bewildered by grace

Sunday afternoon I will be taking my last pill. I don't expect to enjoy Monday evening much when my body goes "hey! Where's my stuff!" for the first time, -and I expect to hate Tuesday.  I'm willing to have next week as a whole, be a total wash.
I've dropped from 8 pills (not counting the other medication that I quit a couple months ago) to one pill in 8 weeks and as they don't make smaller pills and I don't want to deal with compounding I'm going to quit and tough it out until the withdrawal is over. I don't have to work next week so that'll be a big help. This last drop has been pretty intense. Today I had the worst brain zaps I've had yet, was nauseated enough to take gravol during the day and not care if I was tired, and a screaming headache.
In total, I will have been on medication for ten short months. For not being depressed in the first place, I have a hard time with that number, but it is still a smaller number than my doctor wanted. My taper has been aggressive and I've paid for it (so has Peter and anyone else unfortunate enough to encounter me on a Wednesday). I'm ready to be done. Three more pills. Three more days.
I wish I felt better about the way it all went. I still feel unresolved about the doctor, still want to egg his office some days. I'm still mad and guilty and I still have trouble remembering things that I did only a few months ago. I have no memory of events that I should be able to easily recall. I'm still getting stressed out too easily, still having trouble multitasking, but hopefully those things will start to slowly get better when my body adjusts to having no medication. My family are all saying what a drastic change they've noticed in me since my starting to wean and that's good. I still spend all my time wondering how I got here, upset at what I've said and done, and guilty over things that I can't change now.
I'm tired. I have to tell you though, when I can get myself to relax and fall asleep, I sleep like a dead person. It's the best sleep I've had since those early pregnant sleeps where you're not quite to the sick phase but you just sleep 14 hours a day because you're so exhausted from trying to produce a human. That exhaustion never goes away, but your ability to sleep will, and then it's downhill unless you can get addicted to a batch of anti-depressants and then fall asleep after dropping your nearly lethal doses to something your body is supposed to be able to handle. If I could quit the nightmares, I'd be golden. The other night it was trying to escape from Russian Mobsters in Tokyo who wanted to rape me, but I was so blind drunk in my dream that I kept stopping while running away and looking at these amazing shoes for sale in the night market, then remembering these guys wanted to do horrible things to me and running again. This is strange in that I don't know any Russians, have no idea why they'd be cruising around Japan, have never been to a Japanese night market (though the Thai ones are cool) and have also never been blind drunk. Or raped (thank God).
Then it was humpback whales who ate Bella because she fell out of a window while looking at them. I'm scared of whales, did you know that? I think they're amazing and majestic and so beautiful, but if I were kayaking and came across a humpback whale, I would pee my pants and probably have a heart attack and drown while the whales ignored me. I was swimming in Hawaii once and I looked down to see a huge sea turtle beneath me and I lost my mind. I was on the beach hyperventilating with panic while marveling at how beautiful it was in about two seconds. Poor turtle. Seriously, what did I think it was going to do? Chase me? Geez. Sometimes when I'm swimming I think about all the creatures that I'm sharing a body of water with and my heart races so badly and I feel so tiny and insignificant, and okay, edible, that I have to go lay on the beach and have a Smirnoff Ice and calm on down. I love to swim - there's something so free, and so quiet about being suspended underwater - just don't be stupid and think "Holy crap! I'm in the same water as like, thousands of whales, some probably within a couple of miles of here. Robyn saw killer whales on the ferry last week (jealous!!!) and those whales could easy be near here by now".
Now that you're all sure that I'm insane and really should be on some form of medication, I'm going to go and mix my powdered cement supplement with some water that I should be drinking WAY more of, take two natural relax supplements (that I may keep around the house forever, because I'm, well, me) and a couple of omega and DHA supplements, a prenatal vitamin (because EVERY woman should take them - always) and crawl into bed and finish my book. And pray that I sleep dreamlessly. Goodness, that would be fantastic. Three more stupid pills.

