I was supposed to write this yesterday, since March 14 is the actual anniversary of my first day of Crazy Camp. But at the end of the day I was tired, and this is a hard post to write when you're tired.
So.
March 2008 was possibly the worst month of my life. I'd been battling depression for a couple of months by then, but had held off on getting a prescription for antidepressants because I was nursing Nathan. Finally the last week of February I went to the doctor to ask for a prescription for Prozac, which I would begin taking on Nathan's 1st birthday, the day I would stop nursing him.
The whole idea of cutting a kid off from the boob abruptly on his first birthday still guts me a little. I'm hardly all La Leche League, but I enjoyed nursing him and imagined his weaning would be a little more gradual, a little more "when it's mutually beneficial for mother and baby" as all the attachment parenting people always say.
Anyway, two days before Nathan's birthday I went to the doctor and requested a prescription for 40 mg of Prozac. The doctor suggested I might start at 20 mg, but I swore I was taking 40 mg before (3 years or so earlier). I didn't want an inadequate dosage that would need to be upped, thus taking me months and months to feel normal again.
I filled the prescription. The pharmacist, Lisa (who becomes an important player in this story), told me 40 mg was too high to start on. I told her I swore I was on 40 mg before. "Okay," she said dubiously.
The next day I nursed Nathan for the last time, cried, and swallowed the first pill.
The day after that was Nathan's birthday. I more-or-less spent it feeling like I was in an alternate reality. And it was pretty much like that for two days. I sobbed and sobbed. I didn't want to live. I apologized to Nathan profusely for getting stuck with me as a mother.
And then one night I woke up in the middle of the night, unable to go back to sleep, unable to go on in general. That's when I remembered something:
I had only been on 20 mg of Prozac before. And I had built up to it from 10 mg.
I quit the Prozac cold-turkey. I went to another doctor later that week, hoping he would help me. He gave me Lexapro. I still wanted to die. I don't mean I actually had a plan to end my life, just that every minute of the day and night was painful. I called the second doctor. He told me to go off Lexapro and see a psychiatrist to "get analyzed." You know, analyzed, like I should make an appointment with Sigmund Freud himself.
I felt so let down by the medical community. I didn't know what to do. Somehow I was making it through life, caring for my child and (God knows how) going to work. At one point Nathan and I were shopping in Target, and I casually mentioned to pharmacist Lisa that I was having some trouble with meds. Well, it turns out Lisa later phoned my doctor and expressed her concern about me, and the nurse from the doctor called and told me she would call a local psychiatrist and get me on the fast-track to an appointment. (The guy has like a two-month wait otherwise, which seems like a bad thing when people are severely depressed.)
The doctor suggested that rather than see him in his office, I enroll in an outpatient program at the hospital's psychiatric unit. He would come and see me there. And that's how I ended up going to Crazy Camp.
It was, of course, not actually called Crazy Camp. It was actually called the Intensive Outpatient Program, or IOP, but I called it crazy camp because it felt like a camp. A day camp, at least. I'd go every day from 8:00 to 2:00, and we had various activities like group therapy, workbooks, movies, recreational therapy (umm, yeah), and lunch in the cafeteria.
The first day of Crazy Camp, I tried extra hard to make myself look presentable and not crazy. I was concerned that because Camp was in a very bad area, all the other people there would be deranged transients who the court ordered to be there.
But, it turns out that depression hits people from all walks of life. And the other campers at Crazy Camp were diverse in terms of socioeconomic status, but all were rational, intelligent, thoughtful people. We were just all experiencing a temporary bad patch in our lives.
There were two social workers who came to Crazy Camp to talk to us, no-nonsense Betty, and Lauren, who was like Social Worker Barbie. We spent the days talking and doing little workbooks about mental health. Sometimes Cassie the Rec Therapist came to do little worksheets and games with us.
One thing that made me stand out at Crazy Camp was that I was the only person who hadn't been hospitalized in the inpatient psychiatric ward. All of the other people had spent some time "upstairs," having been admitted through the ER after suicide attempts. That's heavy. That feels like something that you could never get over. Every happy moment of your life from there on out, you'd have to deal with the guilt and shame that you almost weren't there.
There was the young mother who was sleeping on a friend's couch after leaving her children's abusive father. Another young mother who was addicted to prescription drugs, and whose husband left with their child during the course of Crazy Camp. (At one point I was outside with her during a break, and I swear I thought she was going to step in front of an oncoming car.) There was an older lady who had just somehow lost her way, and whose adult children were worried sick about her. A teacher whose final undoing was a battle with her principal. A mother of two special-needs children. A woman who lives very near me, who I couldn't possibly talk into seeing the point of going on. (I still worry about her every time I drive by her neighborhood.)
And so, as the week wore on, we talked. I learned not to feel ashamed about depression. It's a medical illness. It happens to a lot of people. Betty called it "the common cold of mental illness."
I was forced to question a lot of relationships in my life and a lot of my beliefs. I realized there was a lot of guilt I needed to give up. I discovered I was being kind of a martyr about motherhood and wifehood, and that there were some responsibilities I needed to delegate to others. I got angry about the stigma of depression and about society's attitude toward mental illness. The doctor visited and put me on a new medication.
You know, just your typical week in an outpatient psychiatric facility.
At the end of the week, I graduated from Crazy Camp. I got a certificate and a handshake. I wasn't even close to better. But at least I was pointed in the right direction.
It took a long time for me to feel normal again. It took exercise and talk therapy and a medication change. And even now, as you all know, I have some relapses. But nothing along the lines of what I felt when I went to Crazy Camp.
And I still have the certificate and the workbooks from Crazy Camp on a shelf in my closet. I'm afraid to throw them away, afraid to jinx myself by the implication that I'm all better now.
But today is a different life than three years ago.
I am going to have a hard time hitting "Publish" for this post. But I have to do it for other people fighting depression. There's a sort of brother/sisterhood on the part of depression sufferers. We have to be there for other people who are fighting depression. Depression is so pervasive in your mind, that not only do you feel overwhelmingly sad, you feel sad that you are sad, and guilty for feeling sad, and guilty about everything, and ashamed at your own weakness, and unable to see how it could ever get better. And it is the responsibility of all of us on The Other Side to assure those in the trenches that it does get better. It will get better.
I shouldn't feel afraid to publish this. Depression is a medical illness, caused by a lack certain neurotransmitters in your brain. Sure there are lifestyle triggers to depression, and those of us who have tendencies toward depression might be sent over the edge by these triggers. But it does not mean that there needs to be something sad in your life that makes you depressed. You can have a perfectly good life and still feel depressed.
