My mom has to get surgery (warning, this is gross)

Thanksgiving should be a happy time for families, but for my family, this week has been hell. My mom had been feeling a little sick at the end of last week and over the weekend, but then suddenly she went to lift a box at work Monday and felt something "fall out" of her. My aunt wound up driving her to the next big town (which is about 90 miles away) to take her to a decent emergency room, and my mom spent all Monday night and most of Tuesday in the ER.

It turns out that my mom had a "fourth-degree prolapsed uterus," meaning that her entire uterus fell out of her vagina and was just hanging there. She described it as the size of a baby's head. (So gross)

The first ER doctor who looked at her said "Oh dear" when he first took a look. Such a man thing to do... (no offense to the men, but most men -- even doctors -- react badly to women problems).

They ran all sorts of blood/urine tests and did a CT scan. Apparently she had basically no iron or potassium in her body. Her white blood cell count was so low that it was really scary. She got a urinary tract infection and the infection had spread to her kidneys. It was looking like the ER wanted to do an emergency hysterectomy.


About 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, she finally got looked at by a decent gynecologist. That doctor started looking at the CT scan and noticed that there is a major growth inside that shouldn't be there either. The doctor decided to wait three weeks and do a full hysterectomy. In the meantime, she's not supposed to work or lift anything over a few pounds. She's got this device inside her holding the uterus inside, and she's supposed to stay off her feet as much as possible so she doesn't risk making the device pop out. She has to take the device out twice a week to clean it and then put it back in.


Since she wasn't supposed to do much, she decided it would be best not to cook a Thanksgiving dinner. I couldn't be there anyway because I had to work, but she had planned to cook for her and my brother. She ended up getting two prepared meals from the town's grocery store. It broke her heart not to cook the meal. Luckily I'm going up there Monday for my brother's birthday, and I am going to try cooking a mini-Thanksgiving dinner for us. I've never done it alone, but I think for the most part I can handle it. I may have to ask her a few questions here and there.


It looks like her surgery will end up being on a day I can't be there ... once again I can't be there when she needs me... I have to testify in my exhusband's criminal trial then and have to be here no matter what.

"I don't want to be crazy"

I started following author Samantha Schutz's old blog on blogger a long time ago, but somehow I never pieced together that she had written a memoir. It was called "I Don't Want to be Crazy," and it apparently came out in 2007, but I never heard about it. I found out about the blog because she suffers from anxiety, so that's all I knew Samantha as ... a fellow anxiety sufferer.

Well a few weeks ago I was in a used book store selling some books to them to get cash. As I was walking around, I spotted the words "I Don't Want to be Crazy" on a book in the clearance section. I, of course, picked it up. What "crazy" person wouldn't? I read the back cover and flipped through the book, and I thought it was really unique because it's a narrative memoir told in the form of free-form poetry. I just had to have it.

When I got home, I looked up the author's name and discovered I had already been following her blog for ages. The world is so small and strange sometimes. I found her new website -- http://www.samanthaschutz.net/ -- which reveals that Samantha is a little less than three years older than me. It's always interesting to me to find someone who's about my age and actually has a memoir published. I want to publish my own so much, but I'm lazy and struggle to write on it.

Anyways, I'm nearing completion of the book, and I love it. It's a really easy and fast read because of how it's formatted. She reveals a lot about her struggles with anxiety throughout college ... something I can totally relate to. It really reads like I've jumped right into her personal journals.

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:

"When I try to save other people am I trying to save myself? Am I covering up for my lack of strength by putting people back together?"

"I feel like a marionette - like someone else is pulling the strings and I have no choice but to comply."

"Most days it feels like I am watching a movie where the sound isn't in sync, the speed is all wrong. Either I'm moving too quickly and the world is dripping along, or the world is moving too quickly, cosmic, and I'm oozing like a slug barely able to pull my own weight."

"I am the cure and the disease."

"When I have a panic attack the voice in my head says anything can happen. I will go insane, I will die, I will start screaming, I will piss all over myself. I try to tell myself that that voice isn't real, but it's hard. The voice is very convincing."

"I cannot tell if this is a breakthrough or a breakdown. I'm too close to tell."

"The Tracey Fragments" is odd but totally me

Newspapers get all sorts of free books, CDs, movies, etc. from production companies who want us to review/promote their products. Every once in a while, the newspaper I work for lets us take home these items. They do free "book grabs" during which we get to keep things for free, but they save all the best stuff for little fundraising events to get money for newsroom programs.

Last week they did a DVD sale, during which I bought "The Tracey Fragments" for 50 cents. I had never heard of the movie, even though it stars Ellen Page and came out in 2007. I saw it sitting on the table, and the photo of Ellen with fragments missing and the words "Something's missing" caught my eye. I went ahead and bought it without knowing anything about it.

Then I started watching it and it creeped me out slightly. Ellen's character is believed to have borderline personality disorder. How odd is it that I'd randomly pick up a movie that winds up with a character who shares my disorder? The movie is sort of trippy. It's told through fragments of the story... some real, some fantasy. It's an odd way to tell a story. It's a little hard to follow, but in the end, it's a good movie for someone who does feel fragmented herself. I saw myself in Tracey's struggles and delusions.

