The name of this post pretty much sums up my conversation with a dear friend of mine whom we'll refer to as The Mom. She has been my reminder to take care of myself for the past year and I honestly don't know what I would do without her. I've been battling this "cold" for over two weeks now and just finally today made it in to the doctor's office only to find out that I have an ear infection, sinus infection, double eye infection and a throat infection. This is the same diagnosis my poor baby girls had last night at the Children's Urgent Care. If I hadn't gone to the doctor when she told me to who knows how long I would have waited and how bad it would have been by then.
I so rarely take care of myself and my own needs. I didn't even eat anything really substantial today until around 10 pm, unless you count popcorn and a protein bar as substantial. I'm trying to make time for myself, I really am but it's hard to do on a daily basis with two, still very young girls. Their needs come first, they always have and always will. And with them being sick lately, I really was focusing on them so much that I basically ignored my own symptoms and just kept pushing on.
That is, until I talked to The Mom after a very long day and my forehead was throbbing so badly I was bawling my eyes out on the ride home. She and I had a long conversation after I got home and was tended to by my terribly worried mother. My mother dosed me up with Nyquil, gave me a warm compress for my swollen and disgustingly goopy eyes, fixed me a Hot Totty for my extremely sore throat and offered to turn the baby monitor on all night long so she could check on the girls if need be so I could get some much needed rest. Thank the gods she did, too because I slept through it all.
My mother truly is a saint.
During my brief conversation with The Mom (I may have been a teensy bit drunk from the Nyquil and Hot Totty so I was particularly sassy during this conversation), I told her I was sick. She asked me if she read that right and I said yes, I am indeed still sick. She retorted with, "What do you mean still?! Go to the doctor!". This woman, this lovely, kind, caring and adorable little woman (she's about 5'4" and I'm almost 5'10" and this, in my eyes, makes her an adorable little woman), has been watching out for me almost 12 months now, ever since I asked her to help me do my wedding. She has been a fantastic help to me for so many reasons and I just can't imagine having a life without her and her family in it. So I trust her, listen to her, take her advice and offer her respect in return.
Now The Mom is a mother of two young boys with yet another little one on the way (she's dying for it to be a girl but won't know for another few weeks) and she and her longtime boyfriend finally got married this past April. I love this woman to pieces, as I do most of my friends, but sometimes she can get a little crazy and be just a tad hypocritical (who isn't these days, though?). When I look at her, I see myself in a lot of ways. It's like looking in the mirror, she is one of us. The Nutters. *cackles maniacally*
Anyway, she's a very religious person, different religion than my own but just as passionate about hers as I am with mine. She loves her family more than anything else in the world and provides for them as best she knows how. She's stern when needed, funny when necessary (and unnecessary) and loving always. She and her husband, whom we'll refer to as G, met many moons ago and when they did something just clicked between the two of them and well, the rest is history. But the way they look at each other when they're being lovey dovey together, the way they share intimate jokes that no one else is privy to, they remind me so much of my husband and I.
They're fiery together. That's the best way I can describe it. There's a fire that grows a between the two of them, a passion that burns bright but also lashes out and explodes into rage between them from time to time. Then makeup sex happens or a few hours pass and everything is back to normal as the loving, kind and gentle souls they usually are. Until that fire builds up too much again and then BAM! Everything is upside down.
It's kind of funny when you actually take a step back and look at it. They, just like my husband and I, argue over some of the most redundant and ridiculous things. It's really never about anything major (but when it is, oh boy, watch out!) and then when you sit back and think about why you were arguing in the first place you realize that you started out with something so small, so insignificant and it turned into something so hostile and so fierce, so quickly, because of passion. Because of love!
