Someone With a Pen: Richard Grayson’s Diary

Friday, December 1, 2000

2:30 PM. I’m waiting for a callback from Dr. Mitchell. I called his service in the middle of the night and left a message, and I called about an hour ago.

He’s in the office with a patient, and if he does not call me back, I’m going to stop taking the trazodone on my own.

It’s not really getting me to sleep any better than before I took it, and I didn’t have such bad tremors and sweating and other symptoms without it.

Basically, its drawbacks outweigh any minimal benefit I get from it. It also prevents me from knowing how to adjust my Paxil dosage.

Today I took 10 mg. of Paxil with breakfast and 10 mg. with lunch. Last night I first took half a trazodone, but then I took another half when I woke up after an hour.

I managed to sleep only after I took an Ativan, and the best I could manage was to sleep from 4 AM to 6:30 AM.

So I haven’t slept more than four hours in the last couple of nights. That’s not very good when I’m taking trazodone, a drug given to help me sleep.

Nobody showed up for our Arizona Media Law class last night except Kim and me. We were both last in class on November 2, when David had said he was canceling class on the 16th.

What Kim and I think is that on November 9, when we were absent, he must have un-canceled the 16th and canceled last night.

I wrote to Jennifer to find out, but I never got a reply, so I assume our final is next week. Kim and I stayed till 6:30 PM and then headed home.

By that time, my shakiness had long disappeared and I felt okay; I read and went online. But then I had another bad night.

Sat Darshan now understands how I feel: the prescription antihistamine she got yesterday had her spiraling and gave her terrible insomnia, so she spent a lot of the night cleaning the house. I spoke to her an hour ago.

Her father seems better. They’ve got his blood sugar down to below where insulin is needed, and they found an antibiotic to which his urinary infection has responded.

I got to ASU at 8:40 AM, and Ryan – of course – was again waiting for me with his paper on Kant. We spent a lot of time going over it.

Then Kwan from English 101 gave me some information I needed to write a letter of recommendation for her application to study abroad. In English 105, Melissa also asked me to write a recommendation for her.

In my classes, I had just about enough time to confer with everyone who showed up with their papers. I also got three more papers online that I need to respond to by tomorrow morning.

Luckily, I thoroughly marked up papers I got from English 101 students during the night: one of the few advantages of chronic insomnia.

As I got home at noon, NPR played the audiotape (made specially available) of the oral argument before the U.S. Supreme Court on the Florida recount.

I predict there will probably be a 5-4 conservative/liberal split in favor of Bush, which would make the High Court seem as politically biased towards the Republicans as the Florida Supreme Court might have been towards the Democrats. That would be bad for the country.

Hopefully, the Court will declare the case moot since Bush won the court-ordered recount, or that the Court says it’s Congress’s job to deal with Electoral College disputes.

Mom called to say I got a letter forwarded from Florida from Secretary of State Harris.

I guess Harris still has time despite all the election recount hullaballoo to appoint me to the Cultural Affairs grant panel for Interdisciplinary Fellowships.

It would have been nice to work on something other than literary organizations and writing fellowships, but obviously I will have to decline because I no longer live in Florida.

Although I left out food and water for the cat last evening, I wouldn’t let the cat in the house. She hasn’t come by to get her food that I left out at noon.

Teresa says that Pam left Norton yesterday, and it was a terrible scene. Pam is very shaky, but she will stay in Locust Valley for a couple of months. Phoebe slept with Pam in the Lincoln bedroom last night, Teresa said, and having the dog there calmed her down a bit.

With all that going on and more – like a birthday party for Jade (who will live at home and commute during her final semester at Purchase) – Teresa hasn’t been able to do much work this week although she is catering a lot next week.

Because of the “sucky stock market,” their household misses Teresa’s income from catering. The Nasdaq is down by half from its high in March, and other signs for the economy don’t look good.

Well, I need to lie down now.

*

8:30 PM. I kept off the computer and phone till 7 PM, but Dr. Mitchell never called me back, which is quite annoyingg.

Anyway, I’m going to stop taking the trazodone on my own. The material from the pharmacy says people shouldn’t stop without their doctor’s permission, but the doctor on call Sunday night told me I could stop if I wanted.

I gave the drug nine days. While the pharmacy material does say that stopping suddenly can cause fatigue, nausea or headache, I will risk it. If I feel really bad, I’ll take half a dose.

