UCLA

Brains!

I have been using my brain too much and it is tired.  The first day of EMT school the instructor told us that if we have been out of school for, “ten years or so”,  the workload may take a little getting used to.  Ten years?  Try thirty.  Also the good news is 98% of people passing the UCLA EMT course go o to pass the National Certification Exam.  I had to ruin it by raising my hand and asking how many pass the class. Answer:49%  Hmm.

Anyway the bad news is I am old, but the good news is I am old!  Just having paid attention to life and  reading a lot has given me a rudimentary knowledge of a wide variety of subjects.  Combine that with having taught childbirth classes, being a dancer, and watching all twelve seasons of ER and Bam! take that Exam One on Anatomy, Physiology, the Respiritory, Cardiac, and Nervous Systems and Medical Terminology. Oy,  I am so screwed.  This was perhaps not the best time to go off antidepressants.
 Even with my excruciatingly slow taper I am having some “trouble”. I am experiencing brain zaps (feels like an electrical jolt through your brain), extreme irritability (known to have that anyway), intestinal problems, edema in hands and feet, weight gain, joint pain, headache,  a rash down my spine that I am convinced is toxins leaving the nervous system and did I mention extreme irritability? I have been so unpleasant I even caught Don breaking a Cymbalta capsule into my diet coke. I am so mad at myself for not researching this drug before I took it.  The problem with antidepressants is when you are depressed you want to feel better so badly you just do what your told..  Or I did anyway.  They helped me a great deal eleven years ago but now I don’t need them but and here is the kicker – it is a Mother Fucking bitch to get off. (Sorry about the language Aunt Shawna.)  The best part is when I called my Doctor and said I was having trouble and she said she was surprised.  Huh???  Now we all know I am a self confessed drama queen but I do not make stuff up.  In fact I pride myself at being above the petty physical foibles the rest of you have to deal with.  I have given birth to two children with out drugs, I go to Bikram Yoga and I live with Don Todd.  Obviously I can withstand extreme physical and mental stress so if I say this sucks then you can trust me- this sucks.  I think I may even have screamed that into the phone at my doctor but I can’t remember because I had a brain zap and had to lay down.  So, now I am on 5 mg Prozac for a month until I can “settle down little missy.”
Today is better except I went to Bikram and thirty minutes into class I had a lower back spasm and had to lay on the floor on my side (recovery position for you EMT students) for an hour.  I love me.

Kittens!  Who wants a kitten?