I have completely lost my taste for cigarettes!! Can you believe it?? People can take Wellbutrin to help them quit smoking, but it never had that effect on me. But something about adding the Lexapro to it has, I don’t know, kick-started that part of Wellbutrin that curbs nicotine cravings. Two nights ago, after the kids had gone to bed, I lit a cigarette and took two puffs, and it was…wrong. It didn’t taste right, it wasn’t enjoyable, so I stubbed it out and haven’t had one since.

So, I’m no longer screaming at my kids, I’m actually sleeping at night, AND I’ve quit smoking? Lexapro, I LOVE YOU.

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Well. When the doctor told me that Lexapro might cause stomach upset and make me feel tired, she wasn’t kidding. Since taking the first dose on Tuesday, I have pretty much had a constant stomachache ever since. The only time my stomach doesn’t hurt is during and immediately after I eat. Terrific.

Yesterday, I came down with a crushing headache around 3:00 p.m., and a dose of Extra-Strength Tylenol didn’t even touch it. I talked about it with my husband during dinner, and we hypothesized that it might have something to do with caffeine withdrawal, since the other side effect I’m having is feeling constantly jittery. I had a cup of coffee Wednesday morning, and by noon my hands were shaking so much I could hardly type. I thought maybe the Lexapro was acting as enough of a stimulant, so I went all day Wednesday and Thursday with NO coffee or Diet Coke. Hence, the headache.

So, after dinner last night, Chris suggests that I go lay down in a dark room and try to rest until the headache goes away. He will clear the table, put away the leftovers, wash the dishes, and put all three kids to bed. Well, how could I say no to that?? Of course, I completely forgot that I promised one of my new diet buddies, Karen, that I would do a workout after dinner, which I remembered when I woke up this morning at 3:30 a.m., after having lay down at 7:00! Think I needed to catch up on my sleep a little?

Oh, Valentine’s Day. I went to the boys’ school in the afternoon for their parties, took a bunch of photos, then came home and reformatted the camera card before I uploaded the photos. Oops. But what I really wanted to show you was the Valentine’s Day cards I got in the mail from participating in a V-Day Card Swap organized by Jamelah. I can’t show you the cards I made, because they were in the batch that got deleted, but here’s the cards I got:

How cool is that? The third card from the left even came with a belated Birthday-and-Valentine’s-Day gift for me, it’s a knitted iPod holder! Or, as the card said, a sleeping bag for a Polly Pocket doll. So cute.

Chris gave me a very romantic card, and we went out to dinner at Finley’s (kids eat free!) which was crazy busy. When we got there, I had the lovely combination of a stomachache plus the feeling of being REALLY hungry, because it had been like seven hours since I ate anything. Our server was slow to bring water and pop, bread, salads, our food. It took for-EVER. And the closer it got to Kaitlyn’s bedtime, the whinier and wigglier she got. But you know what?

I didn’t freak out. I didn’t get stressed, I didn’t raise my voice, or complain, or snap at the kids. I just sat there and took it all in, realizing that the server was doing the best she could with so many tables, and knowing that if Kaitlyn started crying, we would just deal with it. I did not get anxious, I did not get stressed out. I stayed calm. Do you know how not like me that is? Do you know how many years of stress and anxiety I could have saved myself if I had recognized the symptoms and asked a doctor to treat me sooner? Do you know how guilty I feel now that I look back and see what a freaked-out, screaming harpy I was most days? I haven’t yelled at my kids in three days, and I can hardly believe it’s me.

I’m not saying that everyone who feels stressed out or who yells at their kids occasionally needs medication. That’s between you and your doctor. I’m saying, for me, this medicine is going to make my relationship with my family a whole heck of a lot better. And I think that’s worth a little stomach upset and fatigue. Most definitely.

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I saw my Doctor today, for a follow-up to my last appointment when she got me back on Wellbutrin. Today’s visit went something like this:

(A young woman calls my name, I follow her back, she stops at the scale). Let’s get your weight today!