Now I'm getting to the main point of this entire post. Some may say that a love such as that can't be expected to last very long but contrary to popular belief about this kind of love, it really is the kind that lasts the longest, at least that's what this article is saying:
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/fulfillment-any-age/201206/the-12-ties-bind-long-term-relationships
Basically, it's says the people who interact with their partner more often, spend more time with them and even argue more are the couples who stay together the longest. It's an interesting conclusion because everyone tells you that it's all about compromise and having similar interests that keeps couples together. But I honestly believe that this article is correct when they say the more you obsess about your partner the more you love them and that in reality, the more you are polar opposites the better you'll attract to each other, like magnets.
Regardless of what the article says, in my personal experience, I've found this to be true. My husband and I are complete opposites, he's a jock, I'm a goth girl, he's a sports fan, I could care less, he's a one genre of music kind of person and I love all different kinds. The only thing we have in common and share equal interest in is food. He's been a chef for the past 14 years and I am a damn fine self taught pastry chef/baker.
I know I was bit all over the place with this blog but I'm hoping you get the point and at least take away some interesting information from it.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
The Biggest Decision of My Life
Back before the 1970's and long after The Prohibition someone somewhere in this great nation decided that marijuana needed to become illegal for consumption on all levels. Despite the fact, that at the time it had yet to cause more harm than good and to this day the same remains. In all honesty, big paper corporations and oil companies have been fighting the legalization of marijuana for decades because it can literally change this nation for the better in so many ways but it would be at a huge cost for those companies in particular. It would provide alternative fuel sources, alternative paper sources which are much more renewable and easily grown and harvested than trees without nearly as much nasty byproduct. It offers great benefits to the medical field as well, known widely for its anti-inflammatory properties, as well its pain relieving ones and still offers more than just those two so the big pharmaceutical companies are pissed about it being legalized, as well. I mean, don't all of those companies always get pissed off beyond belief whenever someone new or something new comes around to challenge the monopolizing grip they have on our society?
If you could even consider marijuana new, that is. It's far from new, it dates back to Native Americans and even further if you do your research. Whenever someone claims they will be able to take money out of the big corporations pockets they tend to bring out the big guns (endless numbers of lawyers) and take down the beast known as new age society and cut them down with one foul swoop. And why do they do this? Because of money...it's all about the overhead, the profit, the bonuses, the yachts, the vacations, the expensive cars, the suits that cost more than my rent per month, the dinners that cost more than my car payment and the champagne and caviar that, well, I could put my kids through college with the same amount of money they spend on those items in one year.
And still, that's not what bothers me. What bothers me the most, is that we, as a country can't move forward in medicine, in technology, in science, in everything and anything because we keep getting held back by all of these big companies and conservative politicians who don't want to lose their money and their cushy little lifestyles.
Marijuana, a drug just like all the others. It isn't some miracle drug, it isn't some miracle cure, it isn't some wondrous medicine with no harmful side effects or issues because just like every other drug, even the ones approved by the FDA, marijuana has it's side effects, bad ones. It can become addictive, but then again, so can MS Contin, Percocet, Xanax and alcohol but those are all legal to use and consume on some level or another. And many many people use those drugs every single day and very few people are up in arms about that.
It can cause nasty changes to your body from overuse such as gynecomastia, or enlarged breasts in men but so do many other medications such as, Vasotec, Aldactone, Valium, Tagamet, Zantac, Prilosec and even Lavender oil and Tea Tree oil can cause gynecomastia.
Even then, with its terrible side effects, people should be given the opportunity to choose if they wish to possibly suffer from those side effects or they can choose to use the drug and benefit from its good side effects, of which, marijuana offers many.
Positive side effects include pain relief, decreased swelling, decreased eye pressure in glaucoma patients, appetite improvement in anorexic people and in people going through chemotherapy. The list continues.
There has been so much uproar about this topic lately and it has me baffled. How can so many people be so very against a drug that, just like so many others out there that are man made, has both a good and bad side just like all the others?
There is not a single drug out there, not one single drug, that doesn't come with some kind of side effect. So I ask you this ladies and gentleman, if people can abuse Xanax for recreation and people can abuse Oxycodone and Morphine, among countless other drugs but they're still legal then why in the world can't we legalize marijuana and use it for it's positive effects instead of making it completely illegal to all?
