Whimsically Crazy

I’m only reluctant to tell general people (like coworkers) that I’m bi-polar because I don’t want to be seen through a filter that wasn’t there before. A normal person’s bad day is a crazy person’s being crazy. Also I hate hate hate how people see being bi-polar as synonymous with being horrible to other people. Either I’m doing it wrong or they have the wrong condition, and I’m starting to lean towards the second after reading about Borderline Personality Disorder.

I’m also reluctant to tell general people about the future baby plans only because I don’t want to see other people get prematurely excited about something that’s not happening yet. I’m having preemptive angst over not being able to get pregnant, or not being able to get pregnant quickly, or not getting pregnant the very first time we try. (Didn’t I just say I don’t want to go back to experiencing monthly periods?)

I’ve seen those studies where people are given the same baby but treat it differently if they’re told it’s a girl or boy. I don’t expect to do that, and even want to dress our future-baby in mismatched socks to throw random strangers off, but if actions speak louder than intentions…

I know I treat the cats differently. I don’t know if that’s because of their genders or their personalities, or if their personalities were determined by the gender roles I unintentionally assigned to them! I also realized that I use Morgan’s actual name a lot less with her, for whatever that means.

I’ve also been meaning to say, Shannon’s pictures are so cute I keep thinking all new babies should come with an accessory sibling. I guess you’d give it back when you have another.

I didn’t make it to the gym (from now on I’m going to refer to the Northgate Community Center Fitness Room as “the gym”) until today. I’m totally failing at my diet this week and I don’t care. I think I’m PMSing. I don’t normally claim that (or do that, I guess) but if it lets me ignore my diet and not care then I’ll take it. Plus I was crazy irritable yesterday and I don’t think it has anything to do with my half medicated state.

Seriously, how does this not deserve my mental wrath?

Normally I “schedule” my period with my birth control, aiming for a three-day weekend. I was debating whether to extend the next by a week or two but forgot my next pack of pills so it was decided for me. Oops. I’m taking a risk without the long weekend, but lately it seems like the day or two before is the worst so it’s hard to know what to schedule around anyway.

So far I just have that feeling of impending doom. I’m not looking forward to this actually being monthly again!

Things I’ve been going crazy over:

Work – Both the general not wanting to be at this job anymore and little specifics like how people who are apparently smart enough to be managers and owners lack basic reading comprehension! I was given a project today, which is basically having to clean up after someone who’s no longer there, however there’s nothing like a new project to make the regular work pick up and at least that distracts me from the boredom a bit.

Bakery – I’ve been running in circles trying to figure out all of the licenses and permits I’ll need and if it’ll even be feasible in the end (the alternative being giving up on my dream and being stuck in my job forever.) Stopped all of that in its tracks last night when I found this class, Starting a Small Food Business. I signed up for it right away to make sure I’d find a way to make it happen.

Waiting – Andrew’s had some good responses on the job front so I don’t want to imply any pressure on him, but now that his school’s done it’s another waiting game, for me anyway. And so is…

The UC thing – I think this was actually the third thing I couldn’t remember the other day. I’ve been taking a week of super hardcore probiotics, and high dose vitamin D as the latest self-cure attempt. (Being that my doctor’s response is pretty much ‘keep taking the meds until something changes’ (better or worse) I’ve determined its up to me to make something change.) I don’t want to in any way risk jinxing myself as always, but I’ve had two good days in a row. Small but promising.

Hackings – Recent WordPress hacking got all of my sites, and I didn’t clean up well enough because it’s back again. I keep intending to buy this domain since wordpress.com hosting is annoying me, but I don’t dare until the internet is a safe place for blogs again.

People – Oh people always drive me crazy. How do you all live with each other?

Cats – My chair. I said, “my chair!” No, stop eating my hair. No, stop, no hair. No hair. Don’t fight on top of me. If you chase your sister off the bed you can’t stay either. My laptop is not a bed. THAT’S MY CHAIR!!!

At Andrew’s birthday/graduation party I was gifted with Shannon’s leftover Mother To Be tea. Another ‘this is getting real’ moment. Followed by a ‘this is going to be real, right? It has to be, I have the tea.’ moment.

