My uterus is still negotiable. I have arranged for a second doctor to give me an exam and also to look at the images I have in my medical history. I don’t want to have any body parts removed unless I absolutely have to, thank you very much. My sister Monica helped me come up with a list of questions to ask this doctor. Last time I just dropped my mouth open and stared in disbelief. My sister Maria called with suggestions of herbal remedies and vitamin solutions. I do believe in some natural remedies, sometimes. I wish more of them worked for me. At one time I gave St. John’s Wort a good long try, just in case. I am not opposed to the idea; I am just not going to eschew western medicine entirely. My appointment is next Monday.

My kids are doing well. School starts up again Thursday. They are spending these last moments being as lazy as they possibly can. I told them to enjoy it while they can. Polly is going back to the same middle school she loved last year, and Nathan is attending a new program designed for special needs kids. It became clear that I wasn’t able to home school him very well last year, but I was hard at work trying to find another solution. I don’t think I have ever typed both “special needs” and my son in the same sentence together. It’s sort of the elephant in the living room here. Everyone knows it, but we don’t talk about it much. I told Nathan last night that I would never give up on him, no matter what. Fifteen is a fun age. He knows everything and I know nothing. It’s OK though, because I got to know everything when I was fifteen so it somehow evens out.

Polly asked me last night what I wanted my kids to be when they grew up. I told her that I wanted them to be good people, and that I wanted them to be happy. Of course I have big dreams for them both but I want them to decide their future. I will just sit here and hope for the best and try to help them along the way.

Maggie the puppy is doing wonderfully. She has gained eleven pounds since we got her, and I have lost eight. She wakes me every morning around 6:30 to go potty and although I hate getting up early she is good for me, forcing me to get up and to go outside. She has mastered “sit” and “lie down” and “Maggie come”. I really do hate saying that to her as we take walks and she has to stop at every single leaf, rock, and blade of grass. It makes me sound like one of those sex partners who yell out “COME! COME! COME!” Not that I know anything about that. I think I saw it in a movie somewhere.

Itty Bitty the kitty has resigned himself to the fact that we have a puppy. They play together each day, sometimes a bit roughly, and then they pass out together and take a nap. They share each others toys and eat each others food if they can get away with it. Polly is constantly yelling out, “Quick, get me the camera, they are doing something cute!” I’ll look at them and they will be doing a slightly modified version of what they were doing ten seconds ago. I now have hundreds of pictures of these animals, thanks to Polly. I think we’ll get her a camera of her own for Christmas.

I have been weaning myself off of the Effexor. I was doing wonderfully until yesterday. I was pushing my cart around the grocery store and I burst into tears, right in front of the Tylenol section. I didn’t feel sad as much as I just felt tired of it all. I wanted to abandon my cart and just walk out of the store. I took a deep breath and kept going. My doctor is supposed to be adding in Paxil at some point, but I am still waiting. I called today and left a message for the doctor after Alex approached me and asked me what was wrong. I wasn’t really aware that anything was wrong, on the outside at least, but he said I was acting “weird”, which is always great to hear when you think that you’re keeping it all together and that no one knows. Truth is, Effexor withdrawals are the worst antidepressant withdrawals I have ever been through. Remember kids, I kicked coke and meth and heroin. And pot, because it made me panic in the end, god damn it. I liked smoking pot. That is how I kicked cocaine, meth and heroin. Anyway, if someone has reached my site doing a search about Effexor my thoughts after years of experience are this: Effexor is a good drug. It gave me a lot more energy to go about my daily tasks, something that none of the other SSRIs did. Somewhere in that capsule must be some speed. But, the withdrawal is very hard. I would recommend doing it slowly, under the advice of a skilled doctor. My doctor had to up my dose of Klonopin considerably.

I hope that you are all doing wonderfully. Does anyone have any exciting news to leave in my comments? Questions? Answers? It gets lonely here inside my head.