The point is I'm tired of pushing man made chemicals into my body to decrease the amount of pain I'm in every four hours, every day of every week for the foreseeable future. I'm so tired of it. I'm literally poisoning myself so I can function and do regular daily activities. It's ridiculous. So I decided to talk to my doctor about possible THC treatment and quitting these damn chemicals.
My doctor was willing to entertain the idea for me and said the first step was an MRI. So today I went for my MRI and now I feel 10x worse then I did this morning. Hopefully, something good will come of it. Hoping...
If you could even consider marijuana new, that is. It's far from new, it dates back to Native Americans and even further if you do your research. Whenever someone claims they will be able to take money out of the big corporations pockets they tend to bring out the big guns (endless numbers of lawyers) and take down the beast known as new age society and cut them down with one foul swoop. And why do they do this? Because of money...it's all about the overhead, the profit, the bonuses, the yachts, the vacations, the expensive cars, the suits that cost more than my rent per month, the dinners that cost more than my car payment and the champagne and caviar that, well, I could put my kids through college with the same amount of money they spend on those items in one year.
And still, that's not what bothers me. What bothers me the most, is that we, as a country can't move forward in medicine, in technology, in science, in everything and anything because we keep getting held back by all of these big companies and conservative politicians who don't want to lose their money and their cushy little lifestyles.
Marijuana, a drug just like all the others. It isn't some miracle drug, it isn't some miracle cure, it isn't some wondrous medicine with no harmful side effects or issues because just like every other drug, even the ones approved by the FDA, marijuana has it's side effects, bad ones. It can become addictive, but then again, so can MS Contin, Percocet, Xanax and alcohol but those are all legal to use and consume on some level or another. And many many people use those drugs every single day and very few people are up in arms about that.
It can cause nasty changes to your body from overuse such as gynecomastia, or enlarged breasts in men but so do many other medications such as, Vasotec, Aldactone, Valium, Tagamet, Zantac, Prilosec and even Lavender oil and Tea Tree oil can cause gynecomastia.
Even then, with its terrible side effects, people should be given the opportunity to choose if they wish to possibly suffer from those side effects or they can choose to use the drug and benefit from its good side effects, of which, marijuana offers many.
Positive side effects include pain relief, decreased swelling, decreased eye pressure in glaucoma patients, appetite improvement in anorexic people and in people going through chemotherapy. The list continues.
There has been so much uproar about this topic lately and it has me baffled. How can so many people be so very against a drug that, just like so many others out there that are man made, has both a good and bad side just like all the others?
There is not a single drug out there, not one single drug, that doesn't come with some kind of side effect. So I ask you this ladies and gentleman, if people can abuse Xanax for recreation and people can abuse Oxycodone and Morphine, among countless other drugs but they're still legal then why in the world can't we legalize marijuana and use it for it's positive effects instead of making it completely illegal to all?
The point is I'm tired of pushing man made chemicals into my body to decrease the amount of pain I'm in every four hours, every day of every week for the foreseeable future. I'm so tired of it. I'm literally poisoning myself so I can function and do regular daily activities. It's ridiculous. So I decided to talk to my doctor about possible THC treatment and quitting these damn chemicals.
My doctor was willing to entertain the idea for me and said the first step was an MRI. So today I went for my MRI and now I feel 10x worse then I did this morning. Hopefully, something good will come of it. Hoping...
Tuesday, November 5, 2013
S.O.S
Most of you, at least some of you, may already know about my mental state (i.e. bipolar disorder, etc.). Recently, my psychiatrist decided to up my mood stabilizer in an attempt to help me with my crying spells and depressive moods despite the fact that I've had two children back to back with no time to take care of my postpartum depression after the first child. Now, six months after my second child, it has become a serious problem.
Well, I did as I was told and upped my dose. Three days later, all hell broke loose.
