Monte Report - Late November

Welcome to the new and improved (visually, at least) version of The Monte Report. I don't know about you, but the toxic-waste-blue of the previous version was damaging my eyeballs.

My extended Thanksgiving weekend was pleasant for the most part, with the primary down-side being relentless colds amongst multiple family members (including me) (and my Mom) at a time when my Mom's immune system is compromised due to her chemotherapy. (If all goes according to plan, she'll have Round 2 of her chemo this week.) I think if she wasn't ill with a cold, she'd be feeling just fine other than some generalized tiredness.

As for me, my mental health has been pretty good since my last post, but it is gradually becoming wobbly in a very familiar way, and I have no doubt that a downturn is lurking around the corner. We'll see. There are parties that I hope to attend over each of the next three weekends, and that may be leading to some pre-emptive anxiety. I think my best bet for now is to take it easy, not push myself too hard at work, call in sick when I need to, play it by ear in regard to the parties -- and get over this damned 3-week old cold as quickly as possible.

Monte Report - Mid-November 2006

As I pursue a pattern of briefer but more frequent posts, I promise this will be quick.

Though I've experienced some roller-coastering in the past few weeks, I've been stable for the past ten days -- it seems as though perhaps the latest "adjunct" medication (Abilify) is kicking in. I'm still faced with daily challenges, but they aren't knocking me down so easily, and I'm able to move on to whatever's next without much trouble. Coming up soon is the Holiday Party at work, traditionally one of my biggest challenges of the year. But this year I'm actually planning to attend (in fact, my psychiatrist practically insisted that I do), and the more I prepare myself to go, the more I'm looking forward to it. I'll let you know how it goes.

Lastly, I must brag that I finally saw my FIVE HUNDREDTH "lifer" on my recent trip to Arizona: a Greater Pewee, a bird that I'd heard before but which had managed to elude visual detection up til now. I was quite pleased to hit that milestone, to say the least: as you can see from the map, their range in the U.S. is rather limited, and such birds are always a treat to find.

(Painting of Greater Pewee copyrighted by Marco Pineda; used with permission.)

Monte Report for October 2006

I decided that it would be better to post shorter, but more frequent reports, starting last month. But that hasn't happened. I will try and keep this one short though, so maybe this will be a start to a new pattern.

A few days ago I got back from a week-long vacation to Arizona, most of which was spent with family, with some birdwatching thrown in here and there. This trip came at a time when I had been feeling pretty rotten, but was using a new medication (Abilify). Although there were some rough moments during that week, overall I had a great time. When it was over, I drove home all in one day (over 850 miles) and yet was full of energy when I got home. I was excited about the possibility that this new med was kicking in and helping me stay on an even, positive keel. The true test seemed to be this: would my mood stay up once I was back home and back at work? Much to my dismay, it didn't. Literally minutes after walking in to work I was being bombarded with triggers that I was unable to dodge. This is despite the fact that I love my coworkers dearly and I know that they love me -- and despite the fact that I was actually enjoying the work I was doing. It really is an odd feeling to be suicidal while enjoying myself -- but it is a skill that I am unfortunately good at. I've had one good evening this week -- the one evening that I had dinner plans with friends. Otherwise my evenings have been awful -- brief but awful: brief because I am drugged and asleep as soon as humanly possible once I'm home. This is no way to live my life, where all my waking moments are spent at work, constantly dodging irrational emotional bullets, and all my home-time is spent asleep. Each day this week my level of misery has deepened, and today I had to leave work early -- not an easy thing for me to do, given the added guilt that comes along with leaving the department short-handed. Tomorrow I see my thyroid doctor (the one who called the police on me in May!) and I'm hoping that my lab results will explain why I'm having such a rough time, and that an adjustment to my thyroid med will help things out. We'll see.

In other news, my Mom started her chemo yesterday. I'll try and post another Monte Report in a week, and I'll include an update on how she's doing.