Yesterday was the last day of fall semester, which I spent studying and doing two midterm exams, one for my intro to psych class, and one for my History of Antisemitism and the Holocaust class. I know that I got at least one mark wrong on my psychology exam, because I mixed up infradian and ultradian biological rhythms (and the sad thing is that I KNEW this before the exam! ARGH!), and I feel like I could have constructed my essay on my History of Antisemtism exam better. For instance, I got on the bus and realized "Oh, I could have talked about Constantine briefly as well". I'm trying to put them out of my head, but it is not the easiest thing to do.
But...no matter how the exams went yesterday, my last day of classes this year was certainly better than my last day of classes last year. Last year, my last day of classes ended with my heart going crazy, my friend practically dragging me down to urgent care, waiting 4 hours because they probably thought I'd had a panic attack (WRONG!!!) and having everything spin out of control the second that the doctor listened to my heart. Anything would be better than having a STAT EKG called for me...which is what happened last year when they actually evaluated me properly and found out that I should likely have been at the top of the list and not at the bottom. Sore throats and sprained ankles went ahead of me, which just goes to show that the medical system can be a little bit messed up sometimes. When a person comes in with breathing issues and having had an arrythmia tachycardia episode yet waits four hours behind colds and twisted ankles. Hmm...
Once they actually got to me, they took care of me well though. Later this month I see the geneticist, and maybe things will finally, completely, make sense. I miss my old energy and sleep requirements. I don't like it when I can't breath well. And I don't like how hard it can be to eat right when I need nutrition and energy the most. Like yesterday, for instance, before my exam. A two hour exam, so I knew I needed to eat something. But all I can manage to eat is a little cup of applesauce...and it takes about 10 minutes. Stress can make my heart muck up a bit, which in turn makes my digestive system muck up, which means that I can't eat well, which means that I lose weight. My weight this morning was 84 pounds...yeah...1.5 pounds underweight. Whoops.
I now don't have anything until December 18th, which is my History of Music in Canada exam, and when I anticipate my prof is going to want the essays in as well. I'm meeting with him tomorrow to discuss both that paper and my major area paper. Yeah, that's kind of going to have to be a focus of second semester, which is why even today, I am going to work on history of antisemitism readings. I need to get ahead NOW for the winter semester.
Thursday, December 6, 2012
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Bernat Baby Jacquards Round Blanket
This blanket was started in the summer, but the majority was done in the past two or three weeks, just finishing it tonight. It helped get me through my grueling essay on George Steiner's theories of antisemitism for my History of Antisemitism class (reward...ex, I'd make a bargain with myself...work for 30 minutes/write 200 words/whatever and you can crochet one side/whatever). It is also for Project Linus and I really like how it turned out! I love this particular pattern because it is easy, but looks complicated and delicate. And the Bernat Baby Jacquards is SO SO soft. This colour is called "Spearmint Candy", and I particularly love the strawberry pink shades.
Friday, November 30, 2012
Bible study today
Usually, bible study leaves me feeling inspired and wanting to discuss more, with energy. Today, it left me feeling as unsettled as when I woke up this morning from my dream that my dad died.
For some reason, the topic shifted to the concept of hell. And then to suicide. And someone (one of my dear friends, actually, but she has only known me for about two years) brought up a 'person who committed suicide and went to hell and God brought them back to earth' story.
Well, talk about the way to make a Christian who struggles daily with depression (some days better than others, some days nearly unbearable) and who has indeed attempted suicide (back at age 17) get unsettled.
Let's just say this clashes with my own beliefs, which is that God is a God of love, and when someone is in such crazy pain, caused by a neurochemical illness that they cannot change and did not ask for...well...
I didn't bring it up in bible study. But it's been eating at me since then.
And yeeks, I would prefer if my brain would NOT give me dreams about my dad dying, thank you very much. It's not the most pleasant way to start things off.
For some reason, the topic shifted to the concept of hell. And then to suicide. And someone (one of my dear friends, actually, but she has only known me for about two years) brought up a 'person who committed suicide and went to hell and God brought them back to earth' story.
Well, talk about the way to make a Christian who struggles daily with depression (some days better than others, some days nearly unbearable) and who has indeed attempted suicide (back at age 17) get unsettled.