I’ve been online for the past hour, responding to students who emailed me their argumentative essays, which were mostly against Miranda, affirmative action, and other liberal policies. None of the students give any credence to arguments for the policies they abhor. All they do is repeat the right wing crap they get from their parents.

Education in Arizona is incredibly bad. I thought Florida was terrible, but Florida’s educational system looks like a marvel in comparison.

I felt guilty because the cat was pounding on the sliding door, so I let it come in at 3 PM, lured it out at 5 PM, and let it back in when it came to the door at 7 PM.

I am becoming very fond of the cat. Tomorrow I’ll get some kitty litter, and Mom has a container for it.

Still, I’m not sure I want the cat in the house. I don’t know about the responsibility and the expense – and what happens when I move? Or travel? What if it gets sick? Pregnant?

I probably should not have let the cat in the house in the first place; I guess I did it because I’m lonely.

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Monday, December 4, 2000

6 PM. Today was a real rough day. My anxiety increased and is still pretty bad. I came home, and just when I was on the phone making a podiatrist appointment, Dr. Mitchell called and left a message without his name.

I actually phoned Susan’s assistant Bree to have her call Dr. Mitchell to tell him to call me. He said he doesn’t like messages and kept getting a machine all last week. But I’ve tried to keep the line open.

Dr. Mitchell is very odd. He told me I need more, not less or no trazodone to help me sleep. Yet I slept really well last night on 25 mg. when I didn’t sleep well on 50 mg. last week.

When I told him I wanted to stop taking trazodone, he said I wouldn’t feel well if I couldn’t sleep. But he said I could just stop it cold without any bad side effects. And he told me to go down to 10 mg. a day of Paxil.

I asked if I could be getting anxiety because I need more Paxil. After all, I had anxiety before I started taking it, and he said that could be possible, that I just have to experiment.

This morning I made an appointment with Bev Reinhart for Friday morning, and I called and left a message with her asking if she could call me back tomorrow. Susan will also call me back tomorrow or maybe even tonight.

Anyway, at school I was shaky and sweaty, but it was the last day of classes and all I had to do was leave the room while they did their teacher evaluations, come back and sit there while they did a writer’s memo on the final essay they were handing in. After that, I just said a few words summing up the semester.

I’ll see most of them next Monday when they return their papers during the time scheduled for their final exam, which we will not be having. I told the classes that I will not be back at ASU next semester.

If I felt better, I might have felt a sense of accomplishment that I got through this semester of teaching when I was feeling so bad.

I have definitely become obsessive again. I just looked back at my diary and can’t figure out if this jittery feeling – the anxiety, the sweaty palms and the trembling – is caused by too much Paxil or too little, and I feel I can’t make a decision.

I see I’ve been anxious all this time, and I can’t figure out what’s going on. I just took an Ativan after taking half of one earlier. Hopefully it will mute the anxiety a bit.

Sat Darshan called and said her father is definitely dying, and she had a horrible weekend. Gurudaya had a bad reaction to getting her wisdom tooth out, and Sat Darshan wasn’t able to get any rest. Luckily, Ravinder is getting better with taking care of Kiran, and he took her off Sat Darshan’s hands for a while.

Right now I can’t concentrate because I’m obsessing on my symptoms. I couldn’t finish today’s Times and threw out the parts of yesterday’s paper that I haven’t read.

I don’t know what to do. I need to stop writing.

*

8 PM. My anxiety pooped out for a while. Now I feel tired, which probably means I’ll fall asleep for an hour to 90 minutes and stay up the rest of the night.

Hey, I’ll get through this.

“It’s an ordeal,” Mom said yesterday. Yeah, but so is AIDS and cancer and numerous other illnesses. What I’ve got isn’t life-threatening unless I become suicidal, which seems like only a remote possibility.

It was a surprise that I slept well last night. Maybe I’ve got some good things coming my way.

Josh says his mother is still alive, so my prayers must have worked. I might need to look to my spiritual side to help me get through this – except I’ve spent my whole life pooh-poohing anything related to spirituality.

In exactly six months I will turn 50. I can’t imagine what the next half year will bring. All I can do is live one day at a time and keep one foot in front of the other.

