In Which I Find Everything Unnecessarily Difficult And Fight Hormonal Reactions To It

Tags

anxiety, doctor, hormones, ob-gyn, pregnancy, prenatal care, stress, work

My friend Hannah from Hodgepodge and Strawberries recently said to me that ‘pregnancy is like 9 months of non-stop PMS’ and I thoroughly agree. Life is hard enough on general principle, but when you’re trying to do it while surfing on a wave of irritation and overreaction it becomes just that much more difficult to navigate.

Picture trying to hold sixteen different items in your arms at once, while sobbing.

I have become a ball of horrible crippling anxiety and tears.

On top of the two jobs not to mention the “gee I haven’t bought any presents and now there’s no time to mail them back to Nova Scotia in time for Christmas” stress, I’ve been trying to deal with my medical situation.

So, you won’t have forgotten the mysterious disease of May/June. Well, a month or more ago I went back to the specialist because the itchy rash kept coming back. It usually starts on my chest and neck, burning and red, and then fades away while the itchiness spreads over my whole body and causes me to scratch my skin off for days. Antihistamines don’t help. Cortisone cream doesn’t help. So I went back to the internist. I was thinking that maybe this thing was autoimmune after all.

The internist listened carefully, and narrowed her eyes. “I think you should go back to the opthamologist and see if your optic nerve swelling is back,” she said. “If it is, we should probably do a lumber puncture, and you might need to talk to a neurosurgeon.”

I’m sorry, what now?

Yeah, it turns out that itching which isn’t soothed by cortisone or antihistamines can sometimes be NEUROLOGICAL.

I hadn’t mentioned it to her, but the wooshing noise in my left ear had returned a few times, too.

So I went back to the opthamologist, having spent the last three days at work saying “I MIGHT NEED A BRAIN SURGEON” whenever someone asked me a question I couldn’t answer.

The opthamologist looked in my eyes and said, “Yeah, the swelling is back again. Not nearly as bad as the first time I saw you, but definitely worse than the last time I saw you.”

Then, when I went in to my family doctor, she said that the bloodwork that the internist had done showed that my CRP (inflammation) values were up again, too.

So… what does this mean? Lumbar puncture? BRAIN SURGEON (FUCKING  BRAIN SURGEON OH MY GOD)?

Well, I don’t know! Because NO ONE SEEMS TO KNOW.

I called the internist’s office on Monday and was like “Uh, what do I do now?”

And they said “We don’t know… doesn’t say in your file… we’ll ask the doctor tomorrow.”

Today is Wednesday. I still haven’t heard back. So I called and left ANOTHER message asking what the hell I do now.

And that ain’t all.

The internist also apologetically told me that I should be considered a high risk pregnancy because they have no idea what’s wrong with me. Better safe than sorry.

That means that I need an OB, not a midwife.

I decided the last time I was pregnant that I wanted a midwife this time around. Midwives are covered in British Columbia, and you can still have a hospital birth and epidural and all that wonderful stuff. The big benefit to a midwife, as I saw it, was that she will come to your house and check your dilation so you don’t need to go back and forth to the hospital UMPTEEN TIMES and wait for two hours just to be told that you haven’t dilated in the slightest EVEN THOUGH YOU’VE BEEN HAVING CONTRACTIONS EVERY 3 MINUTES FOR THE LAST 18 HOURS.

Not that that wasn’t wonderful and all.

Besides, it sucked that I saw one or two doctors throughout my prenatal care and then my baby ended up being delivered by a stranger who didn’t even remember me when I went in for my 6 week post delivery checkup.

So I got a midwife for my last pregnancy and had all of one appointment with her before the baby died in the womb and all that stuff happened. 

This time I held off for a while – partly because I was half-convinced that the baby would die again so I didn’t want to jump the gun and partly because my doctor was like “let’s make sure your weird disease doesn’t cause any problems.”

So I’ve been seeing my family doctor for prenatals which she said she could do through 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Then the rashes and the head wooshing started and now the internist has officially said that I should be considered high risk.

Which means that I need to have an OB.

