Child Bride

This report really was amazing. I wonder how many innocent people are living in similarly evil situations. Far too many I am sure.

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone From Yahoo! News

Change in Antidepressants May Beat Depression

A report at Forbes.com goes through the trial and error of getting the medication cocktail right. There are a lot of people who give up before they get better. The search for the holy grail can take some time.

Mom's Depression

An article in Forbes.com states the obvious and it's good that this is being studied. Parents - take care of yourselves! When my kids were growing up, I was a single working mom suffering from major depression/bipolar disorder. The battle seemed endless, and the fight went on day after day, medication after medication. After seeing what my mom went through when I was a kid, I was determined to do everything my doctor told me. Finally, it paid off but our life was affected - how can it not be? The highest priority as a parent is to take care of yourself; take care of your marriage; and take care of your kids. An unhealthy parent and/or unhealthy marriage can't set the stage for healthy kids. At times, it seems the right thing to do - put the kids first - before your mental health - instead of your marriage, but unhappy people make poor parents and provide poor examples of how to function in life.

For families dealing with depression, a book I highly recommend is Talking to Depression: Simple Ways to Connect When Someone in Your Life is Depressed.

If your child is suffering from depression, my favorite resource is Lonely, Sad and Angry.

A website that points to all others and has a great online community is Bipolar World.

The Mighty Migraine

Woken by a migraine this morning, I begin the quest for relief. Coffee and a cigarette - nicotine and caffeine. Ran out of Relpax - have to drive 15 minutes to the drug store by my husband's work because it's less expensive there thank you formulary/non-formulary lists. The lady at the pharmacy asks how I'm doing. I've got a migraine and didn't refill my medicine. She says she can see it in my face (that bad, huh?) and that she does the same thing, thinking 'maybe I won't get another one.' She let's me know that the pack of six pills is a 3 day supply and I can get a refill that soon. Good, I'll be stocking up.

Back at home I take a pill, Xlear my sinuses, warm up my Bed Buddy, put in my brux guard and lay down. I look at the clock to see when I can take another Relpax. After 20 minutes, I get up and take a muscle relaxer. I think I fall asleep and then damn the coffee I have to get up and pee. Reheat the Bed Buddy, take out the brux guard and sleep for an hour. Hmmmm - feeling better, I get up and take that second Relpax and have some toast. Now it's time to tiptoe around the phantom pain left so that the migraine doesn't come back because if it does, it will be worse than the first. I miss my husband who left yesterday on a business trip overseas. Make a mental list of people to call if I need to go to the ER.

Since they're menstrual migraines, I reluctantly hope for menopause. That's just wrong. I'm only 45. But if I got to choose when the headaches would stop, it would be sooner rather than later. Ok, I'll be taking it easy the rest of the weekend, giving myself scalp massages, doing gentle stretches and trying not to read or make any sudden movements. Now I just need to figure out what to do to prevent my retarded dog from barking.

Bird Flu

The bird flu scares me. Every day there is very bad news.

Two children in Indonesia have died and today there was a report that Israel has confirmed cases.
There is such a wide range of measures to detect, destroy, and defend depending on each country's resources and procedures that I feel that the spread will just keep gaining momentum. I pray for all the people who have become ill and for the families that have lost loved ones.

Depleted Uranium

Dr. Helen Caldicott on Depleted Uranium

My son, the apparently more aware of some things than I, gave me this article. Something else to be mad about. I'm going to get him a book on teen activism. He's ripe for it.

Whatever Goes Down, Must Come Up

After months of let's call it seasonal depression, the fog lifts when robins start plopping around and the sun comes up much earlier. For a few days, a breeze of giddiness sets in and I'm joking, teasing and filled with happy songs in my head. An energy courses through my body. Thoughts of hope and plans and optimism race around in my brain. Who am I? Trying to reconcile this person with the normal me and the depressed me, I wonder what I am. Describing my mom to someone recently, I said that it was like having three moms - manic mom, depressed mom and normal mom. For me, being bipolar feels like three different pieces of the same fabric. The fabric of life, if you will. One piece that is a beautiful expression of the soul, an accurate representation of the personality. Another part shows threads interwoven made of sparkling gold and silver that shimmer and move with a life of their own, an uncontrollable magic carpet. With depression, the shimmer disappears and the fabric is left with emptiness where the sparkle was and a rotting away of the threads that can barely hold it together. But through ups and downs, the same basic pattern is there and that's how I hold onto myself: knowing that these extremes are part of my life but my true self is the part that is always there. Indestructible holy thread woven by God to create me. The creator raises me as a flag, representing His love. Whatever state my soul is in will suit His purpose at that time.