Hello Friends,

It's time to update what's been going on with me. I'm not very good at this, so please bear with me. As most of you know we've had a terrible problem getting a bipolar med to work for me. The latest we tried was Depakote. I've been to the point where I can't stay awake when I take it and I stagger and have every symptom of hypoglycemia and it only happens when I take the Depakote.

I called my pdoc yesterday, but when I went in to see my counselor, she told me if I could drive that far, she wanted to schedule an emergency med appt with the pdoc. The upshot of if was that we've had to reduce the Depakote to a third of the normal dose. It won't be the blood level I need to maintain the bipolar condition, but we have tried every med that isn't an antipsychotic.

I don't know if I'm going to fall back down into my black hole of despair and mania now. She told me I'm just going to have to adapt, and I admit that I am very wary of what will happen.

Medically, I discovered some lumps under my arms. My surgeon says with my past history and my family history, they must be removed, then biopsied. My body is throwing off antibodies against my thyroid and I have to have tests on it to determine if it must be removed. He can't tell me if it's cancerous, so I won't know for a while if I will need just surgery or surgery and chemo and/or radiation. I just want them to figure it out and start working on it. Hopefully there will be no cancer and my biggest worry will be having to figure out how to take care of myself after the surgery... That is daunting.

Today I went to the store to stand in line to pay bills. I ran into a casual family friend, named Randy, whose sister was once married to my cousin. We were talking about people we knew in common and he mentioned my father. For some reason I told him that everyone thought my father was wonderful but we didn't get along. Randy looked at me and told me that he knew my father was terrible. He continued to tell me that once when we were very small he was visiting my house and for some reason I passed out. My father started smacking and hitting me because I passed out. Randy ran and hid in the car. My relatives told him not to worry, that Dad was just trying to "make a man out of me" so I wouldn't be weak. I was unconscious! Not one adult lifted an hand or voice to help me.

I don't remember any of this. I remember Dad doing it another time when I was older, but I don't remember him doing it when I was that small. There were peope standing all around us who heard Randy. I managed to pay my bills, but the store started to swirl around me and I got so sick I didn't know if I was going to make it to the car. I managed to get to the apartment and got thoroughly sick. It's amazing how an abuser sometimes never really dies.

Jan