Day 1, 75mg dosage

Yesterday evening, I did up the dosage to approximately 75mg. I say approximately because I combined an old 'half' tablet of 100mg with a 25mg tablet. Well, the absolutely unresistable sleepiness hit a fair amount quicker than it had been hitting with the 50mg. I guess that was somewhat to be expected. And so I fell asleep at approximately 11pm, woke up with alarms at 7:30ish (a perfectly acceptable amount of sleep, even more than most people need) and then proceeded to sleep again until approximately 9am, whereupon my dad reminded me to get up because he had to get to church to set things up for the sunday school class. At that point I was still exhausted and my guess is that had I been left to sleep, I probably would have slept until noon. 

However, I've mostly felt pretty good today energy wise after that point until this evening when I realized that I was getting dehydrated and combined with staring at the computer screen to take notes on a couple of psychology lectures (as a side topic, WOW my psychology professors are trying to cram a LOT into this next midterm exam-4 textbook chapters and a total of NINE online lectures) was the reason that my heart was starting to feel weird along with getting dizzy and having shaking hands. 

So...some degree of productivity today. I will think positive thoughts for that continuing tomorrow even though I must get up at 6:15am! 

Seroquel worries

Considering upping my Seroquel dosage. It's a challenging question to think of. All the medical professionals in my life say "Well, you're not even at a therapeutic dosage, you have some of the stuff that put you on it in the first place going on..." and on and on.

They are right on those two points. 50mg is not a therapeutic dosage. I don't honestly know if Seroquel really ever did anything besides knocking me out in the first place...and sleep is a huge issue for me in terms of my intense need for it. To be honest, it's hard to judge whether things really do work on the brain, especially because it takes quite a bit of time for things to change. This is a stressful time for me, and sometimes I feel like I'm 'checked out'. Like yesterday, when I was babysitting. I was obviously able to care appropriately for the children, and they were absolutely safe, and I was trying to be as engaged as possible, and perhaps I was just tired, but I was upset with myself for not being as 'there' as I wanted to be. And my mind is spinning over a mistake that I made. I got a text later that night saying "Did the kids actually watch Bambi? It was in the player". The answer I sent back was "About 5 minutes total...N (who is 4 years old) found it and asked...hope that was okay". Turns out that he is not allowed to watch it yet. Whoops...I feel horrible, even though it was only 5 minutes. Short attention span, mostly we spent time playing "Larry Boy Super Heros". I honestly had no clue that it wasn't allowed yet, and I'm going to be honest and say that I didn't know he hadn't watched it yet (he sort of acted like he had, calling it by name and what-not) and I also haven't watched it! I think I know the basic story, but I haven't seen it all the way through. Actually, the only part I have seen is about those first five minutes where the animals are helping Bambi learn to walk-which I saw yesterday. Perhaps things would be different, but this was the first time I babysat for these kids, and I naturally don't want to break any rules that the family has or put the kids in any harm whatsoever, even if it comes from a Disney movie! So I'm spinning around on this even though it was an honest, and in this case, harmless incident.

And then I sometimes feel slightly checked out when teaching, and that hurts.

So the question really is this...is upping the Seroquel dosage going to help, or further hinder things? I deal with sometimes near crushing amounts of fatigue, so much so that I feel physically ill even though I've gotten plenty of sleep. I wish there were easy answers, and I really wish that I had answers for my fatigue. Oh, it's not like it was in December of 2011, but some days can be a fair amount like that time-like a good chunk of tuesday. I want to be completely checked in with my life, I want to be giving of myself fully. And I have no idea what's going to help and what's not...

Rough-ish (?) Days (?)

I put this because I've just been feeling a little bit out of whack sometimes, somewhat, the past few days. Just weird emotions at weird times. Like feeling absolutely crippled with anxiety about getting my midterm, which it was SO stupid to be anxious like that because I knew already that I had received an A-actually the 3rd highest mark in the class. My logical brain was getting mad at my emotional brain! Sometimes I really do feel like my brain splits into two parts.