I’ve pretty much written out the stockpile of future-baby-stuff in my head except for this:

By waiting until the time is right, by making sure that this is absolutely what we want first… well it’s scary to not know if I can, and it would be all that more devastating if I can’t. I’ve never been pregnant, or tried to get pregnant and while there’s no specific reason to think I cant… first popular culture is telling me that I have one year, three months, and 19 days until my eggs begin to spontaneously self-destruct. And knowing that’s nothing but a statistical number doesn’t help because it also means I don’t have a free year+ to go – my fertility has been dropping since I hit my 30s.

Then the specialist and his jumping into fertility treatments. And that cyst hanging out on my uterus like a bad house guest. He (okay I guess my cyst is a ‘he’ now) might not be causing any trouble outright, but he might be leaving its stinky feet on the coffee table and making it an inhospitable place for a future zygote.

I should have asked the Magic 8 Ball Selina brought today.

Besides the baby thing, things on my mind lately have been:

– The bakery thing.

– The hoping to quit my job thing.

– The … I forgot the third thing. I swear it wasn’t socks (although my mom sent money with a note to buy socks!).. I’ll guess the diet thing.

Funny how these are both complimentary and contradictory. The bakery will hopefully let me quit my job, but it is not helping the diet.

I’m now able to use the Northgate fitness center for a $3 drop-in fee. I went last Monday, and was in pain the rest of the week from arm muscles that must have never been touched in my life. I’m hoping to go tomorrow and undo some of the anti-diet damage I did today at the party, and with all of baking for the party.

The leftover brownies are going on the freezer so I can test the idea I’ve heard that brownies freeze well. If so this could be great for the bakery since I can bake ahead of time and not have to worry about having to sell product within a day or two.

Tomorrow’s a big day – first day at half dosage lamotrigine. Then again being that I’ve forgotten the occasional day, it’s not a big deal yet. I don’t know how much time it takes before my body realizes, ‘hey, something’s up…’

I decided a while back that there is no unselfish reason to have kids. We’re in no danger of a population shortage, most of us have a buffet of common diseases in our family histories, and even the most altruistic sounding reasons like raising the future generation is making the assumption that your values and beliefs you wish to pass on are the “correct” ones. Of course I think this myself, but I also have to admit that somewhere there is an alternate universe populated by my polar opposites, and they are all perfectly happy.

This isn’t actually a reason for me against having kids but justifies having them anyway even if I don’t meet the ideal, perfect reasons (whatever those are).

“Why do you want to have kids?”

Because I see it as part of a fulfilled life, kind of like having pets.

“You think of kids as pets?? Might as well just get more cats if that’s how you are.”

No, I mean like.. advanced pets. Ones that grow up into actual people.

“…”

Should have stopped while I was ahead…

But seriously, the answer would be something along those lines, and also I think we’ll make good enough parents that it’ll be mutually beneficial. Just like the cats.

But seriously on the cats as well. When they were babies themselves, I worried if they were happy with us. They could have so easily ended up with any number of people, were we the right ones? Years later, waking up every morning with a calico between my legs, I no longer worry.

I had to think through the possibility (and selfishness) of having kids and passing on my crazy so much that I’ve almost wanted someone to challenge me on it. It was a reality shock to read a couple years back that not ten years before I’d just be told, “You’re bi-polar, you don’t get to have kids.” And yet, ten years before no one would have cared because I wasn’t yet diagnosed.

I’ve forgotten most of what I’d come back with because it all condenses nicely into a quote from An Unqiuet Mind where the author justified her own desire for children with, “My life didn’t not have meaning because I’m bi-polar.”

I even like to joke that ‘crazy is a good thing to have in your past’ – I wouldn’t want to live through it again but it makes things interesting, in retrospect. UC however… I’m certainly not going to say that my life doesn’t have meaning with this disease, but neither would I wish it on anyone no matter how many life experience points a chronic illness supposedly comes with.

From what I’ve read, luckily the chances of inheriting IBD slightly is only higher than getting it through plain bad luck, as long as only one parent has it.

However on my UC forum today someone was asking about not using birth control (Catholic) and the possibility of getting pregnant. One person’s response about both the meds and the chance of passing on the disease, “not a chance i would want to take/do to another human being.”

I’m trying not to put too much stock in the opinion of someone who doesn’t use capitalization and uses unresearched generic phrases like “the meds could hurt the baby” but now I don’t feel so great about the whole thing…

The swordfish went on the gill. This was my second “last time” and if there ends up being a third, I won’t beat myself up over it. The reminder of the environmental impact should help guilt me out of it, although if I then find swordfish at Whole Foods it’s back to pure will power.

