I finish what I started - with a cat in my lap

Okay... Now that I'm home and have nobody telling what I should do...

I had my first therapist appointment yesterday. I was originally supposed to see a lady named Sharron. When I showed up, she said "Hi. This is Andrew. We'll be transferring you to his caseload." Great. A guy who is 6' and has broad shoulders. The body type that I have trouble being around. If you know what I'm talking about, you'll know. And if not, I have a problem trusting large males. Take it at face value.

So, after talking to him for a bit, he's not bad. But true trust will come with time. Dealing through this may actually help me work with my body-type issues. Maybe. We'll see.

Other than it being emotionally exhausting, it was relativity uneventful.

I think that's it for now. Since I can't think of anything more, I guess I'll quite.

Stairs, Stairs, and more Stairs

Out of shear curiosity (this seems to be a reason I do a lot of things) I actually have counted the number of stairs I walk each day. 108 into and out of Granding Station. 81 into and out of University station (I walk the escilators, I'm sure if I was to actually take the stairs they have hidden in the back, the number would be so much higher) and 54 into and out of the building that I work in. So let me grab this fancy calculator I have here... and 243 stairs to work and 243 stairs home (give or take on how the escilators go) which means.... 486 stairs a day. That's disgusting. Don't anybody tell me that I don't get a work out. Remember that I also walk 9 blocks each way in between doing all those stairs.

On to more important news: The fact that I don't have a radio in my new office (or any speakers hooked up to this ancient computer that I'm sitting at) is driving me crazy. It is therefore my mission to acquire a small clockradio this weekend. This is something that I meant to do the entire time I was with the government but never got around to. I just want to listen to Garner in the morning. I miss it. This morning would have featured "Tradio". :( Soon, so very soon. *says she with the peaked taping fingers and a very coniving look on her face*

Okay, on to actually important news: I had my first councilling appointment yesterday. I will have to finish this later. I'm at work after all.

Still looking for my readers names

Hi all, again,

I would like to know who is reading my blog. Please leave all comments in ENGLISH. As of yet I speak no other languages, other than I've made it my mission to learn German. Slowly. Nick is going to help me mostly because he can pronounce it well. Then when we go to Germany...

Names please

Hi all who read,
I know I have some readers who are not my close friends. I don't mind. Not at all. Please read. And I hope that my journey through bipolar is going to help you through yours.
All comments are welcome. But please leave a name and maybe a short synopsis of yourself and how you came to read my blog. Mostly I'm curious about who is reading and why. If you have a blog of your own, please leave the link. I would like to read about other peoples journeys through life.

If you are bipolar, I would highly recommend this process. There has been many times where I wasn't able to reach out to people but my close friends read my blog and contact me. Its a very good process.

Smiles
Mel

The weird knee thing continues

So my knee drained Sunday morning (I believe that is the last time that I wrote. Guess I should have checked before starting this. Oh well).
By dinner time Sunday evening, it was swollen so bad again that I could barely put weight on it. At the insistence of my mother-inlaw, Nick took me to see a doctor. Waiting in the waiting room (it's about all you get to do there) at the Emergency department at the Grey Nuns, I felt what is becoming an all too familiar *Pop* *Tingle*. My leg drained. Sure, right before I get to see the doctor. Great. Now what is he going to check.
So they take me into their fast track. It's now contained in a tent in the ambulance bay. And it's disgustingly cold. You're kidding, right? Not quite.
So I saw the doctor. A little Chinese guy who spoke good English but was completely unhelpful. Something about it being superficial and take Advil and put a heat pack on it. Thanks Doc. Now why is this happening? What's causing it? What can I do to make it stop happening? No answer. You could almost hear the owls hoot. Then he explains to me why its not a deep tissue clot. Duh my calf doesn't hurt and I can flex my foot just fine. I never described either of those symptoms. Or did I just miss it. So he walks away to the next person in there that wants his attention. Did I just see a you-wasted-my-precious-time look on his face.
The conclusion: My knee is still swelling up and draining after hours of pain; I'm carrying a hot heart to work with me every day; I will only go to the UofA hospital from now on. They employ quacks everywhere else.
And the best part, he suggested I stay off of it as much as possible. Duh, it hurts like a Banachy. The commute to work doesn't help. Six blocks to the train station; 4 flights of stairs down; take the train; 5 flights of stairs up; 3 blocks across campus including a walk down a hill; 3 flights of stair up to the office. Do the whole process in reverse on the way home. I may be wrong on the number of stairs but if you count a flight as 10 stairs, then I'm only wrong by underestimating. Off of my knee I shall stay.

