However, today was a decent day and I got some things accomplished:

• went to yoga
• bought toothpaste (I had been squeezing the remnants out of the tube for the past few days)
• stocked up on doggie treats and food for Maia
• cooked dinner
• threw out the science experiments lurking in the crisper, and then cleaned out both crisper drawers and the bottom shelf of the fridge

Tomorrow I set myself the following goals:

• make an appointment with my doctor
• vacuum the living room
• do 10 minutes of training with Maia

I figure if I give myself small goals each day, I will get back into my routine of not letting the details of my life fall apart. Also, I feel good about getting things done, and while part of the reason of taking stress leave is to relax, I want to have something to focus on each day. I’m thinking of posting my to-do lists here on the blog each day and updating what I have accomplished, so that I have something concrete to look back on to see progress.

Wish me luck, and send me happy healing thoughts around 8am please.

I have a real estate agent, and I am hopefully finalizing details for my pre-approval for a mortgage on Saturday. I hope to be moving into my very own condo in the next couple of months. It’s exciting for more than one reason – obviously, owning my own place will be great, but also it will be a relief to get out of the place I am in now.  There has been some serious passive-aggressive shit coming from upstairs and I am so sick of it.

I may end up moving after my surgery, but some of my awesome friends and co-workers have assured me that they are willing to move me, even if I am on crutches and unable to carry a single box myself. I’ll throw the offer out to anyone else out there who is interested in free beer/pizza/Thai/wine/whatever else you desire (I’ve already had requests).

I bought a ‘Happy Light’ while in Campbell River but didn’t break it out until a few days ago. I have been trying to sit in front of it for at least 20 minutes every morning, and so far have not seen any positive results but I am persevering. It came with a blurb about SAD and every single one of the symptoms it listed, I have. It may be giving me mild headaches for now but if it can get rid of my ennui, I will be thrilled.

*sigh*

When I got the phone call yesterday afternoon, I didn’t know what to do. What to say. How to feel. For someone who is mildly agoraphobic, who does not like to be in situations outside of my control – suddenly the rug was jerked out from underneath me and I had no idea what tomorrow would hold.

So I went and ate carbs with one of my best friends.

After emotionally eating my way through poutine, a caesar salad, and baked lasagna, I felt much better and able to cope with my world turning upside down. I decided to take the rest of the week off work, and next week I am only working four days. Then it will be back to the grind until the end of February.

The silver lining to this cloud is that my paperwork had not get been completed for my short term disability claim, and now I have time to get that processed and all my ducks in a row. Continuing to get paid while lying on my couch is important to me!

Smoochies to everyone who took the time to send a note or write on my wall or whatnot. It’s always nice to feel loved, and I am emotionally storing the well-wishes for when it happens for real.

My doctor works out of a clinic, which I like because I can go see any doctor who is working if I need something minor, and she still has my complete file when I do see her. This year, with everything that has been going on with me, I have been choosing to go see her exclusively, even for things like perscription refills.

So I called the office and heard on the recording that she would be working until 1pm. I busted getting ready and got to the office by 12:45. Then I stood at the front desk for about five minutes while the many office workers chatted, wandered by on tasks, and basically completely ignored me. By the time someone came to help me, I was already aggravated.

I stated that I wished to see my doctor and got the flat response, “She’s done for the day.”

“Oh,” I said, “Your recording states that she is here until 1pm. Is that incorrect?”

There was a slight pause. “She left already. She was done early. You can see another doctor.”

Oh I can? Thank you so much for explaining my options to me!

As I left my prescription refill until almost the last minute, I agreed to see the first available doctor. He turned out to be a sixtyish man who asked way too many questions for a simple refill.

Have I taken this medication before? What is the dosage and how many times a day? What am I taking it for? What else am I doing to treat my depression? You’re not doing any exercises? Oh, you have a torn ACL. Well, you can still do arm exercises (this illustrated with him doing an arm curl, in case I wasn’t quite sure what he was talking about). Nothing to stop you from keeping those in shape.

First of all, my doctor is his colleague. I felt that by him asking all these questions, he was calling into question her competency to treat me.

Secondly, as this was a refill and not a request to start a medication to treat depression, I don’t see why he felt he needed to ask any of the follow up questions. What am I doing to treat my depression? I’m taking my fucking medication, asshat! Give me my prescription before I go all ninja on your ass!

Thirdly, I have no idea what arm exercises are supposed to do to treat my depression, since I’m fairly sure that cardio activity is needed to pump endorphins through the body, and no one I know gets an endorphin rush from curling 10lb weights.

And fourthly, I have absolutely no need for a stranger to talk to me about ‘keeping in shape’. Considering he had no base line to know what my body has ever looked like previously, it’s obviously that he had a moment of ‘omg fattie!!’ Let me just say again for the record: DO NOT WANT.

Of course I jumped on it.

That’s only 35 days away!

Then it didn’t happen again for a while.