Which sucks.

So I asked my family doctor to refer me to my previous OB clinic. After all, if I have to have an OB again, it might as well be the place that gave me a healthy baby last time, somewhere I am familiar with and with some faces that I’ll recognize.

Does that seem too much to ask? DOES IT?

APPARENTLY IT IS.

In Which I Get Medical Advice From An Oompa Loompa, And Distrust It

Tags

baby, colds, common cold, coughing, daycare, doctor, pediatrician, sick, sleep, toddler, virus, winter

Owl coughs.

He’s been doing it for months and months. Ever since he got croup, really. It’s practically part of his personality, now. We hardly notice it. His nose runs, and it gives him post nasal drip, and then he coughs, mostly at night when he’s lying down and we’re trying to sleep.

(Incidentally, this is hilarious, especially when you’re really tired.) 

At first I took him back to the doctor for it. Each time the doctor told me it was “probably viral” and that colds are common in the first winter in daycare.

“He’ll basically have colds non-stop all winter,” said the pediatrician jovially (my pediatrician looks exactly like a human sized Oompa Loompa. Not the weird orange men from the Gene Wilder film but Oompa Loompas as described by Roald Dahl).

How I imagine my doctor’s family must look

Plus Owl tended to pick up worse colds from his visits to the doctor’s office. So I gave up.

But Daycare Lady didn’t.

“I’m sure he needs antibiotics or something,” she said. “He’s always coughing, and it sometimes sounds like there’s boiling water in his chest.”

Every now and then the coughing gets worse.

It happened again this weekend. His coughing was so bad that PH was up with him again and again in the night, and gave up entirely at 3 am  when he handed me Owl in bed (usually it’s between 4:30 and 5:30 am when Owl joins me in bed).

Even in the car he’d cough and cough. When he breathes his chest sounds like it’s percolating coffee.

After the third night of this PH said, “take him to the pediatrician.”

Daycare Lady wholeheartedly agreed.

“You have to PUSH them. My brother is a pediatrician and when my little girl was small he told me that from what I was saying over the phone, he was sure she had pneumonia. I took her to the ER and the ER doctor said she was fine! Viral! Go home! So I said “you PROVE to me it’s viral!” and I insisted on an xray and the xray showed pneumonia!”

So I went in determined this time.

When Jolly Doc came in I explained that he has been coughing for months. Sometimes it’s worse than others but always THERE.

“Does it get better and then worse again?” he asked.

“Yes!”

“It’s a cold.”

“An eight month long cold?”

“No, he just keeps getting colds one on top of the other. Happens all the time in daycare in winter.”

“But it’s June!”

“The cold season seems to be lasting longer than usual. We’ve had a cool spring.”

“But there’s only four other kids at his dayhome and none of them are sick!”

“You can’t tell me that the other kids never get colds.”

“No, they get colds occasionally, but they get sick, with stuffy noses and coughs and fevers and then a week later they’re over it. Owl’s symptoms are non-stop, and his nose rarely gets really clogged. It’s just constantly draining clear or yellow snot.”

“Because he keeps catching new colds before the old ones are done! I see this all the time. There’s no point in doing tests and no medicine will help you. His lungs don’t sound asthmatic, and I don’t think it’s allergies – you say it happened all through the winter, so it’s not likely seasonal.”

“Some units in our complex have had problems with mold, but we vacuumed and washed his bedding…”

“Yeah, and he hasn’t had a history of lung problems or breathing problems. This doesn’t look like allergies. It looks like a cold.”

“But he always looks like this!”

“Yes, well,” he laughed, “we call them “snot-nosed kids” for a reason!”

He DID say he would refer me to an eye doctor about Owl’s clogged tear duct. He said they usually resolve on their own but after a year he gets them dealt with “you’ve been surprisingly patient.”

Yes, well, considering my child is constantly coughing, a teary eye hasn’t really been high in my priorities.

I left feeling so frustrated.

How does he know that Owl hasn’t had the same persistant infection ever since October? Maybe he fights it off for a while and it keeps coming back. Why is he the only kid in his daycare who is constantly coughing up phlegm?

would you like some snot with that?

