am i out of the loop?

my keyboard is working now so i'd like to post at least once a week again and get back some of my readers and supporters.
these days i'm incredibly anxious. yesterday i took three klonopin to get through the rest of the day plus the two at night.
anyway i don't know if i should change my blog as elvis is dead and i already had my child so i'm not pregnant and can't recount elvis' life only be sad about his death.
is anyone out there still reading my blog?
any suggestions about how to get back in the loop with other bloggers, especially the bipolar blogosphere..???
anxiety is worse than depression as it feels so horrible in the body...

Part 2, A difficult day...

Comix at last and a lot!

here they are finally! my new comix posts!!! Read the one below first! I screwed up the order...

fear

i can't sleep. money worries create great fears. as does noise of dog and not having any way to do anything for him though he seems to have stopped. i tried just petting him. he's back on prednisone. the current vet (not his regular one) has not called me back proably is sick of me. so am i. i feel fearful of a lot of things. in one day a lot of scary possibilities happened. maybe the real fears are all in my head and its not that bad. i cant say more. i just wish practical aspects of life were in my range of abilities. why am i so unable to deal with real things? is it a gift to be able to deal with things that are not on this reality plane. i feel for other people with mental illness who are totally unable to care for themselves or anyone and live in residences and shelters. life is not made for sensitive dreamers. being good at making things that are not useful is a difficult gift to have -- it does not help you provide for anyoen and makes me a dependent. i have never been able to support myself by myself. i assume my other qualities have to make up for this but maybe not. sometimes i berate myself a ton for it. it's hard to not know how to be the way everyone else is but i cant seem to do it. at least i am taking carea of the baby most of the time but then we pay a nanny so i can work and it costs more.
there are more messes but i dont know. i maybe need to stop therapy as i cant afford it even with insurance. whatever. i need to sleep. is anyone out there at all who feels this way or reads my words?????

elvis

elvis the scnoodle:
elvis is old and getting older.
elvis is 80 years old (according to his size in human years)
elvis is in his 17th dog year, ie. he is 16.5, had his half bday some time around end of jan.
elvis is elvis is elvis.
elvis is much loved by all of us.
elvis is called "dodo" by lola and very very very loved by her.
elvis gets love medecine, it helps him most.
elvis takes a lot of meds daily like me, but for different issues.
elvis takes soloxine for hypothyroid.
elvis takes actigol for gallbladder.
elvis just took an antibiotic klavamox, for two weeks.
elvis takes tylan powder in his food to help digestion and colitis.
elvis now takes an appetite increaser, i forgot the name.
elvis also takes codeine sulfate once in a while, usually at night.
elvis likes to pace around the house.
elvis hates baths and does not get them much as he has a bad back and neck.
elvis takes prednisone when his disc (intervertebral disc disease) flares up.
elvis trots and even runs at the beginning of his walks.
elvis drinks a lot of water.
elvis eats chicken baby food.
elvis loves whole foods rotisserie chicken.
elvis has a growth on his right front leg, which cannot be removed as it is coming out of the bone or too close to the bone, only noticed about two weeks ago by us humans.
elvis is stoic, brave, still manly, handsome and feisty when he feels the need.
elvis peed on denzel's carpet this morning in denzel's office area.
elvis had a seizure last week and i worried that he has a brain tumor.
elvis has a great vet who is wonderful and talks to me on the phone to answer questions, does not mind when i start crying.
elvis will not get an MRI, CAT scan (what dog would submit to a CAT scan, ha ha), or biopsy or surgery on his "tumor" as the seizure and his age indicate that these things could kill him and he seems to be doing well, considering what is going on.
elvis gets better when i get less anxious about his health and when he is not taken to the vet.
elvis will live quite a lot longer due to loving care and hopefully an increase in food intake, helped by that appetite pill and rotisserie chicken...
elvis just got a head rub.
elvis still competes with denzel.
elvis is alpha dog extraordinaire!

very short summary of i don't know what to call it.