I now know it's based on a book, which I plan to read whenever I can find it.

My three favorite quotes from the movie are:

"I kinda like to ride a different bus every night depending on my mood. Like, if I'm depressed, I enjoy being around other depressed people. And happy people, they frickin depress me! You know?"

"I am so happy. I have an amazing life. Now I'm gonna scratch my eyes out. What, you think I'm funny? I'm an emergency. It's not my fault, all right? It's not. My DNA is fucked, okay? You can ask Dr. Heker. She's my psychiatrist. I don't know, I heard her say the problem's, like, congential or something? I don't know, I think she was on the phone. I'd also like to thank my parents. And God. And my boyfriend. Especially my boyfriend. When we were together everything was so friggin' clear that you could hear a glass tinging a fork in Mozambique. Now my head could explode, and I wouldn't even notice"

"I have this condition. It makes me want to kill and fuck all the time. But lucky for us it's intermission."

"Anywhere But Here"

Mandi Perkins is a singer that I've loved for a while. Now she's the lead singer of a band called Of Verona. I stumbled across a live version of a song she wrote titled "Anywhere But here," and I love it. It's a song about a cutter. The first verse, which describes how I feel a lot of the time...


"Anywhere But Here" by Of Verona

Alice cuts herself to watch it bleed
Helps her figure out how to get what she needs
She sits in the shower, hour after hour
Washing her tears down the drain
Stares at the ceiling, losing all feeling
Counting the tiles again

I think she could use some company
Just needs someone else to see

She wishes she were

Anywhere but here
She prays to g-d at night
Anywhere but here
She wants to go home

Her street still cries, still looks the same
& she wonders why she ever came
Thought she could take it, this time she would make it
They’d be waiting there open armed
Roles down her sleeves, turns now to leave
They’ll never see how she’s been harmed

She just wants to rest her head now
wants to be someone else somehow

She wishes she were

Anywhere but here
She prays to g-d at night
Anywhere but here
She feels so alone

she feels so alone

She whispers:

I wish I were anywhere but here
Anywhere would be better

Anywhere but here
She’s screaming it out loud
Anywhere but here
She'll get through this somehow

Anywhere but here
She’s knocking on the door
Anywhere but here
She needs something more

Alice cries herself to sleep at night
hope you figure out how to make it right

Study: Major acne problem may raise suicide risk

By The Associated Press

People receiving treatment for severe acne may be at higher risk of attempting suicide, but that is probably caused by depression linked to the condition and not the drug, a new study says.

Swedish researchers at the Karolinska Institute studied data from nearly 6,000 people who were prescribed the drug isotretinoin between 1980 and 1989. Isotretinoin is sold under names including Accutane, Roaccutane, Clarus, Decutan and others. The medication has been commonly prescribed to treat serious acne since the 1980s.

The scientists said it was more probable that mental health problems linked to patients' severe acne explained the higher suicide risk rather than the drug treatment. They suspected patients whose acne improved after treatment might still be depressed if there were no major improvements in their social lives.

The scientists compared the patient information to hospital discharge records and death registers from 1980 to 2001. According to the records, 128 of the people surveyed were admitted to a hospital after a suicide attempt.

"Severe acne is not a trivial condition," wrote Anders Sundstrom and colleagues. "It is associated with an increased risk of attempted suicide."

Experts found the number of suicide attempts increased between about one and three years before the start of the treatment, though that increase was not statistically significant. The highest risk compared with the general population appeared to be within six months of the start of treatment. Treatment typically lasted several months, with some patients needing repeated therapy, the report said.

Sundstrom and colleagues emphasized that acne-related suicide attempts were rare: there was about one additional suicide attempt compared with the general population for every 2,300 people taking the acne drug.

"All patients with acne of a severity for which isotretinoin is (needed) should have psychosocial factors and suicidal intent monitored," wrote Parker Magin and John Sullivan of the University of Newcastle and University of New South Wales in Australia, in an accompanying commentary.

"Given the extended period of risk, families of patients may also have a role in this monitoring."

The study was paid for by the Swedish Research Council and was published Friday in the medical journal BMJ.

Social Class May Affect Outcome of Depression Treatment

By HealthDay 

Depression treatments appear to be less effective in helping poor and working class patients function at work, a new study finds.

Researchers from the University of Illinois at Chicago said this was especially important because depression takes a heavy toll on productivity, particularly among those in sales and service jobs, who often have less education and belong to the working class.

Researchers reviewed the cases of 239 patients with major depression who took part in the U.S. National Institute of Mental Health Treatment of Depression Collaborative Research Program from 1982 to 1986.

The patients took antidepressants or received one of two different kinds of psychotherapy: interpersonal psychotherapy or cognitive-behavioral therapy. After treatment with drugs or psychotherapy, working-class and poor patients showed less improvement in their ability to function at work than did middle-class patients who had the same treatments, the University of Illinois researchers found.