But I’m really frigging tired and I don’t see why he is constantly suffering from colds that no one else seems to be giving to him, or catching from him.

I’ve got the No Can Has Blues

Tags

babies, bosses, carbs wonderful carbs, coworkers, depression, doctor, life, parents, Perfect Husband, tears, weight problems, whining

I’ve been trying to get to the bottom of these blues. There didn’t seem to be any logical catalyst for them. After all, I have a Perfect Husband, a Dream Job, a Beloved Dog and an Inexplicably Loved Cat. I am about to move into a new house, which I get to redecorate thanks to the Generous Father Grant (Perfect Husband talked him down to half of the original offered amount, so we have pride AND money!) and I live in a city which is overflowing with beautiful views. I can’t wait to have a baby and my husband has promised that we can start trying as soon as I cheer up a bit.

So why do I find making it through the day so very nearly unbearable?

I think I’ve got it figured out.

Allow me to post a small timeline.

Fall 2008 – I am generally happy, and plan to have a baby some time in the next year. I reason that I should be going up a level in my apprenticeship in February, leading to increased pay, benefits (which all full time employees at my work are entitled to, except lowly level one apprentices who apparently don’t count), and general rainbows and sunshine. I picture myself showing up in Nova Scotia for my friend’s wedding with a belly just starting to swell with something other than poutine and garlic bread.

Christmas 2008 – when my boss is annoyed with my coworker, he decides to drastically change the requirements to move upwards in our apprenticeship, now making a promotion even within the next year uncertain, let alone in February. The Big Big Boss disapproves of this step, and countermands the order. My boss chooses to ignore the countermand, and neither I nor my coworker have any chance of moving upwards in our apprenticeship.

January 2009 – Since the Powers That Be cannot agree on whether or not the new requirements are above and beyond the call of ridiculousness, any potential for moving upwards in my apprenticeship is permanently stalled. Despite being told that the new requirements definitely do not apply, neither do the old ones seem to, either. I begin to accept the fact that I may be an apprentice until I am old and grey.

Promotion? NO CAN HAS.

At the end of the month, I turn 27, and my coworker gives birth to her second son. I hold the baby in my arms on my birthday and something in my heart squeezes so hard that I walk around in sorrowful despair for the rest of the day.

April 2009 – I decide that since there’s no point waiting around for a promotion that will never come. I have now passed the point where I could be adorably expecting in time for my visit home, and my stress over the last few months has led me to eat like a heifer. I am the heaviest weight I have ever been. I decide to seriously cut all carbs out of my diet, planning to be thin in time for my friend’s wedding. I reason that since I’m going to gain 20 pounds during pregnancy anyway, I might as well lose it first, so i don’t end up 20 pounds heavier than THIS. My reward for eschewing all carbohydrates? A baby.

May 2009 – 12 pounds lighter, I am pleased with my progress. My work situation still depresses me, but I look forward to buying a house, and having a baby. Perfect Husband and I even pick up a copy of What To Expect from Value Village (hey, it was three dollars) and I read it cover to cover. It moves into the bathroom, from which Perfect Husband emerges periodically saying things like “Oh my gawd, I feel so sorry for you”. I spend a lot of time looking for in-the-womb photos of fetuses in development, and researching things like pre-natal stimulation and watching YouTube videos of nine month old babies who can recognise short words. I study baby sign and teach myself how to fold a cloth diaper (thank you, YouTube).

Then my coworker moves, and feeds me pizza and un-diet coke. Given a new rush of sugar of which it had been deprived for over a month, my addictions return in full rage. I spend the next couple of weeks trying to avoid carbs, but then succumbing and stuffing my face anyway. I begin to gain the weight back. I am frustrated with myself, and my body. I loathe it, and I loathe myself for being unable to resist the desire to eat. I am no closer to having my baby, and I begin to accept the fact that it might be baby… or body. But if I wait for body, I might never have a baby.

Thin body? NO CAN HAS.

