End of the Year/Doctor's appointment

Today is the last year of 2008. My dd is still at Nana's house after a sleep over with her cousin from Florida. This has given me a leisurely morning to catch up on blogs and whatever else on the web I have wanted to do without interruption.

The common theme today online is review of 2008 and resolutions and/or speculation about 2009. Monday I had my quarterly medication check-up with my doctor. Leading up to that appointment I evaluate the last three months. I didn't write as many notes as a I did last time. My official notes weren't written until an hour before my appointment. That's a first! So here are the highlights:

1. Mood Chart
- I did not chart consistently. Gasp! The OCD medicine must be working...maybe a little too well. My general mood has been consistently slightly depressed. I will take slightly depressed any day over tumultuous mood swings. The doctor did want an explanation of what I meant by slightly depressed. My first thought was "I don't know - its not in my notes". Thankfully she had a prompt "less motivated". Yes, I told her, but what I'm feeling isn't enough to halt me from my basic activities. A tweak of medication could be called for but I'm happy to use my tools (eating, exercising, etc) to make up the difference in my mood.
- The low point was the day after Thanksgiving and thankfully we were able to go home the next day. In the original game plan for that day I was supposed to have access to a car to be able to leave at anytime. But that did not happen for various reason and DH, dd and I got stuck with no way to leave. No one else was enjoying the time either. Bekah actually cried. I took her in a back room and told her that she was very brave to cry. I went outside and cried. I was so thankful to go home.
- Christmas Eve to now: calm and peaceful due to planning. The plans haven't always worked 100% but we have left plenty of room in the schedule for this. Today the only thing I have to do is last minute shopping for the New Year's Eve party.

2. Extended Family
This is the touchy subject. As far as I know my mom is the only family member that reads this blog. If there are any other family members lurking please be kind and let me know.
- I am doing well at not getting wrapped up in other people's issues. The big one is that my dad is still in the hospital. My communication with him has only started just started back because of the holidays. The key word to me is 'communication'. I don't consider that I have a relationship with him. I have looked outside of myself to the well-being of my dd and her right to have her granddad in her life. He was welcomed into our home for Christmas Eve under the agreement that he would act appropriate. He was successful in doing that and now my dd has happy memories of Granddad. There have been a few church events that he has been a part of with us. Now that the holidays are over I'm not sure what this year will bring. He will be invited to dd's events like the preschool choir concert in May. What remains to be seen if he will leave things as they are 'communication' and not a relationship. I know that he doesn't get it right now. He might never get it.
- I am also working at not solving other people's problems. The main face to this is my aunt C. Twice in the last three months has she called me. The first time was to ask for money to pay for a bill. I couldn't believe it. I asked a few question about other avenues of help 1. calling the utility about an extension - nope 2. church - nope. I finally responded with "I don't earn the money - G does." Sorry G for throwing you under the bus like that. Anyone who know G knows that it is not how it really is in our home. Everything we own and he makes is 'ours'. But the excuse worked! The next call was her asking for a ride from her house to my home for Christmas Eve dinner. It is about a 40 minute drive one way. My personal opinion is that it was rude. Outside of that it was not practical for me or my dd to leave our home pick her up and come back - 1.5 hour round trip. The success in this is that we did not offer an alternative. Only a 'we don't know what to tell you'. Long story short she didn't come. Her loss.

3. Schedule
- I am continuing to cut back on my schedule
- with that being said I think it is important to note that I am not 'isolating'.
- I am accepting that I have chose 'stay-at-home' mom as my current vocation with the realization that this involves actually spending time at HOME.

4. Struggling with: continuations from last check-up
- 'starting and completing tasks' This is much harder during the holidays. When deadline approach I have this 'frozen' feeling. I just can't get motivated enough to get going. Again I am thankful for the information and tool from Breaking the Bi-Polar Cycle I read on my retreat.
- 'information-processing' is so much better than 3 months ago.

