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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

2-year anniversary

In a few short hours (okay, just shy of 16), it will be two years since my mom died. Two years. The past couple of days building up to this have not been the easiest, and now, realizing that it is after midnight, and that it is the anniversary of my mom's death has resulted in a wave of emotions.

I think things were triggered a bit more by finding out for certain that an important member of the music community in my city died suddenly a few days ago, at only 65. For years, he was my RCM representative, meaning that he was the 'friendly face' and reassuring voice of confidence at so many exams that I can't even count them all. I've never been the best with death, but I've felt especially vulnerable to death and serious illness this fall...three of my neighbours (who I have known since I was 2 years old) are seriously ill (in one household no less!), a fellow MYC teacher, my flute teacher's father (the exact same age as my dad), now this gentlemen. Some of the kids that I follow on caringbridge/carepages have also recently passed away or likely will very soon. Taylor Heersche passed away this week, and Ariel Gariano, who I have been following for almost a year now is doing very, very poorly. Her family just wants her to get to sunday when they are celebrating "Christmas in November" together. That is my prayer too. She has battled rhabdomyosarcoma for just over five years now...

I hurt, I miss my mom, I can't believe it's been so long when it still feels like a day ago that she said the last words to me that I really remember, words that will remain forever etched in my memory..."I do love you so much" as tears choked her voice and I myself was trying desperately not to burst out into tears (wanting to be strong for her). The day after that, she decided that she had had enough and asked that all food and water be discontinued, wherein the two and a half hardest weeks of my life began.

And then there's me...I've noticed in the past two or so weeks a lot of weird feeling in my heart, and more of the dull aches or small twinges. Oftentimes when I would bend down in my chair when teaching I would get the weird beating start up, or when lying down in bed, or hurrying outside in the cold weather. I know that I need to get checked out by my doctor but like last year, well, I keep putting things off, and putting things off when it comes to this. In a few short days I hit the anniversary of when I really started to notice things going funny for me. Again, hard to believe that it's been a year since that started up, but at the same time, I can hardly remember what it was like not to have it going on.

I just wish I could have a hug from my mom again. Days like this, I wish I was five years old, with my mom there, and no social constraints whatsoever on curling up in her lap.

Psychology, Music in Canada, History of Antisemitism, and History of the Soviet Union. Oh yeah, and spending an hour online...

It seems that whenever things pile up just a little bit too much with my university coursework, I will end up online reading up on the heart. In just over a month, I come up to the day when I first felt that something was up. I didn't realize it at the time, I felt that perhaps I had a small virus, was reacting to the stress of a paper. But it kept continuing, and it didn't act like stress or a virus. And it has been exactly 10 months since I first heard the words "You have a heart murmur, did you know that?". The words that sent part of my life in an entirely new direction.

This time of year too brings about really challenging memories, reinforced this time around by my flute teacher's rough month of September with the death of her father (at age 63, the same age as my dad...). October 5th was the anniversary of my grandma's death, and although sad, we could hardly stop to think. I did go to bed that night-it was a tuesday night-with the soundtrack from "The Mission" playing on my MP3 player, and did cry as I was falling asleep after writing in my journal. But the situation with my mom was so tenuous at that point. On October 4th, my mom was given 3 months to live. It turned out to be less than one month. I don't remember any part of the orchestra rehearsal that day, but I do remember getting picked up by my dad and getting the news. I remember the wind ensemble retreat that was either two days before then or five days after, something like that. I honestly don't remember which day. Daily, it is hard to believe that it is almost two years since my mom died. That it has been more than two years since she was last in this house. I'm thinking about getting my hair cut next weekend, and it's hard. I haven't had my haircut since before my mom was diagnosed. She was just starting to get sick then, it was in September of 2009. When I was still innocent in the ways of the world. Before I could read oncology-and now cardiology-reports. Before I knew exactly what someone the day that they die of cancer smells like. I say that because the smells of that hospital room are etched in my memory just as surely as the sight of the hospital gown, the blue emesis bins, and the recliner that didn't actually recline very well. The colours of the four shawls that I worked on during the month of October and the first two days of November of 2010. How my friend C's little girl A was diagnosed with type one diabetes right at the same time that my mom entered the hospital for the last time (and whose wedding I was privileged to attend last weekend!!!! definitely a highlight of my year so far!).

The title of this post comes from my four 'normal' courses. I say normal, because I also have my major area paper, however, that is not taking precedence right now unfortunately. I have my first Intro to Psych midterm on wednesday, and my first paper due for History of the Soviet Union on thursday. Do I feel like I'm at my breaking point? Just about, but oddly enough, the phrase "Just keep swimming" has been going through my head even though it's certainly not one I've used before. Well, back to the Psych textbook. I still have a full chapter to read, and it's a slow going book. I wanted to get it done before going to bed, but I'm not sure that is the smartest idea. I've really tried to get a 'decent' amount of sleep this semester so far, and it is HARD because the old habits are there, and I just can't function without getting sleep. It's a form of grief and extreme frustration to know that if I try to do like I did last year, I will just get sick, quite possibly more sick than last time. Last time, I lucked out in many ways (which I'm not going to go into now-that's for another post). Should I not take care of myself, I don't think I'd be so lucky.