Our baby girl is due in January, 2013. How crazy is that?
I know I’ve been pretty quiet around here lately, but as you can see, there has been good reason. Mostly, it’s because I’ve been asleep because Holy Crap if growing a child isn’t SUPER HARD WORK.
Y’all, believe me. Pregnancy is not for the faint of heart.
Sarah: If you give me some time to prepare, I think I could even make it up Half Dome without crying.
Zack: I’m hoping that CrossFit is already helping with that.
Sarah: Me too.
Zack: I’m warning you now, though, there is going to be some exposure*.
Sarah: Yeah, I know. How tall is Half Dome, anyway? From base to top?
Zack: I don’t know
Sarah: What did you say?
Zack: I don’t know.
Sarah: DOES NOT COMPUTE.
*I’m not scared of heights, per say. I am, however, scared of being AWARE that I am really far off the ground. Thus, my fear of ‘exposure’ is referenced here. Zack knows me well.
You know a smell is real bad when a room full of nurses are taking turns dry heaving into a trash can.
CrossFit is teaching me some important lessons, but they aren’t always the lessons I expected.
Some of them are the normal lessons. For instance, today was a running day for me. I didn’t want to run because my legs are still sore from the 30 minutes of jump-roping we did yesterday, but I went anyway. And then after I was out, I didn’t want to run up the giant hill in the neighborhood, because that hill sucks real bad. But I did it anyway. The whole time I was running up the hill I was like, “I’m so strong! I can do this! CrossFit is teaching me not to limit myself! Booyah!” Then when I was nearing the end of my run and my calf muscles seized up like a motor without any oil in it, I wanted to quit early. But I kept running anyway. I was like, I CAN keep going, and so I SHOULD. That’s totally a CrossFit attitude. 10 points to me.
10 idiot points, that is. Because I just hopped out of bed to give the house the final pre-sleep lock-down and my calf muscles were all EFF YOU, STUPID. WE WILL STOP WORKING NOW. I hobbled my way back to bed using the same pivot step that my nieces use to make their knee-less Barbies strut around their doll houses.
Another thing that CrossFit has taught me is how rarely I fully extend my arms. Zack called tonight to check on me; he asked me how I was feeling, and how my elbows were doing. I had stretch out both of my arms all the way before I could verify that, yes, they do, in fact, hurt super badly. I just had previously been unaware because apparently I walk around all day long with my elbows bent.
So I just wanted to share those important CrossFit lessons of the day with you. I am always capable of more than I think I am, and, uh, also, I don’t extend my arms very often.
One of the best things about living in the new house is how unbelievably temperate it is in here. This house is always exactly whatever temperature we tell it to be.
The first three* houses Zack and I lived in were all, uh, a wee bit drafty. The first one was at the camp where we used to work, and that house was basically a double-wide with a sliding glass door. Not temperate. The second house was built in 1922 and the windows were literally falling out of the window panes. I used two rolls of duct tape just to prevent rain from coming inside during thunderstorms. After that house, we moved into a “newer” place, built in 1941, that had a brick exterior and 150% better insulation.
Unfortunately, 150% better than The Worst EVAR is still pretty terrible. Zack and I started out sleeping in the back bedroom of the house, but had to swap bedrooms to sleep in the “warmer room” during our first winter we were there, just so that I could crawl into bed at night and not spend the first hour shivering. But even in the warmer room, Zack still got annoyed at the outrageous amount of clothing I wore to bed in the winter. Apparently, he doesn’t think it’s sexy to sleep ski bibs.
Anyway, the ski bib thing’s not a problem anymore. In fact, the only problem I have now is that I’m going to have to re-think our bedding because we’re currently more suited for an Eskimo-type situation than our current brand-new-house-with-insulation-and-a-fully-operational-thermostat situation.
*That’s 3 houses in 5 years of marriage; we are getting very good at packing and unpacking, and we can sometimes even assemble furniture while in the same room together and not want to kill each other, just so long as neither one of us has low blood sugar. Our #1 marriage rule is this: Thou shalt not assemble furniture together when thouest art hangry.
A fun way to break in the brand new oven at your brand new house is by using an over-sized dish towel to pull your steak fries out of the oven, and then, in the process, setting that dish towel on fire. Don’t worry, though. Because my brand new faucet for my brand new kitchen sink has a pretty impressive spray range. I took care of it*.
_________________________
Zack heard Scout growling the other day and thought that someone was trying to break into the house. She barks at people when they come over, and she barks at squirrels and stuff in the backyard, but she never growls. She growled for so long that Zack was able to shoot a little video of it to show me.
