medication, therapy, & web graphics (today’s miscellanous thoughts)

 

irst and foremost, let it be known that I have a new favorite graphics website. Clipart etc is a free site that includes a massive quantity of old-fashioned graphics, many taken from old books, etc. There are also sister-sites with powerpoint presentation & website backgrounds and maps. Very cool stuff, accompanied by a very friendly usage license for educators and students. I am suspicious that we will end up using this website for non-educational purposes. After all, who wouldn’t want to add a 16th century map of Scandinavia to their collection? (And yes, I am a big nerd, in case you didn’t know already). My blanket acknowledgement…. I will use their graphics as I can, I love having my blog look like a book from the middle ages. If there is no credit given to a particular old-looking black & white graphic on my blog, it’s from Clipart etc.

 

econd, I am pleased to announce that I tapered off of Lexapro over the past 2 weeks, and have not taken any in 48 hours. Unfortunately I am still experiencing SSRI discontinuation syndrome (AKA withdrawal), despite the fact that I took a tiny 10mg dose for a bare 3-4 months and reduced my dosage 2.5 milligrams every three days. If this is what it’s like to stop after such a short period of time, I hope that I never have to take it again. Today’s fun is dizziness and brain zaps. I don’t know when these symptoms will stop, but it’s still worth it to be rid of the side effects I experienced while taking Lexapro.

hird, I had my last appointment with Talky-Shrink last week. We didn’t quit therapy because I’m completely cured or no longer require additional support. It’s because she is a resident, and her year of training in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) ended at the end of the “school” year on June 30. It’s sometimes possible for residents to keep patients on their caseload after their training period ends, and Talky-Shrink tried to do that with me because we knew that I have recently been doing quite well and wouldn’t require too much more therapy. Unfortunately her supervisor disagreed, decreed that she needed practice with terminating the therapist-patient relationship, and issued the ultimatium that he wouldn’t continue to supervise her unless she terminated with me. Naturally I didn’t want her to have to find a new supervisor, so we terminated.

Just in case I do need help in the coming year (entirely possible, given the stress involved in the academic job search), my med-shrink has agreed to provide supportive therapy on an “as needed” basis. This sounds like a good plan to me, despite med-shrink’s overall weirdness. Med-shrink is also a resident, and is 1 year ahead of talky-shrink in their program. Med-shrink and talky-shrink share the same supervisor. Strangely, however, the supervisor allowed med-shrink to keep me on her caseload because med-shrink is “still learning from me.” I’m not quite sure what that means, other than med-shrink enjoys having me on her caseload. Apparently I’m a good patient because I come to appointments on time, am pleasant in interactions, take my medication as directed, and call her when I’m experiencing medication problems. This really makes me wonder what her other patients are like…

anticipate a change in medication dosage soon, incidentally. I’m having gaps in coverage during the day. I’m also spending a lot of time focusing on the wrong things, like blogging and decorating my blog with fancy capitol letters. Not a good use of time, even if it is stress-relieving!

last day at work before the wedding

It’s my last day at work before I depart for the wedding. Notice I wrote “at work” and not “working,” because I’m not actually doing that so much lately. Oh well. Good thing my boss is at a conference overseas, and I doubt anybody will “tell” on me once I get back because they’re all slacking too!

In essence, my office has become the place where I drop my bag while I run to an appointment (e.g., shrink for med management), or while I’m on the way to purchase something else we need (e..g, makeup from the pharmacy down the street, or wedding presents from the shop around the corner). I’m not actually getting any work done here.

Lately I’ve been rolling in closer to 10 and escaping closer to 4, if not earlier. I’ve been gone before 3.30 for the last two days in a row. I left around 2 on Tuesday because I had a list of shopping that required I drive out to a mall 16 miles from the house. I left at 3 on Wednesday because I had a major tension headache from clenching my teeth. I think this was the result of Tuesday’s shopping trip (plus overall stress plus ritalin); I brought home 4 bags and the contents of 3 of them will go back to the stores tonight or tomorrow morning. I had a massage this morning. Aside from the fact that my therapist looked like she’d spent some time in prison, it was enjoyable. It helped but not nearly enough. I still feel somewhat relaxed but also a little sleepy and just…weird. I can honestly say that my back muscle spasms are the worst they have ever been, and consequently I now have a membership at our local Massage Envy franchise. Amazingly, with a membership, it’s cheaper to go there than it was at the rec center at Big Rural Alma Mater.

