Uncategorizable because I don’t really know what sort of heading to use, or where to file them, or how to respond or react or what to do, really. Sometimes things happen and I guess reactions are deferred or just fail to trigger, because it’s either far enough outside the comfort-zone so as to be a bit un-processable, or gets lost somewhere between being startled and denial. Or, maybe I’m just a bad person and don’t know how to deal with stuff.

Anyhow, in the last month or so, my dad was diagnosed with cancer, but from the sound of it, they’ve found it early enough. There’s a lot of questions still. He’s going to have surgery to remove it, but first he might have chemo to shrink it, then radiation later. Or maybe there’ll be radiation first, and chemo after. Or maybe radiation and chemo first, and surgery later. As I said, lots of questions, particularily what’s and when’s.

Today they installed a valve in his arm so that they can plug the chemo in. I think they call it a pic line or a stint or something like that. 18 inches of tube though, they snaked in through a vein in his arm, leaving a little valve thingy on the outside. So he has that, but doesn’t know if they’re actually going to start the chemo this week, next week, come summertime, or whatever.

My dad seems fairly calm, but I’d like to have some of the whens and whats filled in.

The other wierdness is that my aunt has seemingly disappeared. She lives in BC so it’s not like we see her or speak with her too frequently, but from what I understand, she has vanished and been missing for several days now. My dad called the RCMP out in BC to ask them to start looking into the situation, but they have decided that she isn’t really missing.

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Ring ring ring ring ring ring ring ring – Tinitus!

Ok, it’s not as catchy as the Bananaphone song… but I’ve got a wicked case of the Ringing Dizzies this morning.

Doesn’t make sense though, I’ve been taking my meds like a good girl, I got into a new routine that helps me not forget. Except over the last few days it’s like they’ve just totally stopped working. Or maybe they were secretly replaced with sugar pills or something. It’s like the codeine last week, it was great the first day, then it just stopped having any effect.

Aside from the intense dizziness and ringing in my ears, the depression has come back hard recently. Things I enjoyed doing last week have lost their appeal. Food I liked to eat is now bland and uninspiring. I can’t sleep. My motivation and what little energy I had, has drained away. The only thing that hasn’t faded or dulled is pain.

Pain where my last wisdom tooth was recently removed. Headaches. Back pain. Pain is the only constant. To steal a line from HHGTTG, “I hurt, therefore I am.”

For now I’m still going through the motions. Trying to do things that were fun, desperately hoping to find some of the enjoyment that was there before. Eating because of hunger, but hoping that it will taste good or be enjoyable. It doesn’t work though, whatever I try, food, activities, etc. just leaves me tired and disappointed. I just want to lay down somewhere dark and quiet.. like a wounded animal, let me hide just undisturbed for a while, and I’ll either get better and re-emerge, or I won’t.

Unfocused pretty much describes me right now. Unable to focus. Focus-free. Not blurry, just… unfocused.

I’m supposed to be working. All weekend. Household chores and office work. Like every other weekend, I write up a checklist so I know what I need to do, and check each thing off as I go.

This weekend though… kaput. Nada. Nothing.

Yesterday, instead of accomplishing the eleven tasks I had on my list, I achieved only two. The rest of the day was spent sleeping, or resting, or just staring into space.

Maybe it’s the season? Monday is the winter solstace. Shortest day, longest night, darkest dark. So this weekend we’re pretty close to that. Not much light. Maybe it’s just that I’m tired out and need to catch up on my zzzzzzs.

Or maybe I’m shutting down – when the stress and pressure get to be too much, I sieze up and go off-line. Some stress and pressure is good, up to a point it helps me function, but past that point things begin to fail quickly.

Also, I’ve just got around to increasing the dosage on my meds, that the doctor RXed last month, so that might be contributing.

I don’t know.

Whatever it is, all I do know is that another day goes by, it’s another day closer to the various deadlines, and one less day I have to achieve what needs to be done.

They tell me Friday is a holiday. Long weekends are good – it’s a chance to get more work done, get caught up a bit.

Meh.

Roughly speaking, more or less, it’s been about a year since I started taking my mind-altering drugs – a year of cryptospam.

Originally I was just taking one of these a day. Then after a couple months, it went up to two a day. Two a day seemed good, worked well for several months. By well, I mean, you know, stable, steady.

Then lately, like end of October / beginning of November, I started having wild mood swings. One day I’d be up, bouncing off the walls, everything was cool. Then the next day or two or twelve, I’d be down, really morose, wondering what was the point of anything.

It was pretty messed up.

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I’m not much of a fighter. I believe in what I think is right, but I detest conflict of any kind. Often, I find it easier to just go along with things rather than put up a show of resistance.

The cryptospam has been fighting the darkness for me, but lately its been losing the battles, like its getting tired, or the darkness is getting stronger.

