So a little progress report on my weaning off my anti depressants:

I’m down to 20 mg of celexa from 40 mg.  I started down by 30 for a few weeks and just started on 20 mgs the end of last week.

There hasn’t been an overwhelming amount of withdrawals yet and I can only imagine that is because I’m still taking a significant amount of the drug.  I will admit to being more emotional lately for no apparent reason but that would happen a lot with my full dose of the meds.  When I feel the rage start to come in (that’s what it feels like, is just pure rage followed by tears because I cry when I’m frustrated) I am trying to stop and ask myself if the feeling is justified or not.  If it isn’t I try to chill out, if it is I let myself feel it and get it out.

For example, last night I couldn’t get an app on my phone link up to my twitter account.  Instead of looking up the information on how to do it properly I just kept trying the same thing over and over again knowing full well it wasn’t working until I wanted to huck the damn phone across the room and then chase after it and stomp it to death.

Instead I asked myself if it was really that big of a deal to get the app to work at 8:30 at night when I didn’t even know when I would use it again?  No, probably not.  So I put the phone aside for a half an hour and when I came back to it I realized exactly what I had to do and fixed it in a few minutes.

On the other side of the coin there was this morning.  I left my house at my usual time only to find four white construction trucks blocking the one lane, dead end street that I live on.  The drivers were all standing outside their trucks and they all just stared at me, I swear for a full minute, not knowing what to do.  Are you kidding me??  I pointed in the direction behind them and they slowly started moving.  One got into a truck and moved it a millimeter before getting out and seeing if the additional room he gave me in the one foot space I had to get my car through helped any.  Then another one got in another truck and did the same thing.  This went on for at least ten minutes before one of my neighbors came out and actually had to start directing them and then me through the tiny space that they were able to free up, literally just leaving an inch on either side to get my car through.  All of this insanity made me late for work.

In this instance, I did think my anger and the tears that followed were worth it, so I let myself cry on the way to work.  I let it out and then I was fine.

Basically I’m feeling a little less than good, but it seems manageable.  I’m going to stay at 20 mg for a while just to let my body get used to it and then I will cut it to 10 and finally wean off altogether.  I’m looking forward to no longer being dependent on a pill to determine my mood…I just hope it works.

As long as I can remember I have been on antidepressants.  It’s been so long I don’t even remember the order of them but in the past I’ve been on Prozac, Zoloft, Welbutrin and am currently on Celexa.  I’ve been on Celexa since before I met Rob so at least fourteen years.  At some point, I just accepted the fact that I will be on them for the rest of my life.

I ran out of my Celexa on Tuesday night, meaning I took my last pill around five on Tuesday.  My intention was to stop at the Pharmacy and pick up my refill on the way home from visiting friends Wednesday night therefore I would only miss a couple hours in between doses.  Well, I had car trouble that stopped the visit and the stop at the pharmacy.  It wasn’t really the thing on my mind after the check engine light went on in my car and it was having trouble shifting(whole other entry right there).

So this morning I got to work and thought of taking my pill, remembering I was out.  I evaluated how I felt during the morning and didn’t feel too bad.  Nothing out of the ordinary so I got to thinking.  What if I just stopped taking it, see what happened?  The worst that could happen is I get out of control with my anger and emotions and then go back on it.  I’m not exactly a fan of taking a chemical every day to make myself feel better and half the time it didn’t work anyway!

Recently I had started taking a vitamin regimen and was feeling pretty good because of it.  It’s a long story but I think I had a vitamin B deficiency and am working on getting that back up to speed.  Vitamin B deficiency can cause all the symptoms that I started taking anti depressants for in the first place.   So I though with my new vitamin program making me feel better, maybe it’s time to ditch the prescription.

So on my morning break I researched going cold turkey off celexa and the results were less than favorable–especially if you take the maximum dosage, which I have forever.  The preferred method is to taper off the dosage slowly until you are at the smallest dosage and then quit it.   There will still be withdrawals but they won’t be nearly as severe.

Well, the fact that there are severe withdrawals to not taking this drug was reason enough for me to want to stop taking it.  It never occurred to me that this could happen because I take my pill every day and have only missed about a day maximum in between doses.

So tonight I picked up my scrip and took my 40 mg dose.  Starting tomorrow I’m going to take 30 mg for a while and eventually cut down to 10 and then off.  It’s time to see how my mind and body will react to the real world without chemical protection.  I may not like it and my husband may eventually beg me to get back on it for his sake, but I’ve got to try.

I’ll keep you posted.

If you care to read, this is the blog entry I found that convinced me I wanted to wean off the drug.