yes, up again at 1 but i just took my seroquel so i'll be tired soon.
i think i mentioned starting an episode two weeks prior to the april 7 post. up until last monday the mania seemed low or gone, just a lot of paranoia, emotional getting way emotional more than normal, like crying more at certain topics, talking a lot to one of my friends...
anyway long story short, monday the 21st i got so manic i was really scared it was goign straight to psychosis, but i recognized it.
next post more detail.
today i found out that since april 11 i have been taking about twice or more of my normal dose of generic wellbutrin. i didnt realize as i'm used to always taking three pills a day but anyway i finally figured it out after i had taken 6 00 milligrams instaead of 300. i'm sure some of the past sixteen days i've taken three pills by mistake, three times the normal dose.
anyway that explains a lot at least from april 11 on and especially this week's mania followed by mixed state and sort of rapid cycling stuff i'm not used to.
more on another post.
has anyoen also been so oblivious that s/he did not notice that the new bottle of meds was suddenly changed.../??

the "vatta" temperament

i don't know if you have heard of the ayervedic classifications of "dosha". anyway my friend who is studying it in depth did a consultation with me and it reinforced what i already knew, that i am very "vatta", air, nervous system imbalances, easily spiritual, disorganized, unable to do anything consistently, make friends easily with like minded people- trusting, moody, then the physical stuff: dry skin, fast metabolism, small bones etc. she said i was the most vatta person she'd come across, as most people are a bit of a mix.
anyway all this to say that my blog does not escape my vatta nature. i do it in an intense and genuine soulful way, but cannot keep it up in a disciplined consistent way at all. in fact due to this very nature, she did not give me a lot of instructions about diet, habits exercise etc. as she knew i would not be able to follow them. she sort of gave some gentle suggestions about ways to try to ground myself. we vattas are very much air, in our heads, need warm food, even oily heavy food to get us down to the ground. also even meals are inconsistent. some days i eat regular meals, other days i snack all day, other days i forget to eat, and some days i eat really only salty and sugary foods. it turns out ice cream for breakfast is not so bad for me.
that's what i like about this ancient system, it is all about how to balance one's intrinsic physical/spiritual/mental/emotional nature...
anyway so here i am, i guess it's about two months and a week later.

quick report:
two weeks ago i noticed the very moment my brain switched over adn went to manic mode, shortly followed by "mixed state", anxiety, paranoia, fear of getting psychotic etc. i took care of it pretty quickly with a heavier dose of seroquel, leaving three messages with my psychiatrist and of course telling denzel. it was very intense but i'm getting used to knowing that for now i am in a sort of "episode" or kind of fragile imbalance state where i take a more klonopin during day and sometiems extra seroquel in day and more seroquel at night too. the depression peeks its head through all this too so i'm continuing wellbutrin...
it has been mixed with baby. moments of delight and connecting with her and enjoying her laugh and smile, lots of physical contact and full of love for her. then also horrible moments of feeling resentful, bad, wanting not to have her around, or feeling kind of like a zombie or whatever the word is for feeling totally cut off and not responding to her at all and feeling bad about it but somehow locked off and incapable. other worse moments of bad thoughts that are too hard to write about. but feeling a little proud of myself that i'm livng through it and surviving...
a lot of this was triggered by our wonderful nanny having to leave due to the hours no longer suiting her for her family life. we now have a new nanny, but it was a terrible shock and loss. i still miss the old nanny. so does denzel. this ending somehow went to my nervous systema and triggered all kinds of abandonment stuff that went to my brain and started the bipolar imbalance going...
that's about all for now. i'm still quite paranoid around the new nanny, and a little paranoid in general. i should be asleep as i took my meds and usually make myself go to sleep earlier than this. bad sign. i'll take an extra seroquel now.
still attending the postpartem depression mother's group with baby. it's helpful but as it is a drop in group i find myself missing one of the mothers who left. she shared so much and then she was gone and now there are new moms there. i am such a creature of attachment and staying with people in my life that i am too sensitive to changes and people leaving... i hope the people who read my blog will come back... ok. i really will go take another seroquel...

depression...

