It’s been a long time since I rock ‘n’ rooolled…

Got a feelin’ twenty ten is gonna be a good year…

So Reading Week is over, but I’m still just as chipper as I was two Fridays ago when it started. Despite my horrible Tuesday/Wednesday, I had a great week. In fact, I haven’t had a bad week for quite awhile. Before I left for home for the week, I cleaned my oft-neglected room inside out. It pumped me up and set the tone for the rest of the week. Sure, cleaning’s not fun (unless you’re Danny Tanner), but to have my room — my room — look this nice was, well, nice! It hasn’t looked this good since before I moved in, mostly due to the fact that depression makes you (well, me, at least) not care much about cleanliness. Though that doesn’t change the fact that I still follow the logic “throw on the floor, I’ll vacuum it later”. (Of course, this only applies to my room(s). I went to a movie not long ago and my mom asked me why I took my garbage out of the theatre with me — “this isn’t my house” I told her. And too bad for that old teacher-logic, “do you throw things on the floor at home?” — why yes I do, thank you very much.)

Anyway, I started off my week off playing Beatles Rock Band. Finally, I decided I had enough strength to drum. It took me quite awhile to get back to even singing, which takes a lot out of you itself. And not only did I drum — which I had been wanting to do since getting the game and realizing Ringo is actually a kinda fun drummer — I sang too! I tried out drumming on hard, since I figured Ringo’s not Keith you know, and got by. My brother convinced me to try on expert (while still singing lead!) and I managed to get through about fifteen songs… and then I failed on “With A Little Help From My Friends”. But still, I was feeling awesome.

I got my room at home clean, even though it involved making it even messier than it already was first and then organizing things hidden away in tubs and drawers. This was quite a feat, because there were still things on the floor from moving out of my room at school last year. And I don’t mean last year like before Christmas break, I mean last school year, like before summer break. And then there was all the stuff thrown on the floor from the hospital, and all the stuff thrown on the floor from just regular living in my room. So getting that room clean was also awesome.

I even started getting our baby pictures scanned into my mom’s computer. I got all of 1991 scanned, cropped, and tagged in Picasa. Oh, how I love Photoshop’s “Crop and Straighten” feature! And learning how to do Actions — priceless! I didn’t even have to save each picture and close it; Photoshop did it all for me!

I could’ve gotten a lot more scanning done (and homework, which I should be doing now…), but I’ve been addicted to FarmVille and now Mafia Wars (which I only started playing to get the tractor in FarmVille… but now am playing just because I enjoy it). Considering all the time I’ve been putting into them, I’ve been doing pretty good. I don’t know how I’ll be able to last in my three hour classes without checking them every five minutes.

And besides all this stuff I’ve gotten accomplished, I’ve just been feeling good physically and emotionally. I haven’t thrown up, my poos are regular (which they haven’t been for about a year (well, actually, that’s a lie; they were pretty regular; I went about every two hours, night and day)), my stomach doesn’t hurt… there’s been quite a few milestones; I’ve ran up the stairs (even walking up them without being hunched over was quite an accomplishment), I can walk at a normal speed, and I have finally, finally stepped on the scale and seen a number in the triple digits (100.8, oh yeah! At first, I only saw the “00.8″ and wondered how the heck I weighed that little).

I know from experience and Charles in Charge that I should not be happy out loud. I’m a logical person generally and don’t believe in things without good reason and hard evidence, but I dunno, for some reason, I believe in some things being more than coincidence. I knew last year that as 2009 was drawing to a close, there was going to be one more bad thing happening in my life, something major. Honestly, I was expecting another death — a family member or a celebrity I admire, I’m not sure which — but luckily, that wasn’t to be.

Being in the hospital turned out to be a good thing, though. Since having the surgery, I’ve just felt different. I obviously am different, as people can tell from my appearance and health. But something in my mind just clicked, something that didn’t happen with the depression drugs. Sure, the drugs helped me feel better, but I still wasn’t 100% me. Like I said, I don’t want to “jinx” it, but I am feeling incredibly great now. I really hope it continues, but I know I probably shouldn’t count on it. But hey, after last year, don’t I deserve it?

From what I read and heard, the day before the test, the prep, was the worst. I was instructed to take four litres of Klean-Prep mixed with water, lemon-lime drink, or some other clean (non red or purple) liquid. I was to start at 2:00 on Tuesday, though they said if you have trouble drinking large amounts of liquid (and four litres is about two big pop bottles, and not the individual ones, the ones you have at a party), you could start earlier. I was going to start at 12:00 and was supposed to drink a cup (1/4 litre) every ten minutes.

Doesn’t sound too bad so far, right? Drinking a lot of liquid, okay, maybe will make you go pee a lot, but otherwise, what’s the problem?

The taste, of course. Everything I read said that the stuff tasted horrible, even with its “new improved vanilla flavour!”. But you know, had I not read all that stuff, I probably wouldn’t have had that much of a problem with it. The first cup went down quite quickly at 12:20 (okay, okay, I was a bit late because I was playing Farmville). But after that, I just lost motivation.

This week is Reading Week, so that means I have the week off, which worked out well considering the scope was scheduled before I even knew when Reading Week was. My dad coincidentally also took this week off to work on the house. So, awesome, right? Someone there to take care of me before/after the hospital. Unfortunately, my dad had to go into work on Tuesday to train somebody or something. So, there I was, all alone, with no one to encourage me (or force me) to drink the stuff. I called up my mom who said it would be okay if I waited until she came home and she would be there to support me. I told her I would get one litre down before she came home.

No can do. Four hours later and still, only one cup in me, and no running to the bathroom (which is what the stuff is supposed to do — it’s a colon cleanser and by the time you’ve finished drinking it all, you should be having clear, watery stool). I really don’t have an excuse for not getting any more down; I certainly could have, because the first cup was really not all that bad. It was just overwhelming to think that I still had three plus more litres to go and all this time to be constantly drinking it and all the time afterward to be constantly shitting it.

Most of what I read online said that if you’re under 120 pounds (I’m currently 97 and still not gaining anything, despite eating all the time — speaking of which, no solid food for 24 hours before the test, and daaamn was I hungry yesterday! Right away, too. And of course, every commercial, every show seemed to be about food! I would’ve loved to have just been able to lick a baby cookie to get the taste of the prep out of my mouth), you only need to take three litres. I’d also read that people weren’t able to get more than three litres down with no mention of their weight, so presumably three litres would be about enough for anyone.

I didn’t get three litres.

I don’t really want to say how much I did get, because I don’t want to encourage people to take as little as I did and still try to have the procedure done. Your colon needs to be squeaky clean because the test is basically putting a long hose with a camera at the end into your colon and checking it all out to look for irregularities (cancer, polyps, or I guess in my case, inflammation due to Chron’s). If it’s not clean, they can miss stuff. According to one of the nurses at the hospital, your colon should look like the inside of your mouth, all nice and pink. No brown stuff floating around. And finding red stuff is bad, which is why you can’t have red liquids (or cherry popsicles or jello — which are, of course, my favourite flavour!).

Anyway, I managed to get a few more cups in mixed with apple juice and water; the first cup was mixed with Sprite and water. When I was on the apple juice mix, I thought the Sprite one tasted better, but when I went back to the Sprite later, I was longing for the apple juice. It’s really about the same, I suppose. I had some Gatorade Rain to wash it down with — a drink I’d not been too fond of in the first place. But by the end of the night, man, did that Gatorade taste good.