So, there’s a pond in our new neighborhood, and that pond has ducks. Scout was growling at one of the ducks, who was across the street, in one of the neighbor’s yards. You could see it on one part of the video; it was scarcely bigger than a period at the end of a sentence. But Scout could see it, and boy, was she ever pissed.
_________________________
Zack and I decided to sign up for a run/race at the end of April to motivate me (us?) to get back into the swing of exercising on a regular basis. We’re going to go for the gusto and register for the 10K. Wish me luck, but don’t wish me good sense, otherwise I would surely back out while I still have the chance.
_________________________
I’ve slowly started to make the medication adjustments that the doctor suggested that I make. I don’t feel a whole lot happier but I do feel more stable. I explained that concept to Zack earlier by saying, “You know how sometimes we’d go to dinner and have the best time, and then on the way home I would start crying, and then I would go straight to bed? I don’t feel like that anymore.” So that’s good news(?). It’s hard to think about things in terms of emotional stability as opposed to just happy vs. unhappy. I don’t feel better because I don’t feel happier, but stable is better than unstable, so I’ll count that as a win. So far, the biggest side-effects that I have from detoxing off of Medication #1 are jacked-up sense of spacial awareness (running into walls, trying to set things down on the counter but totally missing and dropping them on the floor, etc.) and feeling like everything is happening in slow motion. Neither of these are surprising to me; I expected them both. The side-effects just leave me wishing that psych meds weren’t so miserable to adjust.
_________________________
Pictures of the house forthcoming. Zack and I have been enjoying settling into the new house. It’s perhaps a little bit obvious or redundant to say this, but we have such a sense of ownership about this place — like we’ve never had before with any of the places that we’ve rented. It’s been fun to celebrate being in this house that we’ve dreamed of for so many years while we do normally-mundane things like decide where to store the dish towels.
_________________________
*Just kidding. I mean, I really did catch the rag on fire, but I was able to put it out with a couple of frantic waves and “OH SHIT”s. Problem solved.
To tell you this breaking news: Zack and I are spending our first night in our NEW HOUSE. And, I gotta say, it is pretty crazy cool.
Also, moving is exhausting, so we are going to bed super early. Good night.
(!)
Well, I said that I was hoping that my post yesterday would get the ball rolling, and boy did I ever get what I was asking for.
I have a lot of people in my life who love me and care about me. What’s more is the people who care about me are real go-getter types–the kind that like to DO things about stuff. So when they ask me what they can DO to help me, and I say, “I don’t know. Why? Did you have anything in mind?” They are like, “UH, yeah. Here’s the plan. Let’s get started.”
So that’s how I wound up talking to a psychiatrist today. I didn’t have any intention of talking to a psychiatrist today. I was going to wait until we got settled into the new house, and then I was going to go to see a counselor. Instead, the go-getters in my life saw to it that I got the help that I need–the help that I’ve needed for months now. They saw to it by literally walking me to help’s front door and dropping me off.
Today wasn’t the worst day I’ve had recently. In fact, it wasn’t even a particularly bad day at all. That made for funny conversations with the doctors and nurses doing my initial psych evaluations. Usually people are at the bottom of their proverbial barrels before they finally go in to an office to see a doctor; I know that’s been my pattern at least. So when the nurse asked me to rate today on a scale of 1-10, I was like, “Uh, well, today’s actually been alright. But these last few months have been pretty rough. So, you mind if I give you a range?”
I’m feeling thankful today. Thankful for a husband, family, friends, and co-workers who care about me. Thankful for the go-getters who surround me, and help me when I don’t have the energy to help myself.
I should tell you the truth. The truth is, I’ve been incredibly sad for the last few months.
Every sentence in my mind these days starts with the phrase “I should.” Therapists don’t look kindly on the word “should” or the sentiment behind the word. It implies that there are expectations that I’m not meeting. And those expectations, I discovered during my last round of therapy, are often ones that I’ve placed upon my own shoulders. I should, according to my own plans, be doing a lot of things that I’m not doing.
I should be packing.
I should be running and doing yoga.
I should be studying up on Critical Care Nursing.
I should be spending more time with my family and friends.
I should be blogging every day, just like I have been for the last few years.
I should be happy.
I should be really, really happy.
But I’m not.