continues. i've had a lot of difficulties with some important relationships since the psychotic episode and it's been horribly distracting and upsetting. i had a terrible interchange with one of my siblings and it's pretty much over, any positive communication, so there is no communication. he was horribly cruel and judgmental about how i handled the episode, did not apologize, and said some awful things about me and denzel and how we handled the episode. he was not here during it. anyway, it's been a terrible loss as i thought we were close, and it's hard to avoid thinking about it and getting very sad and angry. i find myself crying every day at odd moments.
most of my friends have been super supportive so i'm truly appreciative of that and of denzel and elvis and the baby. i hope the new year brings a relief from emotional and financial stress and positive things for me and everyone who is positive in my life... i am grateful for people who read this blog and are so caring and supportive.
my psychiatrist said it takes six months to a year for the brain chemistry to totally get back to normal after a really intense episode like the one i had. i am still feeling the ramifications of it and it is almost two months later. i got stable really quickly but the emotional upheaval has been intense and difficult.

More Confessions...

the bigger confession I should have drawn a comic strip of was an earlier sin I committed today. (funny how as a jewish superstitious atheist i freely employ all this dramatic wording from other religions, esp. these days, the catholics with "confessions" and "sin"... one thing i've gotten even more comfortable with due to pregnancy is all my inconsistencies and total contradictions...)

anyway earlier today i purchase a pair of designer sunglasses on sale, still at a high cost though they were more than half price. there was no need for them. even if i eventually have money to turn them into prescription sunglasses and wear them as regular ones until them, i do not need them. but they were ultra cool looking and i enlisted a friend who has kids herself and is trying not to spend extra money to tell me they looked great on me and stand there while i bought them.

this is not a purchase to be making with only weeks left before baby girl arrives, when i am in debt and will need extra money in the first couple of months of motherhood. on the other hand i'm sure the baby will be happy to see me stroll her down the street in her new lightweight stroller wearing those sunglasses and the sandals i got a few weeks ago in bright colors to match her stroller. she will be delighted and thinking, this was a very necessary purchase. i was there when you made it and got a nice rush of excessive spending high from you, thanks mom... of course this is not something i will be doing when she is here outside my belly.

also getting ready to get rid of another major sin very soon. the tv! i grew up with no tv and we both want to get rid of our tv and bring up baby without tv. i'll stil want a screen of some sort to watch movies on as i do not consider my film interests to be bad influence on baby and they are easier to keep away from her. i returned my baby einstein dvd after reading that article that came out and realizing it's best of all to just read to her and have denzel play music and sing to her...

otherwise going through all kinds of ups and downs and emotions. yesterday i passed the vet elvis goes to and saw a vet tech walking a little cute doggie with one of those plastic shades on her head and practically burst into tears. not sure if it was seeing the elizabethan collar on the dog or somehow missing elvis' baby days or some kind of reminder of times elvis has been in the vet or sick. almost cried on the subway tonight after intense therapy session...

having weird dreams again like i did in the beginnign of being pregnant...

the long block finally ended...

not feeling too well. stressed out and kind of dizzy, but i wanted to post these before lying down...

still no comic strip...

feeling ok now but earlier in the day i cried a few times... yesterday i cried on the way to the baby party with denzel. my friend and her husband and beautiful baby had a very nice party for us but i was not in a great mood at the beginning. everyone seemed to have a good time and i was glad in the end that i had decided to have a coed party rather than a typical shower. we've gotten some great and lovely gifts for the baby.
plus the ice cream cake! i splurged on a yummy ice cream cake that was great. i had two pieces and i know it was good because my picky gourmet mother had two pieces. my father also came to the party and they enjoyed hanging out with my friends. my sister brought her kids and husband.
by the time we got home i was feeling uncomfortable and sort of muscle pain from the fetus moving around and stretching.
i'm still anxious about everything and also money.
today i took elvis out for his late birthday special walk to the park by the water and he enjoyed it and had a lot of energy. i cried on the way there and on the way home and when i got home.
denzel and i took a long walk in the pouring rain and got soaked looking at dressers to possibly use for the baby. there was a bamboo type tray at a store that we joked about being the perfect baby changer. we'll probably just change her on the bed or the dining room table with a towel. i'm starting to get annoyed at all the ridiculous marketing geared at making new parents spend money they don't have.
i feel huge and can't believe how big i am and don't recognize myself anymore though friends say the nice thing about me looking the same except for the big belly. at least my face is not all puffy. i dont' understand how people say they love being pregnant. i am happy to have the baby moving inside me but i don't love being pregnant. i miss my meds and my old normal body and being able to bend over and cut my own toenails and do activities like exercise (which i was so not into before being pregnant but there's nothing like being unable to do something to make you want to do it) and having energy. and the crying feels weird, i feel like i'm a kid crying and scared and helpless.
tomorrow we go back to the doctor.