Gore’s chances of becoming President are doomed. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated the Florida Supreme Court’s deadline for hand count pending the Florida court’s rationale, and a Leon County judge ruled against Gore’s contesting the certification of the Florida results.

What’s sad is that I’m sure Gore really did win Florida.

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Thursday, December 7, 2000

6 PM. The 1.5 mg. of Ativan I took at noon is wearing off, so my anxiety is coming back.

The one thing I’ve discovered today is that I’ve got to give up Paxil.

I had another bad night and then after I fecklessly took 25 mg. of Paxil, I started to feel incredibly ill. I called in sick at Mesa Community College, saying that there was a death in the family.

If I hadn’t had an 11 AM appointment with Susan, I might have gone to an emergency room. Susan could see right away how sick I was, and it sounded like serotonin syndrome to her.

I felt like such a mess, but Susan helped me. She told me to call Bev Reinhart when I got home to see if she could come up with a plan to wean myself off Paxil so I don’t get withdrawal effects and see if Bev can start me on a new medication.

I probably won’t be able to get a new psychiatrist appointment until January, but Susan gave me some names – or said I could go to her husband, who is an internist. He would take me earlier and is good with psychiatric patients.

Susan suggested I need something other than the classic Prozac/Paxil/Zoloft SSRIs and mentioned Effexor, which is what Alice’s friend Alison recommended to me.

I was also concerned about my Arizona Media Law final tonight, but David Bodney said I could take a makeup exam with another student next week – “or whenever you feel better.” It was a relief not to have to write a final exam with shaky-sweaty hands and a fogged-up brain tonight.

I’m also not going to limit myself to the one milligram of Ativan that Dr. Mitchell gave me as a daily maximum. I will take up to 3 mg. a day because it’s more important to stop this awful anxiety.

As Susan has said, I’m not helpless. But I feel I’ve wasted five weeks on Paxil, and it’s so discouraging. Susan mentioned iatrogenic illnesses, and that’s what this is – although it’s not as if I didn’t contribute to it.

Hopefully, the bad side effects will subside as the Paxil and trazodone leave my body. I should have listened to Dr. Mitchell, who did say to go down to 10 mg. of Paxil on Monday.

Well, I guess I’ll return to how I was feeling before I was on medication. At that point I had anxiety attacks and sleeplessness, but at least I had moments when the moods lifted.

I’ve just let the last two days of the New York Times sit on the floor.

Tonight I emailed Tom, Timmy (who’s concerned that I’m cutting back on Paxil), Kevin (who’s in a real depression himself but can’t afford a doctor and won’t go to a private clinic for poor people because they use what he called “experimental” drugs), Teresa (who saw The Silicon Valley Diet listed in the Brooklyn College Alumni Bulletin), Mark Bernstein and others.

Amazon.com Advantage ordered two more copies of The Greatest Short Story That Absolutely Ever Was. I mailed out that letter of recommendation for Melissa.

After waking up at 3 AM last night, I read parts of the Meditation and Relaxation book that Susan recommended. But as she herself said, it’s hard to be helped by breathing exercises when you’re having an anxiety attack.

Anxiety is insidious because it breeds worry, which creates more anxiety. I have appointments with Susan for next Tuesday and the following week’s Thursday.

I hugged her when today’s appointment ended and said I hoped that her doctor makes her herniated disc better.

A cute, obviously gay teenage boy with a couple of face piercings smiled at me shyly (but kind of seductively) as I was walking out of Susan’s office.

The cat didn’t come around today after I wouldn’t let her in the house yesterday. But I did leave out food for her.

The Ativan I took when I got home at noon relaxed me so much that when I heard the phone ring and saw it was 2 PM, I felt confused because I hadn’t realized that I’d fallen asleep.

I need to call Sat Darshan to see how she’s doing.

The last couple of months have been a nightmare and I don’t know what to expect next.

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Friday, December 8, 2000

6 PM. I still have the same anxiety symptoms I’ve had all week. They get very bad at times, but they never really go away.

An hour ago I took an Ativan and still have a shaky, nervous feeling, sweaty palms and soles, and a slightly trembling hand.

This morning I was really bad, and I called Teresa, though she’s not really a good person to talk to because she just takes my symptoms and gives examples about how she, Paul, Jade, Pam and others also get them. But it’s not the same thing at all.

Annette told Tom to call me after I sent him email, and we talked for a while. The house on Magazine Street is on sale for $199,000, and they sold 32 cartoons of books.