And this was the article that told me not to do it cold turkey

Our dogs don’t fart.  We’ve never heard them or smelled them in all the years we’ve been dog owners.  I’ve always thought it a little odd because I’ve known dogs that just let them loose and man do they stink!  But our dogs, nary a peep or a smell.

I guess it stands to reason because they are on a pretty steady diet of quality dog food.  They don’t get table scraps other than the occasional Cheeze It or whatever that falls on the floor.  Good quality in, good quality out I guess.

Shilo gets a lot of dog treats when she’s at Rob’s work all day with him.  There are certain co workers that Rob gives a box of dog treats here and there because they like to feed her and try and get her to do tricks and the like.  It helps her socialize and gives Rob a little break to bring her around to get said treats.

I just found out that they tried a new brand of treats for her.  I was sitting here at the laptop on the couch checking facebook as I tend to do when I get home from work and all was quiet in the house.  Shilo was chillin on her dog bed on the opposite and of the couch when I heard the tiniest little toot.  Rob was outside and Pappy was in the bedroom so I knew they weren’t the guilty parties.  I looked over at Shilo and she had this look of shock on her face before she leaned down and sniffed her own butt looking very disgusted at what she smelled.

I fell out laughing.  The whole thing was just priceless!

Needless to say those dog treats are going in the garbage.  🙂

Yesterday marked the paying off of our second to last credit card.  That’s right, only one left and that is looking to be paid off before the end of the year.

I know I’ve touched on this before but I just have to talk about it again today.  Maybe because bookstores are becoming a thing of the past and it has become the norm to have your nose buried in an electronic device now but…

In a time long ago, in a land far away.  Long before Kindles and Nooks and even Barnes and Nobles…there was The Library.

You go in and you tell them a little about yourself and they give you this little card.  It doesn’t seem like much but this little card is the gateway to a world of fun, knowledge and amazement.

We recently joined Amazon Prime.  With the subscription comes some perks and one of them is streaming video like Netflix.  Using that perk, I watched the movie Hunger Games and really fell in love with it.  Learning there was a sequel in the making I discovered that using Amazon Prime you could get one free Kindle download a month so I downloaded the second book Catching Fire and ate it up within a week.

I finished the book last night and since I’m not ready to download another book to my kindle yet, I thought about the library I had visited so often in the past.  Before I got caught up with theater and marathons.  I called them today and they had the third and final book in stock.  Given that the Library is a mile from my house and the closest bookstore is probably more like fifty, it was really convenient to stop on the way home and pick up the copy of Mockingjay.

When I got home, I held the book in my hands and marveled at it.

I truly appreciate technology.  I love that I can contact my best friend at a moments notice while on the road in another state.  I love that social networks can keep me in touch with family that lives 3000 miles away.  And I adore the fact that no matter where I am I can download a movie or book to my phone or Kindle.

Having said that, there is nothing quite like holding an actual book in your hand.  Turning the pages and reading off the thick creamy paper.  Reading through sickness or insomnia without ever having to worry about the battery dying or anything malfunctioning.  And maybe just falling asleep with your head near the book and never having to worry about radioactive activity leeching into your brain.

When you are a kid, birthdays are the shit. I mean you count down the days starting seven months ahead because you get to be the center of attention, you get cake and you get gifts! Why wouldn’t it be?
As a teenager you are counting the years til something something important happens. Thirteen means you are officially a teenager. The sweet sixteen means you can get your drivers license and of course 18 means your an adult and can vote. For those of us that didn’t already have fake id’s, 21 means you can buy booze and hit the bars.
After that you start to lose sight of things to look forward to. After 30 most people aren’t looking forward to the milestones of 40 or 50 and the black over the hill balloons that will probably find their way into your celebration.
I can’t remember the last time I had a birthday party. After a while it just didn’t seem important. It seems that as a “grown up” when you spout off about your birthday people see it as a desperate bid for attention. At exactly what age did that happen?
Why is it socially acceptable to shout from the rooftops that your birthday is coming up when you are five but 30 years later it’s not as cute? I’m still celebrating the day I was born. I’m still another year older. I can just no longer count the years one hand…or two for that matter.
If anything I should be celebrating that I’m another year wiser. That I managed to make it this far without completely destroying myself *knocks wood*.
Today I turned 39. After that it’s the big Four Oh. Remember when that was just ancient? It doesn’t seem that long ago.
I’ve come a LONG way from the confused angsty teenager and the rebel in her early 20’s. I’m approaching middle age but look at what I’ve accomplished. As a jaded 20 something I never thought I would get married because “all men are dogs”. Now I will be celebrating 13 years of marriage to a wonderful man this August. I’ve gone from wondering if I would ever be able to afford to move out of my mothers house to being fairly financially comfortable. I’ve gone from an insecure child/teen who always wanted to just be liked to an adult with a wonderful group of friends and family that support me in whatever I do.  I went from a child/teen that only ever dreamed of being a singer and or actress while knowing it could never happen to a woman that might not be famous, but is living out her childhood dream on a stage in Monterey.
So maybe instead of dreading those black balloons, wrinkles and gray hairs to come, maybe it’s time to look at them as achievements.