Me: Head turned, looking away, lalalala, okay dammit, I have to look. Oh SHIT, what does that say? Does that say that I weigh ONE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY-SEVEN POUNDS? Fucking HELL! (That was all internal dialogue, I should mention).
When this young woman led me into the exam room, she said to me Hi! I’m Jane, and I’ll be your Medical Assistant today!, in the exact same tone as if she was my Server at Denny’s and was leading me to my table. It was weird.

Blah blah blah, blood pressure good, pulse good. Out goes Jane, in comes Doctor W.

Doctor W is younger than me, has been overweight, lost weight with Weight Watchers and struggles to keep it off every day. She has two kids and knows just how hard it is to find time to exercise. If I found out she had a blog, I would totally want to stalk her and make her be my friend.
SO. Doctor W. says: How are you doing with the anxiety and irritability?

Me: I still have both of them. And I can’t sleep.

Doctor W.: I would like you to try taking another medication in addition to the Wellbutrin. It’s called Lexapro.

Me: Uh huh, okay.

Doctor W.: Here’s THREE MONTHS worth of free samples, the side effects are constipation or diarrhea (huh? how can it be one or the other?), and if it makes you too tired during the day, take it at night.

Me: Uh huh, okay, but what about the sexual side effects? That’s why I take Wellbutrin, because other antidepressants left me feeling numb from the waist down.

Doctor W.: When I prescribe Lexapro to people, I often give them Wellbutrin to counteract the sexual side effects. It’s like Wellbutrin and Lexapro cancel each other out in that respect.

Me: Oh. Uh HUH. Okay. See how amazingly articulate I am when I have to actually open my mouth and speak?

What I’d like to know in the comments is, have you ever taken Lexapro? Have you ever taken it at the same time as Wellbutrin? Did you like it? Did you have problems with side effects? Did you still feel like having sex? You don’t mind telling me all that private stuff, right? Good. Thanks.

And thank you so much everyone who commented on my previous post about my fear of trying to lose weight. You are all awesome, and beautiful, and once I read all of your blogs, I will totally want to stalk you and make you my friends.

I’m kidding. Sort of. I’ll just stalk you and wish you were my friends. Until the Lexapro kicks in, and then I will be all hey! I’m not even anxious about whether or not anyone reads this blog! I don’t feel worried about it at all! I think. How the hell should I know? I have no idea what normal people feel like. Heh.

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Remember at the beginning of the year when I wrote about my New Year’s Goals? And how one of them was to lose weight? Well, the truth is, I haven’t lost any weight at all. I haven’t even tried. I’ve been to the gym exactly three times since January 1st, and have not paid a single minute of attention to any food I have eaten at all. My Weight Watchers Online membership expired, so now I am turning my attention to another weight loss site, Sparkpeople. I gotta tell you, if you are looking to lose weight, or keep track of carbs or grams of protein or glasses of water or anything else, SparkPeople is pretty fantastic. Everything is FREE, and the amount of information and help is amazing. This is NOT a paid referral of any kind, I just want everyone to know that this site is available. I have put a button on my sidebar, and if you are interested in checking it out, give the button a click.
The title of this post refers to my newest blog entry on my personal SparkPage. I’m cross-posting it here because I think that once in a while it’s good to open up and let people know what is going on inside my head. And yes, I do see the irony in my simultaneous enthusiasm for the site combined with my reluctance to actually use it. I never said that what goes on inside my head actually makes sense.

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I am so afraid of failure it is paralyzing me. I look at the Menu Plan that SparkPeople gave me for this week and I think, I can’t eat like that. I can’t buy, store and cook all of that food. I am already sure I won’t like the food and I haven’t even tried it yet. All I hear in my head is NO NO NO NO NO.

I don’t want to drink 8 glasses of water a day because I hate having to go to the bathroom so often. I don’t want to even try the Cardio or Strength Training program because I’m sure I won’t stick to it.

And yet, I don’t want to just take baby steps because I want to lose all of the weight, like NOW. I want to throw away my scale because I know I will become obsessed with every half-pound, yet weighing in is required for the program. I can’t stand thinking I weigh 173 in the morning and then seeing it say 174 at night. I am afraid that my metabolism is so messed up that my body will refuse to let go of the weight no matter what I do.