Tom and Annette are really making a terrible financial sacrifice to move to Germany. But once they’re there, they’ll get good free health care, have no need for a car, and live in a place where culture is important.

Tom said he would mail out the Dictionary of Literary Biography on Saturday, though that may not improve my mood “since you are entombed in it.”

The DLB used that bearded photo from Contemporary Literary Criticism Volume 38 that was taken in 1984 as well as photos of some of my book jackets.

Mostly I’m looking to see the other writers in that volume of American Short Story Writers Since World War II whose company I am in.

Tom was a good listener about my medical problems.

I had a few hours of sleep, but not more than four and probably a lot less. That’s par for the course now. I watched the first tape of Brideshead Revisited at 3 AM and found Roger Rabbit was on broadcast TV.

This morning I felt pretty bad, but after I kvetched to Teresa as she cooked for tomorrow’s catering job – it’s snowing now in New York – I exercised, showered and then realized I had 20 minutes to get to my 10:15 AM appointment with Bev Reinhart.

She said it sounds to her like I need more Paxil, not less. What surprised me is when I asked her for my diagnosis: she said it was generalized anxiety disorder.

“Not major depression?”

“You don’t have the criteria, but I also diagnosed you as having adjustment disorder with minor depression.”

How odd. Bev said that she thinks I’ve had this for years.

She did not think that Paxil causes my sweaty palms: “That’s anxiety. If it were Paxil, you’d be sweating all over.”

So she gave me fifteen pills of 20 mg. Paxil but said I could cut them in half and take 10 mg. if I wanted.

Bev also said to take the Ativan and agreed with Susan on the name of one psychologist: Dr. Augusta Roth in Ahwatukee, who’s covered by United Health Care.

After wishing Bev a good holiday, I went to the English Department, where I discovered a contract to teach English 102 at 7:40 AM and 9:40 AM on Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the spring.

I had planned to tell them not to consider hiring me, but I figured I can always change my mind later.

Now I’m not sure that I also want to teach that Tuesday and Thursday 7:30 AM class at MCC. Do I really want to get up so early five days a week? But I have lots of time to figure it out.

In the Writing Program office, I typed up a book order for Everything’s an Argument, a textbook I’ve heard is good. After leaving my final grade rosters in my mailbox, I came home for lunch and to collect the mail.

I got the ER bill from Desert Samaritan. Right now they want $75, which I sent on my new Visa from Target with a $3,000 credit line.

I went to see Dr. Chudy, the podiatrist at the Mesa Lutheran Medical Center across from Marc’s old apartment.

When receptionist noted that on my medical history form, I said I was taking Paxil and Ativan, she told me that her life was changed by Remeron, which she got three years ago in a hospital after a suicide attempt.

It seems as if everyone has his or her favorite antidepressant and a horror story or two about other drugs.

Dr. Chudy was incredibly thorough and said basically what the podiatrist in Florida said: I have an extra bone and that worsens my tendonitis tibialis posterior with collapsed foot.

Because I knew that United Health Care wouldn’t cover orthotics, I had them cast today. They should be better than my old ones, which I can reserve for using with dress shoes. I paid for the orthotics with the new Target Visa.

As I got into my car at 3 PM, I heard the latest turn in the vote count roller-coaster ride. The Florida Supreme Court, 4-3, ordered an immediate hand recount and added enough Gore votes so that Bush’s lead is down to about 150 votes.

Gore lost every other court decision lately, and this one was going to be it for him. But I think the U.S. Supreme Court will overturn it.

After getting rolls of quarters at the bank, I did three loads of laundry when I came home. Since I sweat so much these days, I’ve been going through socks and sheets very quickly.

I had my afternoon dose of diarrhea (this time with flatulence) and called Sat Darshan to see how she was after this nightmare of a week. She told me that her father will be cremated early on Tuesday morning.

She said it’s not necessary that I come although her sister will be arriving in Phoenix on Monday.

Amazon.com gave Ellen bereavement leave to get out of giftwrapping in Reno but said she had to come back to Seattle right after the funeral.

Gurudaya is a little better today; the doctor gave her an anti-anxiety drug and an antacid.

I feel better when I keep myself distracted, but I’ve gotten really behind on reading the newspapers. And of course, I must grade lots of papers for ASU this weekend.