June 2009 – My husband and I celebrate our wedding anniversary, and begin to neglect condoms. This is followed very shortly after by The Great House Breakdown. Perfect Husband realizes how much the hopelessness of work and unsuccessful dieting is weighing on me. He is used to my having bouts of depression, usually in winter, but this is worse than usual. Unfortunately, he’s read that damn What To Expect and has seen what effects depression can have on the fetus. He requires me to get fixed up with a doctor before we start trying for a baby.

Baby? NO CAN HAS.

Okay, I think. After all, his reasoning is sound. I know he’s right, because he’s always right, damn his hide, which is all part of his perfection. I’ll get help. I’ll be happy and THEN have a baby. It sounds good. Until I promised my husband to get help, I didn’t fully realize how much my misery had been weighing me down. It was like a birth defect or something – something which hinders me occasionally, but which I’ve always managed to work around and which I’ve stopped really thinking about. But soon I’ll be free – getting help! Maybe taking a pill which might restore my lost energy, lost libido, lost ability to sleep soundly, and which may remove my intense carbohydrate cravings, thus also reducing my weight. I could be thin, and sexy, and pregnant, all at once! Sure, I’d still be underpaid and unappreciated in my job, but what of that?

July 2009 – I go home to Nova Scotia, spend far too little time with my family and friends, whom I realize I have missed terribly. My friends out West are still getting to know me, and faced with the new, gloomy, quiet and hermit-like Carol, they have backed off. When I lose control and cry at work, they don’t know how to help. They argue against me, instead of commiserating. They try and cheer me up by telling me that it’s not so bad, that I’m overreacting, when really what I need is support and validation. My loved ones are too far away to be there when I need them. I live more and more on the internet, because it is my fastest portal to the people who have known me for over a decade. The trip flies by far too quickly. My hopes rise and fall with the Late Period Panic. And then… the infamous doctor re-visiting.

Help for your depression? NO CAN HAS.

Now, I understand that one can’t just plunge into a spoiled funk when things don’t go one’s way. The depression isn’t because of these things, but simply fed by them, like a monster under the bed who eats your singleton socks. I feel powerless. I feel invalidated. I feel denied. And the more I mourn the baby that never was, the further I take myself from finally holding the baby that someday will be. The more I withdraw from the life that seems too much, the further I push my tentative new friends. It seems like the most useless, hopeless cycle.

Doctors don’t TALK to their patients, stupid.

Tags

depression, doctor, tears, whining

Okay, time to give an update in the depression saga.

For those of you who missed last month’s installment – I have been having tearful, inconsolable crying breakdowns. Perfect Husband seems to think that this is an abnormal state, and an undesirable one for the future mother of his children to exist in. He seems to feel that his first act as a good father is to get me happy before I try to grow a fetus in my depressed, distressing womb. So I mention it to my doctor during my PAP test and she tells me that this is VERY important but that she doesn’t have time to talk to me about it, since I am just booked for a physical and she is moving to different city next Tuesday. She encourages me to try a mental health facility in the local hospital, and asks if I want her to keep my file. I say yes, since woman doctors are scarce.

I had no idea where exactly in the hospital I was supposed to go. Do I go to emergency? Or is there a special set of doors for people-who-need-help-but-only-kinda-sorta? Perfect Husband suggested I call 811, so I did. The guy I spoke to had no idea.

“I’m going to transfer you to one of our RNs. They have access to more information than I do.”

So I speak to a male RN. He asks me a bunch of questions and says that yes, I assess as definitely depressed. He doesn’t seem to believe that I can be this depressed without thoughts of suicide, and keeps saying stuff like “are you sure you aren’t having thoughts of death?” He can’t help me himself, but he give me the number to the local mental health centre and encourages me to call them.

I do so, but they’re only open Mon-Fri, 9-5, when the depressed population are sloughing their way through another meaningless workday. Thankfully, I teach puppy class Monday evenings, so I called Monday morning. When the lady answered the phone I explained that I needed to be assessed for depression, but my doctor was too busy for me so did they have someone who could do that for me? She asked for my address and then said irritably “That’s the wrong part of the city. You need to call the other branch. I’ll transfer you.”