I’m stressed now about family stuff: I just realized this morning that my mom & grandma, brother & friend, dad, grandpa, uncle and uncle’s uninvited girlfriend will arrive within 6 hours of each other. Mom & grandma land at 7.30, brother 3 & his travel friend land at 9.30, and dad, grandpa, uncle & girlfriend will arrive at 11.30. Hubby, Brother 2 & his fiance will all arrive the next day. Although this does not sound like a problem, anybody familiar with the history of planning this wedding will know why I’m alarmed (there are too many posts about the wedding to add individual links, so it’s better just to look at posts with the “weddings” tag). In a nutshell, I’m not sure it’s such a great idea to try to put all these people in the same room together, WITHOUT my hubby along to help me keep everything in perspective. Keep in mind that I will be staying at my mom-in-law’s house, with her and Hubby’s brother 2, and that the three of us will be the only non-jetlagged people in this equation. Not a pretty picture, huh? At least if things get bad I can retreat to hubby’s old bedroom and hide under the duvet. Or I could just escape (thank SCIENCE I know sufficient Danish and enough of København to get around by myself), although that would be truly cruel to my sweet mom- and bro-in-law.

Trying to destress….trying really hard to destress… in a little over a week, it will all be over, and life can get back to normal.

so tired….

I am just so tired ever since coming back from lunch. Some co-workers and I thought it would be a good idea to enjoy lunch and <gasp> the sun while sitting outside in a plaza near our office. I had a good time, ate a little too much, and came back soooooo tired.

I have been crunching numbers ever since then, which really doesn’t help with my afternoon sleepiness. Since June 1, I have spent 8 days working on a paper revision. Today I reanalyzed the data for the fourth time this month. The only difference between this revision and the last few? 4 fewer cases were included in the dataset. Need I even state for the record that these are the types of assignments that set my teeth on edge, that make me want to scream out of frustration? I don’t even want to think about how many times I’d analyzed and re-analyzed these data prior to the initial submission. Let’s just leave it as this paper has started to take over my life, and I’m just the third author on the paper!!!

I’m printing reams of output as I type this entry, and have 2 more models to tweak tonight before I can go home. Needless to say, I will have to bring the paper file and the aforementioned bundle of results home with me to finish over the weekend, because that’s the only way this is going to get done in time for our resubmission deadline.

In my few free moments, I submitted a paper for review and did attrition analyses for another paper. Alas, in the attrition analyses, I found that our study dropouts differ from the analytic sample in some predictable ways (e.g., dropouts were less likely to live with both of their biological parents at ages 13-14; dropouts were less likely to have ever cohabited or married by age 21 than retained cases). The implication is that our analytic sample is a mixed bag — they are probably risker than “the norm” (whatever that means) in some ways but less risky in others.

My printer has finished its aerobic churning, so it’s back to the model-fitting drawing board for me!

Have a nice weekend, everyone!

bowing to Derek

Last week, I was distracted while making dinner and cut my thumb while slicing a cucumber. I  cut 1/8″ into my thumbnail and nail bed. It hurt, and I bled a little.  Almost a week later, the nail bed seems to have healed, and only a pinhead-sized “scab” is left under the nail, which is still hanging and keeps catching on my hair, kitchen towels, etc. This is very annoying and somewhat worrisome, as I don’t want to lose a big chunk o’nail right before a photographer will be taking photos of our hands.

Last night, my hubby talked to our friend Derek. It turns out that earlier last week, he’d also accidentally injured his hand while replacing his kitchen floor. However, he did this with a band saw, not a small serrated kitchen knife. Alas, he cut down to the bone from the tip to 1st knuckle on one of his fingers. In typical low-key fashion for Derek, he didn’t panic and went outside to see if he needed help. One of the contractor’s saw his hand and exclaimed about it being a bad injury and needing medical attention. So off Derek went to his local ER. A measly 8 hours later, he had some stitches, and hopefully some pain medication.

Derek, if I wore a hat, I would doff it in your honor. As I do not wear a hat, I will blog-bow to you instead. Here I was whining about having to visit a salon to get my nail repaired by a nail tech, and you’re off getting your hand repaired by a medical doctor. I’m very glad that you kept all your fingers, and hope that this incident doesn’t ruin your enjoyment of your new kitchen floor!