I read the news today, Oh, boy… That song is in my head this morning after news this week of Robin Williams’ surreal death, evidently taking his own life by asphyxia.  That would be hanging, I guess.  Hearing this made me incredibly sad; that this ball of energy and life surrounded by a world of people who love him could not reach out to just one person.  How dark must be this place where there is no hope, where someone can see no future that is worth walking toward. I pray his children can find comfort and peace.

I am on a Facebook fast, day 12, and so I heard the news via text from J, who likes to share news with me or pitied that I was not able to learn this news through FB, the largest news conduit on the planet.

I haven’t missed it really.  I miss the escapism it offers in moments like waiting rooms, bathrooms, and just waking up in bed when I don’t really want to get out of my soft, warm, wonderful bed, but I still want to connect in some passive way to the world outside my window.

My internet is not working again.  This conspiracy gets me to write this morning [Tue].  My ADHD will be clearly apparent with the next topic I bounce off to:  my RA.  I started a trial of controversial antibiotic masquerading as a DMARD, Minocycline, about 5 days ago, maybe a week, and I felt very depressed initially.  Perhaps, I still do, I still am, and I am just getting so used to it,  so now it seems normal.  I feel flat like those gimmicky dolls of my childhood- Flatsy.  I feel unaffected, not happy, not particularly sad or angry or worried or anything else…. just flat, like a soda that has lost its bubble and sparkle.

I can hear your thoughts as you say, omg, an antibiotic cannot make you feel like that, but I disagree.  I am, if nothing else, fairly highly self-aware, you might say self-absorbed, but I like to think of myself as self-aware.  I know my body and my feelings and my reactions, and so when I began to feel the life seeping out of me, the energy bleeding out like the helium slowly escaping a balloon, I did what any self-respecting busybody researcher would do, I googled it.

And, indeed, Minocycline is one of the few antibiotics that crosses the brain barrier, so I am deactivating macrophages and killing mycoplasmas and God know what else from my brain at this very moment.  Apparently, those very macrophages or mycoplasmas are key players in the animation of my existence; and as they die off, I become increasingly morose.

Yesterday, while in the office, my suite mate who is sort of cross between my youngest son and a number of Judd Apatow characters kept asking me questions, and it was like I was on a delay.  I couldn’t answer very quickly and when I did, my voice was planking like the tall policeman brother’s voice on Everybody Loves Raymond.  He said, “do you have your earbuds in, or something?”  I said, “no, I’m just trying to figure something out, here.”  Which was, in fact, the truth, I saved the wrong file to the wrong file location and had to switch them back before my newly decompensating brain forgot and left them that way.

I am eating too many carbs, because my stomach is becoming more poofy and obtrusive. Betty, I call her when she makes herself known by pooching out overtop of my shorts and underwear and making my middle less like an oreo and more like a fatly stuffed whoopee pie.  I don’t like her and I don’t know why I cannot stop eating carbs.  It’s just food-fuel-stuff to keep me going.  I am medicating with food, ding.ding.ding. <light.comes.on> and so the dilemma is this:  Do I stop taking this drug that might help my RA so I don’t need to medicate with carbs? 

Hold it, on day 5, let’s see where I am there:  energy level—vacillating at an unsatisfactory level, stiff toes, fingers, neck, intermittently sore all over…so, clearly, the jury is still out. 

Do I add yet another drug, perhaps, an antidepressant finally… I am thinking I would ask for Wellbutrin since it has a stimulant effect and might keep me from eating so many carbs. Bean says that you can’t get an anti-depressant when you have been depressed only 5 days, but I feel like I am an exception [shocker].  Since, I was depressed for like 20 years and I didn’t get any antidepressants at all, so I am long overdue for some.

And, is this just menopause?  Old age ain’t for sissies—seriously.  It’s hard to keep the conditions straight and figure out if the exhaustion is due to one or the other or any of the myriad medications I now have to take, or environmental… like because we live in this never-ending recession and our bills keep taking bigger bites of our pay… hmmm..

I have to stop ranting.  It’s so unattractive. 

On to the upsides [if I can find some].  I am on a Facebook fast.  I don’t really miss it.  I still have hair.  I can walk.  I still have a sense of humor.  I have the best boyfriend /fiance ever.  I have two jobs.  I have super grandkids– my kids are pretty cool, too, but they have issues, and so the grandkids win.  I have a roof over my head, which is critical since we now live in a rain forest environment.  I have a very sparkly engagement ring that reminds me every time I look at it that somebody really special thinks I am special and wants to spend his life with me.  I have faith and hope and love, and really, that is all I need.