#5348 - not a robot
tuesday was errand day.
originally i took the second half of the day off so i could go to work in the morning and then go to my doctor's appointment in the afternoon, but when my car gave me an error message on friday on my way home from work, i figured i might as well just get the car checked out by GEICO's insurance adjuster and bring the car to my dealer so i could get the scheduled maintenance taken care of and the body work done all at once. it turned out that the error message was just a warning that my brake pads were pretty much worn out and needed replacing, but there was also an open recall on my car for the water pump that they could fix as well. you might remember that i had stopped at the dealership a few months ago to see about getting the scheduled maintenance taken care of, but since it was a bit pricey i figured i'd hold off until i could get the cash together. i ended up springing for the extended maintenance package (this maintenance would have cost about $1100-1200, and i'm only 8000 miles away from my next maintenance), so my car is now covered until i reach 100k or 6 years. considering i've had it for about 2 1/2 years already and 45,000 miles, yeah, that's going to come in handy.
since my car was going to be in the shop for about a week, GEICO had me set up with a rental from enterprise. i have to say you can't make renting a car a glamorous task, but it was nice to have a cute girl pick me up to take me to the enterprise office to get the car. it's a chrysler 200, but originally when the dealership called enterprise to have them come get me enterprise only had a pickup truck available, and considering even just this car feels like a boat compared to my MINI, i don't know how i would have handled driving a pickup truck for a week. :P
so, car was dropped off at the dealership, maintenance scheduled, rental car acquired. i drove back to the dealership to fill out some other paperwork for the body shop to let them go to work on my car. the GEICO adjuster quoted about $500 less than the MINI body shop did, but they didn't include a new windshield (apparently they're not always able to take them out and put them back in one piece all the time, so perhaps it was just estimating the worst-case scenario, but they had also spotted a small chip in my windshield as well).
i picked up some stuff at mom and dad's. very random collection of stuff: a round table i had from IKEA, a golf putter, my running shoes, some small bottles of rum i bought in the virgin islands, replacement air filters and brushes for my roomba, and my wii balance board.
and then i went to the doctor's office.
i had made an appointment for a physical since i couldn't remember the last time i was at the doctor's office when i wasn't sick (and could barely remember the last time i was there when i was actually sick), but also because i had been told by a few people how something seemed a little… off / odd / distant / robotic… about me for a while. few things have felt enjoyable to me, and it almost felt like i was experiencing life through someone else, like i haven't been fully "there", so to speak. so, when it was mentioned to me that i seemed to be acting a little weird, i thought that it was time to talk to a professional.
so, doctor's visit. the cute nurse (with an engagement ring on, damn and blast) asked me if i had any questions for the doctor and i said yes, i had some things i wanted to bring up with him.
she then started to ask me some questions, the first one being "how has your mood been lately?" it's like she knew exactly what i was going to bring up with the doctor. when i told her about how i'd been having these mood swings and how partly i felt like my breakup last year was one of the triggers, but also how my friends have felt like there's been something odd about me, after a few more questions (including "do you wear your seatbelt?") she returned with a piece of paper with a quiz on it for me to fill out:
"over the past 2 weeks, how often have you felt the following?"
- "have you felt worthless, like you were a failure, or a disappointment?"
- "have trouble falling asleep, or sleeping too much?"
- "thought about harming yourself?"
and so on and so forth.
the choices for each question were to the effect of "not at all", "several days", "more than half of the days", "all / almost all the days", and the quiz was designed so the choices had a numeric score from 0 to 3, and the answers would be added up for a total score. i scored a 10. i forget what the score would have been if someone answered all 3's, but i had no 3's, a few 0's, and the rest probably split even between "several days" and "more than half of the days". don't worry, the self-harm question scored a '0' from me. :P
the doctor came in (my doctor looks like ben stiller, but with more [prematurely] grey hair), asked me some of the same questions the nurse asked me, and said how i was just given two screenings for depression, and said how i've got a case of mild to moderate depression.
we talked about options, and we started me on lexapro; it'll take up to a week for my body to get used to it, and it might not fully seem like it's working until about 4 weeks or so, but i'll have a follow-up appointment with him then to see how it's working, and then another appointment after about 3 months to see how it's working. it's the sort of thing where i might try it and decide "this medicine isn't for me", or "where has this been all my life", or even after 3 months "i needed it then, but i'm in a better emotional place now and i think my prescription can be reduced or eliminated". so, i have some options. and, if i decide to stop taking it, it has to be reduced gradually to prevent withdrawal symptoms.