Let's just say this clashes with my own beliefs, which is that God is a God of love, and when someone is in such crazy pain, caused by a neurochemical illness that they cannot change and did not ask for...well...
I didn't bring it up in bible study. But it's been eating at me since then.
And yeeks, I would prefer if my brain would NOT give me dreams about my dad dying, thank you very much. It's not the most pleasant way to start things off.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
Ripple crochet blanket
Sometimes, blankets can be a great way to use up some random bits of yarn that you find in your basement...like this one! The yellow is leftovers from a blanket I made for a dear friend of mine who had a beautiful little boy almost two years ago...I knit it over those weeks that my mom was dying in the hospital and it was really the last project that she properly saw completed. Now little B is almost two years old, which is hard to believe! I hope this blanket makes some baby or little child happy.
Tuesday, November 20, 2012
My dad's girlfriend
Writing the title of the post was the first time I ever wrote it or really said it. It's certainly a mixed up feeling when I think about K, his girlfriend. She is definitely very special, and a very nice woman...she loves music, is a retired teacher (although she still substitute teaches from time to time), is from the United church so quite similar to my our presbyterian beliefs, loves to cook, plays the piano and even composes music...and on and on. My dad smiles when he talks about his time with her, and he talks on the phone with her every day, sees her several times a week, exchanges emails frequently. What's so wrong about this picture? Nothing really...
And yet it's still a bit unsettling. It's two years after my mom died, although it can certainly feel less than that pretty often. I guess I came up with this notion, however romantic or unromantic you want to make it, that my dad would not meet anyone else in that sense again. That if I didn't get married that I would simply stay at home and take care of him as he grew older (easier because I have my work in the basement). I suppose that could still happen...but...
He's even talked marriage. Now, he just met this woman this summer. June I do believe, they sang in a short musical production together.
Today he came downstairs when I was cleaning and showed me that he had switched his wedding ring over to his right hand (actually quite an accomplishment because his wedding ring used to not be able to come off his finger because he had gained so much weight since his wedding day almost 30 years ago). I didn't exactly see that one coming, especially because I didn't think it could come off yet (he has gone back to Weight Watchers and has been losing weight again, but I didn't know it had worked that much yet).
Do I want my dad to be happy? Of course. Is there anything wrong with K? Nothing unless it's that she likes to feed us a little bit too much and occasionally uses slightly stronger language! But it is unsettling at the same time.
I will close on a totally different subject-asking for prayers for the family of Joey Keller, a nine-year-old medullablastoma patient who passed away this weekend after approximately two years battling this devastating brain and spinal cancer. So many children and families that I follow need support and prayers right now, but Joey's death really hit me because I had followed his story from almost the beginning-so almost two years. My heart is also hurting for Ariel Gariano, a relapsed rhabdomyosarcoma patient who is very, very ill and her family, the family of Vinny DiGerolamo as he faces a new relapse of rhabdomyosarcoma, Ella Mason and her family as she faces a possible relapse of PNET in both the brain and spinal cord and Kylie Taylor and her family as she waits in the CICU of Primary Children's Medical Center for a heart transplant. She is a fighter, and despite my dream the other night of her getting a heart transplant and doing very well and even having children of her own, she desperately needs a heart SOON.
I entered, unfortunately, into what I think was a stress-induced depression veil sometime between 6 and 7pm tonight and am trying to break out of it. At 7:30 I was practically in tears because it was only 7:30 but I was feeling so tired that I wished it was a socially-respectable time for a 22-year-old woman to go to bed. I know that was a combination of physical and mental tiredness responses, but it gets so frustrating. I never really see these depression waves coming, it just comes BANG and is hard to get back from. Evenings can be bad, especially seeing as they start just after 4pm now when it gets dark. The joys of living past the 49th parallel...in just a couple of weeks, we will have only 8 hours of daylight a day, if that. At 8am, it is still almost dark, and it gets dark just after 4pm now. We have thankfully gotten more sunlight recently. I'm a true prairie girl and I am not used to an entire month where there basically was NO sunlight. An hour here or there just a handful of times, and sometimes while I was in class just wasn't enough. I may find clouds nice too, but I do better work in sunlight.
