Good-bye SSRI

I am weaning off my Celexa.
I started it almost exactly a year ago during the darkest part of my life to date.  It's the time when I was so overwhelmed and tired and angry and sad and defeated that I once wore a surgical mask for an entire today because I literally couldn't stop crying whether working at the computer or examining patients, and I wanted people to think I had a cold.  It's the time when there are no blog posts, almost no pictures of my boy.  It's the time when I tried to quit my fellowship.  It's the time when Dave was a fabulous single parent and husband who kept us all going.
It's a time that came to a head at the beginning of a busy clinic when I was literally locked in a bathroom by my crushing overwhelming emotions, crying so hard I started to throw up, and once that started, I gave up entirely.  In front of a crowded nursing station I wailed my intention to go home and likely never come back and I left.  Dave had to come drive me home.  I left my patients behind, completely unconcerned about what might happen to them.
I started Celexa the next day.
I made it through the remainder of the year without any more huge breakdowns, though it was a while before I felt like I could take a deep breath, and even longer before an accumulation of small stresses didn't make me hyperventilate and tear up.

Maybe if I hadn't been a first year fellow AND a new mommy.  Maybe if my baby hadn't been sick so much.  Maybe if milk supply hadn't been such a source of angst and used up so much time.  Maybe if I hadn't missed him being sick for so long before we realized.  Maybe if the winter hadn't been one of the worst on record.  Maybe if I hadn't smashed my car into a snow bank.  Maybe if my clinic preceptor had actually offered help, or at least agreed to help when asked.  Maybe if two of my favorite patients hadn't relapsed in the same week.  Maybe, maybe, maybe.  Maybe it wouldn't have gotten to that point.

All that aside, I am now stopping the meds and I am just amazed by how much it has obviously changed my brain chemistry.  I am currently taking half a dose every other day.  Every time I have decreased it, I have been really uncomfortable for a while before I get adjusted again.  My last dose was almost 48 hours ago.  I feel shaky and disconnected.  My legs and arms feel weak and I have trouble focusing.  I am having a little trouble finishing sentences.  I have a huge hole in my planning and executive function.  I am not comfortable doing the things I am supposed to be doing in the lab so I sat down to work on the grant application I am writing. No dice.  I think I might throw the towel in and go home.
Driving very slowly, of course.

Nate-ism's part deux

Nate has rediscovered his love for "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?".  If you don't know it, it is a children's book that starts with the above question.
"I see a red bird looking at me" answers the brown bear.
Then the red bird is asked and he sees a yellow duck looking at him, and so on.  It has a catchy cadence and we read it to him a lot this spring/summer when he was learning colors and animals and animal sounds but now that he has those firmly under his belt, the book had fallen by the wayside in favor of more plot driven thrillers such as  "The Little Lamb" and "The Little Duck".
They must have read it at school, because this weekend, he was in the car sing-songing "
"Brown bear, brown bear, what you hee? I hee Nate yooka at me."

Last night at dinner he was "prinkling yinmin yugar" (sprinkling cinnamon sugar) on his apples and singing the following:
"Yinmin yugar, yinmin yugar what you hee? I hee bopple (bottle) yooka at me."
"Bopple, bopple, what you hee? I hee yid (lid) yooka at me"
"Yid, yid, what you hee? I hee Nate yooka at me"

I love his creativity.  He is just a funny, funny kid.

Yum!

"Oral viscous budesonide made by mixing 0.5 mg Pulmicort Respule with five 1g packets of sucralose (Splenda) to create a volume of 8-12 mL"


This is what Nate has to look forward to tonight.


Anticipated Questions:
Q. Why, oh g-d, why?
A. Because the biopsies he had last week show that he has eosinophilic esophagitis, best described as asthma of the esophagus.  The allergic cells (eosinophils, or eos for the indoctrinated inner circle) that attack your lungs in asthma are hanging out under the surface of his esophagus, in large numbers, releasing histamine and other nasty compounds, causing inflammation and discomfort.
Q. So what?
A. Symptoms of untreated EE mimic GERD (heartburn/acid reflux) and include heartburn, poor eating, failure to gain weight appropriately.  Plus, adults with EE have esophagi that look like this:

when they should look like this:

and right now no one knows if early and effective treatment will prevent the chronic change.
And because we are hoping to get rid of his symptoms and make him comfortable.  Even when he doesn't truly throw up, he tells us multiple times a day that he is having a "yellow spill" in his mouth or tummy.
Q. What's Pulmicort?
A. It's a liquid steroid mixture designed to be put into a breathing machine (nebulizer) and turned into vapor for breathing into the lungs and treating asthma.
Q. Um, he doesn't have asthma.
A. I know, but right now the only way to get steroids into the esophagus is to swallow them, and there's no medicine marketed to do this specifically for EE.  The goal is to give a small dose in a thick liquid that will coat the esophagus and sit there (like putting on a skin cream) and will not be enough to get absorbed into his bloodstream and cause all those nasty steroid side effects.
Q. Why Splenda?
A. Have you ever tasted liquid steroids?
Q. Will he take it?
A. Only time will tell.  Sadly, we can't bribe him with chocolate because he can't eat or drink for 30 minutes after taking it.  We'll try sticker bribes, but he drives a hard bargain, so don't be surprised if there's a new playground in our yard come spring :)