Okay enough of that…Here’s a recap of my Birthday!
This Saturday is Rob’s dad’s birthday so last night we had a combined dinner out in Watsonville at a place called CHOP’S near the airport. Great dinner and great company. Rob’s sister brought us the most decadent cake I’ve ever had. It was chocolate cake with a caramel filling on the bottom layer and two other chocolate fillings. Plus chocolate frosting and chocolate ganache on top. SOOOOOO GOOOD!!!!!

This morning I got to work and my Paula had bought me the most yummiest breakfast that I wolfed down in no time flat.  Michaelle had made me cupcakes and gave me this super awesome mousepad that had a picture of my doggies on it.(forgot to bring it home, will take a pic tomorrow)

Rob took me out to lunch at the Golden Tee restaurant at the airport.  We split a bowl of clam chowder with a basket of bread and then got the Snicker’s Pie for desert.  Heaven!!

He also gave me the present he got me, which was the most awesome present in all of the awesome world of presents!!

We got home and Rob revealed one last gift.  Another Amazon wishlist gem from my friend Koly.

And as I sat down to write this blog I got the best gift of all.  The one I get every night when I sit down to check my email or facebook.

The gift of Puppy kisses:

Have you ever been in pain for so long that you don’t even realize it anymore. You recognize that you are grumpy and emotional and don’t understand why.
For the last month I have been unable to breathe through my nose off and on. More on than off. I just kind of accepted it as a fact of life. I’m not sick. I’m not sneezing and my throat feels fine *knocks wood*. It never turns into anything other than feeling like someone has stuffed my nasal passages with cotton. My lips are completely chapped since I have become a mouth breather but that’s about it. I blow my nose and nothing comes out. It’s just plugged…there is no excessive mucus, it’s just swollen nasal passages.
The not being able to breathe is an obvious symptom, not something I can easily ignore but I was managing okay I think. The eating with my mouth open part was kind of gross but hey, what can you do?
The one thing that I didn’t really notice any longer was the sinus headache. I mean, I noticed it. It’s hard to ignore the pinching feeling under my eyes and the sensation that someone is constantly pushing in the front of my face, but I guess I just became accustomed to it.
At the same time I was wondering why I’m so cranky. I feel miserable and can’t quite pinpoint why. Sure, work is crazy and all but my attitude is making it even worse. I am snapping at people for no reason and even if I’m not doing it in person I’m thinking really rotten thoughts about people with no provocation of theirs. It had gotten to the point where I couldn’t stand living in my own brain. If I were one of my friends I sure as shit wouldn’t want to hang out with me right now. If I’m not snarky and bitchy then I’m emotional and crying for no reason. I’m surprised that Rob hasn’t sent me to a hotel until I get my shit together.
This morning I woke up and felt refreshed. It was a feeling I couldn’t quite place…oh wait. I felt GOOD! I was breathing through my nose! My head no longer felt like it was made of cotton candy! Whoa wait, is this what NORMAL feels like?
I got into work and I wasn’t ready to kill anyone.
I had forgotten what it was like to feel human.
I’m still a little congested and my nose is actually running and the mucus is breaking up. Ironically I’m probably getting sick and will feel worse before I get better but it’s given me hope.
I’m not just becoming a horrible person! I can recover from this! 🙂

What a fun weekend!
First, I would like to happily report that my finger infection never got that bad.  The blood poisoning only made it up to my wrist and has already receded.
This is the first time that I have had this infection where it didn’t at least spread to my elbow.
The key was catching it super early this time, and not waiting to lance it.  I lanced it that very night when I got home and though there wasn’t much to drain out of it other than blood it gave me an opening to directly apply the peroxide and neosporin.
Sort of gives me hope that if I can always catch it that early maybe the days of urgent care and IV antibiotics are over.  🙂

Saturday was a very busy day for us but a good one.
Once a year, one of the vendors that Rob works with in San Francisco likes to invite us out for a nice lunch.  We usually split the distance and do it in the San Jose area.
This year we decided to meet up with another vendor that Rob used to work with that lives in the San Jose area and also visit his old roommate from college that lives in Newark.
Kind of a whirlwind trip and I wasn’t really looking forward to a whole day on the road but it ended up being a really fun trip.
We met Laurie(the vendor that Rob used to work with) in Campbell at a little Mexican place that she raved about.  I had met her once years ago when her son was playing in a band and we made the trek out to see them play.
We introduced her to the pups while waiting for the place to open at ten.
Given that we were having breakfast, lunch and dinner in relatively close time frames Rob and I had already previously discussed getting one dish and splitting it.
Laurie recommended the steak and eggs so we got that and it turned out fantastic.  Steak, over medium eggs, fried potatoes and beans with two warm fresh flour tortillas on the side.