The study was published in a recent issue of the journal Psychiatric Services.

Future research should examine how to change depression treatments so that working-class and poor patients get the same degree of benefit as middle-class patients, said principal investigator Lydia Falconnier, an assistant professor in UIC's College of Social Work.

"One route to improved outcomes might be to adapt current therapies to include a greater focus on the daily work and economic stressors that low-income individuals face," she said in a university news release.

Happiness Is a Focused Mind

By HealthDay 

If you want to be happy, try to stay focused.

New research shows that when people's minds drifted from the task or activity at hand, they reported being less happy than when they were fully engaged in whatever they were doing.

The human mind is uniquely capable of wandering -- that is, to ponder things that have happened, to anticipate things that will happen, and to plan for things that might happen, explained study author Matthew Killingsworth, a doctoral candidate in psychology at Harvard University. The ability is one of the traits that makes human beings human, he noted.

Yet, cognitive wandering comes at a cost, which is that when people are thinking about something other than what they're doing, they feel less happy, the researchers discovered.

"Human beings seem to have this unique capacity to focus on the non-present. They have the ability to reflect on the past, plan for the future and imagine things that might never occur," Killingsworth said. "But at the same time, human beings are clumsy users of this capacity and it tends to decrease, rather than increase, happiness."

In the study, 2,250 participants were prompted at random times throughout the day using an iPhone Web application. They were asked how they were feeling, what they were doing, if they were thinking about something other than what they were doing and whether whatever they were contemplating was pleasant (say, daydreaming about a vacation), unpleasant (perhaps worrying about a relationship or finances) or neutral in nature.

According to the study, participants spent nearly 47 percent of their waking hours with their mind in a wandering state. "This study shows that our mental lives are pervaded, to a remarkable degree, by the non-present," Killingsworth said.

That is, with one notable exception. When describing what they were doing, participants could choose from 22 activities, including walking, eating, shopping, watching TV, commuting and working.

The only activity during which people seemed to be quite good at staying on task mentally was while making love. During sex, only 10 percent of people reported wandering thoughts.

Generally, people also reported being the happiest when making love, exercising or conversing. They said they were least happy when resting or sleeping, working or using a home computer.

When it came to what they were thinking about, 42.5 percent thought of pleasant topics, 26.5 percent thought of unpleasant topics, while 31 percent were thinking neutral thoughts.

And while people who were thinking of pleasant things were happier than people thinking of unpleasant things, even those thinking happy thoughts were less happy than people who were fully engaged in whatever they were doing.

The study is published in the Nov. 12 issue of Science.

In some ways, the research provides scientific evidence of what many self-help books and some religious traditions espouse, which is that being in the "here and now" is critical for happiness, Killingsworth said.

Participants were from 83 counties, a wide range of occupations and ranged in age from 18 to 88.

Barbara Becker Holstein, a psychologist and "happiness coach" in Long Branch, N.J., said the findings speak to the importance of doing things that provide a sense of purpose and meaning. Such activities make it easier to stay focused, Holstein explained.

"This research is fabulous and fascinating," Holstein said. "But long before the research, psychologists and many educators recognized that in order to feel a sense of well-being, you need to feel you have purpose and meaning in life. That means you are containing the mind around certain projects and activities, and are forcing the mind not to be all over the place all day long."

If you feel your mind starting to head down a "dark tunnel" of worry and anxiety, try to snap yourself out of it by bringing your thoughts back to the present, she said.

"It's such a natural tendency to go over bad news or things that haven't worked out, to dramatize the drama we are already experiencing," she said. "But if we can distract ourselves by getting involved doing something, we get some distance from whatever we were ruminating on and it's better for us."

If you'd like to be part of Harvard's happiness research project, visit trackyourhappiness.org.

Why I've been M.I.A.

You've probably noticed that I've sort of been missing in action lately. The reason for that is that I'm still really struggling with the suicide of my former teacher/friend (click here if you didn't read the post about it).

I haven't been handling it well at all. It's a struggle every day to not just bust out crying about it. His suicide is one of the greatest losses of my life, and the lives of all his other friends, family, and students.

As soon as I feel able to move on, I'll be back in full force. I'm just not sure when that will be.

Doodle your emotions

I keep seeing this bus bench in Oklahoma City. I finally decided to look up what it was for. It turns out that Doodly Couch is a website that sells art therapy journals. Instead of writing about your feelings, you doodle a drawing about how you feel every day. I know what some people have a really hard time putting their thoughts and feelings into words, and sometimes sketching a picture about them is easier than finding the words. There are a variety of the journals... for the general public, for soldiers, for brides, for people going through divorce, for missionaries, for children, for mothers, for pregnant women, etc. There's also one that is in Spanish.

I am considering buying one for my younger brother because he has trouble putting his struggles with depression and anxiety into words but he's always doodling away, so it may be a good thing for him.

I wanted to share the website with you guys in case you're interested in one. You can order from that website or click a link to order them on Amazon.