anxious again...

hi, thanks for all the nice comments about soon to be baby photos/sonogram.
it's fun to imagine that face/head is inside me right now and quite surreal.
meanwhile i'm feeling quite anxious. just the usual things. hard to sleep at night and that's when i focus too much on not feeling prepared, feeling disorganized, worrying how elvis will adjust. worrying that we won't have all the stuff we need to have when she arrives, worrying that i'll have an episode and have to take meds and stop breastfeeding etc.
it's now the countdown to going to the hospital which is also anxiety provoking...
and i keep wanting to make a comic for the blog and not doing it...

a quick followup

hi everyone, thanks for the support and advice.
the good news is that elvis had a great time at my parents and they treated him as wonderfully as they have always done. my mother even took him for a very long walk yesterday. i seem to forget that she complains and vents and criticizes in advance of things and makes things out to be a disaster beforehand and then the reality works out much better. i know i get that quality from her myself and work on curbing it as i do recognize it in myself and denzel notices it when i do it and calls me on it. unfortunately my mother is not always so aware of her behaviors and it does not help to point things like that out to her.
but she really is very thoughtful and caring in the end and comes through.
however i am still in distress/stress about what to do soon when i have the baby. i'm hoping my parents will soften up and change their minds and offer to let elvis stay with them, especially if denzel can come over during the day to do some of the walks and then go back to the hospital.
meanwhile i guess i'll investigate other options, like finding a referral from the vet of a good person who might house sit and take care of elvis. there are people out there who are expert at taking good care of old dogs with specific issues and i'll have to do some research and consider spending time and money on it. a kennel or doggie day care is just out of the question. elvis will soon be sixteen and he is in good health at moment but has a chronic issue with his back and very specific diet and medications and also gets extremely worsened by stress of unfamiliar situations and my own stress, so putting him in an unfamiliar environment with total strangers and cages or whatever is not going to give me peace of mind...
i'll continue posting about this as it is a major source of stress along with everyhting else about having the baby soon, etc.

i'm also aware that i'm probably very nervous about how he will do with having the baby around. he is pretty much my first born child and i'm so attached to him that i want to make sure he's ok during this strange transition and change and addition of new member to the family.

by the way, we managed to have a great trip and it was nice to get away from the city and nice to come back and be reunited with elvis. i got my usual return to city adn my life anxiety tonight...

more anxiety, dog related...

thank you ol' lady for voting me a rockin' girl blogger. i'm too tired and stressed out at the moment to figure out how to put the image icon of it on my blog and i don't know how to link up anyone i nominate as i have a mac and safari program does not work that high tech with blogger.

for now i'll just post as it's been a while. i was hoping again to do a comic strip post but not up to it right now.

super stress and anxiety about going to visit denzel's parents as we are leaving elvis with my parents. what seemed like a nice arrangement that had me relatively calm and ready to go home from dinner and pack slowly and clean the apt. was horribly shattered by a phone conversation with my mother.

not to bore you with the details but my father is much more amenible to taking care of elvis and as the baby of the family and daddy's little girl, i appreciate his sweetness and caring and that he at his age walks elvis and takes good care of him though it's not without its pain in the ass aspects. the late night walk is hard on him. my mother on the other hand tends to make everything into a big crisis in general and i caught her after a horrible long airplane trip and having to sit in the plane in the airport for two hours when they arrived home due to stupid security stuff. so she was in a terrible mood and started complaining about taking care of elvis and asking why we couldn't take him with us. there are many reasons it won't be ok to take him on this trip, but after talking to her, i was trying to figure out a way we could bring him, as it was so disturbing...

