Spring! Spring! Spring!
It was warm/dry enough for me to venture outside and see what I can see in the yard. I've been checking for the past few days to see if the Blue Pearl crocuses have nosed out of the ground, and today I found the first sign of them. Just one plant, mind you, and pale yellow under the mulch, but there, nonetheless. Last year, they were out before February 3rd. (Must be that Global Warming thing the kids are all talking about.) The miniature irises hard next to the house have been out for at least a week (sheltered; of course they come out early), and the yellow mini-irises in Splendor are about an inch underway.
And the honeysuckle and clematises on the south side of the house are also pushing out leaf buds, and the creeping euphorbiae are putting on new growth. Mid-Februrary, mind you. Not so long now until March, when it all goes nuts.
And I was able to do a bit of yard work today, trimming away deadwood from the scarlet trumpet honeysuckle and the clematises (types II and III) and trimming away some dead foliage from the perennials I neglected to trim back last fall.
I also went back on the Effexor, just 75 mg, last Saturday. I couldn't take it anymore. The withdrawal from the Effexor wasn't a big deal, but my unmedicated state filled my head with expletives and had me screaming my head off at imaginary interlocutors. In my head, that is. I wasn't walking around yelling at people in real life. About two hours after taking the smallish dose I felt the effect. Day and night, I'm telling you. Night and day. I still have my issues and stuff, but I'm not on the verge of a nervous breakdown like I was while I was off the meds.
So the Effexor wasn't causing my fatigue, after all. My sister Marci, a self-proclaimed busybody who always wants to fix things, realized that a depressed, tired person wasn't likely to be very aggressive in seeking treatment, so she's been all over the internet and the phone looking for answers. She found an article by some doctor about depressed people who develop Hashimoto's thyroiditis, get treated for same, and yet still feel tired. He treated them successfully with-wait for it-dextroamphetamines. Yup. Speed. As in, duh. Like an amphetamine isn't going to eliminate fatigue, but what have you done about the root cause?
Answer: nothing. So I poked around thyroid.about.com a little more and found out that it's not unusual for people being treated for thyroid problems to not feel less fatigued even when their blood tests show them in the normal range. Gotta make sure the numbers are in a tighter range than for the population at large, it turns out. Someday, when I sort through the papers stacked all over the living room, one of them will show my latest labs, so I'll be able to see if my numbers are within the tighter range.
UPDATE: In the hall I just found a half-dozen little gray wing feathers, a clump or two of gray chest feathers, and naught else. WHERE'S THE REST OF THE BIRD? Here's hoping I never find out.
And the honeysuckle and clematises on the south side of the house are also pushing out leaf buds, and the creeping euphorbiae are putting on new growth. Mid-Februrary, mind you. Not so long now until March, when it all goes nuts.
And I was able to do a bit of yard work today, trimming away deadwood from the scarlet trumpet honeysuckle and the clematises (types II and III) and trimming away some dead foliage from the perennials I neglected to trim back last fall.
I also went back on the Effexor, just 75 mg, last Saturday. I couldn't take it anymore. The withdrawal from the Effexor wasn't a big deal, but my unmedicated state filled my head with expletives and had me screaming my head off at imaginary interlocutors. In my head, that is. I wasn't walking around yelling at people in real life. About two hours after taking the smallish dose I felt the effect. Day and night, I'm telling you. Night and day. I still have my issues and stuff, but I'm not on the verge of a nervous breakdown like I was while I was off the meds.
So the Effexor wasn't causing my fatigue, after all. My sister Marci, a self-proclaimed busybody who always wants to fix things, realized that a depressed, tired person wasn't likely to be very aggressive in seeking treatment, so she's been all over the internet and the phone looking for answers. She found an article by some doctor about depressed people who develop Hashimoto's thyroiditis, get treated for same, and yet still feel tired. He treated them successfully with-wait for it-dextroamphetamines. Yup. Speed. As in, duh. Like an amphetamine isn't going to eliminate fatigue, but what have you done about the root cause?
Answer: nothing. So I poked around thyroid.about.com a little more and found out that it's not unusual for people being treated for thyroid problems to not feel less fatigued even when their blood tests show them in the normal range. Gotta make sure the numbers are in a tighter range than for the population at large, it turns out. Someday, when I sort through the papers stacked all over the living room, one of them will show my latest labs, so I'll be able to see if my numbers are within the tighter range.
UPDATE: In the hall I just found a half-dozen little gray wing feathers, a clump or two of gray chest feathers, and naught else. WHERE'S THE REST OF THE BIRD? Here's hoping I never find out.