Month: January 2010

From my Mom

Mom read the last post and sent this:

just wanted you to know
yeah, I read the blog
and yeah, I’ll always be your mom

you just ran a triatholon
a full one
with no training

you are going to be ok
yes, you need to re adjust your expectations of normal

the new normal, remember

YOU ARE GOING TO BE OK

and yes, you are jet lagged as well
and yes, you are coming off big time drugs

remember  Jr year in college?

I love you
always
mom

Just for background, Junior year in college I was addicted to caffeine and worked myself to exhaustion, and spent a week in the hospital. It was pretty bad. I had to go home for a month to recover after I was let out of the hospital. I couldn’t even fly for a week or so after I got out, I was so wrecked. Anyway… I guess that is perfect segue.

Last night I had a pretty solid freak out about feeling overwhelmed. I was watching Stephen Colber w/ O and I got a jarring phone call about logistics from one of my assistants. The news wasn’t really that bad, it just foregrounded the extent to which I was kind of all over the place.  And then I panicked and really freaked out. I started thinking about all the things I need to do. All the places I’m supposed to be. And like Jennings’ post, I felt like everything was moving past me so fast, and I could not hold on to anything.

O and I talked about it a bit. I explained all the things I was supposed to be doing the next day.  And she told me that I shouldn’t. And I protested. Even though I knew she was right. I just couldn’t see how I could just say no.  Or not do things. In this case, it was a conflict between my weekly pyschologist appointment, and a five hour long meeting at the studio that I found out about two days earlier. I rearranged my whole schedule around it, but then realized I created a conflict w/ my psychologist. I tried to call and cancel yesterday day, but got a busy signal both times. I should have known it was a sign that I shouldn’t cancel…

O wrote an email for me, backing out of the meeting at the studio. It was almost impossible for me to send the email. O had to write and send it. I am so afraid of backing out of responsibilities. No one wrote me back to reprimand me. No one wrote me back at all. Maybe they expressed their anger at me privately. Or maybe they weren’t angry at all. Maybe I am just afraid of their anger… I came for the last hour of the meeting. Everything had gone fine without me. I contributed some in the last hour. My presence was helpful, but not essential. My absence did not derail the whole process. It was kind of amazing to me. And I don’t mean that in some self-centered way. I mean that I just feel so obligated to do what is asked of me, that I find it almost impossible to say no.

So it was a good lesson, I suppose.

I am trying really hard to learn from it.

I have said no twice today. I sent them to other people for help. It was good. And each case, the person wrote me back to say that it had worked out.

a bad case of the four o’clocks

I definitely think that something is up w/ my chemistry. I don’t know if it is because I am still jet lagged, or because today is day two of reduced lexapro, or both, but I’m definitely having a serious case of the Four O’Clocks. I can’t really focus my eyes. I’m kind of in doldrums. I went for a bike ride to try to energize myself. I rode myself pretty hard. I’m a little numb now, but I’m still pretty damn out of it.

I’ve been working all day. Today is the first day back in the work saddle since i got back from Europe. But I keep thinking about this article O sent me about slowing down. Dana Jennings writes in his nytimes Cancer blog:

But recovery means wholeness: mind, body and spirit. And I reached a point last summer and fall when I realized that even though I was back at work, once again juking and stutter-stepping my way through the streets of Manhattan, I hadn’t recovered at all.

I thought I had weathered the trauma of diagnosis and treatment, thought I was ready to focus on the future. But my body disagreed.

Physically, I was game, but I soon realized I was going through the motions as I became more and more tired. I felt like a spinning quarter about to nod to gravity and wobble to the tabletop. Mentally, I couldn’t focus: I became shawled in the monochromes of depression. And spiritually, I wasn’t angry — I did want to know what this cancer could teach me — but just right then I couldn’t make sense of my cancer-blasted interior landscape.

I hated to admit it, but I had to excuse myself from the day-in and the day-out if I wanted to fully heal, if I wanted to recover.

I was running too fast O sent it for me to slow down. I feel like I have to work harder to clear my plate so I can then rest.  But it doesn’t work that way does it…

Off Seroquel, now onto the Lexapro

I am now off of Seroquel, and beginning to titrate off of Lexapro. Today I took 7.5mg, a 2.5mg reduction. One week of this, then I drop another 2.5mg. Rinse and repeat until I’m done.

Today feels a little weird, but it is most likely that it is a result of my jet lag. I just returned from 9 days in Europe. I slept in four different beds, and never really got great sleep. Plus I was working really hard.

I was there to work on a collaborative project. During the project we worked for 5 days straight, 10am to midnight. It was undeniably the hardest I have worked in two years. I was a little worried I was not ready for it. But I was rather pleased with how well I did. I made it through the first three days in solidly good shape. Day four I started to feel the effort. I had to take some naps, and started to get more sensitive to heat. Day five I was fading, but I held on. I never had a full dysesthesia attack, but I did get noticably more heat sensitive by the end.

Heat sensitivity is still common, but I am experiencing it as less and less of a debilitating problem. I am having much less dysesthesia. Much less. And when I do have it, it is much more mild. I haven’t had a full blown attack in a while. In fact it has been so long, I can’t remember the specific event. Probably one of the mornings I arrived at the studio sometime before I went to portland. Maybe four weeks ago? This is not counting the sensations when I’m on my bike: those are different. I’m sure I’ll still have them in some form, but it is noticeably better.

I’ve had a number of crisis moments recently: forgetting important papers, realizing my bicycle was stolen, witnessing a drunk German yell derogatory phrases that ended with “Hitler” at Turkish youth, and being pulled aside for extra security screening. While all of these were uncomfortable in very different ways, none of them sent me into the waves of dysesthesia that would have been inevitable even two or three months ago. I really think the progress is noticeable.

I’m off Seroquel!

I just had to ask O what the drug’s name was. Her response “have you already repressed it!?!?.” We both laughed.

I stop taking the Seroquel tonight. I was on a very small dose: 12.5mg, which is half of the smallest pill available. Doses range up to 400mg or 600mg, so it was very small. But it had its effects, and for me, it is a huge step towards moving on.

Remembering to take my drugs every morning and every evening is one of the central markers, and anxieties of my day. Once every three weeks or so I forget, and my day is usually pretty bad (whether I remember that I forgot, or not — it’s not psychological… I mean it is psychological… i mean… LOL)

I met with my psychiatrist today and he approved dropping the seroquel. He also wanted me to start titrating off of the Lexapro starting tomorrow morning. I’m going to Berlin the day after tomorrow, and I suggested that between the jet lag, and how dark Berlin is in the winter, I would probably be best coming off the Lexapro when I come back. He agreed.

So one down, one goes down when I get back from Berlin, and the other starts coming down when I am done with the second.

Hopefully I sleep well tonight (esp as the seroquel makes me very drowsy)