Last night Trishka came over and helped us wipe our hard drive. Backed up everything, reinitialized, did clean installs, updated a zillion apps again, the lot. It was a stunning amount of work. John and I just watched, mostly. I fixed dinner, and fed her Diet Coke at intervals, but it really wasn't enough. So I told her I'd treat her to Mamma Mia which is coming back to SF this summer. She seemed to think that was a fair exchange!
Now, of course, we have the fun of trying to figure out where the hell everything is. We have duplicate backups, none of our aliases work, we lost favored settings and so on with the clean installs, and I can't get iTunes to recognise its own music library so I can't play music on my computer tonight. I'm sure I'll figure it out eventually. The important thing is that Photoshop and Image Ready don't crash every time we save now. Just in time, too. Class starts again tomorrow night.
Tonight I had an appointment with the doctor who prescribes my medication for panic attacks and he's switching me to something new. I'm not real happy about it. But I'm afraid an anti-anxiety drug simply isn't doing the trick. I've graduated from therapy, my head's as together as it gets on the issues causing the initial attacks, but the physical side of things is still a problem and that has to be addressed. I told my doctor I was willing to take something that works specifically on panic as long as it's not an SSRI. I won't even consider anything like Prozac. He said the new drug wasn't sedating at all, which is good. Then he leaned back in his chair and said, "The main drawback is this drug is addictive."
I gave him the hairy eyeball.
"However," he said drily, "I can safely say you will not have a problem with this." We both laughed. I am notoriously stubborn about wanting the lowest possible dose of anything. He couldn't convince me to try a higher dose of Klonopin last year when I first started my treatment because I was so paranoid about it being addictive. I don't want to be some kind of zombie who goes through withdrawal if I miss a pill, and of course I know no middle ground. In my mind either I'm on a low dose or I'm a slavering addict. My doctor is slightly amused by this, but I imagine it's a refreshing change for him. Anyway, I hate the idea of taking drugs three times a day, but I hate having panic attacks a zillion times more. So now I have that to look forward to, and don't you love it when I share too much?
Thursday night I finally get to work out again. I didn't lose or gain any weight this week, so now I'm getting stubborn and eating no more than my minimum points. 22, that's it, I need to drop five pounds and I'm tired of my emotions running the show. I have been jogging with my dog on our night time walks, but it annoys me that I didn't work out this weekend and now have to wait until most of the week is over to get to the gym because of my schedule. I hope I have the energy to run a half-mile again. I feel amazingly accomplished when I do. And pink, very, very pink in the face. But oh so happy.
On Friday I have a massage appointment after work. Sandra's going to get the last of my lower back soft tissue sorted out, and I am looking forward to being completely loose -- after the torture of having my torqued up muscles forcibly relaxed, of course. Massage is a funny thing. It hurt sometimes, but it has to or it doesn't do any good. The muscles have to relearn to be loose and flexible, to work right.
Life is like that, you know. Got to clear things out, bring it back to zero, and then start again. I'm trying.
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