To blog or not to blah, blah, blah...

Though I love to write, I've never been able to "journal".

Without an audience to write for, I don't seem to be able to get close to the truth. You'd think it would be the other way around, but I can only be really honest when I have at least a theoretical audience. Journaling seems pointless to me.

On the other hand, while my site counter reminds me that the whole world doesn't have me bookmarked, there are some things that seem inappropriate to write about publicly. What happened to my daughter over the past month is one of them. I have no right to bare her experiences to the world.

And yet...there's a line--a very thin one--and I'd like to try to find it, difficult as that may be.

Many people in the world, including both me and my daughter, have emotional illnesses or disabilities. Mental illness carries a heavy stigma, and while psychiatric disorders know no class, they tend to disable and impoverish individuals, and so they are associated with homelessness, lack of cleanliness, lack of intelligence, etc., etc., etc. That's why those who have high-level careers hide them. But until everyone can hold his or her head up high and declare that they have a psychiatric disability in the same way they might mention they're an insulin-dependent diabetic--without shame--that's not going to change.

But I didn't start this post to give a lecture on stigma. I just wanted to say that my daughter's been through a very tough time, and I wasn't doing very well myself this past month. The sh-t fairy dropped by, and a whole bunch of stresses happened at the same time, and now I'm trying to recover. I've started using the SAD (seasonal affective disorder) light in the morning (click here to learn about SAD and light therapy). It seems to help. The stresses have lightened as well (all cars are running and my daughter seems to understand what she needs to do to get better). I finally had my appointment with an endocrinologist, and he's started me on insulin. He gave me a choice--that or one of the old oral diabetes meds, which I think are very bad drugs--so I picked insulin. The needles are tiny and very thin, and the insulin (12 units of Lantus long-acting) is not irritating, so it's no big deal. I've given myself three injections so far, and I barely felt them.

I'm supposed to go up on the dose 2-4 units every several days until I see better control than I have now. (It's nice when a doctor treats you like you have a brain.) I'll wait a week the first time, to allow the blood level to stabilize, then probably go up four, since I'm hardly seeing any change at all after three shots. The endocrinologist also seemed to think I was on too high a dose of Metformin. He ordered kidney tests, which my oncologist does frequently anyway, but I have the feeling he might suggest at some point substituting more insulin for the Metformin. Perfectly fine with me. I hate taking all the pills I have to take.

Well, if you've gotten this far, bless you. And may the Red Sox continue to play, all the way to the world series. If you'd like to read something about baseball, instead of all the crap I've been posting tonight, click here. And if Terry Francona happens to read this blog, I'd just like to say: I hope for your sake that all that bright pink gum is sugarless. Otherwise--wow. Some dentist is going to get rich on you.

Oh! One more thing I almost forgot. I got two blue ribbons and two red ribbons for my photos at the Portland Fair. Of course, everyone else got either a blue or a red as well. I mentioned that to the nice lady who chairs the photo exhibit committee, and she said, "Yes! We really got a lot of good photos this year". It's kind of like every kid getting to be student of the month, even if he farts at the teacher and spits in your lunchbox. Those ribbons must be one of those "inalienable rights" our Declaration of Independence so aptly described. Anyway, I won $18. So I guess it was all worth it. Plus I have four Christmas gifts ready now.

Have a wonderful Monday!

Ripely,
May