Time to go and work. I'm not going to say try, because that won't help this depression veil. I'm going to say that I WILL. Do or Do not, there is no try. I'm not a star wars fan but I do think that that quote by Yoda is quite good.
And yet it's still a bit unsettling. It's two years after my mom died, although it can certainly feel less than that pretty often. I guess I came up with this notion, however romantic or unromantic you want to make it, that my dad would not meet anyone else in that sense again. That if I didn't get married that I would simply stay at home and take care of him as he grew older (easier because I have my work in the basement). I suppose that could still happen...but...
He's even talked marriage. Now, he just met this woman this summer. June I do believe, they sang in a short musical production together.
Today he came downstairs when I was cleaning and showed me that he had switched his wedding ring over to his right hand (actually quite an accomplishment because his wedding ring used to not be able to come off his finger because he had gained so much weight since his wedding day almost 30 years ago). I didn't exactly see that one coming, especially because I didn't think it could come off yet (he has gone back to Weight Watchers and has been losing weight again, but I didn't know it had worked that much yet).
Do I want my dad to be happy? Of course. Is there anything wrong with K? Nothing unless it's that she likes to feed us a little bit too much and occasionally uses slightly stronger language! But it is unsettling at the same time.
I will close on a totally different subject-asking for prayers for the family of Joey Keller, a nine-year-old medullablastoma patient who passed away this weekend after approximately two years battling this devastating brain and spinal cancer. So many children and families that I follow need support and prayers right now, but Joey's death really hit me because I had followed his story from almost the beginning-so almost two years. My heart is also hurting for Ariel Gariano, a relapsed rhabdomyosarcoma patient who is very, very ill and her family, the family of Vinny DiGerolamo as he faces a new relapse of rhabdomyosarcoma, Ella Mason and her family as she faces a possible relapse of PNET in both the brain and spinal cord and Kylie Taylor and her family as she waits in the CICU of Primary Children's Medical Center for a heart transplant. She is a fighter, and despite my dream the other night of her getting a heart transplant and doing very well and even having children of her own, she desperately needs a heart SOON.
I entered, unfortunately, into what I think was a stress-induced depression veil sometime between 6 and 7pm tonight and am trying to break out of it. At 7:30 I was practically in tears because it was only 7:30 but I was feeling so tired that I wished it was a socially-respectable time for a 22-year-old woman to go to bed. I know that was a combination of physical and mental tiredness responses, but it gets so frustrating. I never really see these depression waves coming, it just comes BANG and is hard to get back from. Evenings can be bad, especially seeing as they start just after 4pm now when it gets dark. The joys of living past the 49th parallel...in just a couple of weeks, we will have only 8 hours of daylight a day, if that. At 8am, it is still almost dark, and it gets dark just after 4pm now. We have thankfully gotten more sunlight recently. I'm a true prairie girl and I am not used to an entire month where there basically was NO sunlight. An hour here or there just a handful of times, and sometimes while I was in class just wasn't enough. I may find clouds nice too, but I do better work in sunlight.
Time to go and work. I'm not going to say try, because that won't help this depression veil. I'm going to say that I WILL. Do or Do not, there is no try. I'm not a star wars fan but I do think that that quote by Yoda is quite good.
Monday, November 19, 2012
The last 2.5 weeks of semester
A wonderful way to start the last 2.5 weeks of semester is to sleep in on a monday when you went to bed if anything slightly earlier than normal. Sleep in when you have gotten very decent amounts of sleep the past three nights. Sleep in...until 10:30. Get about 10.5 hours of sleep. I keep trying to convince my body that it is 22 years old and there is no need to sleep like I did when I was 10! It doesn't want to listen. In fact, it was only the fact that it was 10:30 in the morning that managed to get me up, I was still tired, and wanting a nap on the bus instead of reading "The Anguish of the Jews" for History of Antisemitism while bussing to my piano lesson this afternoon.
According to the psychology lecture I watched last night, I fall into the unlucky category of approximately 2% of people who need 9.5 hours of sleep or more per night. I wish I could be on the other end of the spectrum and be in the category of people who only need 4.5 hours of sleep a night! Wouldn't that be wonderful for a university student.