Steak and Eggs!

It was the perfect amount of food when split between two people.  We ate and talked quite a bit.  I’m afraid Laurie and I dominated the conversation when the topic came to movies and I found out she was a Stephanie Plum fan.  Poor Rob got to experience what it sounds like when two rabid Janet Evanovich fans get together and discuss the series.
We ended up chatting so long we had to book it over to our next restaurant to meet Ming and Brian for lunch.
We met at a place called (name of place here).  It was in a strip mall but it was a pretty fancy Vietnamese place in Milpitas.

Salad

Neither Rob or I had ever had Vietnamese food so we left the ordering in the hands of Brian.  He started us off with what was called something like the 7 levels of Beef or something like that.  It was basically 7 courses of beef prepared and

cooked in various different ways.  The first course was a salad that I was sure I was going to hate but it turned out pretty tasty!

The second was rice paper, veggies, broth fondue and these little beef medallions that you cook in the fondue and then

Beef Rice Paper Roll Up thingies

assemble everything on the rice paper, wrap it up and eat it.  Also pretty good.

I forgot to take the pic before we tore this up.

Then there were these little beef long type things, three different kinds so that was three different courses that all arrived at once along with a sort of meatloaf cupcake. So that made a total of six beef courses so far.

In addition to the beef thing, Brian had also ordered some Vietnamese egg rolls, two Vietnamese Crepes and the catfish which I guess was their

My Favorite, the Crepe

specialty.  The egg rolls and crepes came out with the beef courses. While

the egg rolls were yummy the crepes were by far my favorite. A little bit of

Gigantic Catfish

meat and a lot of veggies inside this crispy shell.  Mmmmm!
The catfish came next and holy crap that thing was giant!  We all had multiple helpings and barely got into a third of it.
The final beef course capped off the meal with some nice beef

Beef Porridge

porridge.  It wasn’t my favorite but it was still good.
To say that we were full by the end of the lunch would be an understatement!
We all walked(slowly what with being weighed down with all that food) back to our car where the guys got to meet Pappy.  They had met Shilo the year before and just like the year before they came bearing dog treats for our spoiled little pups.  🙂
While we were at lunch Rudy had texted Rob suggesting we head over to his place after lunch and they can go to the Mexican store down the road and have some BBQ later that night.

Food was the last thing on my mind but I don’t think I had seen Rudy or Jade in at least a year and a half if not two years so I was eager to see them and their two boys and see how much they had grown.
We headed over there and unloaded the pups.  Their youngest son Dominic was immediately all over Pappy.  He had met him before both at our house and when we had brought them over to the house a couple of other occasions.  In fact we still have the two drawings that he did on our fridge.  One was of Pappy and the other was of our old dog Romie that has since passed.
This was the family’s first introduction to Shilo.  When we brought her in from the car she started going nuts, having no traction on the hardwood floor she was like Bambi on ice. She’d been in her crate for quite a while so she just wanted to run but we had her on the leash so it was like she was treading water on the floor.
Dominic took one look at her, then looked at me and said “Is she mean?”
I said no.
He nodded and said: “So she’s just crazy.”
I said “Yeah, pretty much.”  Hehe.  Kids!
We had an enjoyable afternoon/evening.

Pappy giving Logan kisses

Jade and Logan petting Pappy

Dominic and Pappy

Dominic playing some tunes

It turns out that Dominic had taken up guitar so he played us some tunes while his older brother Logan enjoyed Pappy’s company.

New BFFs!

The guys went off to see about gathering dinner so Jade and I settled in watching a really bad chick flick and chatting while Dominic planted himself in a chair with Pappy and just petted him.  He LOVES Pappy and wants a dog so badly but his parents aren’t sold on the idea.  It was just so cute to watch him just stare at Pappy and pet him, whispering to him: “Your fur is so soft!”  Adorable!
The boys came back with a boatload of food.  Everything to make burritos and then some.  I was still kinda full from lunch but when Rudy fired up the BBQ and I got a whiff of the carne asada I managed to choke down a burrito.  🙂
Around 7:30 all the food and excitement of the day caught up to us and my eyes started closing.  Rudy and Jade sent us packing with a 5 hour energy drink for Rob to keep him awake on the ride home.
Dominic had a hard time saying goodbye to Pappy and had to do it three separate times.  Adorable!