I try and distract myself quite a bit, with snails, cameras, pointless blather. It works more or less, but is definately just a temporary measure. No matter what, at the end of the day, night always falls. And then all that’s left is to wait and hope that dawn will come again.

Sometimes though, I wonder if fighting is the answer. If it might not be better to just embrace the darkness and despair, take it, hold it, own it, make it mine. Then maybe I’d be in control of it, rather than running from it or hiding from it. Though that sounds like a scary journey, and I don’t know if I’m up for it.

Still, doing nothing doesn’t seem like a good choice either. Things are feeling less real, different. My skin doesn’t feel like my skin any more. My hair feels fake. My eyes look different.

Logically I ‘know’ that the more-likely explanation is the only thing that is changing is my perception, but perception guides experience and vice versa. Right or wrong, if you can’t trust your senses, then you no longer know what’s real.

I don’t know what to do about it all.

It’s been about ten or eleven months since I started taking the cryptospam pills to combat depression. If I remember to take them every day like I’m supposed to, then things are moderately ok. Nominally.

Remembering to take them on schedule is the tricky part. Memories add up and play tricks. I remember taking them, but am I remembering yesterday’s memory or today’s? Or have I just visualized taking them with enough clarity to think I actually did it?

Of course, after a day or two of uncertainty, if I’ve forgotten then it gets very obvious, what with the dizzy spells, lack of focus, discombobulation, heebie jeebies, and general befuddlement.

Wierdly, and this is appearantly not uncommon among anti-depressants, one of the potential side-effects is more depression. And another potential side-effect is suicidal thoughts. Now, when I read that, I thought it was kind of a crazy ass thing to be giving depressed people. Like, if you were taking medicine for your heart, would you want it to list ‘heart attack’ as a possible side-effect? It’s counter-intuitive. Almost like they slip that in there just to mess with those of us who have to read everything infront of us. (That’s probably another whole episode there – about the compulsive reading thing.)

Anyhow, with the funky side-effect thing – it’s not just a joke they put in the fine print, it’s appearantly serious enough for doctors to mention it when they perscribe it at first, like if you get this to contact them at once. I wasn’t too worried about it because I like to think I’m pretty self-aware. Even if I can’t always react or control things, I’m at least congizant of them, you know? Or maybe I just believe I can. Either way, it works out.

It was wierd though – back during the first few weeks on the cryptospam, sure enough I started getting these thoughts and visions of hanging. There’s lots of big sturdy trees in my backyard and I’d think about which were the best ones for fixing ropes to. Some parts of my house are really well-built and I’d think about if there were some good solid joists or whatever they call the structural things, that would be a good place for a rope. It wasn’t so much like actively plotting, more like an idle or passive thought. Like daydreaming, when you just let your mind wander. Mine would wander to ropes and places to attach them.

Although I did realize it was probably due to the drugs, it still kind of freaked me out, because normally my idle-visions / daydreams are about getting shot. I don’t really like the thought of hanging, it was strange and unfamiliar.

So eventually, after a few weeks when the majority of the side-effects were going away and I was getting used to the drugs, the hanging thoughts went away and the getting-shot thoughts returned. So things have been fairly normal in that department ever since.

It’s funny, how suddenly things can change course. The cryptospam wasn’t working, wine wasn’t helping, and in the last few days even things like my hobbies (photography, snails, etc) had very suddenly lost their interest. Then Pow! things are all different. What was the catalyst? What kicked in? I bought a notebook. No not the computer kind, an actual notebook / notepad. 250 pages, lined both sides. And some pens, don’t forget the pens.

A pad and some pens, in and of themselves, are of course quite meaningless and banal. It’s what they represent, that is key. A clean, fresh, brand-new notepad and some brand-new pens, are symbolic for the start of a brand-new project. A project big and important enough to merit its very own notebook.

Now, lately work has not got me excited whatsoever. And this is not surprising, as lately work has just been the same old drudgery and toil. Bang the rocks together. Make big rocks into little rocks. Metaphorically speaking, of course. There is little to be excited about, in administration, tech support, maintenance, same-old day-in day-out grind.

Projects though, projects are big-time. Well, big projects are, anyways. Projects big enough to get their own notebook are super-big-time!

As projects go, this one doesn’t even have any guarantee of pay – it’s all speculative. But money doesn’t matter – I mean, money is nice and all, but it’s not a goal, just a means. This project has actually been bouncing around for several months, but it was not fully concieved, it was not ready. Now it is. Now it has a real deadline and schedule and meetings and it’s important. So, I got my notebook, I got some pens, and I started writing. The first page, a checklist of what needs to be done. First page off the top of my head, the start. What do I need to do right now, and when does it need to be done by?

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single trip to Staples to get a new notebook.

And some pens.

Don’t forget the pens.