And if you do feel depressed, please get help. Tell a doctor or pharmacist or friend or family member or someone. Heck, tell me. I know it is scary to admit that you are depressed, but it's better than going on this way. I saw too many people at Crazy Camp who were too embarrassed to admit to depression, and who figured in their compromised mental states that the better option would be to take themselves off the planet. Don't be one of those people. Get help.
I love you guys.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
Monday, March 14, 2011
SuperIma "Sunday" Check-In
Somehow in the excitement of my big weekend in the city, I failed to realize yesterday was Sunday and I didn't do the SuperIma Sunday Check-In. So I'm doing it Monday instead.
First off, speaking of SuperIma Leigh Ann, let's all send her happy thoughts and good vibes because not only did she just pack up her entire house and drive across several states with three small children, but she had to say goodbye to her husband for a few weeks while he stays in a hotel close to his new job and they wait for their new house to be available. And also she has some job interviews this week, so go over and wish her luck!
Now, as you recall, I took a break from setting goals last week. I needed that break, especially since this past week ended up being a crazy up-and-down of mental and physical health worries.
But ... phew! ... all is well, and so this week I'm going to set goals, and I'm going to do them in the true spirit that Leigh Ann intended, which is to give yourself a break and put yourself first occasionally.
For the "let something slide" goal this week, I am vowing to only spend one hour a day cleaning my house. I know an hour a day of cleaning hardly seems like some kind of treat, but what I'm letting slide are Hours 2 and 3 of daily cleaning. I don't want to let the cleaning slide altogether, because my house is a wreck and living in it is bothering me. However, after an hour of cleaning, I'm calling it quits. I can clean the rest the next day. Otherwise I'll go crazy because, I'm not sure if this happens to you guys, but often while I'm cleaning, other members of my household generate new messes, so theoretically the cleaning could go on indefinitely.
Here's what I'm going to do for myself this week: I'm going to put my kid to bed every night at 7 p.m. and take the rest of the evening for myself. In the past few weeks his bedtime has creeped up later and later, largely due to my now-aborted plan to go to classes at the gym in the evenings. Two problems arise from him going to bed too late: (1) He is a giant crab the next day, and (2) I tend to fall asleep as I put him to bed, and then I get no time to myself. So, hopefully I'm not going to encounter trouble getting him to bed early because of the time change. I love the extended daylight hours, but sometimes the drawback is that Nathan resists going to bed, saying it's still light out.
Have a good week, everyone!
First off, speaking of SuperIma Leigh Ann, let's all send her happy thoughts and good vibes because not only did she just pack up her entire house and drive across several states with three small children, but she had to say goodbye to her husband for a few weeks while he stays in a hotel close to his new job and they wait for their new house to be available. And also she has some job interviews this week, so go over and wish her luck!
Now, as you recall, I took a break from setting goals last week. I needed that break, especially since this past week ended up being a crazy up-and-down of mental and physical health worries.
But ... phew! ... all is well, and so this week I'm going to set goals, and I'm going to do them in the true spirit that Leigh Ann intended, which is to give yourself a break and put yourself first occasionally.
For the "let something slide" goal this week, I am vowing to only spend one hour a day cleaning my house. I know an hour a day of cleaning hardly seems like some kind of treat, but what I'm letting slide are Hours 2 and 3 of daily cleaning. I don't want to let the cleaning slide altogether, because my house is a wreck and living in it is bothering me. However, after an hour of cleaning, I'm calling it quits. I can clean the rest the next day. Otherwise I'll go crazy because, I'm not sure if this happens to you guys, but often while I'm cleaning, other members of my household generate new messes, so theoretically the cleaning could go on indefinitely.
Here's what I'm going to do for myself this week: I'm going to put my kid to bed every night at 7 p.m. and take the rest of the evening for myself. In the past few weeks his bedtime has creeped up later and later, largely due to my now-aborted plan to go to classes at the gym in the evenings. Two problems arise from him going to bed too late: (1) He is a giant crab the next day, and (2) I tend to fall asleep as I put him to bed, and then I get no time to myself. So, hopefully I'm not going to encounter trouble getting him to bed early because of the time change. I love the extended daylight hours, but sometimes the drawback is that Nathan resists going to bed, saying it's still light out.
Have a good week, everyone!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Let the Sunshine In
So, umm, Hair was super weird. I expected a lot of hippy weirdness, but not something totally incoherent. I'm used to musicals where something happens, then they sing a song about it, then something else happens, and they sing a song about that, and so on. Hair was more like a bunch of trippy songs, very few of which made sense, and a very loose plotline that just ended up being sad at the end. Kind of like the actual 1960s.
Also I just feel like hippies need to take a shower.
After the show, I spent the night at Katie's house, and this morning we went to the Flower & Garden Show. Now, the thing is, this was actually my second visit to the show this week, because I just love it so much! My first visit included my kid, so we mostly hung out in the playground garden.
He enjoyed the other gardens as well, because they have stuff like bridges and waterfalls, plus turtles and fish and even chickens. Unfortunately, he kind of wanted to explore the gardens at a slightly faster pace than I did.
He did take a couple of good pictures:
Outside the gazebo
Inside the gazebo -- Best gazebo ever!
Also I just feel like hippies need to take a shower.
After the show, I spent the night at Katie's house, and this morning we went to the Flower & Garden Show. Now, the thing is, this was actually my second visit to the show this week, because I just love it so much! My first visit included my kid, so we mostly hung out in the playground garden.
He enjoyed the other gardens as well, because they have stuff like bridges and waterfalls, plus turtles and fish and even chickens. Unfortunately, he kind of wanted to explore the gardens at a slightly faster pace than I did.
He did take a couple of good pictures:
Outside the gazebo
Inside the gazebo -- Best gazebo ever!And the theme was "The Sport of Gardening," so here is Nathan in the Blackhawks hockey garden. I guess those red things are pucks ... ?
The thing is, Nathan was maybe not on his best behavior at the show, which you can see in this photo.
I asked him to strike a sweet pose, like the one in this photo from two years ago at the show:
So, due to Nathan's desire to run through the gardens without stopping or listening to directions, we left the show early. Therefore, I was excited to go back with Katie, kid-free, and see the show properly.
As a bonus, today the show featured a cake-decorating contest run by the Chicago Area Retail Bakers Association. I only had my phone to take pictures, so there are only a few that weren't blurry.
And for those with the Winter Madness, here are some gratuitous flower shots:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42197
The thing is, Nathan was maybe not on his best behavior at the show, which you can see in this photo.
