Weekend with family

Brother Nathan, me, Todd, mom, Uncle Roger, Cousin Anne and her daughter Miranda on my back deck

In the interest of trying to blog more regularly - here I am!

Last time, I held off talking about my mom's 70th birthday weekend. A couple of months ago, I had the idea that with mom turning 70, we should do something special. That turned out to be a very successful gathering of her fairly small family that is very spread out (Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan).

My brother and I told my mom that we and Todd were going to take her out to a nice dinner at a surprise location. That gave me the flexibility to find a place that would fit everyone who could come. We ended up at this family-owned Italian place downtown - the food was good, the wine better, and the wait staff was top notch. We had a private room, which was cool. And boy oh boy was mom surprised! We had a really lovely evening - and weekend - with family and one of my mom's oldest friends from Michigan.

The weekend was a MUCH needed reprieve from my slugging around here.

Basically my health stuff has leveled off, although I have still not been able to get my coumadin levels to where they should be (which means I'm still doing the terrible nightly shots.) Today marks approximately the month anniversary for discovering my blood clot. Risks start to taper off increasingly after six weeks, so I am well on my way. And I FEEL good, which is always great.

But I have still been having some mental struggles. My anxiety over this situation (I hope) peaked on Sunday... I had my first real panic attack in a long time (I'm talking years.) It was scary. While I've had a lot of small incidents, I really had a hard time calming myself down from this. I was convinced there was a problem with my heart, which was racing and pounding - I even started to pack a bag for the hospital.

I think what happened was a perfect storm of being at the beginning of a Prednisone burst (can make you feel speedy, or can make your heart race), starting on a new medicine that was making me feel a bit funky, being at the end of a week during which I had experienced a lot of off-and-on anxiety, and, possibly, watching an intense hockey game. :)

Without publicly divulging too many details of my mental health, I will say that I had an appointment with my psychiatrist that week - timing of that could not have been better. And he started me on a new medicine, hopefully temporarily, to help with my funk and anxiety of late. So far so good with that, although I hated the idea of it. He also told me to not hesitate to use my Xanex, and even suggested I take one regularly before bed to help a bit with the next day.