HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME
In my last post I said I wanted to do something I'd never done before. I came up with 2 things.

The first was to devote my day to writing. That's what I'm doing right now. I've worked on a couple of pieces, I'm working on my blogs (see? :) ) and I'm working on my Forest letter. More on that later.

The second was to eat nothing but healthy food today. The rule is I can eat as much as I want of whatever I want, as long as it's healthy food. Not junk. Now, what constitutes healthy food could be debated till the cows come home. If you're an Atkins enthusiast, lean meat is good and bagels are bad. If you're a vegetarian, all meat is bad and peanut butter is good. If you're fat-conscious, peanut butter is bad and fruit juice is good. If you're diabetic, fruit juice is bad and...well, you get the idea.

My definition of healthy food is: nothing overly processed. Nothing that's clearly junk. Sweets are ok, as long as they're in small quantities and I there's some sort of health benefit attached. So far today I've had a couple of swallows of OJ to wash down my meds, Cheerios with fat-free milk, and about 3 or 4 Hershey's Dark Kisses. (3 or 4 isn't a huge quantity, and dark chocolate has some health benefits.) My lunch, a Healthy Choice entree, is currently cooking in the oven.

Back to the Forest letter: I'm writing a letter to Forest's Medical Affairs division asking them to consider doing research on Namenda as a psych drug. If it helps me, it could help others. I've basically gotten the letter entirely written, I just need to clean it up a little. God knows if it will do any good, but I can't not try.

I went off meds this week, almost completely. It's part of a ritual I observe this time every year. My best friend died a few years ago on April 28th. May 6th is my birthday, and May 7th was hers. So every year between 4/28 & 5/7 I drink a bottle of Mike's Hard lemonade every night while sitting in the dark listening to her favorite music (I won't explain the Mike's significance now), and I go off meds, presumably so I can wallow in my misery.

Well, I didn't go off completely. And the oven buzzer's ringing. So I'll finish this later.
- posted by Pat @ 12:21 PM