I asked him to strike a sweet pose, like the one in this photo from two years ago at the show:
So, due to Nathan's desire to run through the gardens without stopping or listening to directions, we left the show early. Therefore, I was excited to go back with Katie, kid-free, and see the show properly.
As a bonus, today the show featured a cake-decorating contest run by the Chicago Area Retail Bakers Association. I only had my phone to take pictures, so there are only a few that weren't blurry.
And for those with the Winter Madness, here are some gratuitous flower shots:
http://help.blogger.com/bin/answer.py?answer=42197
Saturday, March 12, 2011
No News
Well, the doctor didn't call, leaving me to wait out the weekend worrying about the test results. However, I feel physically fine (panic symptoms notwithstanding), and actually a lot better and more energetic since I started taking the antibiotics and allergy medications Thursday. Now, I'm not sure which meds are working for me, or even if it's not the placebo effect and I could have gotten the same results from swallowing a Good 'n Plenty. But I think when your symptoms mostly disappear as a result of common prescription medication (or candy), that's a sign that points to "not cancer."
---WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST TO BRING YOU AN URGENT NEWS BULLETIN---
Right after I typed the above paragraph, the doctor's office called. On a SATURDAY! And everything is normal with me! I do not have cancer!
And I love that doctor! And I am so proud of myself for going to a doctor and getting all my regular stuff checked out (cholesterol, blood pressure, etc.) I'm even doing the right thing with the Vitamin D, which was something I was so confused about.
Enough about me and my petty medical (non-)issues.
Let's talk about me and my recent entertainment consumption.
Well, I haven't started reading Matched yet. No news there. Also I got the movie It's Kind of a Funny Story from Netflix, which I also haven't watched yet. You know, this is kind of a lame update. But anyway, I did read the book version of Funny Story, which is about a teenage boy who ends up in a mental hospital for depression. It's kind of a fitting film for me to watch in honor of my upcoming anniversary of 3 years since I was (sort of) in a mental hospital (it was outpatient, though).
Ooh, this post just turned all weird and dark.
But the big news in my entertainment is that I am going to visit Katie tonight and we're going to see the musical Hair! And they better get naked in it! And before that we're going to the Weber Grill restaurant, which, yes, is a restaurant based on the round, red backyard barbecue. You know what they have there? A pre-dinner bread basket with pretzel bread and cheddar cheese spread! (I heard you, person who said, "But I thought she was on Weight Watchers." Shut up.)
And they have sangria. Because when you spent a week in a panic that you have cancer and you're seeing a show about naked hippies, you need to have a drink.
---WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG POST TO BRING YOU AN URGENT NEWS BULLETIN---
Right after I typed the above paragraph, the doctor's office called. On a SATURDAY! And everything is normal with me! I do not have cancer!
And I love that doctor! And I am so proud of myself for going to a doctor and getting all my regular stuff checked out (cholesterol, blood pressure, etc.) I'm even doing the right thing with the Vitamin D, which was something I was so confused about.
Enough about me and my petty medical (non-)issues.
Let's talk about me and my recent entertainment consumption.
Well, I haven't started reading Matched yet. No news there. Also I got the movie It's Kind of a Funny Story from Netflix, which I also haven't watched yet. You know, this is kind of a lame update. But anyway, I did read the book version of Funny Story, which is about a teenage boy who ends up in a mental hospital for depression. It's kind of a fitting film for me to watch in honor of my upcoming anniversary of 3 years since I was (sort of) in a mental hospital (it was outpatient, though).
Ooh, this post just turned all weird and dark.
But the big news in my entertainment is that I am going to visit Katie tonight and we're going to see the musical Hair! And they better get naked in it! And before that we're going to the Weber Grill restaurant, which, yes, is a restaurant based on the round, red backyard barbecue. You know what they have there? A pre-dinner bread basket with pretzel bread and cheddar cheese spread! (I heard you, person who said, "But I thought she was on Weight Watchers." Shut up.)
And they have sangria. Because when you spent a week in a panic that you have cancer and you're seeing a show about naked hippies, you need to have a drink.
Friday, March 11, 2011
The Television Issue
When I was in high school, I had a fairly lucrative babysitting business. As the babysitter, I was able to observe the parenting practices of the various families I worked for. I particularly noticed the different attitudes with regard to television.
In some families, TV was very highly regulated. These families had policies like, "Susie is only allowed to watch one video per day." (And, inevitably, the video had already been watched before I came to babysit.) I didn't like how TV became this forbidden fruit, because we all know the backlash that comes when somebody has been completely denied something.
In other families, the kids watched TV almost constantly. Years of admonitions from teachers and parents had taught me that constant TV-viewing was probably also bad.
The families I truly admired were the ones where TV was sort of a non-issue. The attitude was like, look, there are many possible leisure activities you can engage in, and TV is just one of them. If you wanted to watch TV, you could watch TV. If you wanted to do one of a million other fun activities, you could do those too. It wasn't "TV vs. No TV." It was "TV vs. Toys vs. Outdoor Play vs. Computer vs. Art vs. ..."
I wanted to raise a child with this whole "TV is part of a balanced life of many activities" attitude. I think this is the attitude I have myself. I don't watch TV constantly, but at the end of a long day when you're mentally and physically exhausted, sometimes nothing works better for unwinding than TV.
Initially I didn't regard Nathan's TV viewing as a big problem. I worked for the first 20 months of his life, so he wasn't home watching TV much anyway. When he did watch TV, his attention span was so short that he didn't watch for long enough to raise any concern.
From ages approximately 2 to 3, Nathan and I did so many activities that he was seldom in front of the TV. We were always at the gym or a friend's house or an enrichment class or a museum. And he was still napping 2-3 hours a day, so there wasn't much time left over for TV.
But then from ages 3 to 4, the daily TV-viewing time slowly crept up. A number of factors contributed to his rise in TV-watching. First off, he quit taking a nap, and TV was something he could do to get in a quiet rest time. And since there were suddenly so many hours in the day to fill, some of which he was frazzled and exhausted because he was no longer taking a nap, he began to watch TV more and more. We weren't going on as many full-day trips to museums and play areas as we used to because we had to work around his school schedule, but that left many afternoons at home where we were both tired and the most logical activity was television. And also, Nathan's attention span for TV grew longer as he got older, so his TV-viewing hours were no longer self-regulated by his short attention span.
And in the worst possible, mom-guilt-inducing development, the child began to eat all three meals a day in front of the TV. I know I know I know I know. I feel horrible even writing it. But, hear me out. First of all, he has always been a very poor eater. Plopping him in front of the TV caused him to mindlessly stuff his face, so in effect I was kind of using an alarming trend in child obesity to my advantage. (And as I type this, I realize that at some point when the boy's genetics inevitably catch up to him, he will be left with some poor eating habits.)