I also mentioned my dilemma to my NWR list and the conversation went:

“Your one meal of swordfish is not gonna mess up you or your baby as bad as a week long cocaine binge or a daily snack of lead based paint chips.”

This would be easier to accept if I was replacing a daily snack of paint chips with questionable fish.

“Paint chips are fine as long as they’re lead free;) So, you COULD replace questionable fish with Behr Paint and Primer in one!”

So if I ever develop pica I’m set on what to eat then too.

There is my final meal in all its glory. Those are stunt vegetables by the way, in case this picture makes it to my cooking blog they look pretty and make it look like I eat healthier than fancy mashed potatoes. That’s a stunt plate too – I impulse bought some dishes at Target tonight just to use for photography.

Unfortunately being so thin, I think I overcooked it. That almost seems subconsciously intentional, so I’m not left remembering how amazing it is, like last time.

I bought the folic acid, picked up my birth control. I decided not to overshare with the pharmacist when he told me they only gave me one refill. Safeway pharmacy workers already know more about my body than either of us want them to already.

I am horrible and have no willpower… I officially gave up swordfish a couple weeks ago, and then I bought some more because QFC had it for sale again. I can’t find any information on how bad swordifsh really is if I eat it, just not to eat it in the first place, or if I can justify it because I’m not actually pregnant. What if I had never heard of this and was obliviously eating my yummy mercury-fish every week?

It’s on the menu for tomorrow night, unless someone tells me definitively that I can’t eat it.

Or if someone tells me I can, so I stop feeling guilty.

I also forgot to buy the folic acid.

We actually ran out of condoms a little while ago. I call relying on just my birth control (I’m much better about taking it than when I was younger, but have been late by a few hours a lot lately) “tempting fate”. Andrew calls it “practicing”.

I realized while “practicing” that I don’t care about tempting fate as much as I think I should. So instead of worrying what if my pill fails, it was ‘do I have enough folic acid right now?’, in my body, at that moment. I get 100% from my prenatal (gummy) vitamins, and 100% from my (gummy) B vitamins, but folic acid is even more super important if on Lamictal (my mood stabilizer) to prevent birth defects. Also I was on some UC drug that inhibited folic acid absorption, however I’ve been on and off so many I no longer remember what it was or if I’m still on it.

I realize I don’t know how long folic acid stays in your system – should I be sipping some orange juice before sex just to be safe?

While discussing if we were going to replace those condoms I found out that Andrew thought we’d be trying as soon as he got a job. I was expecting the three-month delay after going off my meds for my body to be clean, at my doctor’s recommendation. However three months feels like a long time at this point, and the specialist did say to start right away. I think now I feel like if there is a fate to be tempted, then it’s fate if I get pregnant early.

Also faulty logic tells me that if it takes an average of X months to get pregnant at my age, then starting now means X months will come three months sooner than if we wait. I understand probability and this is not true but it still sounds like it should be true.

After trying to figure out the ideal stopping date looking at the calendar, I found a more direct method – counting my pills. Subtracting 7 for 14 days at half dosage, and 4 for another week at a quarter dosage, that leaves 8 days. Or if I leave a couple out in case the worst happens and I need to go back on, 6 days. Not sure which way to go on that yet.

However I will be picking up more folic acid tomorrow.

Before it was socks, I was obsessing over sushi.

It started because a few months ago I suddenly knew or knew of a good handful of women who were either pregnant or who had recently given birth, as well as a father-to-be or two. I’m embarrassed to have any association with the ‘biological clock’ cliche, however knowing that its in my future has made me impatient with a little bit of selfish ‘what about my turn?’ feelings. To calm that I told myself that if I was pregnant I couldn’t eat sushi, so there’s a reason to be happy that I’m not pregnant.

Soon after I realized that means nothing if I’m not actively getting sushi on a regular basis!

Last night Andrew came home and said he was wanting sushi on the way home but didn’t want to go back out. He left it up to me to convince him to go back out if I wanted sushi – well sushi was mentioned, of course I want sushi! After giving traffic time to die down we went to Aoki and were both happy. I had sushi with Jason a little while back, but we tried on a Monday when Aoki was closed (I think 90% of the time I try to go to Aoki is on the wrong day) so I don’t think that craving was truly satisfied until now.