There was stress over the orchestration assignment. Oh my goodness was there stress. I worked just about all of my waking hours on tuesday on it, and battled a stomachache for most of the time as well. Not as bad as the stomachache in December, but that same quality...I had also slept in until around 10:30 that morning, even though I had gone to bed at 11am, so the day did not really start out on the right foot! I really wish I didn't need as much sleep. Anyways, my friend M, who is a composition major spent SO much time with me on the assignment online, it was just amazing. Hopefully...everything worked out okay. I gathered that a lot of my fellow students had stress with the assignment as well...and we are pretty much all really good students. At least my friend A gave us a good laugh, but you really had to be there for it...at least our prof found it amusing as well, and I think he picked up on how we had stress going on, so maybe that will be taken into consideration...This is my fourth course with him, but this is the first time he has taught this particular course, so things are always a little bit rougher. Let's just say that a LOT has been crammed into the classes so far, and a lot of us are feeling like our heads are spinning. I know that a course is more difficult than usual when MY head starts spinning, because that basically doesn't happen. Really, has only happened one other time in University-with this particular professor! He is a good instructor, with an interesting sense of humour, and although strict, very fair...and he proved last year that he has a compassionate side as well. He was one of my professors that I had to defer things with last year, so I do at least know that if anything comes up...and I have the proper documentation...that it will be okay. I really don't want anything to come up, but I know that my body is more fragile than those of most my age, not to mention the stress of waiting on genetic testing.

It's strange also, but I felt more open somehow yesterday. I ended up sharing two of my biggest 'secrets' with people. Typically, in my History of Antisemtism class several of us hard-working gals sit together, and we have gotten to know each other a bit. I felt comfortable enough to share before class that I was feeling stressed waiting for the results of my genetic testing for Mosaic Turner's syndrome. It felt strange to share...but also good. And then, later, when talking with M online after I got home from class, I shared that in high school I had dealt with really severe depression and that I still had to watch to keep things in check. My friend M is actually in his early 30s, about 10 years older than me, and this is his second time around in university. The first time, he failed out because he developed depression and didn't VW from his courses. He is INCREDIBLY smart and hardworking. I have known this for more than a year, and for sometime had been thinking that I should share that I really do understand. And I did. I didn't say just what the severity entailed, but I may at some point. It's almost 5 years since that point but sometimes, it still feels like yesterday. Like today when I realized that the first time I ever watched Dr. Phil was when I was in the hospital...several of us would do so in the afternoons. I imagine we presented a pretty funny picture, several teenagers with severe depression or bipolar disorder and eating disorders watching Dr. Phil while on the Child and Adolescent psychiatric unit!

Today I had my university grad photos taken. Seems also just like yesterday that I was having my high school grad photos taken. Hopefully they turn out okay. It was decently early in the morning after that late class last night, so I hope I don't look too tired. It hurts because I know my mom would have been so excited about them. I guess it comes back to those first two thoughts when the doctors told us in May of 2010 that the 'average length of survival for adenocarcinoma of the small intestine' was 2 years-that my first two thoughts were "My mom won't see grandchildren" and "My mom won't see my university graduation". In the end, it was less than six months from the time they told us "Average of 2 years" until she died. Even after all this time, it still hurts to write the word 'died', but that is how it was. Her body was taken over by a monster. I re-read the pathology reports from her surgery the other day. My mom was not a large woman, only 5'3 and of small to medium build...we knew from the surgery that they only removed some of the cancer yet I'm reading words such as 12 by 8 by 7 cm mass...and there were three such comments made. For reference size, that's like having a 6 inch sub in your abdomen being removed...and they removed more than one such mass, and didn't get all of it. That's the kind of widespread cancer we're talking about, and that is before it moved to her lungs...

It's been VERY cold here the past few days, and it's snowing again today...all my students were late to class tonight, but I would much rather have them late than have anyone get hurt on the way over!!!! The past couple of weeks, it only seems to have gotten warmer to snow again. I guess that we are getting payback for having such a mild winter last year. Which, given how rough it was for me, I'm not exactly complaining about. I am a true prairie girl though, I will survive! But it will be nice when it warms up a little bit and I'm not feeling like an onion every time that I come in from just walking between buildings where I'm peeling off the scarf, the down-filled jacket hood, the hat, the extra thick and puffy mittens, the leg warmers under my jeans, the jacket, the vest underneath, sometimes another sweater...the only thing I refuse to do is wear boots :)

Time to do something productive, anything, even if it's just moving my stereo back upstairs and going to bed...

Cold, cold, cold...and more cold!

That is the weather picture here. Snow, cold, cold, cold, wind, cold, sun (as a teaser, it's even colder when it's sunny...), cold...