Another reason for plopping him in front of the TV during meals was for my own sanity. My husband doesn't get home in time for dinner on weeknights, which means that it's just the kid and me for every meal. As a person who attempts to regulate her own food intake, nothing is more frustrating than having to spend your rare eating opportunities barking at a kid to Sit down! Eat another bite! Use a napkin!
And so the TV became something to do during meals, during quiet times, during the tired times, during the times when I needed to clean or blog or whatever ... and pretty soon, OMG THIS KID WATCHES TOO MUCH TV!
I could see the problems in his behavior. He was acting crazy and lashing out, and I think part of the reason was pent-up energy from sitting in front of the TV. It was time to make some changes.
But how to go about it? For one thing, as soon as I started regulating TV, would I become one of those parents who made television a forbidden fruit that my child would later consume in excess out of rebellion? Well, probably not, since it's not like my new "one hour a day" TV policy was particularly strict.
But also, I am very bad at being consistent with policies like this. It seems easy enough. But there's always some situation where I don't enforce the policy, because like for example I wanted to clean my house and the easiest thing would be to plop my kid in front of the TV for three hours.
On the flip side, there are days when he doesn't watch any TV, because we're really busy. Doesn't it seem okay if he watches two hours of TV on Thursday because he didn't watch any on Wednesday?
Also, as I was discussing with Farrah the other day, sometimes kids need TV to unwind. Just like there are times when the TV is the only thing my brain can tolerate, there are times when I think Nathan needs a little mental break in front of the TV too. The reality is, we are still doing a lot of exhausting, stimulating, outside-the-home activities. Nathan goes to preschool six hours a week and to his little program at the high school three hours a week. He probably spends another six hours a week running around the gym daycare with the other kids. Add in miscellaneous activities like playdates, the library, visits to the park/indoor playground, swimming, random errands, and trips to museums, and he's getting a lot of mental and physical activity. He needs time to relax and unwind at home. And yes, I could probably force him to play quietly or read books to him or do some kind of organized activity, but sometimes I want a break, too.
Plus there's the issue with today's generation of kids where it's not just TV, it's all these "screen time" activities: computers, video games, the iPad, and smartphones. It's getting to the point where I feel like my kid can't entertain himself without some electronic device, and that upsets me. (But then this begs the question, can I be entertained without some electronic device? How quick am I to bust out Angry Birds whenever I'm in a line or waiting room situation?)
So anyway, just another opportunity for me to feel like a horrific failure.
What do you guys have to say about TV?
In some families, TV was very highly regulated. These families had policies like, "Susie is only allowed to watch one video per day." (And, inevitably, the video had already been watched before I came to babysit.) I didn't like how TV became this forbidden fruit, because we all know the backlash that comes when somebody has been completely denied something.
In other families, the kids watched TV almost constantly. Years of admonitions from teachers and parents had taught me that constant TV-viewing was probably also bad.
The families I truly admired were the ones where TV was sort of a non-issue. The attitude was like, look, there are many possible leisure activities you can engage in, and TV is just one of them. If you wanted to watch TV, you could watch TV. If you wanted to do one of a million other fun activities, you could do those too. It wasn't "TV vs. No TV." It was "TV vs. Toys vs. Outdoor Play vs. Computer vs. Art vs. ..."
I wanted to raise a child with this whole "TV is part of a balanced life of many activities" attitude. I think this is the attitude I have myself. I don't watch TV constantly, but at the end of a long day when you're mentally and physically exhausted, sometimes nothing works better for unwinding than TV.
Initially I didn't regard Nathan's TV viewing as a big problem. I worked for the first 20 months of his life, so he wasn't home watching TV much anyway. When he did watch TV, his attention span was so short that he didn't watch for long enough to raise any concern.
From ages approximately 2 to 3, Nathan and I did so many activities that he was seldom in front of the TV. We were always at the gym or a friend's house or an enrichment class or a museum. And he was still napping 2-3 hours a day, so there wasn't much time left over for TV.
But then from ages 3 to 4, the daily TV-viewing time slowly crept up. A number of factors contributed to his rise in TV-watching. First off, he quit taking a nap, and TV was something he could do to get in a quiet rest time. And since there were suddenly so many hours in the day to fill, some of which he was frazzled and exhausted because he was no longer taking a nap, he began to watch TV more and more. We weren't going on as many full-day trips to museums and play areas as we used to because we had to work around his school schedule, but that left many afternoons at home where we were both tired and the most logical activity was television. And also, Nathan's attention span for TV grew longer as he got older, so his TV-viewing hours were no longer self-regulated by his short attention span.
And in the worst possible, mom-guilt-inducing development, the child began to eat all three meals a day in front of the TV. I know I know I know I know. I feel horrible even writing it. But, hear me out. First of all, he has always been a very poor eater. Plopping him in front of the TV caused him to mindlessly stuff his face, so in effect I was kind of using an alarming trend in child obesity to my advantage. (And as I type this, I realize that at some point when the boy's genetics inevitably catch up to him, he will be left with some poor eating habits.)
Another reason for plopping him in front of the TV during meals was for my own sanity. My husband doesn't get home in time for dinner on weeknights, which means that it's just the kid and me for every meal. As a person who attempts to regulate her own food intake, nothing is more frustrating than having to spend your rare eating opportunities barking at a kid to Sit down! Eat another bite! Use a napkin!
And so the TV became something to do during meals, during quiet times, during the tired times, during the times when I needed to clean or blog or whatever ... and pretty soon, OMG THIS KID WATCHES TOO MUCH TV!
I could see the problems in his behavior. He was acting crazy and lashing out, and I think part of the reason was pent-up energy from sitting in front of the TV. It was time to make some changes.
But how to go about it? For one thing, as soon as I started regulating TV, would I become one of those parents who made television a forbidden fruit that my child would later consume in excess out of rebellion? Well, probably not, since it's not like my new "one hour a day" TV policy was particularly strict.
But also, I am very bad at being consistent with policies like this. It seems easy enough. But there's always some situation where I don't enforce the policy, because like for example I wanted to clean my house and the easiest thing would be to plop my kid in front of the TV for three hours.
On the flip side, there are days when he doesn't watch any TV, because we're really busy. Doesn't it seem okay if he watches two hours of TV on Thursday because he didn't watch any on Wednesday?