he went on to say how people sometimes take a diagnosis like that personally, but how when it comes to people who think of themselves as "more successful", they over-analyze when things don't go as they hope and treat deficiencies as personal failures, and their anxiety turns into depression. he also mentioned how yes, there's an adjustment time for getting over a change in a relationship, but that's usually only a few months, and beyond that point is when people might require some professional assistance.
when my doctor was telling me about all this, he said how sometimes he'll tell people how they're depressed and they get angry with him. "it's nothing to be upset about. if i said 'hey, you have diabetes', your reaction would probably be something like 'oh, that sucks', but you wouldn't necessarily get mad at me for telling you that, because it's just the way your body works, or in this case, how your brain is wired."
they ended up giving me a tetanus shot since i couldn't remember the last time i had one, and when the cute nurse was giving me the shot she said how she hopes things get better for me. "i know they will", i replied (because i am smooth when it comes to replying to hot nurses giving me a tetanus shot). my follow-up appointment is in late march, but in the next week or so i need to go back to get my blood drawn for a routine test so they can check different levels of vitamins and such in my blood. i'm not looking forward to that; i hate getting my blood drawn - i'll have to fast, and i always come close to passing out. unless the blood test has a surprise for us, physically i'm fine, so that's good. :)
i'm glad my doctor told me that it'd take a little while to get used to the drug. i took my first dose last night before bed (since apparently it can make you drowsy). when your body is getting used to lexapro, you have a sensation "as if you've had too much coffee, or you'll feel it in your gut as if you've had too much to eat". i woke up in the middle of the night feeling both of these, went to the bathroom where i had a few other side effects (nausea, diarrhea, sweating), but soon felt better and went back to bed. woke up at my usual time, took my shower, felt a little dizzy and thought about calling out (crashing my rental car would be no good), but felt better after sitting down for a moment. today seemed to go by slow, and i felt restless, but i don't know how much of that might be side effects or just me being bored at work today. in any case, it's time for me to get to bed. hopefully my body will start getting used to this stuff.
originally i took the second half of the day off so i could go to work in the morning and then go to my doctor's appointment in the afternoon, but when my car gave me an error message on friday on my way home from work, i figured i might as well just get the car checked out by GEICO's insurance adjuster and bring the car to my dealer so i could get the scheduled maintenance taken care of and the body work done all at once. it turned out that the error message was just a warning that my brake pads were pretty much worn out and needed replacing, but there was also an open recall on my car for the water pump that they could fix as well. you might remember that i had stopped at the dealership a few months ago to see about getting the scheduled maintenance taken care of, but since it was a bit pricey i figured i'd hold off until i could get the cash together. i ended up springing for the extended maintenance package (this maintenance would have cost about $1100-1200, and i'm only 8000 miles away from my next maintenance), so my car is now covered until i reach 100k or 6 years. considering i've had it for about 2 1/2 years already and 45,000 miles, yeah, that's going to come in handy.
since my car was going to be in the shop for about a week, GEICO had me set up with a rental from enterprise. i have to say you can't make renting a car a glamorous task, but it was nice to have a cute girl pick me up to take me to the enterprise office to get the car. it's a chrysler 200, but originally when the dealership called enterprise to have them come get me enterprise only had a pickup truck available, and considering even just this car feels like a boat compared to my MINI, i don't know how i would have handled driving a pickup truck for a week. :P
so, car was dropped off at the dealership, maintenance scheduled, rental car acquired. i drove back to the dealership to fill out some other paperwork for the body shop to let them go to work on my car. the GEICO adjuster quoted about $500 less than the MINI body shop did, but they didn't include a new windshield (apparently they're not always able to take them out and put them back in one piece all the time, so perhaps it was just estimating the worst-case scenario, but they had also spotted a small chip in my windshield as well).
i picked up some stuff at mom and dad's. very random collection of stuff: a round table i had from IKEA, a golf putter, my running shoes, some small bottles of rum i bought in the virgin islands, replacement air filters and brushes for my roomba, and my wii balance board.
and then i went to the doctor's office.