Another lady, sounding older and more crotchety, picked up the phone at the other centre. I started to explain about my doctor, but she cut me off with a bored “hold please” and I listened to eighties power ballads for several minutes. When she came back, I shortened my story to “I need to be assessed for depression. Can you help me?”

“I’ll have to take your name and care card number and someone will call you back after I’ve put you in the database,” the woman said blandly. She took my information and hung up on me. She didn’t ask if I was suicidal. I waited and waited, and no one called. Just doing this runaround was putting me near tears. How many people do you need to call and say “I need help” to before someone actually helps you?

Just as I was getting ready to leave, the phone rang. The lady who talked to me on the phone asked me that same bunch of questions, and told me that I definitely assess as depressed. But she didn’t think she could help me. She recommended to me that I talk to my GP. I explained that I had, and my GP was too busy to talk to me about it, and had told me to call the mental health centre, and had then moved practices the next week. She sounded slightly shocked, and told me I should go back to the GP.

“Tell them that you want to book an appointment specifically to talk about your mood. She’ll ask you a bunch of questions, and then she’ll be able to prescribe an antidepressant or possibly refer you to a psychiatrist. I’ll fax her some information about what we have spoken about today, and recommend you for antidepressants and the “Bounce Back” program that we offer. Will you promise to call her?”

“I don’t know where she is, now.”

“I can find that out for you. The thing is, you could go to a walk-in clinic, but you should really have someone who knows your medical history, and besides, you’d need follow up care. I could try and get you an appointment here, but frankly we work by triage, and since you don’t want to hurt yourself, it could be a long time before we managed to fit you in.”

My mind filled with images of pressing masses of people each claiming to want to hurt themselves more than the guy next to him. “Take me next, not him, I’m much more suicidal!”

So I called my GP’s new office and asked to book an appointment for the day after I returned from vacation.

“Uh, yeah, that’s, like, next week,” said the guy.

“Yes, yes it is,” I agreed patiently.

“The thing is, I don’t have her schedule for that far in advance.”

“What, next week?” I asked.

“Yeah. Could you, like, call later this week, or even better, early next week? I should have her schedule by then.”

So while I was on the other side of the country, Perfect Husband called and asked to book an “extra long” appointment to talk to the doctor.

He took me in on Thursday, after I called in to work for being jet lagged. We sat and listened to a pair of women complain about taxes, low income housing, the general way that everyone spits on the poor etc. It was clearly half walk-in clinic, half not, because there was a sign up reminding patients that if someone was called in ahead of them, it was probably because that person had actually made an appointment.

They called me in.

“Isn’t that just typical?” one of the women muttered to the other, “see how the people with money get special treatment? I was here before her.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, when was your appointment for?” my husband asked her innocently.

I waited on the table for the doctor. I could hear her outside, finishing with a patient and then being pulled aside by a drug rep, whom she assured she was trying to give out as many free samples as possible. Finally she came in, took my file off the door, and said “what can I help you with today, Carol?”

“Well, I’m here to talk about my depression. I did what you said, but the people at the mental health centre sent me back to you.”

She furrowed her brow and looked at the file, which contained a single, blank, record in it. “Carol, I don’t have time to talk you about that today. I’m really swamped here. When I saw you before, did I tell you I was willing to take you as a new patient? Because I…”

“I’ve been your patient for two years,” I said, nettled. She looked at the blank file again.

“Oh. Well, then your file must be in storage.”

“I was told you brought your patient files with you,” I said, confused.

“Yes, but I put them in storage. The only files I actually have in this clinic are patients who said they definitely wanted me to keep their files,” she said disparagingly.

“But you asked me if I wanted you to keep my file, and I said yes,” I said, tears beginning to well up.

“Oh. Well, I don’t have it, and I’m absolutely swamped today, Carol, I don’t have time to talk to you about all this. What are your symptoms? Just crying a lot?”