On Sunday I had big plans to go grocery shopping and get all kinds of ingredients so I could start my new project of making my own frozen dinners.
I woke up early and couldn’t get back to sleep despite being really tired from the big day prior.  The last thing I wanted to do was drag my butt into Mid Valley to the tiny Safeway let alone all the way into Carmel to the big Safeway that would actually have the ingredients I was looking for.
After perusing the pantry and fridge I made the executive(lazy) decision that I would wait one more week to start my project and just eat out of what we had on hand.  We had plenty of things, just not the stuff that I wanted to make.  We had lots of convenience foods like Lipton side noodles and rice packets.  Pasta and canned marinara.  We could make it through the week eating very generically.
A little while later I stumbled across this website where you can input all the ingredients that you have in your kitchen and it will spit out all the recipes you can make based on what you have already!  Brilliant!!!
So I was actually able to start my new project after all.
Of course most of the recipes were not low cal/low fat but any recipe can be slimmed down by just changing up the ingredients and/or substituting for the low fat version.
So yesterday I ended up whipping up three different meals that I then plated up and froze a partial amount of the portions.  All while Rob was napping.   I was pretty proud of myself.

So this morning started much like any morning.  I was a bit more tired than usual because we didn’t get out of the rehearsal for Old Ringers until like nine thirty or so, but I can deal with that.

Showered and felt a bit of a sensation in my right middle finger.  No, not just that I wanted to flip someone off!

If you follow me and my blog at all you will know that usually means trouble.  I have had it happen before and mean nothing, but most times it means that I am in big trouble.

I’m too lazy to actually look in my archives for this so let me just give you a BRIEF recap:

Ever since I was like 20 years old I get an infection in my finger that flairs up about once or twice a year.  I have been admitted to the hospital for it several times.  I have had it biopsied, flushed out and for all other purposes examined but no one can tell me how to stop it.

When I get it, it spreads very fast.  It goes from a spot on my finger to blood poisoning that travels up my arm in the span of hours.  If I can’t nip it in the bud I usually wind up on IV antibiotics in the hospital or urgent care, because I am that cool.

It’s NOT FUN!

Anyhoo,  REALLY long story short, this morning, I called my doc who knew my history and she said she would call in my prescription for the antibiotic.

Three hours and FIVE phone calls later the prescription finally got called in and I was able to pick it up on my lunch hour.

The first dose is in me and I was able to lance it a little when I got home but really if the past is anything considering, I will have blood poisoning up to my wrist at the least when I wake up.

I’m so sick of this shit.

This was honestly the first time I was able to catch it at first *sense* so I hope that tomorrow will be better, but history tells me the blood poisoning will be up to my wrist when I wake up.

Meh.

I guess it has been going on two weeks now that I have been unable to shake a headache. It started with just a headache…like I was getting sick but the sickness never materialized. This week the headache progressed to a neck ache. A full on throbbing at the base of my skull radiating down through my neck. The only way I could describe it was that it felt like my head was too heavy for my neck.
When it started I thought that maybe my eyes were finally going bad on me because it usually worsened by the end of the work day when I’d been staring at the computer screen for 8 hours. It continued through the weekend though not as bad so I figured I was getting sick.
Now I’m chalking it up to a bad alignment in my neck. It makes sense because it gets bad when I tense up those muscles. Yesterday someone came up behind my cube and startled me and I was in agony.
It also throbbed after I did a very tiny jog down the hallway yesterday. And it was extremely painful after I was stressing over a phone call for a callback on my last audition.
I’ve been surviving my days with a heading pad around my neck and Advil kicks it back to a very mild annoying pain, but after two weeks of it I am getting a little crazy.
I now have new sympathy for those who suffer from chronic migraines. I can’t even imagine. I’ve cried at some point every day for the last three days and have been an absolute bitch, snapping at people for no reason.
I have an appointment with my chiropractor tonight after work so of course it feels better today.
The only thing that I have done different is I have my hair up in a ponytail currently…so that made me wonder if my hair is getting too heavy for my head. It is down to my waist now but it’s very thin so I dismissed that. What I am not doing as a result of my hair being up is tossing my head around to get the hair out of my face and off my shoulders which brings me back to the alignment.
I guess I’ll find out tonight.