i kind of freaked out and burst into tears several times talking about it with denzel and later again. he was pretty pissed off himself and our whole evening was almost ruined. so much for packing and getting ready and cleaning.

we're still going to leave elvis with my parents tomorrow. i trust my dad to take great care of him and my mom will just have to deal with it. i think she mainly can't stand that he pees in her kitchen and she doesn't like all the walks. the funny thing is i think she misses him when he goes, but she complains and bitches and gets so anxious about it, it sucks. last time i made sure my dad was in charge of all the medication as he is very thorough.

anyway my other big stress from all this is i don't know what to do with elvis when i'm in the hospital. i'll be there for four days probably because i'm getting a c section. originally i had talked to my dad about my parents taking care of him while i was there. it seemed reasonable to ask them that small favor while i have a baby on no medications and recover from surgery and deal with learnign to nurse. but now i don't know what to do. i have one friend who could take care of him maybe but she now has a baby who will be almost one year by then and i don't know if she can handle it or will even want to. i may have to consider hiring a really good vet tech/dog care person to stay at our place and take care of the dog. i know they exist, i've seen their cards at the vet but i have no idea how much they cost. having a baby is costly enough. and i dont like the idea of elvis with a stranger. he's not used to being taken care of by anyone except a few people he knows really well and his other owner who does not live near here anymore. so it's a real point of stress, worry anxiety.
meanwhile ihave to survive this trip and hope my parents take good care of elvis and don't stress me out with complaining.

elvis is so important to me i'd sacrifice just about anything for him. i'm really anxious that having a baby is just too much and i have to be able to trust that he'll be ok. i had all kinds of scary thoughts tonight after denzel fell asleep.
i'm not packed or ready to go tom. morning in any way.
i feel very freaked out and am trying to tell myself it will all work out. reality is always much better than what's in my mind and my mother is very blunt and does not keep her feelings or annoyance to herself.

quick follow up

hi all. thanks for the support. elvis and i had a very stressful time of it. the teeth cleaning was successful and they had to extract a very infected tooth so it was good it got done. but fri. night was a nightmare and i was very sleep deprived sat. and the weekend was quite a challenge. i would put witnessing and taking care of a small animal coming out of anasthesia on my top ten most challenging life experiences list. i'll go into details in another post perhaps. he's still stiff in the back legs from where they put the catheter in but mostly back to his lovely normal self.
and today i felt more like a regular human. on sat. afternoon i had a moment where all the stress of his stuff and other things got to me to such an extent that i felt like i was about to crack and enter bad episode land but i managed to get through and recover on sunday with rest and spending a good father's day with denzel.
it was a preview that scared me of how stressed out and ungrounded and on edge of episode i get when i don't get enough stress adn am caught up in worry and concern for a very small dependent being.
what will i do very soon when there are two small beings in the house to worry about, one a doggie and one a baby????!!!!!

block

for some reason, maybe i just have no energy. i have been unable to get back to doing my comic strip for this blog. it really annoys me as i enjoyed posting the comic strip and expressing something original about myself and my experiences and especially bringing elvis to life.

for one thing my desk is stilled piled high with stuff. even my scanner that i would need to use to scan the comics has a stuffed elephant mom and baby that i found recently and had to buy. they stand on top of my scanner to remind me of the side of me that is a potential good mommy.

i'm still anxious and unmotivated to do anythign in the apartment. but i'm definitely feeling more stable than the last weeks of may, so that's a good thing.

elvis is getting his teeth done next friday. i'm terrified. trying not to think about it now. focusing on how puppylike and energetic he's been and how he's walking fine even running. the glucosamine did not work out as the beef pill pockets that i was going to eventually put the pills in started to give him beginnings of diarhea so i and the vet agreed to forgo the beef pockets and glucosamine. poor elvis. he really liked those beef treats. now he has to go back to waiting once a month for beef flavor in his anti-heartworm pill treat instead of getting a pillpocket twice a day. it was fun giving them to him as he really enjoyed them. but not worth messing up his fragile little digestive system.

