This post is like the yin/yang... the pain, and the joy.

I know it's been a while. I have thought about writing, but honestly I have been just too tired. I am now, too, but I am going to try to write. I just got back into bed-- noon-- after getting up and having a bit of breakfast, and my bed is still warm. I've been spending a lot of time in it.

I don't have logical explanations about all this sleeping. It just IS. I don't have a great relationship with "that which IS" at the moment, though. I am depressed that I sleep so much. They call it fatigue. I call it sleeping life away. My mornings don't exist, I am sleeping. My evenings partially exist. I am usually up with the kids for dinner (I do usually cook a good, homemade, healthy dinner) and after, until bedtime.

Then I have a hard time falling asleep, even with the sleeping pill. Sometimes I could be up until 3 or 4, believe it or not. I think maybe I should start taking a sleeping pill regularly at a designated time, so I can start to try to regulate my sleep. It doesn't seem to help, though. Last night I took a sleeping pill because I felt so lousy (physically-- fighting a throat thing and a cold for a week), at 8pm. I slept straight through until 8am, then drifted around light-sleep dreams until 10 or so. I had wanted to get up with Dov at 6:20. I told him I'd try, he said he would like that. I can't do it. If I *do* manage to force my dizzy/tired body out of bed early, I feel sick by evening time, and the kids don't really have me for then.

I am falling asleep here at the keyboard. 12:15pm.

That's why I don't write much anymore. It is just too damn depressing.
...here come the tears...
A few weeks ago I wrote about an awful day that I had regarding the wean off Lamictal. I am referring to this post.

Well, that particular day was hell.
I had what felt like a psychotic breakdown. I can't write all the details. I didn't have enough Lamictal in my system, and whatever it was that the Lamictal was stomping down, came up for air. Call it PTSD, but whatever you want to call it, it was deep, dark, and bad. It was triggered by a friend who was angry at me. I couldn't digest that anger like a regular person would be able to. It wasn't terrible anger, just your run-of-the-mill built-up anger from a friend to a friend. These things get worked out and pass in good friendships, like this particular one is.

(but I still haven't digested it all, not alone nor with the friend, 

and still am very emotional about it, crying when I think about it).

But that day, with the Lamictal at an all time low of 5mg (down from 150mg, mind you), I broke at the appearance of this friend's anger. It was a day that, before this phone call, I had been dealing with nausea, throwing-up, and hallucinations from the withdrawal. I later apologized to her for having my breakdown "on her".

The break was horrendous. I couldn't write about it then. Only yesterday, at my psychologist's (Lily, my once-every-two-weeks visit) office did it all come up again.

The next day after the psychotic break, as I am calling it, I went to a specialist; a psychiatrist who specializes in psych meds. He simply told me that: if it is awful on this low dose of Lamictal, than go to a higher dose. He explained to me that not everyone can go off medicines just-like-that. What about the contraindication with the Lyrica? Well, he said, on a low dose of the Lamictal, it isn't so bad. Is it *ideal*? No. "But", he said, "is any of this ideal?"  Any other drugs he thought of to switch-to would have been, he said, much more toxic for me.

So I am now on a low dose of Lamictal-- 25mg. I am mostly stable, thank Gd.

But, I am more tired, and I am more depressed. That very well be because of going down so drastically on Lamictal. I haven't been depressed like this in a long time, you know? I'll make an appointment with my regular psychiatrist. It's just that I don't like her so much, but she is the drug decision-maker.

None of this is ideal.

My perfect day:

get up at 6:30 with the kids, see them all off.

exercise, either at my gym (swim) or by taking a walk, until 10am.

come home, eat, write my book until kids come home.

be with kids through bedtime (or if I need a babysitter to go out, or to write more, do that)

then go to bed, sleep without a pill, by 11pm.

I have had days close to that, but before I went off the Lamictal.

~My pain is, I'd say, 75% under control. The Fentanyl patches are at the right dose, thank Gd.
~The new cream seems to be the right one for Gapey's perma-rash... it is getting lighter and doesn't hurt/itch anymore. The graft is getting better.

Now I'm getting up. It is 1pm. I have two hours until I have to pick up my daughter. I am going to the gym.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

(here are a few pictures from Dov's BarMitzvah- Nov 4th, 2011. I will soon post a link to the whole album, and a video of us all dancing-- even me!)

Here we are! It was such an unforgettable night.

this wasn't the BarMitzvah, but it was after Dov read Torah for the first time, in shul, on the Thursday beforehand. (Robert's brother from the US is in the background)

Cake I made for the kiddush- breastplate of the kohanim :-)

The proud parents with BarMitzvah boy

Shifra, Ya'akov & Azriel

Dovie in his handsome suit

two kids enjoying Grandpa's love (my father)

My brother Peter from the US, my father, my mother & I.