Also, as I was discussing with Farrah the other day, sometimes kids need TV to unwind. Just like there are times when the TV is the only thing my brain can tolerate, there are times when I think Nathan needs a little mental break in front of the TV too. The reality is, we are still doing a lot of exhausting, stimulating, outside-the-home activities. Nathan goes to preschool six hours a week and to his little program at the high school three hours a week. He probably spends another six hours a week running around the gym daycare with the other kids. Add in miscellaneous activities like playdates, the library, visits to the park/indoor playground, swimming, random errands, and trips to museums, and he's getting a lot of mental and physical activity. He needs time to relax and unwind at home. And yes, I could probably force him to play quietly or read books to him or do some kind of organized activity, but sometimes I want a break, too.
Plus there's the issue with today's generation of kids where it's not just TV, it's all these "screen time" activities: computers, video games, the iPad, and smartphones. It's getting to the point where I feel like my kid can't entertain himself without some electronic device, and that upsets me. (But then this begs the question, can I be entertained without some electronic device? How quick am I to bust out Angry Birds whenever I'm in a line or waiting room situation?)
So anyway, just another opportunity for me to feel like a horrific failure.
What do you guys have to say about TV?
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Dr. Panic
I can't think of any other way to start this except to say that I have an almost debilitating fear of doctors. It's not just "doctors make me nervous." It's like when I have some kind of symptom, I seriously consider whether it would be worse to continue to suffer or go through the horror of visiting a medical professional.
Side note: Doctor fear is also the premise of the DVD Elmo Visits the Doctor. Elmo even sings a song about it: "As sick as Elmo feels/the doctor could be worse."
But the thing with Elmo is, he's afraid of getting a shot. I'm afraid of getting diagnosed with a terminal illness. And yes, I understand the irrationality of my thinking: it's not like the doctor is the one who gives you a terminal illness. You either have one or you don't. Going to a doctor neither increases nor decreases your chances of having a terminal illness. But if you don't go to a doctor, you might never have to face up to the possibility of a terminal illness.
Except, as soon as some random symptom starts, I'm pretty sure I have a terminal illness anyway. And I work myself into such a frenzy that the only cure is to go to a doctor and get the official clean bill of health. Seems simple and non-scary enough, right? Except, what about the IN-BETWEEN PART?! The part where I'm waiting for the test results? The part where the doctor gives you a list of every possible horrible thing you could have, and uses his professional CYA phrases/demeanor to make it clear that no, he is not going to give you a guarantee that it isn't cancer until the lab test shows it isn't. And then the doctor says, "We can't rule anything out until the bloodwork comes back." And I hear, "Shannon, you have cancer. Go home and get your affairs in order."
So then I worry while I wait for the results. And in modern medicine, there is so much waiting. First you wait for an available appointment, and then you wait in the waiting room and the exam room. Then there's a whole separate visit to a lab for the bloodwork, and you also wait there, and then you wait and wait and wait for the results. It's the waiting that's gonna kill me. (Elmo, incidentally, just got his diagnosis and prescription in a single office visit, then sang a song about how much better he felt. There was no waiting for Elmo.)
So, onto my specific medical situation, the one that prompted this post.
I first have to go back in time a little bit and explain my medical history. So, when I was 24, I got this random condition where my various lymph nodes got swollen and painful. Certain it was cancer, I Googled my symptoms (this was back in 2002, before I learned not to do that) and was pretty much convinced I had leukemia. And I went to the doctor, and what did he say? "It might be leukemia." Panic and tears and a blood test and 24 hours of paralyzing fear later, it turned out I did not have leukemia. But this incident set in motion a lifelong anxiety about medical conditions. In fact, I was so not convinced that the test ruled out leukemia (what if my results got mixed up with somebody elses? what if I just didn't have enough leukemia in my blood to show up on the results, but it's growing in my body right now?) that I went back to the doctor and told him I was still feeling horrible and could he please tell me one more time that I didn't have leukemia? (Yes, I paid another co-pay just to hear him repeat these words.) Eventually I ended up in therapy and on medication for anxiety, because in actuality I was feeling crappy because I was experiencing the physical manifestations of my panic.
Flash-forward to 2005, and my lymph nodes swelled up again. Even though it hadn't been cancer the last time it happened, I was convinced that it was cancer this time. When I finally worked up the nerve to go to the doctor, it was revealed that I had a mild UTI for which I had no symptoms, but that my super immune system was fighting anyway. (Of course, none of this was revealed until after a nerve-wracking three weeks of medical tests.)
So now it's the present-day, and ... you guessed it, swollen glands again. And this time I told myself that I had two options: (1) wait for it to go away on its own, or (2) go to a doctor and find out where the infection was and get antibiotics. Instead, I picked Secret Option #3: Spend days and days obsessing over it and stewing in my own panic until I reached Panic Level 10, and then panic about it some more. And the thing about medical symptoms is, if you panic about them, they increase in frequency and severity.
But the thought of going to the doctor, and the waiting, OMG the waiting, kept me from making an appointment. As an aside, I also didn't so much have a regular doctor. There was a guy I went to several times, and who my husband still goes to, but he is a bit too much of an alarmist for my taste. He was the one who made me go through three weeks of tests to diagnose a UTI, a time during which the term leukocyte was bandied about. (A leukocyte, it turns out, is just a white blood cell, but damn if it doesn't sound scary, and especially when you ask the nurse on the phone what it means and she says she doesn't know.) Oh and this same doctor put my husband in the hospital overnight for a series of tests that ended up revealing a minor sinus infection. Alarmist Doctor + Hypochondriac Shannon = Bad Combination.
So I had decided no, no doctors. But this morning I woke up at Threat Level Midnight, which is what I call it when my entire body is seized with panic. ("Threat Level Midnight" is the name of the screenplay that Michael Scott wrote on The Office, not that I watch that show anymore.) Such a level of panic could not continue, lest I want to die from anxiety.
So I looked up providers on my insurance plan's website. And my heart was palpitating just looking up providers. I picked a medical practice that I'd seen advertised, which was located next to my dentist, and which I'd heard good things about.
I waited until 9:00 to make the appointment. I was nervous calling. And thankfully the receptionist was nice, because a rude, impatient receptionist can do me in. It's especially scary when I haven't been to that doctor before and I feel like I'm not yet a member of their club or something. Thankfully these guys are new in town, so probably a lot of people are new. And they could see me within the hour!
I showed up and didn't even get my forms filled out before I was in the exam room with the nurse. As a nervous patient, I feel like my best option is to explain to the entire medical staff that I'm freaking out that I have cancer, and they should probably watch their language carefully. (The nervousness also usually explains the abnormal results when they take my blood pressure and pulse.)