Much crying and sitting and staring at the cup later, my dad gave me a Sprite mix in a bottle of water and told me to try chugging it, rather than taking it through a straw like I had been doing. Chugged. (Well, a Jenny chug, which is like a normal person sip :P). Threw up. Proceeded to not try again for at least an hour.

And really, you’re supposed to take this stuff fast so it doesn’t get absorbed into your body. That’s why I still hadn’t gone to the bathroom. I had done a normal bowel movement in the morning before I’d started the prep and after a light breakfast, and I mean, it was quite a bit. I hoped the fact that I hadn’t eaten anything solid for more than 24 hours before the test and the fact that I’d only had Cheerios (and chewed ‘em up real good!) and the fact that I’d emptied out before the test would mean less to empty out later. I’d read stuff online about diarrhea explosions (which I’m no stranger to, or at least wasn’t before my surgery) and terrible cramping and whatnot, and was not much looking forward to it — but would much rather be enduring that if it meant that the prep was all gone.

Mom finally decided it was time to go to bed, so I was kicked out of her bedroom with the TV in it. Dad wanted me to go downstairs with him so he could yell at me some more watch me and make sure I took the rest of the stuff, but I was saved by a bowel movement, finally. And it was watery! Hurrah! Didn’t think I’d want one of those kinda poos again, after that being all I had for months before my surgery.

Can I just say DAMN, I’ve been doing good since my surgery? DAMN!

Anyway, poo was starting to get on target; certainly not clear though. But it was watery, like peeing out your butt, and it was a fairly constant stream. I know, I know, TMI you’re thinking. Grow up, pooing is a natural function of our body. It’s a good thing I have such a good sense of humour about butts and farts and poo, considering how immersed my life has been in that sort of stuff lately.

It was getting late. I was sitting on the toilet with my head on the table I’d dragged in there and falling asleep. I eventually managed to straighten up and tell myself, alright, if you can drink this whole bottle (two cups), you can go in your nice, comfortable bed and sleep.

It took me a few hours, but I did it. Well, almost. There’s a little tiny bit still left in the bottle; I could’ve got it down with two big chugs, but I was just so exhausted. I ended up chugging most of the bottle with only a few gags and no more throwing up. It really is easiest to just chug it like a bottle of water. But I mean, I have trouble chugging normal, tasty drinks.

Quietly snuck into my room, hoping mom and dad wouldn’t wake up to yell at me some more. A few minutes later, my mom knocks at my door and asks how I did; was I still drinking, pooping? Yes, I was still pooping, but I was not drinking anymore. How much did you get down? …one and 3/4 litres.

Pathetic. I know.

It’s just a drink. I know.

I really can’t explain why I can’t drink medicines, swallow pills. Well, I can. I think about it too much and this mental block physically blocks me from doing it. I don’t know, something like that.

“Are you trying to stay sick?” my mom asks. “Are you trying to sabotage this?” my dad asks. (“Yes. Yes, I’m trying to sabotage it,” I reply sarcastically, but not sure if he caught on or not. I’m usually pretty good at knowing not to say dumb things like that that will just get him mad, but every once in awhile, a snarky comment can slip out).

They can’t believe I couldn’t do it. They’re disappointed, angry, frustrated, stressed. They tell me that they’ve prepared an operation room for me, there’s people waiting on me, counting on me to do what I’ve been told to do. These procedures cost money; thousands of dollars — thousands of thousands of dollars! Do I remember my dad saying $20,000? I looked it up just in case, and it looks more like a few thousand at most. Scare tactics or ignorance? I don’t know.

Usually when people get angry at me and try to make me do something, I think “well, they want me to do it, so I’m just not going to do it”. And of course, reverse psychology doesn’t work either. But I was surprised when I realized that thought had never crossed my mind. I really was focussed on getting it done, and not because my parents were or weren’t making me.

I don’t know if they were just plain angry and expressing it to me or if they were hoping them getting angry at me would convince me to do it. Because that doesn’t work. It didn’t work with pills, it’s not gonna work with this. But what else can they do? I’m a stubborn bitch, I know, and I don’t blame them for being frustrated with me. But all they’re doing is making me feel bad, which doesn’t make me want to take the stuff, it just makes me want to cry and not take the stuff.

Anyway, by this time, it was 2:00 in the morning. I was actually expecting it to be at least an hour later when I left the bathroom, so I was quite proud of myself for finishing the bottle so “quickly”. My colonoscopy was to be at 9:30 and I wasn’t supposed to eat or drink anything for four hours before the test, so I couldn’t even take the Klean-Prep for much longer, even if I wanted/could.

I slept for a few hours, got up at 8:00. I don’t think I got up at all to go to the bathroom during the night other than a bit around when I finished drinking. Didn’t know if anyone was even planning to wake me up, to take me to the hospital since I probably wasn’t clean enough to have the procedure done. My mom had even said to me last night that she wouldn’t be coming with me. I went downstairs and spoke as little as possible, but asked my mom what was up, were we even still going. “Of course we’re going!” she said incredulously. Okay, okay, just a question.

Dad ended up driving us there and dropping me and my mom off. I thought it was because he was the more pissed one, so he got to stay home since someone had to be there with me if I did have the procedure, but really, you were only allowed to have one person with you since the waiting room was so small.

I’m not even feeling hungry anymore. Fairly early Tuesday morning I was and throughout the day. Sometime at night, I just didn’t care anymore. After a few hours in the waiting room, I was starting to feel it again. I’m not sure what time I was called in, but it was at least after lunch. Almost all of the other people there, obviously all for the same thing, were older men. And then me, poor little girl.

Anyway, I’m to go into the room and take off all but the hospital gown and my socks and then lie down and get comfortable. I wait for a few minutes, getting my blood pressure taken, yada yada. I was told before the procedure that I’d be given some drugs through an IV and I would be “consciously sedated”, so I would be relaxed, but not asleep (though some people do fall asleep). This worried me because I did not want to be awake during it.

When I was young, I saw on TV a show about someone having a surgery which they were supposed to be asleep for, but they ended up waking up while they were cutting into them or whatever and could not tell anybody that they were awake. I think this is what stemmed my whole fear of hospitals, bodies, whatever. So this would kind of be like me facing my worst fear (besides ducks).

The worst part was the very beginning, when he stuck his finger in there, I guess to open it up or feel around or something. And then in goes the camera hose, I guess. I couldn’t really look to see what he was doing because if I moved, the thing could perforate my colon and I could die and stuff. I did, however, watch a bit on the TV screen, but my glasses were off, so it was a bit blurry. I’m not sure how long the whole thing took, maybe fifteen minutes at most? And it really wasn’t a problem. Like I said, the worst part was the very beginning. I could feel it moving around a little bit, I think. They blew air into my colon, which I was told I would then need to “blow back out” when I was in recovery (no problem, I’m a champion at that; ask any of my family, and probably my roommates). There was one point where he took a sample of part of the colon and my hand was on my stomach and I’m fairly certain I felt it, so I immediately removed my hand, lol.