i had made an appointment for a physical since i couldn't remember the last time i was at the doctor's office when i wasn't sick (and could barely remember the last time i was there when i was actually sick), but also because i had been told by a few people how something seemed a little… off / odd / distant / robotic… about me for a while. few things have felt enjoyable to me, and it almost felt like i was experiencing life through someone else, like i haven't been fully "there", so to speak. so, when it was mentioned to me that i seemed to be acting a little weird, i thought that it was time to talk to a professional.
so, doctor's visit. the cute nurse (with an engagement ring on, damn and blast) asked me if i had any questions for the doctor and i said yes, i had some things i wanted to bring up with him.
she then started to ask me some questions, the first one being "how has your mood been lately?" it's like she knew exactly what i was going to bring up with the doctor. when i told her about how i'd been having these mood swings and how partly i felt like my breakup last year was one of the triggers, but also how my friends have felt like there's been something odd about me, after a few more questions (including "do you wear your seatbelt?") she returned with a piece of paper with a quiz on it for me to fill out:
"over the past 2 weeks, how often have you felt the following?"
- "have you felt worthless, like you were a failure, or a disappointment?"
- "have trouble falling asleep, or sleeping too much?"
- "thought about harming yourself?"
and so on and so forth.
the choices for each question were to the effect of "not at all", "several days", "more than half of the days", "all / almost all the days", and the quiz was designed so the choices had a numeric score from 0 to 3, and the answers would be added up for a total score. i scored a 10. i forget what the score would have been if someone answered all 3's, but i had no 3's, a few 0's, and the rest probably split even between "several days" and "more than half of the days". don't worry, the self-harm question scored a '0' from me. :P
the doctor came in (my doctor looks like ben stiller, but with more [prematurely] grey hair), asked me some of the same questions the nurse asked me, and said how i was just given two screenings for depression, and said how i've got a case of mild to moderate depression.
we talked about options, and we started me on lexapro; it'll take up to a week for my body to get used to it, and it might not fully seem like it's working until about 4 weeks or so, but i'll have a follow-up appointment with him then to see how it's working, and then another appointment after about 3 months to see how it's working. it's the sort of thing where i might try it and decide "this medicine isn't for me", or "where has this been all my life", or even after 3 months "i needed it then, but i'm in a better emotional place now and i think my prescription can be reduced or eliminated". so, i have some options. and, if i decide to stop taking it, it has to be reduced gradually to prevent withdrawal symptoms.
he went on to say how people sometimes take a diagnosis like that personally, but how when it comes to people who think of themselves as "more successful", they over-analyze when things don't go as they hope and treat deficiencies as personal failures, and their anxiety turns into depression. he also mentioned how yes, there's an adjustment time for getting over a change in a relationship, but that's usually only a few months, and beyond that point is when people might require some professional assistance.
when my doctor was telling me about all this, he said how sometimes he'll tell people how they're depressed and they get angry with him. "it's nothing to be upset about. if i said 'hey, you have diabetes', your reaction would probably be something like 'oh, that sucks', but you wouldn't necessarily get mad at me for telling you that, because it's just the way your body works, or in this case, how your brain is wired."
they ended up giving me a tetanus shot since i couldn't remember the last time i had one, and when the cute nurse was giving me the shot she said how she hopes things get better for me. "i know they will", i replied (because i am smooth when it comes to replying to hot nurses giving me a tetanus shot). my follow-up appointment is in late march, but in the next week or so i need to go back to get my blood drawn for a routine test so they can check different levels of vitamins and such in my blood. i'm not looking forward to that; i hate getting my blood drawn - i'll have to fast, and i always come close to passing out. unless the blood test has a surprise for us, physically i'm fine, so that's good. :)
i'm glad my doctor told me that it'd take a little while to get used to the drug. i took my first dose last night before bed (since apparently it can make you drowsy). when your body is getting used to lexapro, you have a sensation "as if you've had too much coffee, or you'll feel it in your gut as if you've had too much to eat". i woke up in the middle of the night feeling both of these, went to the bathroom where i had a few other side effects (nausea, diarrhea, sweating), but soon felt better and went back to bed. woke up at my usual time, took my shower, felt a little dizzy and thought about calling out (crashing my rental car would be no good), but felt better after sitting down for a moment. today seemed to go by slow, and i felt restless, but i don't know how much of that might be side effects or just me being bored at work today. in any case, it's time for me to get to bed. hopefully my body will start getting used to this stuff.