Mouse in the Library

(Posting this here as well as on Facebook, and, with some slight edits, also on Tumblr.)

As an aside, this is the first time I've inserted images into an LJ post, so please let me know if it exploded all over your feed.



So, a few months short of a year ago, I was officially diagnosed with, among other things, Bipolar Type 2. elialshadowpine had been talking with me about the strong likelyhood of this for . .. a lot longer. Mostly trying to get me to stop closing my eyes, covering my ears, and singing very loudly in an attempt to ignore the whole thing.

Bipolar is a scary word to hear pointed at you. There's all these preconceived notions of what it means, mostly centering around what people think the 'manic' swing looks like. Even amongst mental health professionals.

( Which makes getting diagnosed when you don't present with 'classic' mania really difficult.>”> < a target=Collapse )

Scouring the net for a copy of the CD 'Tempus Fugitives' and finding, at best, a german filk shop that charges . . . a *lot* to ship to the US. Grrrrr. Still trying to track down the song 'Harbors' (And the children born this morning/May already be too old) Also still trying to find the original album 'Chickasaw Mountain'.

-thuds-

At least I've managed to find a place selling 'Cold Iron' and 'Folk Songs for Solar Sailors' in CD format, because eesh. I swear, tracking down old filk is worse than treasure hunting.

Took him in to put him to sleep; he was in pain and struggling to breathe, and still trying to be close to Louis. Louis is, understandably, pretty much a complete wreck right now.

I will always remember Stavan as the silver tabby with the Siameese meow that jumped into laps and onto chairbacks, and demanded pettings loudly and with headbuttings during boss-fights, and his habit of curling up on my back to keep my company in sleep, or how he'd wrap himself around Louis' pillow and head, and the way he'd glue himself to Louis whenever Louis wasn't feeling well.

Physical therapy (in the pool, thank fuck) starts today. Monday was spent getting a swimsuit, which had my body *loudly* reminding me why I'm *getting* physical therapy. There was also a lot of ranting about swimsuits that fit and do not hide things like my *body*, since I'm going with the assumption that if my sister's ballet teachers needed to see how their students were moving/using their muscles, PT folks will *definitely* need to see them. Also, it's my personal experience that anything that requires my neck to take the brunt my breast weight will result in rather nasty neck pain, so that lead to an entire rack of halter tops I had to ignore. Anything that was fastened by tying into pretty bows was also out, because personal experience is also that shoelaces are the only things that stay tied once you start serious physical activity.

On the plus side, I geeked out with some other ladies in the changing rooms about comics for a good 15 minutes, so hey! Social interaction with relative strangers that didn't leave me freaking out!

On the down side, we also had to get tampons for today, which tend to lead to really *nasty* cramping for me, so that's gonna make the post-therapy exhaustion and achey-ness I've already been told to expect all sorts of fun.

Eegh.

Paxil has been added to the 'do not take' pile, on account of side-effects that were really terrifyingly close to stroke symptoms. I mean, we're talking full on weakness and near inability to use my right side, slurred speech, difficulty putting words together, all that good stuff. Going off of it, even at the incredibly low dosage that I was on, is shaping up to be all kinds of fun. Physical effects stopped within 36 hours of not taking it; it's the mental shit that comes with stopping any psych med that's hitting me now.

So, once that's all cleared, it's on to whatever's next in line to throw at the anxiety and severe menstrual mood swings. Let's hear it for the mental medication merry-go-round!.

Whee.

Somewhere between the ages of 12 and 14, I picked a book titled Lords and Ladies by one Terry Prachett out of my mom's carry-on luggage, and spent the flight back to the US sucked in to the point of having to be forcibly removed from the pages when the food cart came around. The Bromeliad trilogy was next, follwed by Men at Arms, and then I just sat my ass down and started reading through everything my parents had, and then went tot he library to check out a copy of The Carpet People.

New Pratchett books were an Event in my parent's house. Dad usually manged to read them first, because he hid the damned things, and then it was a race to see who get get hold of the book next. Usually there were at least two people reading the same book, which tended to result in a lot of sneaky 3 AM reading.

There is so much I want to say about Sir Prachett, about how I learned some really Important Shit from his books, how there are scenes from them that I will describe to people (Vimes catching the bolt, Granny choosing the real one in the endless mirrors, the listing of the dead-that-didn't-die, Twoflower's 'He killed your mother') the list goes on, and that's not even getting into lines that I quote (so far, the top contender there is, "Either All Days Are Holy, Or None Are", followed closely by, "WHAT CAN THE HARVEST HOPE FOR, IF NOT THE CARE OF THE REAPER MAN?") or the concepts so neatly and at times terrifyingly (the fucking AUDITORS, good gods) wrapped up in complex and instantly understandable ways . . . there's so much I want to say.

And right now, the only thing I can think is that I kinda hope he had a sugar cube in his pocket for Binky.

And it's fairly short, too.

Apartment mostly settled into. Small apartment, but hey. Doc visits set up and waiting on referrals for a lot of stuff. My psych meds have been changed, and my blood pressure RX has been (finally!) refilled. So I'm adjusting to a new med and going back on an old med that I was out of for about three months. Both of them involve light-headedness and dizzy spells during the adjustment period.

Those of you that haven't gotten your donation thingies yet, I have a list and am working my way down it. -waves hooks and needles-

Tomorrow, another friend is getting here with *their* worldly goods, moving into the same apartment complex from somewhere in MI. Tomorrow will be filled with boxes and cold drinks.

I really will give a longer update later, but for a fast endnote here - Mental and physical health already showing drastic signs of improvement.

So. The house. The house is a deathtrap of collapsing floors, rotting studs, leaky ceilings, thick black fuzzy growth, no central heating . . . I could go on in this vein for a while.

The state of West Virginia. We barely missed the official 'do not use' water from the spill. We live in between Huntington and Charelston, the two cities named most miserable in the US by a recent Gallup poll.

The job market. Not capable of supporting us paying rent, which was why we've been living in a place that doesn't have it.

The state of us. Three of us have mental and/or physical issues rendering us incapable of jobs. The local mental health options for the poverty stricken are . . . well, I talked about changing my medication and got told it would mean automatic drug testing first, and then mandatory random drug testing after. That's when I'm listened to.

We are therefore moving our asses out of here, across the country, to Washington state. Why there? Well, for starters, we have Family out there. And friends. And the minimum wage is higher there. And the unemployemnt is lower. And it's liberal. And the area we're looking at has only a slightly higher COL than here. And the water's safe to drink.

Really, it's that last one that drives it home.

This is going to take us shredding every resource we have available. And it's still going to be . . . yeah.

Halp?

Originally posted by louisadkins at Your Attention, Please?

We're not in the area affected by the chemical spill, though one city on the far eastern side of our county is.

But yeah, having the phrase 'non-toxic' applied to something when the officials are listing symptoms like 'non-stop vomiting'? Fucking hell.

-wobbles in and carefully places uterus on counter-

I'll be back for that later. Preferably when it's done misbehaving.