So yeah, I was awake for the whole thing. I didn’t feel like they even gave me drugs as I wasn’t even slightly out of it after. That’s the only part I don’t remember: them giving me drugs. I don’t think they would forget a thing like that, but I dunno, I just didn’t feel it at all. But no pain really at all, just slight discomfort. I mean, what’s it supposed to feel like, having a hand up your ass?

When the doctor said it was all done, I asked him if it was clean enough, and he said yes. I said I hadn’t taken all of the prep, but didn’t say how much. I had told several nurses earlier when they asked and they wrote it down, but I’m beginning to think doctors never read what’s written down. How many times people in hospitals ask you the same questions over and over — you think there’d be a little more communication.

So they did it, despite my utter fail at the prep. I laid down in recovery for a bit and mom came in from the waiting room. While we were waiting before the test, I talked to her a bit, tried to keep some conversation going every once in awhile, and she even spoke to me without being prompted, and put her head on my head when I put my head on her shoulder, so I figured she’d gotten over it at least a bit. Well, I think she probably didn’t, but she just can’t hold a grudge against one of her kids. So, I talked quite a bit more to her afterwards and asked “are we cool?”. She said yes, but had they not been able to do the procedure, it would be a different story. Thank god they could, because I can’t deal with my parents being pissed at me. And my dad can stay pissed for a long time.

When I was good enough to walk (which was really right away), they let me go into the next room and have some apple juice and some sort of fruity bread, then get changed. After I got the IV nozzle thing taken out of my hand, I could go. And so, we did.

All done. I was just so happy! Still a little unsure about my parents, I’m sure they’re still a bit pissed, but they’ll get over it eventually. It’s done, after all.

Next time, I’m asking for Pico-Salax. It’s only two litres, I think. Much more manageable, less overwhelming.

So, all in all, it’s true; the colonoscopy itself is nothing to worry about; the prep is the worst. If you don’t think you can get the four litres, promise yourself you’ll get at least three and start early. Eat very light, easily digestible food for as many days as you can stand before, and don’t eat at all for at least 24 hours before the procedure. Take a laxative; they prescribed one for me, but it was a pill, so no-can-do. I really don’t recommend taking as little as I did; I was lucky. I’m also really small and I guess there wasn’t as much to clean out, plus, like I said, I already emptied out before I started the prep. Probably a good idea to drink a lot of water if you aren’t getting all the prep in. I didn’t do that, but I knew I should’ve. Basically, my story is a “what not to do” with a lucky happy ending. Well, at least until I get the results, I guess.

Tuesday meant another blood test, my most hated of all doctor related thingies. Went to the lab with my dad, waited an awful long time (if you’re doing blood work, don’t do it in the morning if at all possible – way too busy then), which is the hardest part for me. Finally got in to see the blood doctor lady and requested I lie down, since these kind of things freak me out. “No wonder,” she said when she saw my veins, some of the thinnest, wiriest ones she’s seen. It took her three pokes to get anything. I asked if I’d be able to eat afterwards, since I had to fast for twelve hours before giving blood, and she said after what I’d been through, I was one of the most deserving people to get something to eat. Finally done and over with, had to give a urine sample, which I can never do on demand, so I ended up taking it home and sending my dad back with it later.

I’d also that day taken my first upped dose of Prozac, 1 1/2 up to 2 teaspoons. Took the Prevacid at night, two meltable tablets that didn’t taste all that bad, but it took a long time for me to get psyched up to take them. Was feeling kinda crappy, so decided to watch “Anne of Green Gables” with my mom in her room with her nice heated blanket. While we were watching, I suddenly felt like passing out and had to go to the bathroom to throw up and poop up. Gross when they happen at the same time. We were concerned, because this wasn’t supposed to be a side effect of the Prevacid. Calmed down a bit, back to watching TV, but continued to have constant dull pains with occasional sharp, shooting pains down my chest to my crotch.

My dad came upstairs to sleep, but I decided I wanted to stay in his bed and he said he’d sleep downstairs. I felt a little bad about it, but I just really didn’t want to be alone. This had all started around 9:00, and by 4:00, it was still the same. We contemplated for a few hours what we should do. Should we go to the hospital? Is it just gas? It didn’t seem like it; this was like no other pain I’d had before. It seemed to be more on the right side, and we thought that could be something to do with the appendix, so we got my laptop and started looking stuff up. We finally decided to be on the safe side and go to the emergency room. I didn’t want to call an ambulance because then they’d come with their sirens and the fire trucks and all that, even though it meant we would be seen sooner. I didn’t feel like I needed to be taken out in a stretcher. We woke up my dad and told him what was up, so over to the hospital we drove.

My mom and I waited in emergency while dad parked the car. Didn’t seem like a very “emergency” place to me, there were just a couple of ladies behind desks and on phones and not talking to us. I was a little irritated. Eventually, we were seen and the lady asked all kinds of questions, and after a looong while of getting up and sitting in different chairs and seeing different people, I was off to a room. A waiting room? There were four beds, people coming and going in the others. I lied down and my parents sat with me. Person after person came in asking the same questions until we could get our story straight. I don’t remember much else that happened there, but I think my mom went home and my dad would call as soon as he found out anything. After I had given a urine sample (which took awhile again), I got to have a drink – finally. But it turned out it was x-ray dye: two bottomless cups of warm water that tasted kind of like pool water, or water from somewhere gross that you don’t want to drink. It was to make my insides glow or whatever for when they did the x-rays. I remember doing some x-rays before the water, and that as she was taking the x-rays, I had a shooting pain. The dye was for the CT Scan I guess, and I had to drink another half cup of dye before going in. I had my eyes closed the whole time because I thought it was supposed to be scary and claustrophobic-y, but I guess maybe that’s an MRI. All the tests weren’t too bad, except I was in constant pain during all of them, and lots of waiting out in the hallways in my bed in between.

I guess when they were finally all done the tests, I got to my real room. I don’t remember much about that, but I must have been there for awhile, because I’d had lots of people in to see me and ask questions. I also had two ladies come in and one explained about the anaesthetic and another about this bag thing that I may have to have to carry my stool in, since I wouldn’t be able to “go” normally. Though they hoped that it wouldn’t come to that, they just wanted to prepare me for the possibility. There was still a lot they didn’t know, and they would have to make a lot of decisions during the surgery about what they would have to do.

Two other ladies came in and asked if they could test these temperature taking things on me, since I had a fever. I could’ve said no, but I figured I had nothing better to do, so I agreed. They just tested one side of my mouth, then the other side, then the middle for three minutes. It was to compare the accuracy of the quick tests to a more accurate old mercury thermometer test, or something. So that was kind of cool, if I got to help. They came in just before 4:00, which was when my surgery was scheduled for. I think that was four in the afternoon, but… I really have no idea.

Anyway, it turned out I had/have (?) a perforation in my bowel, so they had to remove a piece of it, I think he said about six inches, which to me, sounds like a lot, but I think isn’t really. I remember going into the room for the anaesthetic and immediately thinking how much it looked like the “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” scene in “Sgt. Pepper’s”; the walls were the exact same colour, and I dunno, maybe there were some posters on the wall or whatever. I remember them moving me onto an uncomfortable table and my arms were spread out and I was in Jesus pose, which was a little alarming, but only for a short while. They put an oxygen mask on my face, which I guess then turned into the anaesthetic, because I don’t remember anything after that.