High Def

"Do you think it's weird," Dave just asked, "that we are now the proud owners of high definition pictures of Nathan's guts?"
Yes. Yes, I do.

He had his endoscopy today.
There were a few surprises.  Most notably that Nate gave no protest as the various doctors and nurses listened to his heart and lungs and when it was time for him to go in with the anesthesiologist he climbed into the little red car and rode on back.

Right now we know he has a small mucosal hiatal hernia that probably makes it easier for him to barf and we have to wait for the biopsies to find out about anything else.  Stay tuned.

I'm really glad it's over.  I think I didn't breathe from the time they wheeled him away until he started talking in full sentences again when he woke up.  Whatever he's got we can deal with, but I just have to say it - Anesthesia, for my baby, scares the crap out of me and I really, really don't want to do it again.

Nate-ism's

A few Nate-isms to start your day with a smile.

1. Eyewater = tears (ie. Nate make eyewater.)

2. Jingle Bears = the current name for his gummy bear vitamins (I have no idea where this came from)

3. Mommy hold you, right now = what he mutters over and over and over as a mantra until he falls asleep

4. yellow spill = throw up or a particularly wet burp

5. do beans = scoop the coffee with daddy and start the grinder

******

Nate doesn't like carrots.  It's one of the only vegetables he's not allergic to so we'd love for him to eat them, but they are "yucky, yucky".  Cooked, raw, with honey and butter, or in soup/stew, it doesn't matter.  He can find a tiny fragment of carrot and discard it.  Enter "Runaway Bunny", a delightful book about a baby bunny who wants to run away and whose mommy chases after him.  It is one of Nate's current top 3 favorite books, and he keeps telling me his is a "Runway Bubby" and taking off so I will chase him.  In the book, the mommy bunny lures the baby back with a carrot, so last night at dinner I asked him if he wanted to eat carrots like the Runaway Bunny.

"Yes!" he exclaimed, opening his mouth for a bite of carrot.

I put a piece on his tongue.

He spit it out.

"Yucky, Yucky" he said with indescribably adorable face.

He was quiet for just a second, plotting, and then announced with a very serious expression, "Runway Bubby like chocolate cake"

Dave and I laughed until we cried.  And yes, we gave him some chocolate brownie for dessert.

Keep on Burnin'

I read that Americans as a group ate 156 billion calories on Super Bowl.  I wonder how much of that was due to my effort to be "polite" and help finish the buffalo chicken dip.  That wonder led me to run a little faster and a little farther this morning.
Parts of me that hurt: my right fifth metatarsal, my right hip, my lower abs
Parts that don't: my self-esteem

Here We Go!

He came home from the hospital on Super Bowl Sunday two years ago, and nestled on my chest during a Steelers win.

This year, he will be a little more active.

Let's Go Steelers!!!!!!!!!

Big Two

It happened on Sunday.

Our boy turned two.

In anticipation of the big day, Papa Ken and Grammy Nancy (Papa Ten and Ninny), taught him to "make two" which he does with two hands and a clear flush of pride.

He uses roughly a million words, makes them into complex sentences, sings nearly non-stop, and knows his favorite books by heart (making it a tad difficult to shorten things up when bedtime is over due :P  )

Currently we have been dubbed the "Dactyl" family.  Mommy dactyl, Daddy dactyl, and Nate dactyl.  We live in the cave under our dining room table and make squawking noises while Nate dactyl barks out directions.  "Mommy dactyl sit down on blue!  Daddy dactyl rest now!  Mommy dactyl read book! Nate dactyl go through tunnel!"

He loves dinosaurs and chocolate cake.

He says please and thank you and sorry (yorry mommy, yorry Nate bonk mommy head, Nate kiss mommy head) and excuse me.  He also says "Nate hear that" with a decidedly mischievous twinkle in his eye when he burps or has gas.

He loves to build with blocks, make music on ANYTHING, paint, draw, cut with scissors, and help mommy cook.

He's frankly amazing.  And yes, he's two.