The wierd knee thing

I woke up yesterday morning with a sore knee. And it just kept getting worse all day! It seriously, honestly felt like I smacked my knee cap hard enough that I may have fractured it. So I limped around for the day. The first time I really looked at it (yeah, probably the first thing most people do when the have pain) was last night at about 2 AM after we got back from Jenn and Owen's. And low and behold, my knee was swollen and I had the major vein that runs around the inside edge of the knee cap just plum full of blood. I tried rubbing up the vein to try and convince it to drain but no dice. That blood wasn't going anywhere. But we were tired so I figured I would deal with it in the morning. After a night of sleeping very gingerly and Nick trying to stay away from me, I woke up and it was still not draining! What the hell. I was so seriously scared. My first thoughts: "What if it's a blockage?" "What if the vessel has collapsed?" Was I ever scared. Both cases involve surgery. And it wasn't that long ago that I was last put under and cut open. So I got up and started moving around thinking if I have to go to the hospital, I want breakfast first. When I first moved, it hurt so bad! Probably a 5 or 6 on a scale of 1-10. I was praying to those unnamed gods again. Promising that if this went okay, I would take so much better care of myself. I climbed up on the bed to get Nick to have a look at it and there was a weird tingly sensation that went up my leg and by the time I got my pj pant leg up over my knee, it had drained! All at once. It's a miracle!!!

So now I owe those unknown gods something. I guess I'm on a diet and am going to have to pick up the slack on the exercising. Let's all make a deal. Since there are now 3 of us on confirmed diets, lets try to keep supper club as a healthy affair.

My other plans of action.

• I'm going to do my own baking and I'm going to try splenda. This is probably better for me than store bought baking. It'll probably taste better too.
• I'm going to eat more fruit
• I'm going to watch the portion sizes
• And I'm going to restart on 6am yoga (yuck)
• I may also try to convince my Mom (since we practically work together now) that we should start walking at lunch. Let's hope its a really mild winter if we're going to be doing that.
• And I'm so looking forward to our pole dancing class. Woo Hoo
• I may also get some cardio type videos so I have some variety from the yoga. I saw a really cool hula dancing one. That may be fun.
  

Point is, that was scary and I made promises. Let's hope I can hold my end of the bargain up. Wish me luck!

Mood Swings and new news

Yesterday was a day. I really don't know what else to call it. I've been mostly stable lately. The weird dreams started again Saturday or Sunday night. I haven't got much sleep since then. The last 2 nights have been completely useless.

Yesterday, I woke up feeling pretty good. It was one of those mornings where you wake up knowing that its going to be a really long day. I wasn't doing bad at work. Mostly I was busy. I had a doctors appointment at 4:30. At about 3 I could feel things start to slip. My mood was dropping fast. My doctor walked into the room and asked how I was. I said "Its a day". She said that I looked pretty sad. While taking the bus home, I was starting to hit the nearly-not-functional portion of depression. Its so hard just to function far enough to not randomly break down while out in public when I'm feeling like that. I walked in the door. I said Hi to Nick and the tears started to well up in my eyes. I couldn't hold them back any longer. Nick finds it very distressing when I start to cry for no reason. And although I was able to hold up the better part of a conversation, tears just kept rolling down my face. I don't entirely understand.

Today, woke up feeling not entirely terribly bad. But today could go either way. Either I'll improve drastically. Or I'll be not functional by the time I get home. Hopefully it's quiet enough at the office today that i can get some english homework done because I may not be in any condition to do any this evening.