When I woke up, I think I was in the recovery room. Maybe I woke up in the elevator, I’m not sure. The girls in the recovery room were really nice. I can’t remember why I thought that, but my parents assure me I’m right. They gave me a “pain pump” which is a button I could press whenever I felt pain and it would give me a shot of morphine, but it was controlled so that I would only get a little bit every ten minutes or so. I’m told I pressed it eleven times and only got three doses, which was partly because I didn’t know if it was working, and partly because I was in pain and really didn’t want to be.

At the time, I felt like this was the most painful part. The first while in the recovery room, I just really wasn’t feeling it. And of course, before the surgery. I don’t remember the pain much any more, but I remember thinking it was really bad. I also remember thinking that I didn’t want to leave the recovery room, but I don’t know why. I think when I woke up, I had all these extra tubes sticking out of me. There was stuff in my neck to use to give me fluids as well as to take blood so they wouldn’t have to stick me all the time (which I am completely in support of). Then there was a thing in my nose that I still don’t understand, but it took out bile. And then the catheter, which I thought was for the butt, but which is actually a tube in your pee-pee (or your girl pee-pee) and your pee goes through it and into a little box and you are kind of peeing all the time without knowing it. And then there’s bandages and stick things in my arms for/from who knows what. But I wasn’t really very aware of this.

I couldn’t talk much, because I was still out of it, and I guess the thing down my nose/throat didn’t really help. I remember saying one word things like “paaain” and “bag?”. I was told there was no bag and surgery went really well. I don’t know how well this registered, because I think I asked a few times. I’ve forgotten most of what happened there, but I know I was lucid at the time. I don’t think I had my eyes open much though, I don’t know why. Maybe I was trying to sleep.

Then off to my real room, which is where I spent the next terribly boring eight (?) days.

It seems everyone absolutely despised 2009, myself included. So many bad things happened to me, to my family, to everyone.

• Uncle died (January)
• I got depressed (April+)
• Dog died (July)
• Brother got swine flu (November)
• Had to get rid of cat (November)
• Mom’s work got shut down
• Dad’s job sucks
• Garage broken into
• Car tires slashed, sugar in gas tank
• Car accident

I know there are tons more, these are just some of the things I remember. There were also some good things that happened too that I didn’t really write about because of my depression.

• Judas Priest concert
• Davy Jones concert
• Just For Laughs gala in Toronto
• Got a new dog

Well, the bad certainly outweighs the good. I’m a little disappointed I didn’t write about these things when they happened, because I like having a record of that sort of stuff.

Anyway, December 23 at four in the morning, I went to the hospital with terrible stomach pains. Just got home yesterday. I had to have surgery to remove part of my bowel because it had a perforation in it. Surgery went well, everything went well, but I had (have?) pretty terrible post-op depression. It seems this is what has caused everything that’s been wrong with me: depression, throwing up, losing weight, yada yada… I have Crohn’s disease. It looks like that’s what it was all along. There’s no cure, but lots of people have it and lead a completely normal life. All I have to do now is rest and get better and maybe make a few diet changes. I’ll write in detail about my experience later, I just figured I’d write on what’s going on a bit now.

So, I came home this weekend, as I always do, but my brother had to stay in his room the whole time so I wouldn’t get it. And then whenever he went to the bathroom, my mom would have to clean it completely after he left.

I saw him a few times during the weekend, but only from another room to ask him how he was doing. I think I did a pretty good job avoiding him.

My family’s recently started using electric toothbrushes, so I asked my parents to get me one while they were out getting my groceries. They got two, one for me and one for my dad (since my mom and brother already had them) and let me pick which one I wanted. Before we left Sunday night to drive me back to school, I decided to use my electric toothbrush. It seemed to do a pretty good job, I guess. Better than my regular toothbrush. I unplugged the charger and threw it and the brush in with all my other stuff.

Dad drove me back to school like always, but mom and my brother stayed home. As we were driving, dad mentioned to me that he put my toothbrush in with the other stuff. “Well, uh, I guess that means I stole someone’s toothbrush…” I said, since I had also put a toothbrush in. “Umm… which one is Patrick’s?” I asked. My dad didn’t know.

Moral of the story is, if you don’t want to get swine flu, don’t use someone with swine flu’s toothbrush.

Last time I really wrote was more than a month ago. I seemed pretty good, from what I see.

It got really bad after that.

October was not a good month for me. I don’t really even want to think about it that much. My depression seemed to have decreased, but anxiety went waaaaay up. Throwing up, coughing, feeling sad and scared for no reason. All the time, I just felt sad. Just wanted to sleep. Didn’t want to do assignments, did crappy on the ones I did do, missed quite a few classes — all completely unlike me. And I of course felt super guilty when I missed a class or skipped a question on an assignment. But not only that, I felt guilty all the time that I knew I had an assignment or test coming up and wasn’t working on it. Because I just didn’t feel like doing it — my stomach was terribly upset, I was tired, I wanted to cry — I just couldn’t do it.

Not paying attention in class, and thus not understanding… I screwed myself for the first half of the semester basically, which can also screw you for the second half if you don’t understand the first.

65% on a programming assignment. A PROGRAMMING ASSIGNMENT. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten less than a 90% on a programming assignment. I can program. My programs always work. But LinkedLists and Trees? I couldn’t figure them out. I mean, I know what a LinkedList is, I know what a tree is… but I can’t put together a recursive function to print a list out in a certain order, or properly read in data and put it on a tree and search it.

I mean, those things sound so easy. I tried to make them sound difficult, and to non-computer people, they probably do. But they are actually quite manageable, or should be. But I’m not thinking things through, wrapping my head around it. I got 52% on the last assignment.

Granted, I did both in two days, while I really should have started them much earlier. I should’ve had a plan, mapped out all the functions and objects I’d need, and not goddamn procrastinated. But I just couldn’t. I wasn’t motivated to do anything.

It was terrible. I don’t like saying “was”, because it could still happen. But I’d like to hope I can put this behind me. And I know, I know — need to stop worrying, being a pessimist.

I don’t know how to express the total and utter despair I experienced for a few weeks there. I’m kind of glad I forgot it, but I’d like to document it still, to help other people going through the same thing.

My room was terribly messy. Still is. But I mean, my dad came over to see me, and he actually cleaned my room, it was so bad. Food garbage everywhere, papers I need to do something with eventually on the floor, clothes on the floor, Kleenexes everywhere, bed not made… I’m just normally not this disorganized.

My hygiene suffered a bit too, I suppose. I usually shower every day, but I skipped a day here and there, justifying it by saying that my new shorter hair doesn’t need as much maintenance, and plus I wear my wool hat everywhere anyway. Not as rigid at brushing my teeth at night, and my streak last year of flossing every week totally went out the window long, long ago.

That’s the thing with depression; you just don’t care. Don’t care about class, about your surroundings, about your hygiene. You know it’s bad, but you don’t want to do anything about it. That sounds like just laziness — and I know I am a lazy person — but it’s more than that. Emotionally and physically, your body is telling you not to do it, or maybe you can’t do it. And you just… don’t do it. You sleep. You cry. You sit on the ground staring at your fridge for half an hour because there are no hot dogs and you don’t know what else you want to eat.