he's so wonderful i continue to marvel at his beautiful being. seeing him trot down the street so excited to be outside on nyc's dirty garbagefilled sidewalks and sniffing all kinds of stuff, is better than any medication to remind me that i'm already so blessed by having him in my life for the past fourteen years or so. i think dogs are injected with extra godliness divinity at birth as they stay that way all their life. as opposed to us humans who turn into, well, humans. it's no wonder that dog is god spelled forwards and god is dog spelled backwards!

elvis back to his old self! me back to messier self...

the good new is that elvis is doing much better, back to his 14 year old puppy self, even doing some of his adorable puppy like things like getting enthusiastic puppy energy and bounding around before going downstairs to his walks. some of his slowness last week especially on wed. was due to the rabies shot which i found out makes you exhausted and stiff in the muscles.

he's now getting special beef pill pocket treats after meals to see if he can digest them ok and prepare him for getting cosequin, a glucosamine supplement for arthritis. of course i'm partly wondering if i should even give him the pill as he seems much better, but the vet noticed arthritis when she examined him even though he moved fine when i walked him around in front of her.

the main new stress about him is that i have to get his teeth cleaned this month and he has not had that done yet. it's bad to let it go further as his teeth are not in great condition but they have to put him out for it and of course i'm super worried about it.

in general i think my trip into the dark and familiar zone of the more crazy parts of my mind has ended for now with a return to better places, but i'm very anxious and tired, totally exhausted. i had fine plans to go through piles of things on my desk and try to do some cleaning as things are more disorderly than ever but i got home from an outing late afternoon and went straight to bed. i'm constantly tired and have no motivation. all the stereotypes about being pregnant and nesting are bullshit where i'm concerned.

i've been trying to resign myself to the baby arriving in a messy disorderly apartment and that plenty of slobs bring up happy children. it sucks that the media paints a picture of organized expectant parents happily painting special things on the walls of a sparkling baby room and a clean neat organized apartment or house. when i was growing up i used to feel trapped in a family of neat people and hated being told to clean my room. now i'm worried my poor baby will be trapped in a chaotic totally messy disorganized house. i've lost all hope of things getting pulled together. we only have a few more months left and i can barely keep my papers in order and pay bills on time, much less pick up clothing and keep the kitchen neat, a bare minimum. the idea that we can reorganize the apt. and build storage space and transform it in time for the baby seems hopeless. i'm realizing i'm still slightly depressed but in this case the feeling of resigning myself to the worst case scenario seems a lot more comforting than having grand ambitions for our place and making room for baby. you can't be disappointed when you resign yourself to the reality of your own limitations. it's also just too hard to motivate or imagine that i can motivate when i'm pregnant and constantly tired. just keeping up with the bare minimum of one day at a time is a huge challenge.

the idea of a baby shower is scary and daunting. more stuff to put in the middle of the apartment. there's no more room under the bed or under the big dining room table so anything we get or are given for the baby will just go in the middle of the loft.

i have rescue fantasies of some magic person coming over and fixing everything. i've watched too many reality tv show of makeovers. denzel would never let someone come and reorganize our place anyway. but i admit i've had fantasies of waving a wand and everything being organized and fixed in two seconds with no suffering of dealing with the worse chaos that occurs when you start moving things around to reorganize in a place that does not just feel like a big close/garbage dump but in fact is. tonight is indeed garbage night. it's usually my thing to take out the trash or make sure denzel does it but i don't really care. i know how far i've descended when i can't find favorite items of clothing and dont bother looking for them.

i woke up this morning with grand plans to have new energy and tackle my desk and area and clothing areas and closet but that was a fantasy. i'm back to not caring and feeling the ultimate lazy slothful feeling that is a big part of my personality. as i get older i only get worse as i get better at living in messier and messier and more disorganized environment. sometimes it seems to mirror my inner situation and gets me down even more. sometimes i think this is actually a strength. all the neat freaks out there with perfect and organized apartments are sitting on total fear of the real chaos that is life and their own emotions. at least i'm totally aware of and living in my chaos and lack of control or anything. but i'm wondering how great it is to bring up a baby in this kind of environment. i guess i'll just have to hope that the baby will see that life is messy and disorganized and uncertain and chaotic but love can be grown in very messy places and love is messy anyway...

