I stopped using EMSAM last Thursday. As you can see in this picture (click image to enlarge), it leaves a reddish spot in the area where I use it — and I alternate right and left every day. Not only that, the “itchies” (hives/welts) I sometimes get from stress increased tremendously when I started using it. The itching left me utterly miserable.

Going back over my previous EMSAM posts, this was not a problem before. Maybe they’ve changed their adhesive — who knows? I’ll tell you one thing — the adhesive sucks ass. I’m supposed to wear this thing for 24 hours, but the thing only stays on for about 10!

In addition, I became even more tired even though I’ve increased my time in front of the light box! So after 6 days of using EMSAM, I decided to shut it down. There didn’t seem to be any improvement in my mood, other than being cranky and miserable from scratching. Benadryl didn’t always help, and of course, that could have contributed to my loss of energy, although I didn’t start taking Benadryl until about 3 days into the EMSAM.

I took this picture Thursday morning and called my pdoc’s office afterward to let them know that I was discontinuing its use. This past weekend I was still extremely tired but managed to force myself out of bed after napping in order to take Hee Seop to the vet with Brian (Hee Seop’s in perfect health; just needs to lose about 1 lb., which is the equivalent of 10 lbs. in a human). Yesterday I napped for 4 hours but again, managed to get out of bed and force myself to take a shower. I’d already stopped taking the Benadryl, probably Friday. And my itchies are improving.

I’ve been trying to post a book review every Saturday, but I just didn’t have the energy. I even have 2 already written! I’m still suffering from anhedonia, as well.

This coming Thursday I have a pdoc appointment. I don’t know what we’ll try next.

• It seems that the kitty stomach flu has spread to Angelo because he didn’t eat his breakfast. However, he did eat his second meal today, including the dregs of Hopper and Basil’s leftovers. Hee Seop didn’t eat the special “bad tummy” food, but ate half of his regular food. Hopper seems fine and no one has vomited (that I’ve found).
• I’m feeling a little less exhausted today. I dragged my upstairs neighbor to Starbucks before returning home for my therapist session, so at least I got out of the apartment. Maybe the extra .5mg of Klonopin is easing my anxiety, after all. It’s still too early to tell, though.
• My therapist agreed to a phone session this morning because I was all up in arms about the cats. Anyway, she advised me to let go of the incident yesterday morning, when the desk clerk at the new gym gave me all kinds of bullshit when I canceled my fitness test. I was ready to cancel my membership, but I actually had the insight to ask myself (and my therapist) today: what is rash and what is rational? So I’m letting it go. My therapist said that if it happens again, however, that’s a different story.

  I’m not going to totally go into it but let’s just say that the desk clerk gave me very poor customer service, and I was already upset because of the sick cats and from being absolutely exhausted. If I’m unable to reschedule the fitness test due to their cancellation policy (that the desk clerk was unclear about), then whatever. It’s a free service anyway. But OK, part of me still wants that girl fired.

• I’m looking forward to having a quiet Thanksgiving with Brian, which is our little tradition. He cooks, we eat, we watch football. And probably I’ll play Mafia Wars and lurk on Twitter. And hopefully catch up on blog reading and poem writing.

Wow. What an utterly boring post this is!

My first bullet post!

THE CATS

• We’re still waiting for Hee Seop’s lab results, but his appetite has improved. It isn’t normal, but he’s been eating. Apparently, he has something like the stomach flu. The vet sent us home with i/d, which is easily digestible. When he wasn’t interested in that last night, we gave him some of his usual food but he didn’t care for that either. This morning he ate all of his i/d. Instead of 2 meals a day we’re spreading them out to 4 — same amount as usual, though: a 6-oz. can a day. His stool is still loose but better.
• Unfortunately, Basil had loose stool today and his appetite was down this morning. When Hee Seop showed no interest in his second helping of i/d today (nor in his regular food), Basil ate the i/d. He vomited a little bit late in the afternoon, but that’s not unusual for him. Hopper also vomited a bit, but that isn’t unusual for her, either.
• When we returned home just now someone had diarrhea and didn’t bother to bury it. My first thought was that it belonged to Hopper or Angelo because they have this alpha thing going between them and neither one buries his/her poop. Well, the vet will hear all about it when she calls this evening.

ME

• Meanwhile, I’ve been utterly exhausted all day. I didn’t sleep well. Again. I wonder, too, how much of it has to do with recuperating from vacation. Why is it that Brian, my sister, my brother-in-law — all can go out of town for a weekend and return to work just fine? I really hope that I’m not coming down with anything because I absolutely can’t stand being sick. I’m a baby as it is, but I’m worse when I’m sick.
• Needless to say, I didn’t make it to my fitness test, but I at least made it to my pdoc appointment a little while ago. He thinks that my anxiety is what’s affecting the depression, rather than the other way around, or that the anxiety is a symptom of the depression, during the past few weeks, anyway. So he’s increased my Klonopin from 2mg a night by adding .5mg in the morning. We’ll see how that goes. I’m going to lie down now.

What does that even mean for me? I don’t work and my days consist mainly of being on the computer sending and answering e-mail; Twittering; reading blogs; blogging sometimes (NaBloPoMo doesn’t count); posting silly (and a few not so silly) things on my Tumblr blog, The Insane and Mundane (shameless plug); playing Mafia Wars on FB. When I’m not on the computer I’m reading or watching TV. Once a week I go to therapy. Every 3 or 4 weeks I see my pdoc and there are various other appointments in between.

