I started writing this post when I saw the light at the end of the kick-from-hell-tunnel. And then Archie got cellulitis. And then Archie got caught up in an electric fence and caused his leg to bleed and I wondered if he were going to have another bout of cellulitis. So I waited. I didn't talk about the leg-fence because I was pretty much done at that point.
I wrote this post about a dozen times over the past three months before ultimately deleting whatever I had spewed out and writing something else. Or nothing at all. Now that we're officially on the other side, I feel like talking about it is less of a trigger. Also: don't ever make a joke about someone else's horse going into retirement. At 18, that shit isn't funny.
I wrote this post about a dozen times over the past three months before ultimately deleting whatever I had spewed out and writing something else. Or nothing at all. Now that we're officially on the other side, I feel like talking about it is less of a trigger. Also: don't ever make a joke about someone else's horse going into retirement. At 18, that shit isn't funny.
This has been hard.
I didn't write about the "other life stuff" that was going on while all this happened with Archie, probably because I would have quit the internet just to read it myself, but here are the basics: we buried a family member; the person training me at the job I started two weeks prior to the kick went out the same week as the kick and was gone for a solid month; a stranger helped themselves to my money and all of my accounts were frozen.. the day before I got paid; the freaking holidays; and my doctor finally agreed to start me on a medication, but I had to trial four variations - when I finally found the one I liked, my insurance refused until I trialed another medication. It's not a "life or death" medication, but a quality of life medication. Surprise: it's actually not happy pills.
The family member passed after battling cancer. Fuck cancer. Let's work a little harder on curing that shit.
So instead of drowning myself in my sorrows, I want to share a little bit about what steps I took and support I had to not lose my mind:
The Spouse
I'm not kidding, the Man is amazing. He understood that every.single.day would start and end with Archie. That included weekdays, weekends, and Christmas. He offered to run errands, pick up fixings, whatever I needed.
Time Management
Because I was getting up at 5:40 (a whole hour earlier than normal... hated it.), I wanted to minimize as much as possible what I had to do in the morning. That meant that I cooked all of my breakfasts and lunches on Sunday. I would pop my eggs in the microwave for a minute and they'd be good as fresh. I'd pack all my foodstuff for the next day the night before. And I cut out anything that caused me to deviate from seeing Archie immediately after work, which was pretty much just photos and the gym on Thursday. The food prep also helped because I was burning a shit ton fewer calories and consuming more...
Alcohol
This is called "self-medicating" and is generally frowned upon. More so if half of your double-helix was donated by an alcoholic. But I'm a grown up. I can say, "Life is shit right now, I'm going to cook my dinner with a beer and think about how shitty life is."
Running
I didn't run much or often, because depression tells you not to (also, weather), but I started running a couple of miles on the days that I was only changing Archie's wraps and not his bandage. The longer days helped with this. Also, Steph helped with this because she totally hooked me up with some awesome running sleeves.I've got my first 5k in years planned for the end of this month. I ran that 5k and my epic derpness is here.
The family member passed after battling cancer. Fuck cancer. Let's work a little harder on curing that shit.
So instead of drowning myself in my sorrows, I want to share a little bit about what steps I took and support I had to not lose my mind:
The Spouse
I'm not kidding, the Man is amazing. He understood that every.single.day would start and end with Archie. That included weekdays, weekends, and Christmas. He offered to run errands, pick up fixings, whatever I needed.
Time Management
Because I was getting up at 5:40 (a whole hour earlier than normal... hated it.), I wanted to minimize as much as possible what I had to do in the morning. That meant that I cooked all of my breakfasts and lunches on Sunday. I would pop my eggs in the microwave for a minute and they'd be good as fresh. I'd pack all my foodstuff for the next day the night before. And I cut out anything that caused me to deviate from seeing Archie immediately after work, which was pretty much just photos and the gym on Thursday. The food prep also helped because I was burning a shit ton fewer calories and consuming more...
Alcohol
This is called "self-medicating" and is generally frowned upon. More so if half of your double-helix was donated by an alcoholic. But I'm a grown up. I can say, "Life is shit right now, I'm going to cook my dinner with a beer and think about how shitty life is."
Running
I didn't run much or often, because depression tells you not to (also, weather), but I started running a couple of miles on the days that I was only changing Archie's wraps and not his bandage. The longer days helped with this. Also, Steph helped with this because she totally hooked me up with some awesome running sleeves.
So here's the good news: I've been lunging Archie every other day just long enough to check his soundness. And last night, pony was sound. I said this to the BM's Kid just as Archie's head whipped around to look at me. She said he probably heard, so I yelled, "Crippled ponies never get ridden!" Tomorrow, jackass.
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