The process of trying to "get normal" is such a long one.  Since I posted in June, I've been through several different medication trials finding something that will calm me while still providing me with the initiative and motivation to Get Things Done.  In the past, I've had problems with terrible tension in my shoulders, arms, jaw - whole body, in fact.  I had racing, repetitive thoughts, irritability, volatility.  It was a struggle every day to react quietly to things that bothered me, and afterwards, I would just obsess about it.

When my incident happened in May, the psychiatrist placed me on Paxil.  That helped a great deal to calm me; however, I've had problems for years with music in my head playing over and over again, interfering with my thought processes.  The Paxil did nothing for that.  She added Trilofon, which did nothing but space me out.  She tried Zyprexa at night; it helped me go to sleep, but did nothing for my auditory hallucinations.  Now I'm trying something completely diferent:  Effexor.  This is a whole seperate journey - I'm just starting it, and I have a horrible time getting to sleep at night.  Then once I go to sleep, I sleep lightly.  I have heartburn and nausea.  They tell me that all this will go away in time, but right now, it's miserable.  I've been drawing a great deal of support from www.dr-bob.org where he has a "psycho-babble" chat board.  In the meantime, though, it's nice being able to go about my business during the day without pushing myself.  If something comes up that I need to do, I just do it.

I'm ashamed to say I still smoke.  In December, I honestly thought I was done, but that episode of severe depression kicked my butt.  I don't sit around and make excuses for myself - I made the decision to start again, and haven't been in the frame of mind yet to quit.  My diabetes still presents a challenge.  My last HgA1c was 8.6, sharply higher than the previous three months.  I'm on my second endocrinologist, since my initial one suddenly left practice.  Dr. Snitzer is an amazing guy, very knowledgeable, and I trust his judgements.  However, I'm still self-adjusting my basal rates on the pump.  My sugars run so high during the day, even when I don't eat anything.  I'm considering asking him if it would be ok to once again do a trial of metformin to slow down my liver's production of glucose.

In other news..... I still love my wife.  My wife still loves her dog.  This does not mean I love the dog.  My wife still loves me - I'm so glad because I'm not very lovable sometimes.  But neither is the dog.  Andrew is a senior this year - he continually talks of quitting school which is causing us some stress.  He no longer takes his medications, and we can't make him.  So we go from day to day with him, something different every day.  As long as he's not violent or abusive to his mother, I can handle it, I suppose, but I still perform mental gymnastics every day to keep myself calm about it.

Thanks to everyone for your support.