Right. Wanted to get around to the bit where I’m doing better now, but this has tired me out. Or maybe I’m just hungry. Food has definitely been my saviour in this whole thing. If I’m eating, I’m feeling good. And damnit, if all this bags of chips I’ve been eating don’t make me gain another pound by the time I come home this weekend, I am gonna be pissed.

My depression was in three stages. Well, I say “was” because I want to believe it’s over, but you can’t really count on that. Anyway, at the beginning, it was blue. I woke up and would take forever to make my breakfast and take my medicine. Not because I didn’t like to take the medicine, but because I didn’t want to make the food, go through all the motions of getting up in the morning. I would sit in the living room, slowly sipping a glass of water until I finally decided I had to eat. Sometimes in the morning before I’d had my medicine, I would feel sad for no reason at all. I would have to wake up my brother and have him come and watch TV with me so I wouldn’t be alone.

I also have to say my brother has been (mostly) an absolute darling through the whole thing. A few times, he’s made snide remarks, but only because he doesn’t understand depression. I also have played up my depression so I wouldn’t have to do things and probably deserved some of it, but that’s just the kind of person I am and I can’t blame that on my depression. When I was throwing up, he would get me a glass of water or whatever else I asked for, even if he was nowhere near when I started. Personally, if I can hear someone throwing up, I’d want to avoid him. My brother is just such a caring person that he can’t do that. Even when my parents were in the room, they’d keep watching TV or doing whatever and he’d be the one to go get me the Kleenex box.

Anyway, next came the grey stage. A little while ago, I checked out a depression forum and someone described what I was going through as being “grey”, and it just described it perfectly. I was in-between. I was getting better, but I wasn’t quite there. It felt like every day was just a boring day for a normal person. I wasn’t having bad days (or was rarely, at most) — they were all just “fives”, in the middle. It was like that for quite awhile.

I don’t know when exactly it changed, but now I’m having fairly normal days. I’m not in my room, on my computer, like I would normally be, but maybe that’s a good thing. I don’t think my staying in the living room (with my laptop, of course) is a sign that I’m still depressed — I think it’s just a change. My room is so isolated and alone. And messy. It’s much nicer being downstairs where’s it’s open and there are windows and people and pets pass through every once in awhile.

We also have a new dog. He’s a black lab mix and he’s named Rocky (to go along with our cat, Rolo). He’s a trouble maker, loves to chew and destroy things, but he’s getting better every day. He’s a big change from Rosie, who was really the best dog in the world. He is definitely a bad dog — my dad even picked him especially because he was described as being trouble. He’s nice company and likes to sit beside me on the couch, which is good, because our cat now refuses to come onto our ground floor (unless of course he’s sitting on the stairs and swatting and hissing at the dog). They’re getting better, but Rolo is still being uptight about our new addition to the family. We all (except my dad) felt like we weren’t ready for another dog yet, and at first, I was a little standoffish with him, but now, babysitting him all day, I think we get along pretty well. Rolo’s the only one who hasn’t warmed up to him at all.

Physically, I’m much better. I haven’t thrown up for awhile, unless you count my coughing fits first thing in the morning where all I can throw up is saliva. I don’t get hunger pains, and my weight has been up to 96. It’s back down to 94 I think now, but that’s because I was eating non-stop for a few days there. I’d like to be a lot higher, just so I can’t feel all my bones. I can’t sit or lie down on hard surfaces because I have no fat to cushion my back or butt.

I’m eating better, with three meals a day and snacks in between. Usually a sandwich and milk for breakfast, juice and a snack bar, then another sandwich or eggs for lunch, fudgicle to wake me up in the afternoon, another sandwich and milk for dinner, and yogurt and juice for a snack. Okay, so it sounds like I’m just eating sandwiches, and on paper (screen?), it doesn’t look so good. But it sure beats my Froot Loops and milk, danish and milk, and maybe some chicken fingers for dinner diet I was on at school. I do tend to switch in pancakes or steak or potatoes or hot dogs for dinner, or have two dinners. Actually, now that I think about it, I’ve been skimping on the second dinner lately. Probably why I’ve gone down.

I feel so much better after eating, moreso after eating a “real” meal like eggs or steak or going to a restaurant. Last time we went to Swiss Chalet a week or two ago, I managed to eat alllll of my chicken strips — something I haven’t done since probably last year. I’d really like to have chicken strips for dinner every day at home like I used to, but I haven’t found a kind I like. When I go back to school, I might put $500 on my student card so I can go to the cafeteria — that should pay for all my food for a year. :) And I really like their chicken strips there, except when they’re over or undercooked. I’m gonna have to look for my own so I can cook them at my house, but I don’t know if I’ll want to do that when I know I can just go to the cafeteria and have someone else make them for me.

And mentally — I just feel normal. I feel like myself. I never realized I was feeling differently during my depression until I came out of it. My family has remarked many times that I’m sounding and acting more like myself, and I like to hear that. They also today told me I have really pretty eyes, but I think they’re full of shit, so maybe they’re wrong about that too.

I’ve been doing more. I’ve been starting projects. Well, only one, really. I’ve organized all our old family photos by date and format (Polaroid, old black and white, regular 4×6s) and I’m planning on scanning them and putting them all in photo albums, rather than the dumb old boxes and bags they’ve been sitting in. It’s really a useless thing, organization, but it’s such a Jenny thing. I love organizing and sorting — don’t know why, but I do. My grandma happened to call me up a few days ago and ask if I could scan some photos for her, so I said sure. I got them all scanned in a day and I’m currently trying to figure out how to automate the cropping so I don’t have to do the tedious work. Figuring out things, programming — another thing I love for no apparent reason.

I actually learned something a few days ago. I bought a new laptop a few weeks ago because my other one had a messed up screen. It had Ubuntu on it when I was at school, but my dad made me install Vista on it so he could use it for a few days. I left Vista on it and got accustomed to it. I found I really didn’t have a problem with it and I was just avoiding using it because it was the cool thing to hate on Vista. Plus, it’s really shiny, and I like shiny things.

The new laptop of course had Vista on it, but I had intentions of installing Ubuntu on it before going back to school. Maybe even dual booting it. Of course, when I was depressed, I had many intentions — when I’m not depressed, I have many intentions; I just suck even more than usual at acting on them when I’m depressed. Anyway, when I was out of the grey stage, I managed to very slowly get Vista how I wanted it, make the backup disks that I was dreading making, and finally, get into partitioning the hard drive. That’s what stopped me the first time from dual booting; I didn’t know the first thing about partitions and when I don’t know something, that scares me. Well, I still didn’t know anything about partitions, but I felt my instruction-following ability might have improved (or maybe just my recklessness), so I decided to try it out.

It took a few days and went pretty slowly, because I needed to get out my laptop(s) and hook it up every day before I could work on it, and that was just something I didn’t want to do. I accidentally ended up installing Ubuntu on a 2 GB partition because I didn’t take the time to bother understanding MBs vs. KBs vs. whatever when I was shrinking the Vista partition. I figured this out when I ran the update manager and it told me I didn’t have the 300 MB needed to install the updates. So then I had to learn that you can only extend partitions to the right — and the space I wanted was on the left. It couldn’t be done, I was told. I’d be best off uninstalling and reinstalling Ubuntu. But I refused! There are certain things that I believe a computer should be able to do, and this was one of them. I was not going to give up that easily! So, if I could only grow to the right, I’d have to move Ubuntu to the left! Searching for “move partition” led me to GParted — a Linux program! Awesome! I could just install it using the easy to use package manager rather than searching the ‘net for a .exe — if there was enough room on the partition to install one more program. ;) Turned out there was, but unfortunately, you can’t work on a partition when you’re using it. I needed to get the LiveCD to edit the partitions without using an operating system. Well, another day, another day.