“I cry a lot, I’m sad all the time, I have no energy, I crave carbohydrates, I’m gaining weight, sometimes I have insomnia and sometimes I sleep too much…” I reeled off. She scribbled something quickly.

“Well, that sounds like depression. You want antidepressants?”

“I don’t know… I’m worried about side effects. I don’t want anything that is going to make me gain more weight, and my libido is already low…”

“Carol, you can’t go limiting me like this!” she snapped. “Look, I’ll give you some samples of a new antidepressant. You come back in 10 days, and by that time I’ll have your file out of storage.”

Yeah, right. “Well, but, are these SSRIs? Are they safe for pregnancy?”

“Why, are you pregnant?” She asked, folding her arms.

“No, but my husband and I are planning to have a baby sometime in the next year…”

“Well, WHEN you decide to try for a baby, WHEN you get pregnant, THEN we can talk about whether to change medications or take you off of them. In the meantime, take these samples, and come back in 10 days.” She hurried me out of the room and went on to her next patient.

My husband found me coming back to the waiting room in tears which flowed for the rest of the day and well into the night. I just couldn’t make them stop.

In Which I Face the Crazy

Tags

depression, doctor, house, Perfect Husband, realtor, tears, whining

So, there’s a story which begins in a townhouse almost identical to the one we lost, and ends with me feeling sad in a paper gown.

It goes like this.

We went to see a couple more units in the same complex. Our realtor, perhaps feeling it wise not to show his face, sent his daughter (my coworker’s sister, who looks just like my coworker, except completely different) in his place. We liked her a lot, actually. The first unit she took us through was a hole compared to the Great Lost House. It had damaged drywall behind the front door, ancient and grimy linoleum, carpeting instead of wood flooring, and some truly distasteful back splash in the kitchen, featuring blue flowers. There are renters living there, which shows in the care they took to leave the house looking as un-presentable as possible. I also enjoyed the plaster cast of a pregnant torso in the baby’s room, featuring an outie belly button and lopsided breasts. Remind me not to do that, when I’m pregnant.

The next place was newly renovated, with a stove and fridge that were so new that their plastic was still on their handles, and their instruction manuals/warranties were still inside of them. New laminate flooring, too. Exact same layout as the Lost Place. Except… where the other place had had a tiny yard, this had a big wooden deck. And no crown molding, of course.

When we first saw the Lost Place, it had seemed like a wonderland. Given our budget, and the ridiculous cost of housing out here, our hopes had mostly extended towards a two bedroom one level place. Suddenly there was this three bedroom place, with two stories, and a yard, and it was in our price range.

Well, this place had the second story that I had coveted so highly. It had the lovely laminate flooring (actually, it was a nicer colour, too. Richer, not quite so Ikea). In fact, it had more laminate flooring, because the old place had carpet upstairs. This house had laminate upstairs too, except in one of the bedrooms – already painted blue, which is what I would want to paint a baby’s room some day.

Could I see or appreciate any of this? Nope!

All I could see was the absent crown molding, and worst of all, the missing yard. To someone who has a very beloved dog, and an endless procession of mouth-breathing, retrieving houseguests, a yard becomes a precious thing. I felt that our realtor had robbed us of our yard. Now we would have to take this stinky second choice, and I would be miserable forever, with no yard for the dogs. Miserable forever. All because of this one mistake. Couldn’t we just rewind? Why couldn’t we rewind?

“Well, I have no problem with this place,” said Perfect Husband to me, as we looked out the master bedroom window at the creepy, dark-windowed little child’s playhouse in the courtyard below.

“Don’t you?” I responded grimly.

“…Was that the wrong thing to say?” he asked.

“…No…” I said, “We’ll probably have to take this one anyway, so we might as well like it.”

But I couldn’t. I was fighting tears as we thanked Realtor Jr. I didn’t want Perfect Husband to know that I was reacting like a spoiled brat. However, when we stopped for groceries and I went to use the bathroom and came out with my face red as a tomato from a short bawling session, he gave me a resigned hug. I was still trying to put on a brave face, so I pulled away after a while, gave him a watery smile, and we went back to shopping.

