flying time....

...at the moment my time is being wrestled for by the rehab-job, the paying one, getting ready to go to the US on holiday next week and still seeing the dude as often as possible.

Rehab centre is in full swing, with baby season and holidays that mean many volunteers are away. I've been filling in whenever Grumpy, the admin lady tells me to. She left a message for me last week....'hello Dopey, this is Grumpy'! And in between, our receptionist, who has been taking arm-twisting lessons from admin-lady, has been sending me all over to catch and fetch critters.

The dude remains wonderful, if not better :-) and although the holidays were tough, we've been meeting at least 5/7 days. Between his schedule and mine, most of those have been for coffee or lunch, but we've fitted in some shopping too. Mostly for the camo stuff, and I found him the shorts he wanted - plus a pair for me - and then we found another real army outlet, where he got long pants and I got a purple camo tshirt. Although the salesman was quite upset when I called it purple, and kept saying 'lichen. it's called lichen'....so ok, purple lichen it is.

And with almost shared top-billing with dude on my list of good things, the mental health bit stays great. After so long feeling like whale shit, I am amazed that the current contentment has stayed for so long. Viva p-meds! Viva the dude! I know that much of it is due to him, and is therefore really fragile, but at the same time, we have separate lives most of the time, and at least I can be sure that there is the potential in me to stay happy without him. Even if I know that there would be a completely wipe-out if that actually happens, I can survive it.

I've been tapering on the meds for the last few weeks, because even though my mood is OK, my lethargy isn't. I'm scrambling to do what used to be done without even noticing it, I still have irresistible bath-naps and battle to really get going before 09h00, and would happily add afternoon naps on the couch most days as well. With pdoc's agreement to the tapering (although not to the speed :-( !), I've gone from 200mg Tofranil to 150mg and will drop to 125mg in 3 weeks time. There's been a slight improvement, but not enough, and even so, when I do a shift at the centre, I am absolutely wrecked by halfway through it. Hopefully that will start changing soon.

Oh, and the bit I am so not looking forward to....I have a week left of smoking. I started trying to not-smoke with dude, then I almost gave up before the August disaster, and since then, I've been smoking when I'm not with him, and sucking plenty to make up for the times I am. In the almost quit phase, my folks invited me to go skiing with them, based on being a non-smoker in the whole non-smoking even outside in the snow village where they go every year. So I leave next week Thu, and by the time I meet them in Colorado on Sat, I will have to have ditched the habit! Tdoc is wetting herself laughing (she's pregnant, so that isn't too hard to achieve...) and keeps suggesting even more alternative methods to ease the pain. This week it is Devil's Claw, so a visit to the homeopathic pharmacy has been added to my list of things to do....