francisco D'Anconia, Atlas Shrugged. 

Sometimes we have to shrug. Sometimes we have to walk away, to take care of ourselves. Get off the computer. Turn oft the TV. Go outside in the sunshine.  Especially those of us who are fragile and suffer from depression- we are the most important people. We aren't good to our friends and family if we aren't good to ourselves. That's what I have been doing the last week, trying to take care of me, because I am so fragile. My father's health is as fragile right now as a butterfly's wing. I still have nightmares about my friend's suicide. Maybe I needed the time off to heal. I'm still healing. I am grateful for my friends, family and the therapy cat. 

Here is the first episode of Rock of Love for those who can view it , who want to see some totally mindless TV. Get well Brett. Get well. You got more rocking to do.

My Personal Writing Space

Today is a day I am dreading. First I go off to get my lithium levels checked. Not so bad, I don't mind that. Then I go a few hours later to the Oncologist to get my white blood count checked. I've been running a low level cold for the past two weeks or so, and the last time I saw my GP she said my levels were elevated and she wanted me to check with my Oncologist.  I am hoping he tells me I won't need a bone marrow biopsy. It's been two years since my last one, and I keep having to get my levels checked every four-five months. It's been about six - seven months, because I've just been so busy I forgot.  I'm just thinking positive thoughts.

The picture is my writing space- in the kitchen- where I do all my writing and blogging. It's my iBook G4. You can see the second hard drive and the cookbooks, and Beanie Babies that surround it. From the window I can see a big, very old Oak tree, which in the Spring and Summer houses a bird family. Every year, like clockwork, they come back, build a nest and raise baby birdies. Both my cats would watch this progression, like it was number one on the "Cat TV" list. Either that or they were dreaming of ways to serve the new born baby birds.  I am grateful there are two panes of glass separating them from the birds. And they have never been outside.


I will give a brand new Beanie Baby to the first reader who can tell me the applications resting in the Dock.