We drove home in silence.

When we got in, he took the dog for a walk and I bawled heavily over my computer keyboard. When he came back in I smothered it. He could tell that I had been at it again, and his lips tightened as he fought between the conflicting emotions of wanting to kill Realtor Senior for making his beloved wife cry, and wanting to kill the beloved wife for being such a brat. He delivered irritable hugs, and I let him go lie on the bed while I retreated to the den. There it all became to overwhelming to be bearable, and I curled up on the floor, sobbing into the carpet and writhing in physical pain. Feeling like my heart was in a vice, I felt that I couldn’t bear the pain of losing the Lost Place. It just had to be undone, someone had to fix it, because I couldn’t handle reality as it was now, I just couldn’t.

After much sobbing into the carpet (hoping to muffle the sound), gnashing of teeth, rending of garments etc, I became aware of Perfect Husband’s presence. Turns out my vague attempts at muffling had been less than successful.

“I need to know why this bothers you so much,” he said. No doubt part of him was wondering what kind of tantruming child he had married – it must have been less than sexy to find me on the floor wailing like a frustrated two year old.

And it all came pouring out – how it hurts so much all the time, all the little sadnesses that weigh on me, and I feel like my friends don’t care anymore or listen to my problems any more, and my job is going nowhere, and I can’t seem to lose weight and how this had somehow just made everything too much… too much.

“Oh, well, if it’s just depression, that’s ok,” he said with obvious relief. Clearly he feels much more comfortable with craziness than with mere selfishness. Now reassured that I was simply a sad person pushed over the edge, instead of a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum, he held me tight while I sobbed and blew snot all over his shirt.

“It’s not depression,” I said, after the hyperventilating and uncontrollable wails had mostly drained out of me. “I’m just depressed these days.” I was aware that my argument was weak. But since I have had bouts of depressed mood my whole life (all the time in winter, and off and on when it’s not winter…) where I feel sad/near tears all the time, general hopelessness and so on, this feels fairly normal to me.  I have never wanted to actually kill myself or anything like that. Then he gave me a big lecture about how you don’t need to be suicidal for it to count for depression, and pointed out that this kind of depression is actually much more treatable than the other kind. “Psychiatrists love people like you,” he said, “they can fix you.”

I had a doctor’s appointment the next morning, to get my usual invasive probe… I mean PAP… and general yearly physical. We were supposed to be talking about me maybe having a baby sometime in the next year. I thought she might want to do a chicken pox titre on me or something. Perfect Husband made me promise to mention the depression to her.

After forty minutes in a waiting room, I was weighed (why does the doctor’s scale weigh me in at a good nine pounds more than my own scale/wii fit? Do you think they do that on purpose to demoralize you?) and then told to get naked and put on the embarrassing paper gown. Then I sat there for over half an hour, naked under my sad little paper gown, waiting for the doctor. My eyes were still swollen from the night before. I tried to remember everything I wanted to ask her about – my itchy ear, the pus blisters I keep getting on my toes, my family history of diabetes, the difficulty my mother had in conceiving me, the persistant irrational sadness… When she did come in, it was with rushed but sincere apologies.

She prodded my abdomen, inserted speculums, poked breasts and took blood pressure while muttering to me about folic acid. I told her what Perfect Husband had made me promise to tell her, and she seemed concerned but too busy to do anything about it. She suggested that I either go to the drop in mental health centre for a referral, or rebook another appointment with her.

“But I’m moving practices next week, so if you can’t make it for Tuesday…”

After a couple of “dears” and empty reassurances she hurried out before I could ask her about chicken pox titres, itchy extremities or anything else.

So, to sum up, I am accepting of the fact that I shouldn’t be this sad, but I still don’t know what to do about it. Self-medicating with chocolate last night helped, though, and we’ve made an offer on the otherwise perfectly fine place. Perfect Husband likes the deck better anyway, and pointed out that if we used some postage-stamp sized yard as a dog toilet area, it would hardly be a nice place for friends to come for a BBQ, or for a baby to play in.

He’s right, of course. He always is.