I'm a firm believer in loving where you live, which is really easy for me. I remember vacationing in Coombs as a girl. I remember getting a pair of white cowboy boots at one of the kitschy little stores that surround the main square when there was still a huge ferris wheel in the center. I wore those boots with a short baby-doll dress for my birthday so you can date that accordingly, if you wish. I live here now and every spring when the Alberta and Saskatchewan license plates start showing up, I grumble with the best of the locals about how, "You've seen Oceanside, now go home!" Secretly though, it's amazing to live in a place where people want to vacation - where I used to vacation. Yes, it means that on a sudden Tuesday in June you can't get anywhere near Coombs market to get your organic veggies, but hey, look at the view here! I can cope. Begrudgingly.

A few days ago, Peter and I did a "tourist at home" day. I love being able to have these, and I enjoy them every time. We packed up Bella and drove the fifteen minutes to Parksville and enjoyed the sunny view while watching the clouds come in over Mt Arrowsmith, threatening rain. Our first stop was Qualicum Cheeseworks, and no matter how many times I go I have so much fun. It's the Saskatchewan farm girl coming out in me, a piece of my DNA that I'm so happy Bella has inherited and Peter doesn't understand as I breathe in the glorious smell of a working farm. Yes, that smell is manure, but somehow when mixed with fresh spring air, hay, dirt, and the musty woodsy smell of an old barn, it becomes an intoxicating perfume to me.

I'm sure they'd be just as busy if they charged for parking or admission, but I love that they don't. This was the first time we'd taken Bella, and folks, she LOVED it. She went wild. She chased a duck who was well mannered enough to not bite her fingers off, as I would have done. She squealed at baby chicks and asked politely to be left in their cage with them for all eternity. She kissed a sheep on the nose and saw a calf born two days ago. The best part of the day was when we entered the bunny pen and while I was cuddling the most adorable little rabbit, Bella asked her Daddy if she could "please kick a bunny?" I kid you not. She unfortunately inherited her father's DNA which involves seeing some kind of sport with a complicated rule system and a high incidence of total disaster during every day activities. I guess the gorgeous little lop-eared creatures sitting peacefully in the sun just begged to be punted. I thought they were so adorable I could just cuddle them making squealing noises forever, but once the critter in my arms decided I had taken things too far by kissing it's cute wiggling nose, it leaped from my arms and went running about the enclosure. Bella stopped asking to abuse the animals and giggled uproariously. Apparently they just weren't moving enough for her.

We ended up in the shop while Bella ate her weight in cheese samples that they make fresh on the farm. I had two tiny spoonfuls of the berry cream cheese that they make and held myself back from buying them completely out of stock. Bathing suit season is just around the corner but oh, the texture of that cheese and the taste of fresh berries just makes me think of croissants and forget about the sight of my love handles in a pair of cute jeans. I could bathe in that stuff it's so delicious. In great news, I found out that they sell organic beef in small portions so I'll be back a few times this summer yet I'm sure. The wonderful lady behind the counter did not comment on the amount of cheese we consumed (we're a family of little will power) and instead offered us a few wine samples. Peter responsibly frowned at the time (it was still well before lunch) while I headed over to the bar and sampled some local gooseberry wine, which made me think of a picnic on the beach with some fruit and bread, and perhaps some of that berry cream cheese. We ducked out after buying a new cheese knife and a cute magnet before I lost total control and ate and drank and shopped myself into oblivion.

From the farm we were off to Little Qualicum Falls to show Bella where Daddy asked Mommy to marry him seven years ago and started the chaos we now call everyday life. She's obviously still far too young to care, but it was special having  her there. We took a bunch of pictures and Bella ran around kicking pine cones which turned out to be a wonderful substitute for those poor bunnies. I shot some video of Bella and Daddy playing the above-mentioned complicated game (this one involved seeing if you could whack Mommy with the pine cone) that I'm sure I'll watch when she's off in college refusing to answer my calls. It occurred to me that days don't get more perfect than this as we acted like idiots in the car trying to keep Bella awake during the short drive to Coombs Market. We got parking in front of the General Store (imagine!) and we wandered around looking at things that I've seen a million times before, and bought in other countries. It was a joke with my family when I traveled that everything I brought back from some exotic place like Japan, Nepal, or India, could be found and purchased with ease at Coombs. It used to make me so angry but now that I buy plane tickets with much less frequency than I used to, it just makes me happy. We shared lunch and found out that there is now a new Italian restaurant in Coombs and as I am as big a sucker for pasta as I am for delicious cheese, I'm sure we'll include that as our next stop.