any words of encouragement or support greatly appreciated. i''m not sure this post conveyed all my fear and anxiety and exhaustion with worrying about how to deal with the mess of the environment and the big fear of the bigger mess of figuring out how to manage my life when the baby is here and be a good enough mother. i had great hopes of drawing a fun comic about elvis but that went out the window with my big plans of getting organized. i'll probably walk him and make a bigger mess getting ready for bed. sometimes i notice i retreat to bed to hide from the rest of the mess. somehow the messy bed is a slight haven to hide from all the clutter and mess.

nightmare during sleep and stress during awake...

hi again and thanks for everyone's wonderful support. i plan to catch up on all your blogs after doing this post.

i'm doing better since last post but the past few days have been still difficult and my mood is still shaky. yesterday was quite stressful for various reasons. and we did not sleep much last night, denzel and i. we were supposed to go to the country with elvis to visit a friend but this morning we we're too tired and stressed out from yesterday. yesterday was difficult but good for our relationship as i was able to be there for denzel dealing with some difficult issues with people in his life.

anyway last night was not good for sleep and i had a horrible dream about having the baby and the surgery. the baby did not appear in the dream but it was leading up to getting the c section. i won't describe the dream but it was not restful sleep.

then when i woke up early and took little elvis out i noticed he was walking strangely. we had taken him out at about 4am when we were not sleeping and he had been fine. he seemed to be limping by a few hours later. then we decided not to go away anyway and i got very anxious about whether to take elvis on an emergency appontment to the vet or wait and see how he was doing. i called two of his vet offices and talked to a nurse at one. from what she said it did not sound terrible to wait and see how he is in the next few days. he is eating normally and just as excited to go out on his walks. he doesn't make any noise of any kind of pain and his front leg that seems to be limping does not seem abnormal or swollen. he puts weight on it when walking and peeing. he's been resting most of the day and doing his usual stuff so i decided not to panic and stress him out by rushing to the vet and having to pay an extra 100$ plus the visit as they had no regular appointments left.

i just took him out again and he was happy to be out. he even will run a little on some of his walks depending whether he has just got up from a nap or not. so i'm hoping he just pulled a muscle or something like that. right now he is sitting reclining near my chair totally relaxed so i'm trying not to worry too much. i made an appointment with his regular vet for tues. morning so i might take him in then if he is still walking strangely...

the irony is that we ended up bringing him to the vet yesterday to have the technician put the flea and tick liquid on him as i was too neurotic to do it myself and was worried about the chemicals being pregnant. i also did not want to put it on wrong and have a bad effect on him. i never take him to the country these days so i had thought i needed to get him a collar but it turns out the vets all recommend this liquid stuff that goes into the skin as being more effective. it lasts for a month so i guess it's good he has it in case we go somewhere another time. but he was fine yesterday when i took him for that. they were very nice and did not charge anything to do that for him...

needless to say today i was too stressed out and sort of depressed to do much. i'm still feeling the mood but i'm trying to relax and not worry about catching up on any of the things i need to do. after all everyone else is vacationing and doing nothing and we would have been in the country. i admit i'm relieved we did not end up going as taking elvis would have been stressful for me, worrying about him being ok on the trip and in a strange environment.

he's my real baby. i think i must have been a dog in another life. these days when i walk around outside and see people with a stroller and a dog, my maternal instincts go out to the dog. looking at the baby in the stroller does not bring out any desire to hold the baby or coo over him or her. in fact i'm kind of scared of babies and toddlers these days. but dogs just make me smile.

i hope to do a comic strip soon as this blog was supposed to be mostly comic strip form but my mood and mixed state have made it hard to get to it...

more anxiety...

just read too much on the internet about pregnancy, well specifically about delivery, actually about c sections as i decided quite a while ago to have an elective c section. there are some truly "crazy" judgmental people out there, i can't imagine that is good for their children. to tell people you do not know things like "you spread your legs to get pregnant, you should spread your legs to have the baby". this from a woman. it actually seems that the people with the most opinions about c sections are women, and the most intolerant and judgmental stuff comes from people who have had their child in whatever way they think is better. i just don't understand how people can complain about being given more choices.
who am i hurting by having a c section. one person actually made a mean comment about mothers choosing c sections as being selfish and not caring about their babies.