One thing that I haven't yet mentioned on this blog is about me getting pregnant again. It is now a possibility of getting to the point we are going to try, but we are not there yet. It is a journal that I can see myself blogging as I go, but saving the entries as drafts. If we do decide to get pregnant very few people will know until the first trimester is complete.

So those are the highlights of the quarterly review. Do I have 'New Year's Resolutions'? Not really 'New Year's'. My review just happens to coincide with the New Year. I have things that I want to keep up, things I want to do better at and things that I need to start doing. As with many people diet and exercise are up there. One thing that needs to happen for me to be in the best health possible is to lose 19 lbs. I lost some weight in 2008 and I need to continue that in 2009. I would like to lose it all by May. I have just joined a gym less than a mile from my house. The last gym took 15 minutes to get to and that just didn't work on days that I wasn't motivated. This is easier and has free child care and cable. Did you say TLC? That's what I thought you said. I have even started going to the gym to work out while watching Biggest Loser. This is an improvement from watching while eating ice cream during Seasons 1 and 2!

My next appointment is in May - which is actually 4 months away.

Christmas with BPD

As I get more accustomed to my life with BPD I realize that for me less is more. I enjoy life so much more when I do less. It isn't always easy with a toddler. From Thanksgiving to New Year's Eve it is VERY hard to make that happen. Stressors holiday and non-holiday in nature come from everywhere. On both G and my side of our families there is drama/crisis. It is not important what each family is dealing with - it is there. Both of these situation do not directly affect our families, but each effects our emotions and relationships. I am so thankful that over the last two days neither situation has interfered with celebrating Christmas. Christmas is not a day for dealing with situations. It was my hope that with both families we could enjoy being together and cherishing the day. Life can be dealt with another day and in its own time.

One thing that we do to help keep holidays manageable for me is to only go to one place a day. Many people try to goto multiple homes during the day. This just doesn't work for me and so we keep it to one. In general life works better if I would remember to do that through out the year. Yesterday we did my home with my family and two friend-families. Today we spent our traditional morning at home then headed to G's parents. In the next week we have three family members coming from out of town and the annual Christmas party of our "musical lovers anonymous" group. It has neatly worked out that each person/group gets their own day. Tomorrow I pick up my brother from the airport (after early morning shopping), Saturday is our Christmas party, Sunday we'll go to Papa's church with our niece. Monday is for errands and taking my brother back to the airport. Tuesday we are going to a Children's museum with the niece, Wednesday is our Settlers of Catan New Year's Eve party, Thurs is Papa's birthday and BB is spending the night over there with her cousin and I'll meet them at the airport to see the niece off and pick up Bekah. My other brother comes in and I'll see him Friday.

This Monday coming up I have another med check appointment. I don't have alot to go over with the doctor. Not much has changed and I have been handling my illness well. I have gone off Ambien which I miss at times, but it is one thing that I won't take when I get pregnant so I'm going off it now. Sleep is a big thing and with the holidays my schedule is definitely off. I'll sleep after the new year begins.

Keeping up with Medication during the Holidays

I have a good track record of being on top of my medications. I was not concirned that I missed a dose on Saturday night. These things happen and you take the medication as soon as you remember as long as it isn't too close to the next dose. That situation was handled easly. Last night I again forgot to take my medicine. I remember laying in a comfortably situated in the bed. There was a vague feeling that I had forgotten it so the intern struggle of getting out the comfortable bed began. I woke up this morning and stay in bed side won the argue. So I got out of bed and too my medication. Today's reaction wasn't as kind as Saturdays. I was no with it enough to take care of my daughter so I my mom for help with BB for the afternoon. I cried. I don't like not being able to take care of BB on my own. I think that I made the best decision for m and BB. I'm thankful that my mom was able to bring BB to the errand she need to run for the day. I am thankful that BB who doesn't know the medical terms to my illness does understand that mommy is sick and sometime doesn't feel well. She see me taking my daily medication and we tell her it is to keep mommy health. BB knew she was going to Grandma's because I needed to take care of myself. I'm starting to feel better and we have implemented a back-up alarm for my medications.