Finally, yes, I got my nicely sized Ubuntu and Vista partitions all nice and neat and in order. And then I thought, hey, why not make another partition for all my files, so I wouldn’t have to worry about booting into one OS or the other to access them? So I did it! I made another partition, all by myself! And I felt… awesome. I haven’t been proud of myself for so long. I loved that I learned something new and useful. That’s what I was planning on doing all this summer, picking up C or improving my Java skills, but depression put an end to those intentions.

I love to learn. When I was back in my blue-grey period (was that a Picasso one?), I asked myself: “what I enjoy doing?”. Drumming? Photography? Graphic design? Programming? Writing? Well yeah, I like all those things, but I wouldn’t want to do them all the time. Now when I think about those things, I think, yeah, I enjoy doing that. Yet another sign my depression is going away; before, I didn’t even think of them as slightly enjoyable. But anyway, I like learning. I like being smart. I like reading. I always have.

I probably use this as a bit of an excuse for reading things like Reddit and whatnot. “You’ve got to stop being on the computer all day!” the adults tell me. But I’m learning! I’m reading Wikipedia! I’m reading articles! Sure, it sounds silly, saying Wikipedia is “learning” — but maybe it’s not that. Maybe I don’t like learning, I just like knowing things, no matter how useless. I like that now I know a bit about partitions, and though I doubt a housemate is ever going to come to me and say “Jenny, I really need help partitioning my hard drive” — I like to know that maybe one day I could help someone with it. I like helping people too. Way back before my depression was really bad, I spent the day organizing the files on my mom’s computer. I felt so good about it, that she would come home and see all her pictures organized on Picasa. I stayed up late one night formatting some documents for my dad so they’d be pretty and easy to read, and I felt so good knowing that the next day, he’d wake up and see these kickass Word documents on his computer.

As much as I say I hate people, I’ve realized now that I don’t. People are a nuisance, but they’re nice to have around every once in awhile. I’ve learned to not care so much about other people. I’ve always believed that worrying about things is useless, and could never understand when friends would freak out about tests and thunderstorms and things. Maybe I’m a little too reckless with my lack of caring, especially with thunderstorms, but I think it’s for the best. Whatever bad or embarrassing thing happens to you — other people aren’t going to remember it. This is especially true in university, because they’re all drunk anyway. But really, really — Stephanie isn’t going to remember that I came into the bathroom after her and finished brushing my teeth before her. My math professor isn’t going to remember that I put up my hand and said “1=1″ and it was wrong (even though it is right). People don’t care about you. I’ve done a ton of other dumb things that even *I* have forgotten about. You just can’t care about what other people think.

Depression certainly has changed me. All that stuff I’ve just said, I didn’t know any of that last year. I didn’t understand any of it. Like I said, my attitude is different — I’m more open to doing new things and saying “what the hell, why not?”. I’m eating better, I’m doing yoga, I’m looking out for my well being. I always took my health for granted; this has made me think about it more.

I also understand depression and mental illnesses much better now. Well, depression isn’t really entirely mental, which is what I’ve learned. I couldn’t help that my brain wasn’t producing enough seratonin or whatever shit was supposed to be going on. Depression is physical. I also read a very interesting thread on Reddit about someone with schizophrenia. There is a bit of history of it in my family, and I’ve always been afraid I might have it (just like I’d be afraid I have any disease that runs in my family). Before going to bed sometimes, I would hear voices, and that’s what I understood schizophrenia to be. They were really quite amusing phrases: “I see what you did just over there”, “tell me about the monkey”… I can’t remember most of them, but I have a few written down somewhere. Anyway, reading this thread taught me that these sounds are nothing like the voices schizophrenics hear. I knew these sounds were in my head, but they can actually hear them, like any other sound. It fascinated me, reading about this person’s life dealing with the disease (can you call it that?) — again, that love of knowing things.

This post was spurred on because of another Reddit post, and I intended to address what was written in this article, but as I tend to do with blog posts, I wandered. It says writing about your depression is good, so it all works out anyway.

Well, I’m all out of thoughts. I know there are a ton of other things I wanted to address, but I’m feeling like heading to bed. So, there it is. I’m much better now, and I think things are going to keep getting better once I get to school — but alas, I remember now that I am a pessimist and I know that when I expect good things, I can only get bad, so I suppose I shouldn’t be thinking that. It’s a shame, I’m feeling like doing all kinds of things late at night now, but I don’t always get around to them during the day. Today was pretty productive though. But I think I’ll end it here.

Stressful times. My parents are renovating the kitchen, so we’ve been in various stages of having a gaping hole in the back of our house on and off the past few weeks. Basically, the whole back wall and ceiling were taken –

Okay, you know what? Jesus! I am not a fan of my new laptop. It freezes up so much, and I’m just using Firefox. The left shift key is much too fucking small — and for what? A duplicate |\ key! My pinky is working overtime here. I also hate that the keyboard is in French. I mean, it’s in English, but under “caps lock” it also says “verr. maj.”! And there are all these little extra blue symbols that I can’t actually access and it just takes away from the simplicity of it! And I like that there’s a number pad, which was one of my only requirements, but I keep hitting it trying to use the arrow keys — which are much too small now! And I have to use the function button to access the volume control? What?! And the delete key is somewhere in the middle, not the top right like I’m used to. Did I mention my pinky?!

So they took out the whole back wall and ceiling to get rid of the giant windows and skylights — which I quite liked in the first place because it made the kitchen so nice and bright and friendly and it was kind of like I could go outside without actually doing so. Anyway, it looks like now the frame is up and the rain (which is all we bloody have lately!) doesn’t get in, and the outside is mostly done, except it needs to be stained. The inside, however, is just boards and gross. Needs insulation and drywall just, I guess. Anyway, the first day, when my dad was up on the roof hammering out the glass windows, I was kind of freaking out and had to take one of my anxiety pills, which is not actually a pill but a dissolvable little… thing. I haven’t had a freak out sad-for-no-reason moment for quite some time now. The medicine seems to be working. I just feel more like me. I don’t feel weak, I don’t get hunger pangs, I’m not hungry all the time and I’m not afraid of food.

In fact, pretty much every food I see on TV now makes me go “mmm…”. That Wendy’s commercial for Asian chicken? I’ve never had that before. I’ve never had Asian food before. But my god did the look good! My parents brought some home one day and I tried it. It was good, but reaaally spicy. And then there’s those chicken wraps — I don’t know where from, Tim Horton’s? McDonald’s? Even with the tomato and lettuce shit in there — I want it.

But I should probably be weary of just biting into new foods. A few days ago, my parents were working on the house and had me helping, which I usually don’t do. First off, because I’m normally weak and therefore useless in lugging things around or holding things. Secondly, I get off because I’m “sick”.