To think, people from the prairies spend heaps of money to get here, and this is where I live. I saw my first smattering of Alberta, Washington, and even a Colorado license plate on the way home and I couldn't help but laugh. Welcome to Oceanside. You really should just move here.

Goodness sakes. I'm sick to death of being on this medication. I know, I'm sorry. I'll try not to whine. I'm down to 75mg which is actually pretty amazing Given that in February I was taking 400mg and two different medications. I feel more like myself most of the time. Wednesdays are total crap though, and are becoming increasingly difficult. I drop my dose on Tuesday at lunch and I'm usually in bed before my body notices that it didn't get all of it's dose. By morning? I'm not a good person on Wednesday as my body realizes "Hey!! What the?" and tries to work with less hormone than it normally has, which is way less than it's had in the past. I'm generally angry, irrational and overwhelmed not to mention totally exhausted. I fight a headache for the whole day and get zapped fairly frequently.

By Thursday I get zapped intensely and often one time after another. On a Thursday my mood is more even but the zaps are incredible. I can't deal with a sudden change in temperature, like walking outside, or opening the fridge. If I touch something cold (like go to pour Bella's milk) or drink something hot (like the coffee I refuse to live without) I will get a very strong electric shock in the base of my skull. Often they're bad enough that if I'm talking, I completely lose what I was about to say. I find myself confused and disoriented often. I don't love to drive on Thursday and funny things become really hard for me. Like sitting and standing too quickly or turning my head to look into the back seat to see how Bella is doing. Or shoulder check. Like I said, I shouldn't drive.

By Friday I feel not bad. My mood is controllable, the zaps aren't great in the morning but even out by afternoon and by Friday evening I feel good. Saturday is a give away. It goes either way. Lately, as the medication dose I am on is down, but the percentage that I give up every week rises (It's was a 33% drop this week, next week is 50%) Friday can be marginally better than Thursday, and Saturday can still be manageable but pretty crap. Sunday though, I am myself, and Monday is the best day of the week. My body feels fairly well adjusted to the new dose of medication, just in time for me to drop it again the next day and by Wednesday I'm a raving bitch again. Sorry for the language. The woman I talk to at Point of Return said that that's the actual medical term for it, and Peter reluctantly agreed that it was fairly accurate.

Robyn used to go to school for Monday, Tuesday and half of Wednesday. Luc, being the sensitive little guy that he was, used to be okay on Monday (he'd just seen her that morning), and on Tuesday you'd try and plan an activity or something to keep him distracted, but Wednesdays were just crap. Wednesdays he could throw himself on the floor at being gently told that ice cream was not a suitable breakfast option, and weep openly. We started using the phrase, "It's okay. Nothing's wrong, it's just Wednesday." Wednesday night by dinner Robyn would be home and he'd be great. It's funny how many things happen on Wednesday that we apply that to now.

In good news, the taper is hard, but I'm making it that way. I could go slower if I wanted to and my zaps would be fewer, my moods more even. But I'd have to look at that pill bottle for longer and I just can't. In two weeks, I could possibly be done. I might see what my work schedule looks like and wait for Peter to have a day off at home with me and take my last pill the day before. Then I know I'm ok if I have a rough patch. I'm praying that it'll just be another drop, but I'm scared of that. I may just load myself up on Gravol and try to sleep through it. But I'll be done.

