Sorry for the lack of posts/responses lately. I have been running late with everything. I slept a ton over the weekend (depression? not sure). I couldn't fall asleep on the meds from the pdoc and had to result to a small trazodone dose (have a lot of trazodone from previous pdoc). It was only 50 mg of trazodone, but it still did me in. Trazodone tends to make me so tired in the morning.

I overslept both yesterday and today, which was not good (turned off alarm, went back to sleep). I always wake H and my daughter up for work and school. Yesterday, it affected H more as he had a teacher training day, and my daughter was off from school. Today, though it affected both of them; H with another teacher training day (he's in a different school district than my daughter), my daughter running super late for school. We only got her to school 5 minutes before the tardy bell. Luckily, we are just over a 5 minute drive to school; it was be 5 min. or less, but most of that drive is 20 mph school speed limit, which the local police enforce to a T.

My daughter was very good at the rushed morning considering she really hates things like that. I promised her I would play her doll game (super tedious) for 2 hr. on either Friday, Sat., or Sunday, her choice, though I might have to play 30 minutes, take a 10 min. break, then 30 minutes again. I told her we wouldn't count the breaks as part of the 2 hour period. We've got lots of kitchen timers that work well (I might be putting on by the bed, considering). I didn't realize how much my daughter wanted to play that doll game with me as she hadn't asked in ages, but when I told her we'd play it over the weekend because she was so good this morning, she got a giant smile on her face, kept telling me thank you, had a lot of excitement in her voice the entire (though short) drive to school. I feel very good about that, that she wants to spend time with me.

I don't think H was too sad if he'd be late to teacher training; he feels it tends to be useless & a waste of time, but tomorrow he teaches & has morning duty so no time to prep especially as yesterday they were supposed to get their classrooms ready for SAT testing after lunch, but all the science classrooms were filled with teachers district-wide doing special ed training all day, which really got to H, as all the other teachers got to work on their rooms, numbering desks, etc. and preparing for the SAT except the science teachers, and admin insisting he & all science teachers with morning duty on Wed. morning that they to it. I think in prep for the SAT, the teachers have to cover certain posters, calendars, etc. for the exam, number desks, have a seating chart, pick up exams that morning, giving him only 5 minutes for all of this tomorrow.

I am seeing the pdoc again late this morning, so I will mention the sudden sleep issues to him; really, it's been about 2 weeks, just getting worse & worse. I can't take the trazodone regularly right now; it is making me oversleep though in the past I could take 100 mg OK and do fine in the morning. And also it takes about an hour to work, so after over an hour of not sleeping, I will take it. Ugh. I texted my T as well, asking if she'd want me to sign a consent to get pdoc's notes, and she said yes. I usually wait longer to sign that consent, but I feel comfortable with this T having them though I told her I do not yet want a 2 way consent, where he can get her notes on me just yet, only her to get mine from him. That's what I'm comfortable with. I also let her know when we meet on Friday that I will need suggestions on how to get closure from seeing my wonderful old pdoc. The old pdoc is still working part-time there, so maybe the new pdoc will pass along a thank you card as it is a small clinic (3 pdocs, one child therapist). Maybe that will be my closure, maybe he will have ideas today too as he has worked with her as a colleague many years. I missed my last appt. with her due to being in the hospital with the ulcer stuff, so I thought I'd be able to say good-bye then originally as I in no way predicted the ulcer stuff, especially as I had an ulcer I didn't know about with no symptoms. It's tough. The new pdoc is good by most standards of other pdocs out there, just not as good as she is, and I'd been seeing her over 10 years, which is a long period of time. Plus, she is the pdoc who finally clued in to the fact I was bipolar and did not have major depression and took me off SSRIs, except on occasion Effexor, which doesn't give me side effects and tends to work well 3, 4 months short term before driving me towards hypomania. But I always get the horrid Effexor withdrawal symptoms, which is hard to deal with. Effexor works the best for me during depressive epidoses though Wellbutrin and Cymbalta also help. But I've been more depressed, maybe still mixed since the pdoc had to lower my Wellbutrin dose from 300 mg to 150 mg as I started to get severely forgetful, and he suspected the Wellbutrin; he was right.

Looks like it will rain again today. As long as I don't have to drive in heavy rain. At least, I finally got a new pair of windshield wipers as the passenger one was falling apart. Had the store guy put on the passenger wiper (they do that free), and since we are pinching pennies, saving the driver's side wiper for when that rubber starts breaking. Since both last wipers were put on at the same time, it is likely the driver's side one maybe start breaking all the rubber too soon, especially given the super hot summer we've had.

Yesterday, my daughter & I went to my sister's house. My 2 oldest nieces did have school yesterday, but my 4 year old niece was home, and we have been doing cousin days with my nieces, where only 1 niece at a time plays with my daughter. We will have to do the oldest niece next month on a weekend as my sister's husband is super busy all weekend; he is a band director, has to watch marching band things at both high schools, have the band at football games even though he only teaches grades 6-8. Football is big here. And he gets some extra pay as he is the music minister at their church; fortunately, this position also makes it easy if I super need confidential talking if he has time. Now, though, I have a T, so hopefully that will change. Anyway, we watched Moana, which my sister owns but my daughter & I hadn't seen, ate popcorn, the 2 played together, we had lunch, then they soaked their feet in a bathtub with a fizzer, dried their feet and then painted their toenails. Both of them painted their nails with as many colors possible, so they had rainbow toenails in the end. Then, the 2 played games and made obstacle courses, and both had fun; I got to talk with my sister as well. Both girls seemed to have fun as my 4 year old niece often gets talked over by her 2 older sisters when all 3 girls are there (she is quieter and super small for her age, doc suspects something genetic, but they can't find it and stopped all the testing as my niece is normal developmentally and the tests worried my sister to no end until the results came back always negative). I do suspect this niece may never get a cycle or be able to have kids, but she tends to be healthy otherwise unless most of the family is sick.

Sorry for the extra long post. Also positively, my H fixed the dryer yesterday, which had blown & fuse & was not heating (cleaned the lint out & that is a common cause of a dryer fuse blowing).

Heading to the pdoc now. Hugs to everyone needing support right now.