Depression and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy

I was first prescribed antidepressant when I was 17 years of age as a way to help me cope with the challenges associated with the progression of DMD. At the time I thought little of the connection between depression and DMD, I was just not happy. My parents noticed my downward spiral before I did. Unbeknownst to me I was losing interest in my friends and things I enjoyed doing such as reading and playing video games. So, it was decided I should seek a solution to the problem at hand. I started taking a medication called Effexor, a mild antidepressant. I felt results immediately with little to no side effects. I felt care free and excited about the renewed possibilities of the human condition. It was smooth sailing until 2002 when I was hospitalized with respiratory failure, which lead to a tracheotomy in May of that year. I was confined to ICU for three months. My second downward spiral began. People were dying around me consistently and the isolation was getting to me. I was put on a higher dose of Effexor and began taking the mood stabilizer and anti-anxiety meds. Getting accustomed to a machine breathing for me was very frightening and panic inducing. I began having panic attacks once I was back home. But those where subsiding as I built up my strength.

Fast forward 6 years to late 2008, I caught pneumonia and was hospitalized again. My anxiety began to sky rocket and I was having full blown panic attacks. Pneumonia makes you extremely weak and makes breathing difficult which just added to my anxiety. As I regained my strength and health, the anxiety ebbed.

In November 2009, I had another major bout of pneumonia. My anxiety was going gang busters and I was mildly sedated most of the time. My doctor got the insane idea to take me off my antidepressant. I suffered horrible withdrawal symptoms which agitated my anxiety and depression. I was quickly put back on a powerful antidepressant med called Celexa. Unfortunately it took 2 weeks to fully begin working. But time passed and I regained my strength. As of now, I’m very happy and everything is going to quite well. My depression and anxiety are well in check.

(This post will also be available on the DMD Pioneers Web site)

Movie review: Clash of the Titans in 3D

I just returned from watching Clash of the Titans in 3D. I really enjoyed it. They told the story quite well. I would recommend this film!

Family friendly if you you don't mind monsters...

7/10 stars

Learning

I have began a training course on how to become a blogger. It's akin to a creative writing course but teaches the technical aspects of running a successful high traffic blog also. Add that to my Spanish courses I'm taking online and I should have plenty to do.

I absolutely love to learn new things, so that is what I'm doing.

Expensive PPV Events

Last night I ordered the UFC 111 pay-per-view, which was $60 for the HD showing. It was well worth the $$$, cause GSP won! Tonight is Wrestlemania 26 on ppv but in standard definition so we all can watch. Only $54. I only order the one WWE event a year so it's survivable. April 10th is the UFC 112 ppv from Abu Dhabi with a stacked card!

Caregiver's Bill of Rights

by Jo Horne
Author of Caregiving: Helping an Aging Loved One

I have the right:
To take care of myself. This is not an act of selfishness. It will enable me to take better care of my loved one.

I have the right:
To seek help from others even though my loved one may object. I recognize the limits of my own endurance and strength.

I have the right:
To maintain facets of my own life that do not include the person I care for, just as I would if he or she were healthy. I know that I do everything that I reasonably can for this person, and I have the right to do some things for myself.

I have the right:
To get angry, be depressed and express other difficult emotions occasionally.

I have the right:
To reject any attempt by my loved one (either conscious or unconscious) to manipulate me through guilt, anger or depression.

I have the right:
To receive consideration, affection, forgiveness and acceptance from my loved one for as long as I offer these qualities in return.

I have the right:
To take pride in what I am accomplishing and to applaud the courage it sometimes takes to meet the needs of my loved one.

I have the right:
To protect my individuality and my right to make a life for myself that will sustain me when my loved one no longer needs my full-time help.

I have the right:
To expect and demand that as new strides are made in finding resources to aid physically and mentally impaired persons in our country, similar strides will be made toward aiding and supporting caregivers

my weekend

I had a pretty good weekend. Saturday night, my friend Ken and I, went to the movies. We saw the 7:50 pm showing of 'The Wolfman' (7 out of 10) at Silver City in Windsor. The place was full because of 'Alice in Wonderland', 'Shutter Island', and 'the Crazies' but our theatre was practically empty which was nice. Sunday we celebrated Cody's (my youngest nephews) 3rd birthday. He had a good time and got some cool stuff. Tim (my brother-in-law) made a huge amount of penne in meat sauce for dinner, I actually stopped my tube feed to have a small plate. Only had swallowing issue once, with no major chokage. Haha! I topped the evening watching an episode of Grey's Anatomy with my friend Jon and then the Academy awards. My pick for best picture, 'The Hurt Locker' won.

Movie Reviews; quick and easy

Yesterday I watched the movie 2012. It was just okay. Sure there is a Mayan prophecy, is it going to come true, not really. There have been doomsday prophecies since the beginning history that never came to fruition, why would this one be any different. We don’t even use the Mayan calendar! I gave it 6 out of 10 stars.

Today I watched Where the Wild Things Are based on the children’s book by Maurice Sendak. It was dark and depressing and would scare most children. I gave it 5 out of 10 stars. I loved the children’s book when I was little.

Finally an update

I know it has been quite a while since my last post, entirely too long. I had a bout of pneumonia at the end of November and was hospitalized for about 10 days. Having pneumonia twice in 2009 did not constitute a good year, but I did have a healthy Spring, Summer and part of Fall. My goal for 2010 is to not get sick and stay out of hospital, seems doable to me. I hope you all enjoyed the Olympics and Canada’s 14 gold medals (the all time record for any country in history)!