Until tonight. Dammit. I had been having such a relaxing day – I did some chores, got rid of some stuff from my house, got new books from the library (incidentally I hit 120 books today!), ate carbs for dinner, watched the hockey game and snoozed simultaneously, and snuggled my kitty. Felt fine. I got up off the couch about an hour ago and the feeling was back.

It’s so weird. My body is fine, although I think there is a little extra adrenaline being released because I do have a bit of the same feeling as I did when I first started my medication. But mostly, the feeling is in my head. Don’t get me wrong – it’s not ‘in my head’ as in I’m imagining it. It’s literally in my head that I feel physically wonky. It comes and goes in waves, and mostly hits when I stand up. It feels like it comes from both sides of my head, at the ears, and washes over my brain. I feel discombobulated and a little nauseous. I’m a little disconnected from reality, but in a different way than I was when I had my panic attack in Safeway. (I did not realize that there was more than one way to feel disconnected from reality, but apparently there is.)

I’ve only ever had this feeling in my house, except for the one day when I ended up having to go into work on my day off. I was already feeling this way and it continued at work as well. The wave would hit and I would feel like I wasn’t quite sure where everything was around me. The whole disconnected thing manifested in me having to clutch the counter as I walked by because I was not sure if I would walk into it or fall down from lack of balance. I haven’t ever had that at my house but I suppose that could be because I am so accustomed to where everything is that I have spacial memory? I dunno.

The point is, it had gone and now it’s back. I use Jeanie’s analogy of waves when thinking of my depression because it is so apt – some days are great, some days it hits down hard and pulls me deep in the rip tide. I guess I had fooled myself into thinking that since this wonkiness had disappeared for a time, it was gone forever, but unfortunately, not so much.

Guess I’ll be making another doctor’s appointment in my near future.

Saw the doc today – my blood work all came back fine so the next step is to find and buy a light box. We’ll see how that goes in terms of alleviating the desire to sleep all the time.

I have the head cold from hell right now. My doc helpfully told me that it lasts forever, this one, so I have many more days of expelling phlegm and snot on a continuous basis. Not so nice reading that? Yeah, not so nice living that!

Work has been busy busy busy! We are set to do our busiest week of sales this week, with an odd drop in our sales target this week so we will blow it out of the water. This means bonus for me! Woo! I’ll need that money as supplemental income for when I’m off recuperating from surgery, as I believe that short-term disability only pays about 65% of one’s salary. I still have to get the exact numbers.

I snuggled doggies at the shelter again today. I brought a coffee traveller and some cranberry bliss bars for the staff, as part of my ongoing bribe to let me love the doggies. (Not that they wouldn’t anyway, but it’s nice to brighten the people’s days as well as the dogs.) Meika, who I talked about before, is still there. They said they have had only a few people interested in her, and they were the wrong kind of people. *sigh* She’s such a snugglebug – she needs a warm comfy couch and lots of blankets and people to love her all the time.

I also gave some lovings to Bella, a Husky who heartbreakingly was turned into the shelter by her owner who decided he did not want her anymore. She liked the pets but I could tell she was crazy to be let out of her run. I can’t wait until I can take them for walks!

I also gave some loves to Jinko, who is housed in the singles room out in the main foyer. He was a sweetie, laying on his back for belly rubs and doing happy paws when I stroked him. As I always say, it’s too bad that Andy won’t tolerate other cats because I sure would like to give him a buddy. Jinko also doesn’t do well with other cats, though, so he needs to be in a solo-cat household.

I’m going back tomorrow because they got another puppy in. I missed him today – he was at the vet getting his shots updated – but I can’t resist the puppy love.

As for my kitty, he is currently sprawled on his back with all four paws in the air, tummy contentedly full of tuna that his grannie bought for him, and snoring gently. Life is good in his world.

“Really? With who?” he interrupted.

“-for my surgery,” I finished.

Me? Go on dates? I laugh!

The good news is that I finally have a date for getting the ol’ knee fixed. The bad news is that it is almost 2 months later than I had hoped. February 26th I will be sliced open have microscopic holes drilled into me and things done. I’m not really all that sure exactly what will be done, but hopefully by the end of it I will be almost as good as new.

One of the things I am most excited about doing once I am healed is taking shelter dogs for walks. Right now I am too worried that one will pull me off balance and cause me to do further injury, so I limit myself to just giving (and receiving!) lovings from the doggies. I suppose that my recovery will coincide nicely with the nicer weather and will give me a reason to go for walks and continue my rehab.

The only silver lining to having my surgery at the end of February rather than the beginning of January as I had expected is that I now have three months to get my ass to physio and gain some strength back in my muscles. The recovery rate is much quicker if one is strong in body going into the surgery, but I’ve been lazy about making an appointment.

In other health news, I am considering the possibility of getting a light box, as my doctor suggested I may have SAD. It makes sense – December is always my most apathetic month, where doing anything other than sleeping and more sleeping takes much more energy than I seem to have. If I can positively affect this by sitting in front of a light for half an hour a day, rather than upping my medication, it would be a good thing.