I want to be able to carry a load of laundry up the basement stairs without having to gasp for breath as my heart pounds. I want to be able to run after my kids on the playground. I want my hips, thighs and back to stop aching every day. I want all of these things, and I know theoretically how to get them, but I am so afraid of all that it entails.

I’m afraid that I won’t have food to comfort me, to help me swallow feelings of inadequacy, of anxiety, of insecurity. I am so afraid, I can’t move. I don’t want to lose weight to get into a certain size of clothes, I want to lose weight so that I DON’T DIE of some obesity-related illness. I want to lose weight, I need to lose weight, I HAVE to lose weight, and I am afraid.
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And that, my friends, is how I am feeling today. Thanks for reading.

Edited to add: Thank you, Joy, for reminding me that I deserve a pat on the back for going to a Low-Impact Aerobics class on Saturday with you. I used to take a similar class three times a week when I was getting in shape for my wedding, fourteen years ago. It’s funny how once you learn the basics of aerobics, you don’t really forget them. And although by the end of the class my face was bright red and I didn’t think I could go on for even another minute, I made it to the end. I should be proud of myself for that.

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I posted this over at the BlogHer website for a chance to win a free pass to BlogHer ‘07. The person who gets the most comments on their posts wins, so if you like it, click over there and leave me a comment on it ! I’m already planning on going to BlogHer ‘07, but I haven’t exactly thought of how to pay for the registration yet, so why not help me get it for free?!! If you’re not a member of BlogHer yet, joining is free and gives you access to tons of great posts by women writers on almost two dozen topics of interest. Click here to go to the BlogHer website, and then on the left where it says Shortcuts, click on Join and List a Blog. Now, here’s my entry in the “Who would YOU thank?” contest:

Welcome to the 2007 Academy Awards!
In the category of Best Supporting Actress in a Musical or Comedy, the winner is…Elizabeth Edwards!!
(camera pans crowd searching for barely five foot tall woman standing up…there she is, next to her husband who is on the phone with the babysitter, just a minute, here she comes)

(We see Mrs. Edwards accepting the gold statue from a six-foot tall supermodel)

Sniff…sniff…Oh my GOD, I can’t believe I won this! Thank you! Thank you so much! You know, when I started doing this ten years ago, there were so many people who helped me and supported me. Thank you to my Mother, who finally admitted that I might have married the right man after all when she saw that he changed diapers, fixed bottles and let me sleep in on Sunday mornings. Thank you to my Father, who helped us buy our first house so we didn’t have to raise the baby in the tiny upstairs apartment where our downstairs neighbor would bang on the floor with a broomstick every time we turned on our television.

Thank you to all of our Grandparents, who scooped up our tiny babies in their soft wrinkled hands and breathed in that new smell, reminding us of the miracle that is the circle of life. Thank you to all of our friends, who always understood that inviting us over meant that we came with children, and diaper bags, and sticky sippy cups, and still invited us over anyway.

Thank you to all of our daycare providers, all of our childrens’ teachers, thank you to our pediatrician for curing all those ear infections, thank you to our pets for putting up with having their tails pulled and fur yanked out by the fistful.

And since you’ve given this award to me specifically, I’d like to thank my husband. Thank you for changing from the boy who said he never wanted to have kids to the man who lights up from the inside whenever he holds a baby. Thank you for being the calm one, the one who doesn’t freak out at the sight of blood or vomit or poop. Thank you for reminding me to stop and play with them once in a while, that everything else can just wait. Thank you for keeping an eye on my stress level and knowing when it’s time to take the kids to the Mall so Mom can have some Alone time. That means more to me than anything. I love you so much, honey! I love you Ryan, Nathan and Kaitlyn, thank you SO MUCH for making me a Mom! I know I’m not always easy to live with, but some day you will be parents and you’ll understand just how deeply and fiercely I love you. I guess I have to get off the stage now, so thank you again everyone for this award! Woo hoo!

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