So ... my appointment was at 10:00, and the doctor came in by 10:05. (With the other guy, I usually had to wait an additional 30 minutes after being called back to the little room.) He said he noticed right away that I breathe through my mouth and that my nose is a little stuffed up. I told him that I wasn't stuffed up, but when he pinched one nostril with his finger and told me to breathe through the other, my breathing did make kind of a stuffy noise. He said that in addition my tonsils were really big, and all that plus the swollen neck glands points to allergies. Of course he had to add the whole doctor CYA, "But I can't be sure it isn't cancer until the labs come back," which I heard as, "It's probably cancer."
But he prescribed two allergy medications and an antibiotic. Then I was getting my coat on and he said, "Wait, stay here." I figured I was going to have to wait in there for the lab order sheet, but then a woman came in with a needle and vials for my blood. Right there in the office! I had never experienced such convenience.
Except the blood-drawing lady had trouble finding a vein, which never happens to me. And then she poked me and she said she was sure she was in the vein, and nothing was coming out. I started to freak out. What does this mean?! Do I have no blood?! And she wasn't even saying reassuring things like, "This happens sometimes, don't be alarmed." She just left in silence and then a short (scary) time later, a nurse came in to draw the blood.
So ... here we are. I honestly feel better after taking the antibiotics and the allergy meds, which I'm thinking has to be the placebo effect, right? And I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that the lab results come back tomorrow so I don't have to wait out the weekend. And I'm hoping that when they do call, they try my cell if I'm not home, rather than the typical doctor "leave a scary voicemail Friday afternoon at 5" approach. And mostly I'm hoping that I don't have cancer.
I know there are people who take a very relaxed approach to doctors and diagnostic testing. These are the people who will say, "Yeah, why don't you just talk to a doctor about that?" and don't realize that for some of us those are words that induce a panic attack. These are people who can see doctors as their partners in health maintenance, rather than Troubleshooters and Bearers of Bad News.
I will say, though, that I'm happy I found a new doctor, for future health concerns. I do feel one step closer to finding a partner in health maintenance. My old doctor seemed to take the approach of (1) initial short visit where tests are ordered, (2) tests, (3) follow-up where more tests might be ordered, (4) more tests, (5) inability to find out test results for weeks, and finally (6) appointment where he tells you he didn't find anything terminal, so just go ahead and go on with your life even if you do feel crappy. I felt like that doctor's role was just to rule out something deadly and then ignore you.
Today's doctor really seemed like he cared about maintenance of long-term minor ailments, such as allergies. And I will be able to find out about my Vitamin D level, which has long been a concern for me. That doctor felt accessible, not like every other doctor I've ever had where I felt like I was just a cog in some giant medical conglomerate, with the automated phone answering machines, and the "we'll call you back within 48 hours," and the waiting and waiting and waiting. At least today's doctor seemed like he cared.
So, I'll keep you guys updated on the results. Until then, I cling to the doctor's words: "If you never had leukemia before, you probably don't have it now."
Side note: Doctor fear is also the premise of the DVD Elmo Visits the Doctor. Elmo even sings a song about it: "As sick as Elmo feels/the doctor could be worse."
But the thing with Elmo is, he's afraid of getting a shot. I'm afraid of getting diagnosed with a terminal illness. And yes, I understand the irrationality of my thinking: it's not like the doctor is the one who gives you a terminal illness. You either have one or you don't. Going to a doctor neither increases nor decreases your chances of having a terminal illness. But if you don't go to a doctor, you might never have to face up to the possibility of a terminal illness.
Except, as soon as some random symptom starts, I'm pretty sure I have a terminal illness anyway. And I work myself into such a frenzy that the only cure is to go to a doctor and get the official clean bill of health. Seems simple and non-scary enough, right? Except, what about the IN-BETWEEN PART?! The part where I'm waiting for the test results? The part where the doctor gives you a list of every possible horrible thing you could have, and uses his professional CYA phrases/demeanor to make it clear that no, he is not going to give you a guarantee that it isn't cancer until the lab test shows it isn't. And then the doctor says, "We can't rule anything out until the bloodwork comes back." And I hear, "Shannon, you have cancer. Go home and get your affairs in order."
So then I worry while I wait for the results. And in modern medicine, there is so much waiting. First you wait for an available appointment, and then you wait in the waiting room and the exam room. Then there's a whole separate visit to a lab for the bloodwork, and you also wait there, and then you wait and wait and wait for the results. It's the waiting that's gonna kill me. (Elmo, incidentally, just got his diagnosis and prescription in a single office visit, then sang a song about how much better he felt. There was no waiting for Elmo.)
So, onto my specific medical situation, the one that prompted this post.
I first have to go back in time a little bit and explain my medical history. So, when I was 24, I got this random condition where my various lymph nodes got swollen and painful. Certain it was cancer, I Googled my symptoms (this was back in 2002, before I learned not to do that) and was pretty much convinced I had leukemia. And I went to the doctor, and what did he say? "It might be leukemia." Panic and tears and a blood test and 24 hours of paralyzing fear later, it turned out I did not have leukemia. But this incident set in motion a lifelong anxiety about medical conditions. In fact, I was so not convinced that the test ruled out leukemia (what if my results got mixed up with somebody elses? what if I just didn't have enough leukemia in my blood to show up on the results, but it's growing in my body right now?) that I went back to the doctor and told him I was still feeling horrible and could he please tell me one more time that I didn't have leukemia? (Yes, I paid another co-pay just to hear him repeat these words.) Eventually I ended up in therapy and on medication for anxiety, because in actuality I was feeling crappy because I was experiencing the physical manifestations of my panic.
Flash-forward to 2005, and my lymph nodes swelled up again. Even though it hadn't been cancer the last time it happened, I was convinced that it was cancer this time. When I finally worked up the nerve to go to the doctor, it was revealed that I had a mild UTI for which I had no symptoms, but that my super immune system was fighting anyway. (Of course, none of this was revealed until after a nerve-wracking three weeks of medical tests.)
So now it's the present-day, and ... you guessed it, swollen glands again. And this time I told myself that I had two options: (1) wait for it to go away on its own, or (2) go to a doctor and find out where the infection was and get antibiotics. Instead, I picked Secret Option #3: Spend days and days obsessing over it and stewing in my own panic until I reached Panic Level 10, and then panic about it some more. And the thing about medical symptoms is, if you panic about them, they increase in frequency and severity.
But the thought of going to the doctor, and the waiting, OMG the waiting, kept me from making an appointment. As an aside, I also didn't so much have a regular doctor. There was a guy I went to several times, and who my husband still goes to, but he is a bit too much of an alarmist for my taste. He was the one who made me go through three weeks of tests to diagnose a UTI, a time during which the term leukocyte was bandied about. (A leukocyte, it turns out, is just a white blood cell, but damn if it doesn't sound scary, and especially when you ask the nurse on the phone what it means and she says she doesn't know.) Oh and this same doctor put my husband in the hospital overnight for a series of tests that ended up revealing a minor sinus infection. Alarmist Doctor + Hypochondriac Shannon = Bad Combination.