Have I said how ashamed I am about it? Being depressed sucks! I don’t want to tell people “oh yeah, I’m suffering from depression”. It’s such a sissy thing! It’s dumb! Aggggh! But like… it’s just so dumb. What is the purpose of being depressed? Obviously, there’s no purpose. What’s the purpose of getting cancer, right? But depression is just so girly, so silly sounding. And even though I’m told depression isn’t something we can really control — it’s a medical thing, my brain isn’t producing enough seratonin or some shit like that — I still feel like it’s my fault. I’m weary of that explanation; that depression just happens, it’s a physical problem. I feel like they tell me that so I feel better about myself.

But also, I don’t feel bad about myself. I’ve never had self-esteem issues, but I’m sure people would assume I do, because I’m quiet, I’m smart, I’m a girl, with few friends. Yeah, that’s the kind of person that has self-esteem issues. But I’m like fuck-it, because I don’t care about stuff. Like. I’m not making sense. But no, I think I’m a confident person. I know I’m awesome. I don’t know if you can have self-esteem issues if you’re narcissistic.

I never even told you about the hypnotist that thought I needed to be more self confident. There’s so much missing in my blog because I haven’t been writing.

DAMN, my pinky!

Can I map that other key to mean shift? That’s a good nerdy thing for me to do. I’ll have to try. But I might not because of the whole I don’t have motivation thing.

Now then. I’m getting better. I feel normal. I’m still underweight. I’m like 93-95, thereabouts. I will be happy when I am 100 and above. Until then, I don’t like getting on the scale. When I’m totally normal, I want to be between 110 and 120, and 112 is personally where I’d really like to be because I remember being that weight for a long time. But I mean, I’d also still like to have more weight than that ideally but I’m certainly not counting on it.

Fat girls, damn, you’ve got it made. Well, not fat girls. But I mean, I just wish I was where I had as much weight as I could without being called “chubby”. That is a good weight. I wouldn’t be able to see my ribs all the time. I can’t look at my arms anymore, they’re disgusting how thin they are. I was in denial about my pants falling down and blamed it on the fact that I just don’t like to do them up. But really, they are all bigger on me, and when I walked around with my fly open before, they never fell down. And fat girls get nicer boobs. I’ve got nothing. It would be nice, you know?

Speaking of boobs, I’ve been not wearing a bra lately. Last time I bought a bra, it was the first time I ever bought a pretty bra. It’s light blue with like, I don’t know, pretty white shit designs on it. And it’s pretty. And not just white or beige. And I always said “no” to pretty bras because I was afraid you could see them through my shirt or they would get itchy or this or that. But I said what the hell and bought it and I loooooved it! I loved how I looked in it and it occurred to me I should have got the matching panties. But I just felt so awesome when I wore my pretty bra! I am a woman and I am wearing a pretty bra! I can do anything! I wore it to like all my exams and went “damn, I’m awesome!”.

But lately, it’s been sitting lonely, without any boobs or non-boobs to support. It started mainly because like I don’t wear bras on the weekends when I’m just at home anyway, because let’s face it, bras are not the most comfortable thing in the world. While I was at school, I’d take it off when classes were over and go downstairs for dinner… commando? Bramando? Fuck, I don’t know. Who cares? This is my home now. I don’t have to constrict myself for a roomful of people paying no attention to me.

And then I decided, hey, I’ve only got a COSC tutorial on Tuesday nights. Why wear a bra all day just for one hour later? So I said screw it and went braless to the COSC tutorials. One time, as I was walking down the hall to Academic South, I suddenly realized — my god, I’m not wearing a bra! But there was naught I could do about it then. And I suppose it might have been just a little empowering. Nowadays, I go out to restaurants, to the video store, wherever I want with nothing to support my little chest.

Now — is this wrong? Do normal girls do this? Have I just been watching too much “Three’s Company” which has made me think that it’s alright if people can see little bumps through your shirt? Was that just a ’60s and ’70s thing? Do women do this anymore?

And you know, if one thing, depression has made me moreso not give a shit about stuff like that.

Oh right, which brings me back to not eating foreign objects without giving it some logical thought. My dad likes to eat baloney sandwiches. So do I. My dad like to dip his baloney sandwiches in Kool-Aid (grape, preferably). I think this is insane. We were working on the house one day, and I had been asked to help. We took a lunch break and dad was having his disgusting concoction. He said to the rest of us “whoever takes a bite of this doesn’t have to do anymore work today”. My brother refused. I knew the offer was mainly intended for him, so I didn’t take it seriously, but then I thought, hey, what the heck? I walked over confidently. I took a bite — a real bite, not a nibble, a man’s bite — and quickly found the double baloney-mustard-cherry Kool Aid flavours mixed together was just too much. I ran into the kitchen and spit it into the sink — and then came along with it everything I’d eaten that day.

I think I’ve written about how popsicles come back up all foamy. Ice cream does too. It’s alarming at first, because puke isn’t usually like that, but it’s nice and soft and there’s something inherently funny about throwing up foam. And then came the large chunks of sandwich which I had just eaten, and then I could taste the cinnamon from my McDonald’s cinnamon melt breakfast. That part was gross.

The next day, I threw up again. Undigested hot dog bits, the taste of which coming up reminded me of my dad’s sandwich. My therapist (psychiatrist? I don’t know her actual title, and she’s not really “my therapist”, but just the lady at my doctor’s office who talks to me about my depression) wants me to figure out what triggers my nausea. Obviously, the first time, it was eating the sandwich — fair enough. The second time was also definitely warranted.

We’ve had our dog, Rosie, for about fourteen years. That would mean I was only five when we got her. She has been with us for pretty much my entire life.

I’m not delusional; I know it’s obvious you know what I’m going to be writing about here, but I’m going to drag it out and not really say it right out because I don’t want to.

We’ve known she’s been getting old. She has trouble hearing, maybe she can’t hear at all. Trouble seeing maybe too. No trouble smelling though, that’s for sure. She’s slow to walk around, doesn’t go upstairs anymore. Doesn’t even go up onto the couch. Sits in front of the door, doesn’t jump up and realize when someone is there, trying to open it. Yes, we know she’s getting old.

The past few days, she’s thrown up everything she’s eaten. She’s still smart as ever though — she came over to me at the couch and threw up right beside my laptop power source, which, you know, may have been inconsiderate a little, but she knew if she came to me, I’d let her outside. We’ve always had an understanding. If I was up in my room with the door closed and she wanted out, she’d come upstairs, and I’d know what to do. We got each other, she knew how to get what she wanted.

I sat outside on the porch as she went around the back yard throwing up saliva and water. I looked away when she went to the bathroom, because I know it’s rude to watch her. I petted her and explained I was going through the same thing and knew it was no fun being underweight and not being able to keep food down.

My parents took her to the vet on Friday. They said she had pancreatisis and there was really nothing they could do. We would have a few more days with her and then she would be gone. I don’t know if she was in pain yet, but it was certainly coming if she wasn’t already.

She threw up through the night and couldn’t keep anything down. My dad told me Saturday morning they’d be taking her in at 3:30 to put her down. I nodded. They did what was right; no one wanted her to be in any pain.