The temperature right now is -25. At 2:10pm. It's beautifully sunny. The windchill is well into the -30's. The high for the next few days...mid -20's.

Trying to motivate myself to do things, like cook, and work on an orchestration assignment, practice, lesson plan, laundry...anything...but feeling a complete lack of energy and motivation. It doesn't help that I woke up at about 2am with such severe muscle pains in my abdomen, legs and back that it made me feel ill. Unfortunately, the effects of seroquel were also on me, so it was incredibly difficult to get the heating pad on to help ease things, let alone take a painkiller. I did fall back to sleep, but it was highly painful for some amount of time (I really don't know how long). I had gotten up to go to the washroom and was in so much pain that it took about 3 minutes of leaning against my bed while basically crumpled up in a heap before I could manage to get INTO my bed. Not fun. No pain right now (which I didn't expect-it's hard-hitting when it comes, but generally lasts only a few hours), but I'm kind of tired. I guess pain doesn't really help one sleep very well.

Time to be productive. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can!

A on my midterm :)

FINALLY the marks were posted-just a few minutes ago. I got an A, and the third highest mark in the class! The top mark was an 18.5 out of 20, and I got 17.5. One person got an 18, and then there was me.

So...I'm pretty okay with that! I definitely studied for that exam!!!

That helps a bit, but my brain is entering into the typical emotional state that makes things quite difficult and hard to do. It has been freezing cold here recently and it has been snowing again, and cloudy. I'm cold and feeling unnecessarily sad and my brain doesn't feel like it's working properly. I can't get the inspiration to go out in the cold and pay myself, that's how bad it is.

Maybe some more green tea, because green tea is one of the big answers to many of life's problems.

Waiting

Waiting is not always the easiest thing to do! Right now, I am waiting on three things that I wish I could find out right now. One very minor, one slightly bigger, and one that could potentially change my life.

The minor...waiting to find out whether I will be marking tests tomorrow morning or going to the teacher's brunch.

The slightly bigger...waiting for my professor to post marks for our midterm exams, which she said would be up today. Which either are somehow hidden on the website, or are not up yet (and it is 10:54pm).

The life-changing...well...chromosome analysis takes time.

Waiting. Patience. Time.

Came down with a cold yesterday, although fortunately it wasn't too bad for my teaching-no effect on my voice for singing and what-not. Actually, my morning classes might have been better being cancelled, as we had '9 minutes short of a blizzard' snow-storm, and of my first class, only two students (my set of twins) were there, and one family skyped in. Of the second class, only one was there (thankfully, she is less shy than last year!) and two conference-call skyped in (I don't have the group video chat thing, so it was the 3rd best option). Surprisingly, my six afternoon students were all there, and 5 were on time. And the one who wasn't on time is usually late anyways. I guess having my teaching to distract me helped me forget about the cold coming on, or maybe it just hadn't fully hit yet. I was pretty tired in the evening, went to bed at 10:30, and woke up at 9:30 this morning still exhausted. That's kind of how it's been today. Haven't done very much at all besides get dressed, drink three cups of green tea and eat a bit, watch shows online, listen to music (feeding my Celtic Partita and Mahler addictions) and knit on the prayer shawl I'm working on right now. My to-do list is pretty long right now, but my brain is slightly toast (slightly?) and I'm having unpleasant flashbacks to last December with the exhaustion levels and what-not. It's not quite at that level, but this isn't fun. I'm going to blame my dad for this cold I think as he is the ONLY one I know that has been sick for the appropriate incubation period (it was even slightly too short for my students at only one week-most colds take two weeks to incubate). Besides the fatigue and just that general 'sick' feeling to the body, the cold symptoms really aren't that bad. Basically, I feel as if I were running a low fever but that doesn't seem to be the case. We shall see how this leads...

Personally, I feel as though I have lucked out so far, not having a cold at all during first semester. I don't get the flu shot (even though some medical professionals would probably tell me to) but I have never had the flu unless I had it as a VERY young child-younger than five years old, as I can recall each and every time I missed school, and for what reason (given that it didn't happen that often). This is even when my music friends seem to be dropping like flies from it. Statistically, this does mean that I am less likely to ever get it. Seems that those who get the flu more are more likely to get it...

Dreamed again last night that I was told that I had Mosaic Turner's Syndrome. I just want the results either way now. Waiting is HARD.