The depression is different this time than it was last time. The best way that I can describe it is to say that it’s more intermittent. I’ve been trying to convince myself that the fact that the heavy moments are waxing and waning means that the depression isn’t as severe this time around, but that’s just not true. It’s just as bad. It’s worse, even.
I can’t explain it. I don’t know why. I have every reason in the world to be happy right now. Supportive and kind husband. New house. New job. The life that I wanted is all falling into place. But if you were to be a fly on the wall in my house, all you would see is me sleeping. I don’t call people. I don’t go see the people who love me. I don’t do anything. I just go to sleep.
This time the lies in my head are louder than they ever have been. I hear that my boss made a bad choice by hiring me; I hear that I’m a risk that doesn’t pan out. I hear that I’m not worth the trouble that I cause. I hear that everyone’s life would be easier if I wasn’t around. I tell myself that all of these things are lies, but that doesn’t make them stop.
I should be doing the things that I know I can do to make myself feel better. I really should. I should start by trying to eradicate ‘should’ from my vocabulary again. I know that eating well, exercising regularly, setting a sleep schedule (and following the sleep schedule), and talking about what I’m feeling are helpful to me. I know that not talking about things, sleeping all the time, and existing on a diet of red wine & baked Cheetos are not good for me. I should be calling the therapist’s phone numbers that are sitting in my inbox, a gracious gift from a dear friend who did the leg work of getting recommendations for me. (I’m terrified of going back to therapy, ever since my last therapist almost killed me. But, that’s a discussion for another day.) Perhaps this is the first step. Perhaps not telling you all how I’m feeling is my version of living in denial. If so, then just imagine me standing in front of a room. Hi, my name is Sarah, and I’m wildly depressed. Again.
There are good days, though. The good days give me hope. Last time, the depression was steady; I generally felt the same amount of sadness every day. This time, I have incredibly good days, and then, days that are so dismally bad that Zack worries about my health and my acute decision making, and offers to come home from work to be with me. Those days are very, very bad days.
I wish I had an eloquently hopeful way to sum this up, but I don’t. I guess I’m just hoping that coming out about how I’m really feeling will finally motivate me to do something about it. Fingers crossed.
There are some Scenes From Life that you hope you never encounter. I encountered one of them today.
Zack and I were on the couch in our pajamas this morning when our neighbor knocked on our door. She asked, “Do you guys have an orange tabby cat?” She told us that there was a cat beside her house, and it was injured. She didn’t know what happened or how bad it was, because she hadn’t wanted to scare him away. She just recognized him from afar, and came to get us.
It was Cruizer, half-buried in a pile of leaves between two houses. He didn’t move as I walked up to him, and as I got closer, I could see that his face was crusted over with a mixture of body fluids, including dried blood. Both of his eyes were crusted shut. He hadn’t come to the house for two days, Zack told me, as I reached down and scooped him up. I was sure he was dead. He looked dead, but I could feel him breathing. He moaned one sad meow, letting me know that he was alive, but he was badly hurt.
We thanked the neighbor for coming to get us, and I walked, barefoot and in my pajamas, straight to the car. Zack grabbed the keys and I held Cruz as we drove to the vet. Cruizer, who is notorious for moaning during car rides, was silent the whole way there. I cried, and my tears beaded up on his fur, as I petted him over and over and told him that I was so so sorry.
The vet said that he looked bad, and prepared us for the worst. But the X-rays were, in his words, “surprisingly good considering his condition.” The vet thinks he was hit by a car, and survived the ordeal without any broken bones. His lungs showed signs of bruising, and he was severely dehydrated. The vet said that they needed to keep him overnight, (“hospitalize” was the word he used,) to give him IV fluids and try to get his pain under control. While we were standing in the room looking at the X-ray, Cruizer picked up his head from where it was resting on the table, and turned it the other direction. That was the most we’d seen him move since we found him. We watched him and petted him while the vet explained his concerned for Cruz’s kidneys, because of the severity of his dehydration.
When I called this evening to check on him, the vet said that Cruz was comfortable, and that he seemed to not be in pain. He had slept all afternoon. I asked about his lab results, and he said his blood draws had indicated some liver problems. We’ll know more tomorrow, he told me, because he had to send out for special labs that they can’t do there in the office. He told me to check back in the morning.
I just wish I could bring him home. I feel so helpless knowing how to take care of a human in his condition, but being totally lost when it comes to taking care of a cat. I feel so bad for him, staying the night there, alone. I hope he’s comfortable. I hope he has something soft to sleep on. I hope he makes it through the night.
I really hope he makes it through the night.