It doesn’t seem real to me. Neither yet does the fact that my uncle died in January. It seems like they’re just not here — not dead. I haven’t seen my other uncle all year; that doesn’t mean he’s dead. They’re just… not here. It’s different with Rosie because she is always here. I still expect to hear her stir when I come downstairs in the morning. I made myself a baloney sandwich the other day and realized I had no one to give the edges to. I still look around at the floor, expecting her to be lying there somewhere.

I wish I could hug her, just one more time.

I don’t think I could ever love another dog as much as I love her.

I feel sad and scared for my parents. They’re under so much stress right now, and stress is not good for them. With Rosie, the renovations, and my depression… my mom’s job is very uncertain right now. We’re pretty sure she has one, but the company being bought and sold and moved and this and that… it seems to be getting to an end, but there have been lots of rumours, lots of goings-on.

And last week, we woke up to find my mom’s four tires had been slashed and sugar put in the gas tank. We think it was intended for someone else who has a similar looking car; we had just parked in the wrong place that night. Still not something nice to have to deal with and pay for.

My mom keeps saying how this has been a bad year and she’ll be glad when it’s over. It did start off pretty badly, with my uncle’s death. And everything recently, of course. I don’t know what’s been bad before this, but I’m sure there’s things. My parents don’t tell me everything, and they’ve been going through a lot. It seems when bad things happen, they just keep piling on. Little things that would normally be an annoyance are cause for a breakdown.

Anyway. Life sucks, to sum it all up, I guess.

I don’t know who reads my blog. I don’t have a problem with people reading my blog. I don’t write anything here that I don’t want people to know. This blog is for me, so I can look back one day at my 19 year old self and see what I thought of the world at that time. Maybe you might take something from reading this blog; that’s fine. That’s great, actually. But probably, you don’t, and that’s fine too.

It’s kind of sad, because some people apparently do read my blog, but I have no way of knowing that they do. I don’t know what they think of me or what I write. Do I want to know? They probably think I don’t want to know, so they don’t tell me. Some people don’t like to know things. I like to know things. If this blog makes you think or feel something, let me know. Or don’t. I mean, whatever.

It’s a little weird that some person has read my blog and found out I’m depressed and then told my grandma this. She didn’t know I was depressed. It’s not a big deal, it’s something I’m dealing with, and other people needn’t be worried about it.

But I think, well, what if I was a party girl, writing about my escapades with men and bars and drugs? Would this person have told my grandma about that? Is it any of their business? Is it any of her business? I mean, sure, it’s public, I’ve put it out there. But just because it’s there doesn’t mean people need to know about it. That, to me, is just gossip. Do people need to be gossipping about my life? About my life? It’s all a little weird to me.

The pessimist in me kept waiting for the “buuuuut”, but the normal person in me knew that people don’t do that to other people. If something was wrong, he would have said it right out, not tried to trick me into believing I was healthy and then delivering some terrible news. This is not a Cyanide & Happiness comic.

Everything was fine — healthy even, with my cholesterol and whatnot numbers being quite good — except I need more iron.

So… great! I’m perfectly healthy. That’s what I wanted to hear, right?

…Not entirely. Part of me wanted him to say “well, you have a terrible vitamin whatever deficiency and you need to do this to fix it and you’ll be fine in a couple of weeks”.

Saying I’m healthy is all fine and well and I’m glad for it. But it doesn’t tell me how to fix it, because I certainly don’t feel healthy.

“There is no medical reason” for my feeling this way. Part of me knew that all along, but I guess there was still part of me hoping someone could tell me how to fix it, tell me that it isn’t “just me”.

I don’t like to prepare food, I don’t like to eat food. I don’t enjoy it, so I don’t feel it’s worth all the trouble that food preparation entails. Maybe my body’s trying to remind me, “hey! You eat so I can move around and do shit, not for enjoyment!”.

I’ve been doing yoga for the past three days, an hour a day. The first day, I had to stop the tape (technically DVD, but I really prefer saying “tape”) every few minutes to either rest or cry about how unhealthy I am that I can’t even hold my arms out for two minutes without feeling pain. I don’t know if it’s helping any, but it’s giving me a bit more of a routine (which I desperately need) and supposedly it’s a good kind of exercise for people who are underweight.

For some time, I didn’t get cravings for anything at all. Now, if I even think of a food, I’ll go and make it as quick as I can in case the thought is trying to become a craving. I like to think this helps me get the food down a little easier.

I still get terrible stomach pains if I haven’t eaten for awhile. I’ve found I like saying aten better than eaten.

My mind/body isn’t going “oh no! Food!” every time I make something to eat. It used to be this cycle of “hey! I’m hungry!” so I’d get some food and then my body would go “ohhhh ohhh… no room in here, uh-uh!”. It’s not doing that anymore, which makes it a heckuva lot easier to eat.

I don’t like to go out anywhere because after an hour or so, I start to get tired. This, I suppose, is what the yoga’s supposed to help with, since I don’t do any sort of slightly strenuous activity at all anymore. I’m getting better with going outside, because yesterday I went to the doctor’s and then to the mall (with my dad, on his motorcycle, to get “The Sims 3″… which I have previously never played…) and I didn’t feel bad.

I just love A&W burgers. Like, whenever I came home from university for the weekend, my dad would ask where I wanted to go for supper and I always wanted an A&W burger. We went by one in the mall and, a fleeting thought, I totally could have aten one, even though it was kind of early for supper.

I like to grab a drink sometimes when I’m actually hungry but I’m too lazy to make anything and/or don’t know what I want — my options are pretty limited.

The first time I went to the doctor’s, he suggested I make an appointment with the nutritionist. At first I was like ehhh but I said sure. Then a few days ago, I realized it would be silly to go to a nutritionist. What can they possibly tell me? I don’t eat anything because I don’t like anything.

A complete list of all the food in my house that I will get/make for myself and eat

• Cereal (Froot Loops, Honey Nut Cheerios)
• Pancakes
• Eggs (scrambled)
• Sandwich (jam, PB&J, PB & brown sugar, baloney)
• Toast (jam)
• Hot dogs
• Granola bar
• Cookies (Oreos, Viva Puffs, “baby cookies”)
• Rice Krispie square
• Thinsations
• Gushers
• Chocolate bars
• Popsicles
• Ice cream
• Cheesecake
• Grapes
• Cheese

A complete list of all the food in my house that someone else will make and I will eat (sometimes)

• Cheeseburger
• Steak
• Potatoes
• Garlic bread
• Ham

A complete list of all the food I will eat at local restaurants

• Wendy’s cheeseburger (just ketchup)
• A&W Mama burger (just ketchup)
• Lick’s hot dog (just ketchup)
• Swiss Chalet chicken strips
• Pizza-Pizza pizza (just pepperoni)
• Pizza Hut pizza or spaghetti and garlic bread
• Boston Pizza pizza (just pepperoni)

So there you have it. Those are all of my options for food. It may look like a lot written out, but compare my list to any other person’s list and theirs will undoubtedly be many times the size of mine.

This is part of the problem. You get sick of eating the same things over and over. I do try other things occasionally, but the other things I’ve tried, I haven’t liked. Lately, if someone offers me something, I’ll try it, because damn it, I need a new food! My dad offered me a piece of watermelon, and I must admit, it was not as bad as I thought it would be. But when I don’t enjoy eating things that taste good, if it’s not worth it to me to go and eat these things — why would I put any effort into obtaining something that tastes less than good?