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In other news

In other news, I decided I can't keep my puppy Joe. My mother can't keep up with my care and house breaking a dog. Luckily the woman I got him from is willing to take him back. I e-mailed her and I'm just waiting for a reply.We love him to death but I don't want to kill mom. I'm going to miss the little shit.

Pneumonia

I still haven't recovered totally from my pneumonia, part of me thinks this is as good as it gets. And for the first time in my 32 years I seemed to develop some sort of outdoor allergy. I may had the allergies for some time but this is the first time I have really noticed.

Shiley 6

It turns out that my concerns about switching from the Shiley size 8 back to a size 6 were for not. The size 6 fit perfectly and I'm far more comfortable. I bought the Alison Krauss & Robert Plant album Rising Sand from itunes. It recently won the Grammy for Album of the Year. It's a very unique sound and quite good.

January

It's now 2009. The New Year did not start so well for me. I was hospitalized for 16 days, starting New Year's Day, with a bad pneumonia which involved my entire left lung. I was in ICU on one of the hospitals fancy vents. The first procedure they did was a bronchioscope, where they would put a camera down my trach to see how bad the pneumonia was and suction all the crap out. But before they could do it, they had to change my trach from a Shiley 6 to an 8 so the doctor could get the scope in. Once that was over with I felt somewhat better. The Shiley 8 doesn't fit very well and air leaks from my stoma like crazy. It also sticks out. I still have it in. I want to go back to the 6 but I'm not sure I can. I'm concerned my stoma is now too stretched out to go back to the 6. Maybe I'm missing something?

When I was discharged I was only home for 3 days before I had to go back. This time I was in for 9 days with pneumonia that was in my right lung. After about 5 days, we discovered it wasn't a second bout of pneumonia but it was my vent malfunctioning. So they sent it back to be replaced which takes 48 hrs roughly. I was released the next day after receiving the new vent and have been home since. I'm about 80-90 % and getting stronger at a pretty good rate.



My sister got me a puppy. He is a day over 2 months old, a Jack Russell/Chihuahua mix also known as a JackChi. I call him Joe. A very nice homecoming gift indeed.

I love technology

I spent $322 at future shop today! I got my network up and running again. I should also be getting my laptop tomorrow from Dell. I bought a 500GB desktop hard drive and a new mouse for Mom.

Well much to blog about this evening. Two events I'm excited about attending, the first is the Redbull Air Race which will be held on the Detroit River on the weekend of May 31st and the second is Reba McEntire at The Colosseum at Caesars Windsor on July 17th (My sisters' 30th birthday, she understands, she'll just receive a larger $$$ gift from me) .

Today my attendant Janice and I went to the city. I bought my Mom a 19" flat screen monitor for Mother's Day at Best Buy and had a nice lunch at Moxy's followed by a stop at Green Earth my favourite retail store. I picked up a cool cd, African Sunrise, very good traditional music.

It was Janice's first time taking me out alone. She did a great job!

little rant

What a crazy last couple of days! I broke up with my same sex boyfriend Monday night, came down with a bug the same night, and I can't download Dexter: Season 1 on itunes because I'm Canadian. Canadian Content Laws suck!

gift of giving

Yesterday I went to the mall with Dave to get component cables for my dvd player. Then we went into Green Earth, I bought myself a ipod case and bought my sister a Night Fairy statuette, also I got Landon a paperweight with a bug inside. And I bought Jon a kangaroo webkinz.

Jon stayed for dinner. BBQ steak! Yummy. I had a taste of everything to keep my palliate entertained. It was nice to eat with the family. It had been quite a while. Everyone liked what I gave them.

Reading interests

Today seemed like a long day. Yesterday I began reading a new book. The Darkest Evening of the Year written by Dean Koontz. I just finished reading the Odd Thomas series; Odd Thomas, Forever Odd, and Brother Odd, by the same author. I enjoyed them very much. I'm looking forward to the fourth installment, Odd Hours to being released.

Something new....

It's been way to long since I have even been on this blog. Let alone updated it. Things have changed a lot since October 2007. Fall was pretty uneventful. In January I met someone new. His name is Jon. Also my first go at a same sex relationship. He is the sweetest guy in the world and totally devoted to me. All my family and friends have accepted my sexuality and Jon wholeheartedly. Like it was nothing. Honestly, I am not accustomed to how great he treats me but I am getting used to it. I am very concerned that I will eventually take him for granted, I hope not.

30 Days of Night

I have my new manual wheelchair now. My independence hasn't really changed, still doing the things I enjoy. Friday night, I went to the movies to surprise my buddy Ken for his birthday. He didn't expect me showing up at all. This was all orchestrated over the past week between his wife Janice, my Mom and myself. Janice dragged him to the show and wouldn't let him watch 30 Days of Night. Mom and I showed up and when he saw us he still didn't know what was up.

He goes "What movie you going to see?"
I respond, "30 Days of Night."
Then he says "I was going to see that with you, Bastard!"
So I said "Why do you think I'm here."

Then it finally clicked for him. Janice and Mom went to bingo and Ken and I got to see the movie we wanted to see. By the way, 30 Days of Night was an awesome vampire movie, best I have seen in years. Very hardcore! Afterward we all met up at Kelsey's for drinks. I was feeling brave so I ordered an extra spicy Caesar and some hot wings. That sure warmed me up fast.

It was a excellent night.