I've Been Too Long At The Fair...

I wish. Of all things I enjoy doing one of the top things on my list is going to the State Fair. It is one of those things that Carol and I both enjoy. We don't care about the rides but we love to go through all the buildings... Seeing all things from quilts, woodcarvings, photographs, butter sculpture, all sorts of crafts and foods... pies, cakes, cookies, canned goods, on to cut flowers, veggies of all sorts entered and hoping for best of show ribbons and recognition from their peers.

We like to look at all the things the school kids make, create, draw, paint and, again, cook and enter for perusal and judgement feeling their excitement emanating from their works or perhaps that's just my over-active imagination and recall from back in the olden days when I would enter poster drawing contests in grade school and be so excited, especially when news would come back that I'd won a ribbon... recognition for my creative abilities.

We also enjoy sampling a variety of "fair foods"... We both have our favorites and what we usually do is buy something, share it, wander and look some more, buy another food, share it and wander on to the next thing... for sure we always end up with a funnel cake, usually taking it to the car as we leave to munch on as we drive home.

This year none of the above happened. We would like for it to have happened, I mean we aren't getting any younger you know, but due to financial problems (van troubles that needed repair) and my feeling lousy and having doctor bills to pay... We didn't go to the fair.

But I digress... I've been too long from my blog. As I had shared with you all I have been having a hard time dealing with depression. I went to my GI on Sept. 13th for my appointment. My liver enzymes were still off, including another one that hadn't been up before. I've really got my doc scratching his head now. I told him that I really was not trying to be his difficult patient and he said if this keeps up I'm going to end up at the Liver Center at Mercy or Baptist Hospital. Geez. And as if I wasn't sleeping poorly enough, he jacked my Prednisone, a steroid, to 40 mg. a day and put me on Imuran, the long term med he had said he was going to prescribe after that first month of steroids got my ducts settled down which they didn't but he started me on the Imuran anyhow. It takes a while for the Imuran to build up in my system and he will start reducing the steroids a bit at a time. If any of you have been on an extended steroid regimen you know how it can mess with you. The news of possibly having to go to the hospital for tests was not exactly the news I was hoping for when I went to my appointment and I came home angry, frustrated and even more depressed. Am I ever going to feel human again?!

I called and made an appointment with a psychiatrist. I went to see him today. He upped my Cymbalta and also had me get some homeopathic stuff. Melatonin to try to help me rest and B-50 to help do something else, fish oil for something else and a prescription for folic acid to help with the liver. Don't misunderstand me... I'm more than willing to try this regimen for the next month and will try to document if it helps and at my next appointment we will determine if there has been any improvement in the depression. If so I will continue taking the vitamins along with the antidepressant and if not we will take the next step whatever that may be.

So I bit the bullet and took your all's advice and, better late than never, made the call for help. I hope that I will be able to soon report that the black cloud has lifted and is finally under some form of control. Better living through chemistry, don't 'cha know... Seriously I knew I needed some help to break the cycle but just kept putting it off thinking I could pull myself up by my bootstraps like I had in times before but I just didn't have the reserves this time. I think the extraordinary heat of the summer, along with the physical ailments that I've been dealing with the last 8 months just wore me down so I want to thank you all for standing behind me, encouraging me to get some help to deal with all this... You probably should have been kicking me in the butt to get me to move on it a little quicker but at least I'm in the works now and will follow through until at least my mind is better...

My next blood work and GI appointment is scheduled for the 27th of this month. I'll keep you posted on what is determined at that appointment. But I will post something between now and then so you all will know I'm still alive!

I will try to not stay quiet for this long again. Thanks to each and every one of you for checking on me and encouraging me. And I really, really mean it.