I still am having trouble remembering big stretches of time over the last few months, but my health feels better, and I've been managing some very occasional exercise. In dropping the meds, and starting to actually care what I eat and what I look like, I've lost seven pounds so far with not very much effort at all. At the worst, I was only ten pounds lighter that I was the day I went in to have Bella. I remember not caring that I was going to be fat forever and never like the way I looked again. Now my disgust with my own body and the mental state that got me there knows no bounds, so that's a good thing. Any strong emotion that promotes action is a good thing since what we noticed most on the drug was my inability to really care about anything other than Bella. I noticed my horrifyingly messy house the other day and it upset me so much that Peter kicked me out to clean it. My old doctor would say that that proves my OCD diagnoses but he'd be wrong. It proves that I'm me, but still a little too drugged to deal with the overwhelmed feeling that a messy house has always given me. I know it sounds funny but those things make me happy to see returning. Bad self image is better than no self image. Plus those seven pounds gone make me happy. Really happy. Happy enough that if the sun shines, I might walk around Westwood lake tomorrow. Anyone want to come?

Except it's not, because it's Bella. And she's not me, just all the very best and cutest parts of me. Anyway, go see her blog - lots of pictures, if you've been wondering how she's doing.

Quick, because this post can't be just another link to yet another blog that I keep up on - I will add a little filler with what I would have used as Facebook statuses lately, had I been signing in.

Tonight when putting Bella to bed, I noticed that she has another diaper rash. Or diaper blisters as they are in our house. As I was smearing her private parts thick with cream she says, "Ooooh! Make-up! Thanks!"

Two nights ago Bella found some of Robyn's expensive makeup that she'd stolen and stashed away for later. My mom showed her how to put her fingers into the hot pink blusher, and then rub her fingers on her cheeks. Cute. So they leave, I wash her face and I'm putting her to bed later on and we're doing the whole, "night night toes. Night night tummy." and Bella all of a sudden strokes her cheek and says, "Night-night makeup. I love you makeup"

Oh dear. That kid makes me laugh my face off every. single. day.

She is also terrifying me with things that I didn't think we'd have to deal with until YEARS down the road. Like a love of Justin Bieber. Thanks Shelly.

Just got a call from Urban Beet. I won dinner for two at Urbana Pizza! This is good news in that we went there a couple of weeks ago and really liked it, and bad news in that my sorry butt should consume nothing but salad for the foreseeable future. 

It's also good news in that Peter and I could use a date night. Probably every other night for a year. It's one thing to have a baby, but to have a sick baby, followed by a crazy wife (even if it was the medication) plus all the ins and outs that being new parents entail, has been hard on us. We're not doing badly, not at all, but relationally, it feels a little like we've both been hit by a truck. And then backed over. We're discussing marital counseling, maybe once I'm off medication.


It's funny to put all of this out there. I found out yesterday that someone else reads my blog that I didn't know about. If you're reading, "hi Karen!" 


Side Note: if you're reading, you should comment! I like to know if you popped by. Also, I cannot type "popped" without typing "pooped". And it always makes me laugh, even though that type of humor usually doesn't do it for me.


Anyway. It's crazy how people change. And how they stay exactly the same and all the pieces in between that will drive you crazy, make you laugh, fall in love, or pull your hair out. Bella is changing. I don't have a baby anymore. She's a little girl. She has opinions on what she wears in the morning, whether she wants to keep her jammies on or wear a dress or jeans or what. She wants to wear my jewelery and make up all the time. The ear-piercing rule used to be, "when they're old enough to ask, and understand it will hurt." I was five when I had mine done, I'm sure she'll ask LONG before then. I predict this summer. She already asks, "Mama, bracelet? I want it?" when we're checking out at some store. She takes her little purse shopping and has opinions on what shoes she likes and the other day decided she didn't like marshmallows because although they tasted amazing, she didn't like being sticky. She is all things girl, and I love it. Love. It. But she doesn't sing to sleep anymore, and she mostly likes to fall asleep on her own, after a very short "snuggle" if I'm lucky. 

