Clearing my throat

A couple of weeks ago I ran out of my anti-depressant medication. At the time cash was a little low, so I held off having it refilled. During that time, I thought "What would happen if I didn't have it refilled? I went on it because of my hormones and stress. My hormones are settled and the stress is not as high." My symptoms are mild: mood swings, mild depression, some anxiety. Stress heightens these to where my interactions with others are affected. When I went on the meds I was going through a very stressful time at the office where I would come home and cry. Monthly I would have days where it took little to turn me into psychobitch. The meds made the emotional roller coaster smoother and for a while it appeared I would have to be on them for the rest of my life. My partial hysterectomy changed things for the better. It was followed a year later with my changing job roles. I stayed on my meds like a good kid.

The ending of the meds was an opportunity to take stock of what my body is able to handle. Going cold turkey is a risky proposition with the potential of creating mental mayhem. That didn't occur to me until I mentioned it in my tweets and got responses with those warnings. By the time I got the warnings, however, I was already a couple of days off the meds and committed to my experiment.

I can say that my experiment did not create any major problems. The most radical change was a manic period where my creative energies exploded into a whole new take on a world I've been writing about since high school. It was during that time that I tackled my kitchen's mess. I was joyful and my senses were sharpened. For a while it was going well. Then one day one of the cats was doing something normal and I snapped at her because it was distracting me from what I was doing. A couple of other incidents happened at work during a stressful time that made me realize that I still needed the meds if I was to be able to act appropriately. With my job I had to be diplomatic and able to manage my time well. If I wasn't able to handle quick changes of priority it would create problems. So I called in my refill. To make the return not so radical, I halved the dosage and so far that is working for me. If that's what it takes, then all the better. I see my doc later this month and will discuss this with him.

Sunriver in October

Some things are serendipitous. One of the things I wanted to do this year was attend the Spin Off Autumn Retreat (SOAR) which was going to be at Sunriver Oregon. I applied for a scholarship but didn't get one, so was not sure if I would be able to go at all. But looking at my finances it worked out that I could go for at least the retreat portion. I worked out my rooming situation and chose my classes. So the last weekend of October I will be off to my first SOAR. With me will be folks that have been to SOAR before so I'm really pumped about this.

New Toys

Another thing fell into place this week. I've been hankering for an updated PDA that would be able to access the Internet via wifi. For a while I'd been eyeing the iPhone, but the prospect of having another bill for a function I would rarely use was not attractive. I could have opted for a BlackBerry but that also involved a monthly charge. Where I live there are many free wifi hotspots I could access so I was more interested in something that could pick up the hotspots. Well, a week and a half ago I spotted a PDA for sale in the company newsletter. It was an HP iPAC Pocket PC h4350, which isn't as popular but as it turned out had everything that I wanted. Even though it was originally built in 2003 it had many functions that work well here for the model was a high end item at the time. My researching found new ones retailing at over $400 and this was for $125. So I leapt at the opportunity and so far have been well rewarded. The wifi connection isn't working properly and I'm waiting for a synchronization cord to arrive so that I can update the software to try to fix that, but I am a happy happy camper. How much joy did this generate? For the first two days I had my iPAQ I didn't knit a stitch. That didn't last long. I couldn't find a case for it, so I made one that will protect it from the bumps of everyday use. The flower pattern's from Selbuvotter glove Annemor #15; the case pattern is my own.