As for not being able to eat sushi while pregnant, it turns out that whole idea is just overblown panic in this country. I’ve decided I’m going to keep eating sushi (and really I get only sushi a few times a year.) Instead of my final sushi party I’m still going to throw a ‘not-really-giving-it-up-but-why-pass-up-a-chance-to-have-a-sushi-party’ party. Most likely that’ll end up doubling up with my birthday sushi party.

I’m looking at this book called The Panic-Free Pregnancy on Amazon which I expect to pick up at some point. (Unfortunately it’s not on Kindle.) This part from the sample I found funny:

Q: Should my husband quit drinking coffee while we’re trying to get pregnant?

A: There is no reason for your husband to give up coffee. […]

There is too a reason – it’s called, ‘if I have to suffer, so do you!’

I skipped my Luna Bar this morning and did some research on breakfast. Most important meal of the day, etc, etc… turns out that might not be the case. Actually you’ll find plenty of arguments for whichever side you’re on, but an interesting point on the no-breakfast side is that humans didn’t evolve waking up and eating a meal first thing in the morning. We had to hunt that meal down first, which kind of makes lunch a lot more relevant. There even may be some weight loss benefits to delaying breakfast, which has my attention.

What I noticed in my one-day, totally unscientific experiment is that morning hunger is just an annoyance, as long as I know I can have food as soon I feel like getting around to eating it. It’s after I’ve eaten that my hypoglycemic symptoms really kick in a couple hours later, like my body realized that there had been food in my stomach and it would really like to keep it that way. Hunger is easier to ignore than the lightheadedness and occasional feeling like someone is trying to squeeze my head until I pass out. Last weekend I went well into the afternoon without eating, running errands after my Remicade infusion, and I held up quite well other than just plain being hungry.

Of course I make this discovery right after stocking up on a 10/$10 sale on Luna Bars which have been my staple breakfast for a few years now. I’m not going to go off of them cold turkey or anything, but I’m going to start making an effort to cut out that 180 calories in the morning. The only reason I’ve been insistent that I need some kind of breakfast first thing in the morning (and peppermint Luna bars are the only thing my stomach can handle then) is to take my handful of pills, and it just occurred to me that there’s no reason I can’t move my drug schedule to lunchtime.

Also, thankfully, my handful of pills is getting smaller.

For the last year I’ve been counting down to March, Andrew’s graduation, probably more than even Andrew has himself since he’s been pretty busy with the actually going to school thing. As it got closer I had to remind myself that it wasn’t March 1st I was counting down to – we still had to go through some part of the month. Now that we’re in March it suddenly seems really close. I said I was going to stop my meds when he was done with school. He has his last final on Monday.

Now I have to decide what date I’m actually going through with it. He suggested his birthday (the 20th) which I jokingly interpreted as “Don’t go crazy until after my birthday.”

I’ve been making a lot of jokes about it but I haven’t really wrapped my mind around the idea that I could do a 180 turn mentally in the upcoming months. I’ve felt so stable the last number of years that this feels normal. But being able to suddenly do a 180 is what being bi-polar is all about, isn’t it? That, and the opportunity to write interesting memoirs, if you don’t go and get too normal like I did.

This sounds like a perfect excuse for someone who’s looking for an excuse, but I think my dinner last night was “too healthy” for my UC. My king salmon was plated with roast asparagus and zucchini, looking like a poster meal for a healthy eating article. However insoluble fiber with IBD is like having little men poke your inflammation with sticks as they walk through your digestive track.

I find myself thinking about things like little men with sticks while I’m trapped in the bathroom at work because there isn’t much else to pass the time except looking for the floor tile that resembles a piece of toast.

I think I should have added some rice to the meal. I can hear Michael, or a Michael impersonator, talking about how bad white carbs are but white rice is also the safest of the safe foods. I even keep a box of Minute Rice at work for when food is absolutely unappealing (although Minute Rice isn’t that appealing either compared to the real thing.) The soluble fiber is supposed to help balance out the pointy sticks of the insoluble.

I do know too much about fiber for my age.

So tonight I made my favorite mild curry soup which is eaten over a bowl of jasmine rice, the most glamorous of the white carbs. Just updated our shared spreadsheet with my dinner, and while I don’t know if it’s actually helping us diet, the comments are keeping it interesting. I see that Selina dropped half a Thin Mint, and Michael added “mmm… test brownies” rather than a calorie guess to my entry. Come to think of it, Thin Mints and test brownies makes it look like we’re not doing a very good job at this diet thing at all.