Methinks that a checkup with my doctor or perhaps getting a check from the nurse-practitioner with the eating disorder program would be a good idea. But again...time. Time...it is always a matter of time. Time was what prevented me from getting checked out by my doctor last year before December 7th, when as they say, everything hit the fan and my body decided to put on a spectacular collapse show. I guess it figured that the only way to get me to start listening was to put on a very, very public show during a rehearsal with about forty-five people in attendance.
Well, December 5th this year is the last day of semester, and it proves to be a stressful day with two exams-both psychology and History of Antisemitism. I have to remind myself that I CAN DO THEM and that it will NOT be as bad as I fear and that I am NOT GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER SPECTACULAR EPISODE like what happened in orchestra rehearsal last year. I get fears especially in my non-music classes that if something happens, no one will know what's going on at all. I guess that's the push to get myself a medic alert bracelet so that it could easily be seen that I have a heart condition. I guess it's just fear, because sometimes I get afraid that I will have something go wrong when I'm teaching. The funny thing is that in many of my classes, there are nurses! But the point is that I definitely don't want to suddenly faint or something with young children around.
December 7th this year will likely be a very calm day with only some studying and essay writing for my History of Music in Canada class. Much better than last year!
According to the psychology lecture I watched last night, I fall into the unlucky category of approximately 2% of people who need 9.5 hours of sleep or more per night. I wish I could be on the other end of the spectrum and be in the category of people who only need 4.5 hours of sleep a night! Wouldn't that be wonderful for a university student.
Methinks that a checkup with my doctor or perhaps getting a check from the nurse-practitioner with the eating disorder program would be a good idea. But again...time. Time...it is always a matter of time. Time was what prevented me from getting checked out by my doctor last year before December 7th, when as they say, everything hit the fan and my body decided to put on a spectacular collapse show. I guess it figured that the only way to get me to start listening was to put on a very, very public show during a rehearsal with about forty-five people in attendance.
Well, December 5th this year is the last day of semester, and it proves to be a stressful day with two exams-both psychology and History of Antisemitism. I have to remind myself that I CAN DO THEM and that it will NOT be as bad as I fear and that I am NOT GOING TO HAVE ANOTHER SPECTACULAR EPISODE like what happened in orchestra rehearsal last year. I get fears especially in my non-music classes that if something happens, no one will know what's going on at all. I guess that's the push to get myself a medic alert bracelet so that it could easily be seen that I have a heart condition. I guess it's just fear, because sometimes I get afraid that I will have something go wrong when I'm teaching. The funny thing is that in many of my classes, there are nurses! But the point is that I definitely don't want to suddenly faint or something with young children around.
December 7th this year will likely be a very calm day with only some studying and essay writing for my History of Music in Canada class. Much better than last year!
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
The depression veil
The depression veil...that's how best I can describe it. When it comes, it comes with very little warning, suddenly enveloping me. Makes my eyes suddenly tired, and slightly welling up for no reason. Feeling like the light in the room just dimmed even though it hasn't. My head no longer feeling quite 'there' and my brain stopping concentrating properly as my chest tightens. A feeling nearly impossible to lift no matter how hard I try and that makes me want to disappear into bed. When things are situational, playing one of my instruments, listening to music, watching a funny episode of MASH, knitting or crocheting...any of those will easily help my mood return to a somewhat normal stasis. But when the depression veil comes over, nothing except going to bed and waking up the next day...or sometimes after several days...will 'cure' it.
Practising the piano tonight was, well, lacking. My heart wasn't in it, although yesterday I could hardly tear myself away from the instrument. I have a paper due in a little over a week, and although I have read the book, I haven't started writing the paper yet-going through the book for the second time and writing down the points that I marked previously (if they still make sense). I have hundreds of pages of textbook to catch up on...and I don't think I'm even really exaggerating with that number. But all I can think about is my bed.
That is life with depression, or at least my kind of sad.
Practising the piano tonight was, well, lacking. My heart wasn't in it, although yesterday I could hardly tear myself away from the instrument. I have a paper due in a little over a week, and although I have read the book, I haven't started writing the paper yet-going through the book for the second time and writing down the points that I marked previously (if they still make sense). I have hundreds of pages of textbook to catch up on...and I don't think I'm even really exaggerating with that number. But all I can think about is my bed.
That is life with depression, or at least my kind of sad.
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