One Cup of Doctor Update with a Tablespoon of Joy

Today was my long-awaited appointment with the doctor.  For some reason, I always get this unrealistic expectation that the doctor will tell me, "If you just do this, it will all go away soon" or something like that.  I look forward to these appointments more than almost anything right now, and I always hope that someone will know how to take this all away.  But this is never the case.

These kinds of medications take weeks to take full effect, and honestly, the doctor doesn't know whether it will help or not until I take it.  So she made some adjustments, and now I will wait to see if it helps.

She changed my zoloft to taking it at night with the hope that it won't make me so sleepy.  She also increased my dose of lithium, because the level of lithium in my blood wasn't within the therapeutic range, and it hasn't seemed to help yet.  If this increase doesn't help, she has the plan to put me on another medication to help with the mania, and she is willing to do this over the phone before my next appointment, which is April 10th.

To tell you the truth, I am exhausted.  I am just finishing cycle 18, and my most recent 7 cycles have been crammed into the last 4 weeks.  The depression has gotten much worse, mostly because I'm so tired and nothing is helping yet.

But my search for joy is not over and never will be.  Although it is increasingly more difficult to find joy in the thickness of this pain, it is not impossible, and the joy is so much more meaningful when I find it given the darkness that surrounds it.

Recently, I have found joy in:

• Doing the grocery shopping by myself AND not crying at all while I did it. (Side note: Do you even know how weird and embarrassing it is to cry in the middle of Walmart with a huge shopping cart full of food?  I always want to tell people that they were out of Reese's and that upset me, but I refrain.)
• Holding a baby and feeling a little bit of a desire to have another, rather than feeling sick to my stomach and cringing.
• Being surrounded by wonderful people, people who pray for me, visit me, put my name on the temple prayer roll, hug me, listen to me, and love me.  
• Bugles on sale!!!  Really, joy and good munchy snacks go hand-in-hand.  :)
• The irony of bawling my eyes out during a Relief Society lesson about happiness and optimism.  It just makes me giggle thinking about it.
• Getting a nice camera as a family Christmas present and getting to learn a new hobby.
• Knowing that all of this has a wonderful purpose and that I will only get to see more of that purpose with time.