Peter is different, and so much the same. He feels the same about me. The things we fell in love with in each other have been buried under a lot of "Life" and we are digging though, sorting what's important as though we're beggars in a distant country, searching for something in the mess that we can save, maybe sell, or use to make a life. Some days there's a lot to find. Some days we sing Bella to sleep, Peter with his guitar, which she loves. I hold her in the dim light of her room and life is literally so perfect you could just bust apart in a million pieces with the beauty of it all. 


Then I freak out over nothing and ferret through my screwed up brain and try and figure out which thoughts are mine, and which are just the medicine. Sometimes I miss them and I boil over like an unwatched pot and make a mess. Peter gets the lucky job of cleaning me off, and usually himself, and trying not to take me personally. I told him today, that if it wasn't for Bella, I'd leave and come back when it was over. I'd find some place to hide with my pills and my vitamins and my wildly swinging moods and when I lashed out or freaked out or got brain zapped until I was so jumpy that I could kill you for the smallest imagined infraction, the only people who would feel it would be the squirrels I'd scare out of their trees. Sometimes, I'm scared out of my own tree, so it seems fitting.

It occurs to me that this is when people give up. That this is when a lot of people would decide that the means doesn't justify the end, and they'd part ways. Sometimes I want to go just to save Peter the upset of dealing with me. I'm angry and guilty and that seems to be about ninety percent of what I feel. As the medicine drops the angry goes down and the guilty goes up. At least the guilt is just mine. There's not a lot of what we started with some days, but somewhere underneath this nonsense is a foundation we built in better days, and I trust in the foundation. I trust the people who built that. I believe in the methods they used to build it. Although some days you couldn't tell from looking, not even from the inside, this is a construction project, not demo day. They look the same though don't they? For that period right before things get built, you can't tell if a house is being torn down or put back together. We're even doing some remodeling, though it's occurring to me now I'm taking this metaphor a little far.


There's things that we abandoned in the early days, or things that we allowed to be taken from us that we're willing to fight for now. Things that we know we can't live without. Mostly, we want to be a family and we don't want this life we've found ourselves in. I promised Peter a very long time ago that I'd never become the kind of wife who wanted nothing but a house, a white picket fence, and a mortgage. I want a life of adventure, and one of missions. I meant that. I mean it still. We said vows when we got married and nothing has changed. We've made them to Bella when we dedicated her, promised that she'd never come from a broken home and we meant it. 

This seems to be our song lately, the one Peter plays to Bella on his guitar quietly at night in her room as she looks back and forth between us and you can actually feel the Earth quiet around us and things go exactly right for just a few minutes. We belong to each other, and nothing changes that, not ever. But we belong to something more than ourselves as well, and the greatest peace lies in that. It's a peace I need so much more of, and one I'm learning to grab onto, trying not to remember a time when I didn't believe it was mine all along.

First, I realized that I skipped a category and now I have to go back and do a song that reminds me of someone, which I will, because this is fun and I'm liking finding all sorts of music. But I got crazy sick this weekend and just stopped caring.

You should know, kidney stones? It's actually true what they say. They hurt worse than labor. It's actually alarming. Except, when you're in labor, they will throw every conceivable drug at you. When you have a kidney stone, they tell you that it could be a muscle spasm (that doesn't allow me to pee?!?! Doctors are morons) or maybe an intestinal thing and can you pee in a cup? Then they stabbed me with a needle and forgot all about me. Oh, but for the pain, they recommended advil. And lots of water and rest. 

ARE YOU FREAKING SERIOUS!?!?!?!?

Worse than labor. Advil. No payoff at the end except finally the bliss of getting to pee. No cute baby girl staring at me with big black eyes, just a toilet full of pee and a little pressure off my bladder, but wait! I took some really old Tylenol 3 that I found and forgot that codeine makes me puke. So then I dealt with that. Aren't you glad you tuned in? 

All to say, I will maybe do another song thing tonight. Maybe tomorrow - I have a lot of Good Wife on my PVR.