The news: We're upping my drugs. Now 250mg per day
The old news: Tomorrow is my last day with the government. Monday I start with the university of Alberta.
News that yet is to happen: My first councilling appointment is next Wednesday

Birthday loot

Yah. I'm now officially 24. I thought that I should brag about the great loot I scored and the great people who gave it to me.

From Mom and Dad - A leather jacket. Unfortunately I had to return it because the zipper was pulling out. Now I'm hunting for a new one. I have shopping to do. I may have to wait until they go on serious sale on boxing day. We'll see

From Nick - a Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer! Woo Hoo. I've already used it to make cookies. And I've aquired some small cookie sheets from Mark's collection of random things. This helped with the cookie making.

From Jocelyn - A beautiful photo frame. Complete with custom done photos. Including 2 photos of the kids.

Woo Hoo for birthdays

From

The Conclusion of the saga of the tea pot lids (and square cake pan)

It was too wierd. We could find the tea pot lids or the square cake pan. We had both seen both items. We swore that we had put them away in the cupboards. Turns out we had seen them but had misplaced the memory of where and thought it was the cupboard. Turns out they were still in boxes. We felt stupid and then celebrated their glorious return with a pot of tea.

The story of the missing tea pot lids

That title sums it up. We went on vacation and when we came home we noticed that we are missing the lids from two tea pots. Its very strange because we both recall seeing them in the cupboard on their appropriate pot not too long before leaving town. And neither of us remember moving them.

And then last night, I couldn't locate my square baking pan. And we searched every cupboard in the kitchen.

I called Jocelyn and she said that there wasn't anything strange happening around the house while we were gone.

This is all in all too weird! Did anybody else possibly misplace these items? Or have noticed them around my house?

Vacation

So I guess I should write at least a small post about my vacation. I warn you, it's going to be short. I don't really feel like writing this today.

It was an amazing trip. Next time we do it, I would like to go with our friends.

The one thing I would change is I would not drive too and from Sicamous in one day. That's right. We drove for over 9 hours twice during our trip. It's just too long to be sitting in a car.
The other thing I wouldn't do is take Nick's Dad's car. It's the only car I have ever seen that can actually slow down while going down hill if you take your foot off the gas. It has absolutely no guts. To get it to gain any speed after it reached 90km/h, you had to force it up to 5000rpm. And then it sounded like it was going to blow up. Poor Car.

We all left Sunday morning. From Edmonton to Revelstoke. Nick drove most of this way. Monday morning we drove from Revelstoke to Sicamous. This was a short trip. We were in Sicamous at 9AM. Turns out we didn't need to be there till about noon. I hate being forced to waste time when you really can't wonder too far.

And then it was onto the houseboat. Ship of Dreams. Its a good name for a houseboat.
3 nights on private beaches (1 on a public party beach - we had to be back at the dock for 9:30 and so had to park closer which means a public beach). 2 days with +30 weather. I even managed to tan my legs a little bit. And I was clever enough not to burn anything else.

Swimming and eating was most of the activity. I even got conned into jumping off the top of the houseboat. An 8 year old with big blue eyes made me feel weak because she had been doing it all morning and she said she would do it with me. How could I say no to that?

And then it was the long drive home. Nick's cousins, who we were car pooling with wanted to be back for Friday night. We left Sicamous about noon on Friday and I will never drive that again without stopping for the day. It's too long. Me and nick left most of the driving to his cousins because we wanted to stop and weren't going to bust ourselves so that they could get back to the city that night. But I did drive the Rogers Pass (Revelstoke to Golden). Woot me. That licence is so close I can taste it.

Another big exciting mention. On the way home, a fairly large buck jumped out on the road in front of us on the David Thompson. I say it enter the ditch before it even hit the road. Luckily Nick's cousin, who was driving at the time, hit the brake hard before he even saw the animal just because I said "deer, deer, deer". When you hear it, brake first, ask questions later.

If you want a visual idea, http://www.twinanchors.com/vacation/houseboat/ccii-floorplan.php