So I had decided no, no doctors. But this morning I woke up at Threat Level Midnight, which is what I call it when my entire body is seized with panic. ("Threat Level Midnight" is the name of the screenplay that Michael Scott wrote on The Office, not that I watch that show anymore.) Such a level of panic could not continue, lest I want to die from anxiety.
So I looked up providers on my insurance plan's website. And my heart was palpitating just looking up providers. I picked a medical practice that I'd seen advertised, which was located next to my dentist, and which I'd heard good things about.
I waited until 9:00 to make the appointment. I was nervous calling. And thankfully the receptionist was nice, because a rude, impatient receptionist can do me in. It's especially scary when I haven't been to that doctor before and I feel like I'm not yet a member of their club or something. Thankfully these guys are new in town, so probably a lot of people are new. And they could see me within the hour!
I showed up and didn't even get my forms filled out before I was in the exam room with the nurse. As a nervous patient, I feel like my best option is to explain to the entire medical staff that I'm freaking out that I have cancer, and they should probably watch their language carefully. (The nervousness also usually explains the abnormal results when they take my blood pressure and pulse.)
So ... my appointment was at 10:00, and the doctor came in by 10:05. (With the other guy, I usually had to wait an additional 30 minutes after being called back to the little room.) He said he noticed right away that I breathe through my mouth and that my nose is a little stuffed up. I told him that I wasn't stuffed up, but when he pinched one nostril with his finger and told me to breathe through the other, my breathing did make kind of a stuffy noise. He said that in addition my tonsils were really big, and all that plus the swollen neck glands points to allergies. Of course he had to add the whole doctor CYA, "But I can't be sure it isn't cancer until the labs come back," which I heard as, "It's probably cancer."
But he prescribed two allergy medications and an antibiotic. Then I was getting my coat on and he said, "Wait, stay here." I figured I was going to have to wait in there for the lab order sheet, but then a woman came in with a needle and vials for my blood. Right there in the office! I had never experienced such convenience.
Except the blood-drawing lady had trouble finding a vein, which never happens to me. And then she poked me and she said she was sure she was in the vein, and nothing was coming out. I started to freak out. What does this mean?! Do I have no blood?! And she wasn't even saying reassuring things like, "This happens sometimes, don't be alarmed." She just left in silence and then a short (scary) time later, a nurse came in to draw the blood.
So ... here we are. I honestly feel better after taking the antibiotics and the allergy meds, which I'm thinking has to be the placebo effect, right? And I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that the lab results come back tomorrow so I don't have to wait out the weekend. And I'm hoping that when they do call, they try my cell if I'm not home, rather than the typical doctor "leave a scary voicemail Friday afternoon at 5" approach. And mostly I'm hoping that I don't have cancer.
I know there are people who take a very relaxed approach to doctors and diagnostic testing. These are the people who will say, "Yeah, why don't you just talk to a doctor about that?" and don't realize that for some of us those are words that induce a panic attack. These are people who can see doctors as their partners in health maintenance, rather than Troubleshooters and Bearers of Bad News.
I will say, though, that I'm happy I found a new doctor, for future health concerns. I do feel one step closer to finding a partner in health maintenance. My old doctor seemed to take the approach of (1) initial short visit where tests are ordered, (2) tests, (3) follow-up where more tests might be ordered, (4) more tests, (5) inability to find out test results for weeks, and finally (6) appointment where he tells you he didn't find anything terminal, so just go ahead and go on with your life even if you do feel crappy. I felt like that doctor's role was just to rule out something deadly and then ignore you.
Today's doctor really seemed like he cared about maintenance of long-term minor ailments, such as allergies. And I will be able to find out about my Vitamin D level, which has long been a concern for me. That doctor felt accessible, not like every other doctor I've ever had where I felt like I was just a cog in some giant medical conglomerate, with the automated phone answering machines, and the "we'll call you back within 48 hours," and the waiting and waiting and waiting. At least today's doctor seemed like he cared.
So, I'll keep you guys updated on the results. Until then, I cling to the doctor's words: "If you never had leukemia before, you probably don't have it now."
Random Non-News
I meant to post this yesterday, but I fell asleep at 8:00 p.m. while getting Nathan to bed.
First of all, I finally saw Sex and the City 2. You know when you have that movie that you attempt to see several times and it just never pans out? That's how it was with SATC2 for me. I meant to go see it several times in the theater, and various activities got in the way. Then for some reason it took forever for Netflix to get it to me. And last week they had it at the library, except I couldn't get it because it was on the "Hot Copies" shelf and I was already getting a book off that shelf, and you're only allowed to have one Hot Copy at a time.
So thankfully it came as my Netflix movie late last week. And you know what my assessment was? The Sex and the City franchise should have quit after the first movie. The first movie was like going to a high school reunion; it was fun to catch up with the characters who you came to know and love on the TV show. The second movie came two years later, and it was like, who cares what they're up to now? And the whole thing felt so dumb and cliched. Their outfits were suddenly too over-the-top. Their personalities were like unlikable caricatures. Like Samantha went from being your trampy friend to just being flat-out crass and disgusting. And as a nit-picky detail, Sarah Jessica Parker needs to have short hair now. I think maybe they kept the long waves to be sort of quintessentially Carrie, but she's too old and they make her face look ridiculously long.
The book I was getting from the Hot Copies shelf, the one that prevented me from getting the SATC2 DVD, was A Gate at the Stairs. And that was really disappointing. Maybe I'm just a really pathetic reader, but I don't like a book where 2/3 of the book could be cut out because it's just pointless description of feelings and scenery. Books need to be able to compete with the constant action of TV, movies, and the Internet. Page after page where nothing happens just doesn't cut it.
At the same time, I picked up a random library book called America + The Pill by Elaine Tyler May. I had forgotten about Elaine, but another book of hers got me out of a jam my first quarter of college when I proposed a 12-15 page paper about Cold War propaganda (along the lines of my favorite documentary in high school, Atomic Cafe) and then all I could find at the library was a random pamphlet from like 1952 that suggested that you might want to make sure to sweep out pine needles and other flammable materials from around your house in case of a nuclear bomb. (You know, because if nuclear war strikes, it's gonna be the pine needles that kill you.) Anyway, you can't write a 12-15 page paper based on a pamphlet, but thankfully I found Elaine Tyler May's book at a Borders and bought it.