Let me explain. I'm beyond what one would call "moody" and would even go so far as to call myself crazy. My mother and husband even spoke of sending me to the hospital to get some help, it was getting that bad.
Finally, I said screw it and stopped taking the higher dose of mood stabilizer. Yet another three days later and it's becoming easier for me to control my moods again.
This all happened over the weekend so as soon as Monday hit, I called my psychiatrist and had no choice but to leave a message. He did not respond. So I went over his head and called his boss. His boss got back to me in less than three hours when my own psychiatrist couldn't find time to get a hold of me in over 24 hours.
I was seriously pissed off at him and still am. You see, this isn't the first time he's ignored my pleas for help with my PPD. I've been asking him to help me for the past six months. I knew, deep down in my psyche, I knew that things weren't right and I knew what was wrong and I tried to convey that to him numerous times. He just wouldn't listen.
Essentially, he jeopardized my health and wellness and my family's health and wellness, too.
I was hurting my family, my husband, my daughters, my mother and sister. I was even hurting my friends.
Don't misunderstand, they were all being super supportive and especially my longtime friend of 19 years, whom we'll loving call D, was there for me in a heartbeat, telling me how great of a person I truly am and how this is just another hiccup in the road of life for me, it isn't the first time and it won't be the last. She even went so far as to ask her son, my godson, who is 9 years old now (dear god where did the time go) what he liked most about me and what his favorite memories of he and I were while we were riding in the car together on the way to her house, just me and D and her son, so I could get out of the house and just relax alone for a little time during the dark and troubling time I was in.
It helped so much. I can't even tell you. I feel like my normal self again. I started this blog a few days ago. I was put on Prozac for my PPD and my mood stabilizer is at its normal dose again.
I'm hoping that this will solve my issues so I don't have to be a psycho guinea pig again. I've been down that road and it was hard when I only had to worry about myself. I can't even imagine how difficult it would be now that I have two daughters and a husband to worry about.
It's just another one of those things I guess.
Well, I did as I was told and upped my dose. Three days later, all hell broke loose.
Let me explain. I'm beyond what one would call "moody" and would even go so far as to call myself crazy. My mother and husband even spoke of sending me to the hospital to get some help, it was getting that bad.
Finally, I said screw it and stopped taking the higher dose of mood stabilizer. Yet another three days later and it's becoming easier for me to control my moods again.
This all happened over the weekend so as soon as Monday hit, I called my psychiatrist and had no choice but to leave a message. He did not respond. So I went over his head and called his boss. His boss got back to me in less than three hours when my own psychiatrist couldn't find time to get a hold of me in over 24 hours.
I was seriously pissed off at him and still am. You see, this isn't the first time he's ignored my pleas for help with my PPD. I've been asking him to help me for the past six months. I knew, deep down in my psyche, I knew that things weren't right and I knew what was wrong and I tried to convey that to him numerous times. He just wouldn't listen.
Essentially, he jeopardized my health and wellness and my family's health and wellness, too.
I was hurting my family, my husband, my daughters, my mother and sister. I was even hurting my friends.
Don't misunderstand, they were all being super supportive and especially my longtime friend of 19 years, whom we'll loving call D, was there for me in a heartbeat, telling me how great of a person I truly am and how this is just another hiccup in the road of life for me, it isn't the first time and it won't be the last. She even went so far as to ask her son, my godson, who is 9 years old now (dear god where did the time go) what he liked most about me and what his favorite memories of he and I were while we were riding in the car together on the way to her house, just me and D and her son, so I could get out of the house and just relax alone for a little time during the dark and troubling time I was in.
It helped so much. I can't even tell you. I feel like my normal self again. I started this blog a few days ago. I was put on Prozac for my PPD and my mood stabilizer is at its normal dose again.
I'm hoping that this will solve my issues so I don't have to be a psycho guinea pig again. I've been down that road and it was hard when I only had to worry about myself. I can't even imagine how difficult it would be now that I have two daughters and a husband to worry about.
It's just another one of those things I guess.
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