i can't say i'm completely comfortable with my decision but not because i might want to deliver the "natural" way, but because i'm not comfortable with getting the baby out either way. i wish honestly that i could just burp and she'd pop out. i'm scared totally of all of it, so the c section does not remove the fear. if i could be knocked out completely and wake up feeling ok with the baby there, i'd honestly choose that. i don't think that makes me a less fit mother. the things that could make me a shitty mother do not have much to do with getting the baby out. but it amazes me that there are women out there who think that way.

one of the reasons i chose the c section option besides the cowardly fear of labor aspect is the bipolar issues. i think the worst scenario would be long labor no sleep and then emergency c section because of complications, what could be more stressful, plus the huge stress leading up to labor of anxiety about it. i'm the type who carries stress around and then has an episode from all the collected stress, just like what happened this week. and lack of sleep for a prolonged period of time makes me manic. so i think choosing the c section option is actually also for the baby, so i can be more likely to be able to handle the first moments of motherhood without already being crazy and anxious and manic.

but at this point if i had to have the baby tomorrow i'd be frightened out of my wits. one of the reasons i never wanted to have a child until recently was that i really thought i could not handle the zero hour of getting the baby out of my body. i still feel that way.

it sure would have been nice to go on the internet and read some reassuring comments from other women. there was one reassuring comment from someone who said it was great and she had little pain and recovered quickly. and two friends of mine had no problem with the surgery. i guess i should focus on the real people i know and not the crazy comments from random things on the internet. plus i was born by c section myself and my mother said the experience was great. if i'm this freaked out now i can only imagine how i'll feel when it's time to deal with the reality...

of course i wonder why am i freaking myself out now. i could be just relaxing and trying to find that elusive bliss the media makes you think you're supposed to be feeling while pregnant. or i could be making a fun comic strip for this blog instead of another anxious rant... maybe soon, i hope.

mixed state, hello old friend...

thanks to everyone for the supportive comments on last post. it was the beginning of an "episode", what i think of now as a mixed state. i had my first mixed state about 9 years ago; up until then i had mostly had either manic or depressive episodes. anyway it took me some time to learn to recognize them on my own but i can say i have gotten pretty good at it. it only took until tuesday for it to really dawn on me that my mood and mind and thoughts and chemistry were not about hormones and pregnancy but that i was experiencing a bipolar episode, a mixed state of depression, anxiety, psychotic thinking and so on. not much mania in there that i could recognize at all to sweeten things up, although there may have been a little hypomania on fri. and sat. before my depressive sunday.

anyway i won't get into the "psychotic" thinking that i experienced as i need a break from it, but i was proud of myself for the most part as tues. when i truly realized this is what's going on, i called boyfriend, psychiatrist and therapist and took pretty good care of myself. since then it's been moments of calm followed by more thoughts and weird scary imagery, destructive stuff i have not acted upon, as well as regular depression and so on. i've just been coping with it by trying not to increase anxiety about it, accept it and go on with my day doing my regular things and work and walking doggie etc. trying to avoid too much stress.

a lot of the stuff of the last post continues to plague me. the only physical thing that's a real pain in the ass, is that i learned in the first trimester that big meals are really uncomfortable and lead to indigestion and all kinds of yucky sensations, but every time i go out to a restaurant for dinner, i end up eating too much and feeling truly horrible, wishing i could throw up. i did that tonight and it's really annoying me that i could not monitor myself and eat less knowing full well this would happen. and it coincides with an easing up of some of the worst mental episode stuff. so i'm annoyed with myself that i am feeling so uncomfortable when i have a lull in the "sickness" of bipolar stuff.

anyway i'm not at the point to take any meds. i'm just riding things out and tolerating the brain chemistry storm... i will try to look at some blogs and comment again soon. at the moment i have no mental energy for anything much. it is soothing to know that i'm still walking and feeding and taking care of elvis. even while feeling like a failure as a mother, i can comfort myself with the knowledge that i'm able to take care of my dog while dealing with bipolar illness, a big accomplishment for me. and denzel has been really a wonderful caring and supportive partner and i know it's not easy for him.