Me and My Beast - 01/09/10

The past two days were really rough. I was extremely depressed and was full of suicidal ideations. Today is not so bad. I decided to quit smoking while in the hospital since the patches are provided and I've already gained a little bit of weight. Ugh. I hate this part of quitting smoking. It's likely the biggest deterrent for me to quit smoking. I'm going to continue to try and quit and just see how the weight gain goes - if I gain too much weight then I'll start again. I know, I know it's not the best approach but oh well.

I spoke with my psychiatrist yesterday briefly yesterday about how I was feeling and he said we would have to talk more about it Monday when he's back but he figures I may need another round of ECT or a change in anti-depressants. I'm very reluctant to start playing around with my anti-depressants because I've already been on so many different ones and they all take at least four weeks to start working so I think I'm going to suggest that instead, he increase my Cymbalta (my second and newest anti-depressant) and likely start a round of ECT if I can get in on a proper schedule (three times a week). If I do that, I can expect to lose at least eight months of memory since that's what happened last time I did a round of ECT. Oh well, such is life.

On a positive note, I'm going at 15:00 today to look at a new rental house in Mallorytown that's only about a year old. It's a four bedroom, two bathroom house and looks beautiful from the outside and in from what I could see through the living room window. I have a couple of concerns in that the rent they're asking is $1100 / month and that seems steep for a house in Mallorytown and also since it has electric heat upstairs (radiant heat downstairs). I went through my budget spreadsheet and I can afford it with the assumption that the hydro bill would be around $400 / month through the Winter months. However, I'm still going to try and negotiate a better deal. I'm shooting for $1000 / month. I'm really excited about going to see it as it is _so_ much nicer than where I live now (a small two bedroom). The only reason I'm living where I am now is because it was the only rental available in Mallorytown at the time that I was looking. It's embarrassing living where I am now - I don't want to have anybody over because the place is so small and dumpy. My son hates it there too. His bedroom is tiny and in the shape of an L.

I'll put up another post tonight when I get back to the hospital and let y'all know what I thought of the place and whether I was able to negotiate the rent down.

...J