Her current book, America + The Pill, is a retrospective about the various scientific and social implications of the birth control pill, written on the pill's 50th anniversary (in 2010). It's always good to read something non-fiction every once in awhile to make sure my brain is still functioning. And it brings together a bunch of facts I know from women's studies and from watching Mad Men, and also makes me feel like I'm part of a very significant historical every night when I swallow my pill.
But sometimes you need something lighter, so I'm grateful that Young Adult book Matched has come in for me at the library! This book was a recommendation from SuperIma Leigh Ann, and if it's half as good as Hunger Games I'll be happy. You know what's the best about YA books? You can read them really quickly and feel so accomplished.
Speaking of YA books, I was thinking about how excited I was as a kid when I got a new Baby-Sitters Club book. I was thinking about how I never get that excited about any particular book in my adult life. I mean I like to read as much as I did as a kid, it's just ... could somebody please recommend a book I could get as excited about as I was about Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #3? (Which, I just looked up on Amazon, because no, I did not know the exact title of Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #3 off the top of my head. Turns out, it's Baby-Sitters' Winter Vacation.)
In non-book news, I have decided to do individual personal training when my partner training with Amy runs out. I'm feeling guilty about the financial extravagance of this, because in actuality I can just lift weights on my own. But I had to lift weights on my own for the last three weeks due to scheduling issues with Amy and the trainer (vacations and whatnot), and I really like it better when the trainer tortures me than when I torture myself. Because really, I torture myself a lot worse than the trainer tortures me. And I try to do all this stuff without a break, and then I'm sweating and exhausted. So, I am switching over to 30-minute individual sessions, and this may be on top of sessions with another partner as well, but the thing is it's not like my payment on the individual sessions ever expires.
Weight Watchers ... did not go as well this week. I only lost 0.4 pounds. To be honest, I was a very bad eater this week. At one point I went to Culver's for a medium Crazy for Cookie Dough concrete around 9 p.m. because Nathan's bedtime stressed me out so badly. (For California peeps: Culver's is a frozen custard place, like ice cream only fattier. And a concrete is sort of the equivalent of a blizzard at the Dairy Queen.)
Oh and over the weekend Katie and I are seeing Hair, and they better get naked!
First of all, I finally saw Sex and the City 2. You know when you have that movie that you attempt to see several times and it just never pans out? That's how it was with SATC2 for me. I meant to go see it several times in the theater, and various activities got in the way. Then for some reason it took forever for Netflix to get it to me. And last week they had it at the library, except I couldn't get it because it was on the "Hot Copies" shelf and I was already getting a book off that shelf, and you're only allowed to have one Hot Copy at a time.
So thankfully it came as my Netflix movie late last week. And you know what my assessment was? The Sex and the City franchise should have quit after the first movie. The first movie was like going to a high school reunion; it was fun to catch up with the characters who you came to know and love on the TV show. The second movie came two years later, and it was like, who cares what they're up to now? And the whole thing felt so dumb and cliched. Their outfits were suddenly too over-the-top. Their personalities were like unlikable caricatures. Like Samantha went from being your trampy friend to just being flat-out crass and disgusting. And as a nit-picky detail, Sarah Jessica Parker needs to have short hair now. I think maybe they kept the long waves to be sort of quintessentially Carrie, but she's too old and they make her face look ridiculously long.
The book I was getting from the Hot Copies shelf, the one that prevented me from getting the SATC2 DVD, was A Gate at the Stairs. And that was really disappointing. Maybe I'm just a really pathetic reader, but I don't like a book where 2/3 of the book could be cut out because it's just pointless description of feelings and scenery. Books need to be able to compete with the constant action of TV, movies, and the Internet. Page after page where nothing happens just doesn't cut it.
At the same time, I picked up a random library book called America + The Pill by Elaine Tyler May. I had forgotten about Elaine, but another book of hers got me out of a jam my first quarter of college when I proposed a 12-15 page paper about Cold War propaganda (along the lines of my favorite documentary in high school, Atomic Cafe) and then all I could find at the library was a random pamphlet from like 1952 that suggested that you might want to make sure to sweep out pine needles and other flammable materials from around your house in case of a nuclear bomb. (You know, because if nuclear war strikes, it's gonna be the pine needles that kill you.) Anyway, you can't write a 12-15 page paper based on a pamphlet, but thankfully I found Elaine Tyler May's book at a Borders and bought it.
Her current book, America + The Pill, is a retrospective about the various scientific and social implications of the birth control pill, written on the pill's 50th anniversary (in 2010). It's always good to read something non-fiction every once in awhile to make sure my brain is still functioning. And it brings together a bunch of facts I know from women's studies and from watching Mad Men, and also makes me feel like I'm part of a very significant historical every night when I swallow my pill.
But sometimes you need something lighter, so I'm grateful that Young Adult book Matched has come in for me at the library! This book was a recommendation from SuperIma Leigh Ann, and if it's half as good as Hunger Games I'll be happy. You know what's the best about YA books? You can read them really quickly and feel so accomplished.
Speaking of YA books, I was thinking about how excited I was as a kid when I got a new Baby-Sitters Club book. I was thinking about how I never get that excited about any particular book in my adult life. I mean I like to read as much as I did as a kid, it's just ... could somebody please recommend a book I could get as excited about as I was about Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #3? (Which, I just looked up on Amazon, because no, I did not know the exact title of Baby-Sitters Club Super Special #3 off the top of my head. Turns out, it's Baby-Sitters' Winter Vacation.)
In non-book news, I have decided to do individual personal training when my partner training with Amy runs out. I'm feeling guilty about the financial extravagance of this, because in actuality I can just lift weights on my own. But I had to lift weights on my own for the last three weeks due to scheduling issues with Amy and the trainer (vacations and whatnot), and I really like it better when the trainer tortures me than when I torture myself. Because really, I torture myself a lot worse than the trainer tortures me. And I try to do all this stuff without a break, and then I'm sweating and exhausted. So, I am switching over to 30-minute individual sessions, and this may be on top of sessions with another partner as well, but the thing is it's not like my payment on the individual sessions ever expires.
Weight Watchers ... did not go as well this week. I only lost 0.4 pounds. To be honest, I was a very bad eater this week. At one point I went to Culver's for a medium Crazy for Cookie Dough concrete around 9 p.m. because Nathan's bedtime stressed me out so badly. (For California peeps: Culver's is a frozen custard place, like ice cream only fattier. And a concrete is sort of the equivalent of a blizzard at the Dairy Queen.)
Oh and over the weekend Katie and I are seeing Hair, and they better get naked!
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