Back to Work!

Well, after 5+ months off for health issues, I am finally back to work and it feels terrific!

I didn't realize all of the benefits of Cymbalta until last week when I kept forgetting to have my prescriptions refilled and ran out. I thought the pain that engulfed my body was from being back to work and using muscles I forgot I had. Within 24 hours of resuming my normal dosing of Cymbalta all but the pain in my feet had subsided.

It is that time of year again when I talk with a representative from Columbia University as part of the VNS study I am a participant of.

I dread these updates, not the person who conducts it because she's awesome, but the questions that have to be asked.

What makes this update more difficult is the fact that I had been off work for several months due to my health and I feel the depression that surrounded that will exacerbate how I really feel.

I guess we'll see.

Baby Bear

I finally have to admit it out loud ~ Hunter is no longer my "Baby Bear", a nickname he's had since he was a little boy. Each standing approximately 5' 9" tall, Hunter and I are now the same height and it seems strange. Very strange.

Today was Hunter's second appointment with a new therapist and it went very well. I was brought in toward the end of the session so the therapist could observe how Hunter and I interact. I wasn't surprised at what she found, yet I was surprised that she found it so fast.

Hunter and I are a lot alike, sometimes more than I would like to admit, and we quite often feed off each other's emotions. This can be a good thing, for instance, when he is happy or delightfully manic, yet it can also be a detriment when I begin talking about something that makes him uncomfortable, or that he doesn't wish to discuss, and we both begin feeling anxious.

The therapist asked me to explain to Hunter how I felt when he was in the midst of one of his rages. This was easy for me to do, yet I am not certain if he understood what I was trying to say. I was raised in a house where there was severe violence against my brothers and when Hunter starts punching holes in walls I feel that overwhelming fear suck the breath right out of my body. It's as though I was snatched back into the 1970's and early 1980's and witnessing it all over again. I never, ever, EVER thought I would be afraid that one of my kids could ~ or would ~ physically hurt me and the thought scares the hell out of me.

I don't know if it's a blessing or a curse that Hunter currently destroys our property instead of people.

As hard as I tried I couldn't seem to articulate to Hunter how important he is to me. I couldn't seem to make it something tangible for him ~ even though there is nothing tangible about emotions. Instead, I explained to him about the thirteen days we spent in the hospital together when I was six months pregnant with him and how I have been fighting ever since to keep him safe, healthy and happy.

I began to cry.

I couldn't help it. Hunter-Bear fills up so much of my heart because we, and so many other people, have fought so long and hard to keep him on an even keel that it breaks my heart to see him struggle so desperately to keep his anger under control. It's like this demon that has such death grip on him and we just can't seem to rip it away from him.

Are we moving forward? Or standing still?