When I started working out again, I’ve had to rearrange my schedule and that still isn’t ironed out. I’m one of those people who needs routine. I need to know what to do next or at least have an idea or I’m completely lost. Do you have any idea how hard this is when most of what you do is stay home all day?

When we returned from vacation, I dreaded today. It meant that I should have gone back to the gym. All weekend I worried about whether or not I would, though I tried really hard not to. I wish I could just take things in stride. I told myself that I wouldn’t beat myself up if I didn’t make it to the gym today, that I’m still exhausted from our trip and that it’s OK to take a day to relax. Besides, I have a fitness test tomorrow so I’ll be at the gym, then.

But in the middle of the night, Hee Seop threw up, then immediately headed for the litter box and had a bout of diarrhea. This is very unlike him. He rarely throws up, not even hairballs. We were worried, of course, but I’m glad I was able to fall back asleep. Then he didn’t eat his breakfast, which is also not like him. He inhales his food. Something was definitely wrong, so I called the vet and luckily they had openings this morning. It was also an “excuse” not to go to the gym.

He’s still being held for observation and treatment (fluids for dehydration and some anti-nausea meds), though his abdominal x-rays were clear. His labs won’t be back until tomorrow. The vet said that he was the third cat she’d seen today presenting with those symptoms, and that one of the other vets saw 2 others. It could be that something’s going around in the kitty world, which the vet says can happen, but she said it definitely isn’t swine flu, so that’s good. OK, she called it H1N1, but come on, it’s swine flu.

In the meantime, I’m still waiting to hear back from them and trying not to be too anxious. I’m sure he’s fine. He rarely has to go to the v-e-t except for his annual check-up.

In the meantime, I’m worried about whether or not I’ll make it to my fitness test tomorrow.

In the meantime, I still don’t know why I’m so exhausted even though I’m getting plenty of sleep.

In the meantime, I’m worried about how I’m going to fit working out into my daily schedule.

Good thing I see the pdoc tomorrow and my therapist on Wednesday.

According to the Cornell Feline Health Center, there’s a ton of plants and food to keep your cats away from during the holiday season. And the rest of the year, too. Poinsettias are one of them, though according to the article, they aren’t as bad as say, mistletoe, which can cause death. Lilies are also listed. I used to think this was just relevant around Easter time, you know, as in, Easter lilies? Turns out that even a teeny tiny amount of any lily can kill your cat.

It was already a stressful weekend, about a month ago. Hopper was at the vet that Saturday to have her heart rate and blood pressure re-checked (that’s another story), and as she gets older, she has less patience for vet visits. On Sunday, we were expecting new bedroom furniture to be delivered — we finally got a platform bed with storage drawers underneath; I’d been concerned about Hee Seop’s safety because he had long ago created a hidey-hole by tearing open the box spring, to which he normally retires after a meal. You know how hard it is to get a cat out from under a bed as it is? Heh. Try getting one out from inside the bed. So if there was a fire or something, well, I didn’t want deal with that.

At that time, I still had trouble communicating with people, especially face-to-face because of my anxiety, so I was glad Brian was home for the furniture delivery. However, early that morning, we noticed a huge streak of orange smeared across one of Hee Seop’s snowy cheeks. If he’d gotten into the trash or sink, I didn’t know what he could have eaten because we didn’t have anything with tomato sauce or chili (the culprit last time) the night before. Then Brian found a chewed-up petal on the floor below the mantle, where we keep fresh flowers.

Brian buys a new bouquet each week, and this time I noticed what I thought were lilies, but they were orange, so I wasn’t sure and didn’t think they were a big deal. Still, I got all paranoid and we looked up cats and lilies on the Internet. I can’t remember which site it was, but it said the teeniest, tiniest amount ingested of any part of a lily could cause serious, probably fatal problems. The site said that if the cat’s treated within 6 hours of ingestion, the survival rate was high; between 6 and 12 hours, touch-and-go; after 18 hours, forget about it.

Fortunately, it hadn’t been more than 6, and I insisted that Brian take him to the pet ER. I so badly wanted to go because Hee Seop’s still such a shy guy and only goes to the vet once a year because he’s so healthy. He doesn’t leave the house, otherwise. And having worked at the pet ER once upon a time, I know how chaotic and busy it is, especially on the weekends. In addition, our vet is a cats-only hospital, so the poor guy would have to deal with the presence of dogs. Who knew how long we’d be there, and one of us had to stay home.

I was able to deal with the furniture guys on my own, which was nothing compared to my concern over Hee Seop. He was hospitalized overnight. They had him on fluids because lilies mainly affect the kidneys. According to the notes, he wouldn’t eat, tried hiding inside his cage, and was very scared and nervous — but sweet! The next morning, Brian transferred him to the regular vet where the poor guy was hospitalized the rest of the day.

Hee Seop survived the ordeal — having ingested the lily, as well as the anxiety he must have felt around all those strangers, strange smells, and the poking and prodding. When the regular vet sent him home, they told us to watch out for vomiting, lack of appetite, and lethargy. He was totally fine, other than his confusion at there no longer being an “under the bed” in which to take refuge.