Oops. Nearly a week got by me this time.
I think I'm over last week's burnout, but I got busy... and then, keeping looking back on everything I'd missed, I kept putting off my next entry... so now, of course, I have a week's worth of catching up to do, and ten minutes in which to do it.
I'm sure a lot of you can guess what went wrong. "ExploreZip", the worm. Nothing really serious happened, we didn't see a copy of the worm, but when the new information came out about it being able to propagate across LANs, we shut the mail server down until we were sure we had the latest updates, and the server was protected... which caused all kinds of problems with veeps (and others) complaining about missing email, and bottlenecks when we put the server back online. I worked most of last weekend. Larry was going out of town, and Susie and I worked our tails off.
Kelly and Karen have both accepted their offers, which is great news for me. I could have used them these last few days. Karen can start next week, but Kelly won't be with us until the end of the month. That's okay, it gives us a little over a week to let Karen get settled.
Yesterday I finally got to see the doctor about my sleeplessness. It wasn't quite as embarrassing as I was expecting. For one thing, they've moved me to a different doctor in the group, a woman. What I had to tell her, about not sleeping after sex, were definitely easier to say than they would have been to my old doctor.
She asked me if I had any reason to be depressed. Sheesh... I think that's the last problem I have. But then she started on "life changes"... uhhh... yeah, I think it would be fair to say that there have been several of those. Major changes. And she doesn't like my eating habits, and my irregular hours, and she asks if perhaps I feel guilty somehow when I sleep with Brian... I don't think so, but if I did that would contribute to anxiety.
She suggested putting me on an anti-depressant. Paxil, it's similar to Prozac, but milder, apparently. After bloodwork to see if perhaps I have a thyroid imbalance, but she doesn't think that's it, she thinks I'm just suffering from anxiety.
Maybe. Certainly if the contributing factors are lack of stability, life changes and lousy eating habits, it sounds believable. But I don't feel depressed, though occasionally very irritated (that's another symptom, she said).
But I don't want drugs. She suggests the Paxil for just a short time, while I get beyond the stability issues, then easing me off it. If I don't do that, she says, the insomnia just aggravates the other problems, making it hard to break the cycle. But, on the other hand, she understands my reluctance, and if I want to try to work through the causes for the next couple of months, and try to relax some more, she'll see me again and prescribe the drugs later if I'm not getting anywhere.
I have a follow-up visit with her on Monday, when she should have the results from the lab work. And assuming that the tests don't show any imbalances, I guess I'll just have to start remembering to eat breakfast and learn to relax, because there's no way I'm going to tell Brian to keep his hands off me ;-)
Relaxation isn't always very relaxing :-)
The test results were in Friday, and the doctor's office called to tell me they're pretty much normal, which left me with the most likely problem being stress and anxiety. Oh, yeah, and coffee. I drink way too much coffee. But cutting back on coffee is a long-term project, I've tried it before. So that leaves trying to relax...
Well, my thoughtful fiancé bought me some massage oil and offered to help me relax. And it was relaxing, for a while, while his strong hands found all the knots in my back... but when they started to wander, and I didn't prevent them, that nice warm feeling in my back became warmth all over, so I objected to his wearing more clothes than me. And his chest slid against my back, on the oil...
To be honest, it was still quite relaxing. More or less. But probably not what the doctor ordered, though I doubt she'd object. And I did sleep well.
We saw Rob and Clarice for a drink on Saturday. Rob's working his tail off as his project's getting off the ground. He seems very happy with it, though Clarice seemed harried. I think there are stresses in the toy business at this time of the year.
Today I went back to the doctor, everything was as expected. There's perhaps a tiny imbalance in my thyroid hormone levels, but nothing that would cause the kind of problems I've had. She really does want me to cut back on coffee. She had a few suggestions, but I know that's going to hurt. If I go too long without coffee, my head hurts. And I hate decaf. It tastes bland.
Karen started today. I was so busy I didn't get to spend much time with her, but Larry and Susie took her in hand. I think she's going to work out okay.