Today, I have a hope beyond all hopes
a wish beyond all wishes.
I faced the ultimate loss, today.
I wrestled with the slick black oily demon
despair
And I beat it back.
One more day. A promise elicited.
Today, I have hope.
Today, I dare to hope.
updated private journal today
Life is hell. I mean it.
I cleaned the CPU fan, and have met with some success. The CPU temp is now hovering around 52 degrees instead of 65-70. I’ll see how stable it is and decide if a better fan is worth it. I’ve been thinking of a copper fan because copper tends to conduct heat away from the CPU better than aluminum. If it gets up around 60 degrees again I’m definitely getting a new fan. It’s much better to spend 50 bucks on a new fan than 1k on a new computer. And besides, I like to tinker.
I’ve got a whole list of things I need to do this week.
- buy an air conditioner and some plywood so I can wedge it between the air conditioner and the door. Our strata council does not want window mounted air conditioners because they feel it would mar the outer look of the building and they gave the suggestion that I purchase a portable air conditioner at 5-7 times the cost of a window mounted unit. This was last years council though, and not this years, so it may be worth asking again. Since I cannot afford a portable, I’m just going to install one in my sliding door and use a piece of plywood (painted prettily) to hold it in place. If they won’t let me window mount, I’ll do it another way. It’s just too freaking hot inside not to have an air conditioner. The temp in the loft was 32 degrees yesterday, which was hotter than outside. Not so much fun.
- clean my CPU fan on my computer (need to buy compressed air for that), and if that doesn’t work, buy a better cooling fan for my computer. The CPU temp is running consitently between 60 and 68 degrees, which is a tad too warm (though within specs as 90 deg is the max for this CPU). The overheating may have been partially responsible for freezing and spontaneous reboots.
- start advertising the new foot fetish websites, curvosity, and set up the welcome pages for our two new face sitting websites. (this is a LOT of work)
- finish the DN update that I started 2 days ago but forgot about until now.
- update BBW & curvosity
- update dominaction
- redesign biwolfe completely.
- develop some new marketing strategies
- make new advertising graphics
- eat (yes, I need to remind myself or I forget because I get so busy)
- shower multiple times a day to manage the heat.
- buy beer
- drink beer
- pee a lot
- work some more.
yup.
It’s been kind of busy lately. I’m going to run a quick list of things that have happened or are in process of happening.
- Katt is home for the weekend from hospital and goes back for treatment starting on Monday and/or Tuesday. She’s in a good place at the moment and we’re both very encouraged by the openness of her new Dr. to exploring treatment options. I’m happy to have her home for the weekend, bith for her company, and for the fact that we need to do more photos!
- I’ve spent much time with Tanuki lately which I have enjoyed very much. She’s been having a rough time on and off lately so I’ve been doing my best to provide a daddy’s shoulder for her wonderful and sweet head to rest on when needed. I feel so positive about our relationship and am very happy she’s trusted me as much as she has and has included me in her life so much. I love her very much. I am going to keep her.
- We bought 9 new domain names recently. Five of the domains were foot fetish domains, one BBW, and a couple are for a face sitting site we’re putting up soon.
- I reorganized the foot fetish members area into five different sections, re-did all the galleries in a nice new format, and uploaded all 500MB of the images to the sites.
- I worked on and finished the set up for the 5 new foot fetish sites that Katt started, and they are all live now.
- I’ve updated a few sites, but am behind and need to catch up soon.
- I installed another 512MB of RAM in my computer
- I re-installed windows on my computer to fix a problem I was having with the software causing lag.
- I tried to install Norton Anti-Virus and it does not install properly on my machine since the re-install of windows. I’ve removed and re-installed several time, with no success. So I have an anti-virus program that will scan my computer, but will not scan ingoing and outgoing e-mail. It won’t let me enable auto protect either. Gah. I have had problems with norton installing before, but I’ve always been able to figure it out. This time it just seems fucked. I may try McAfee instead.
- I have only averaged one day of exercise per week for the last 3 weeks, and 2 days a week for the three weeks prior to that. Once thing settle down a bit, Katt is on a stable course of treatment, and I have a bit more energy, I’ll get back to the gym more regularly. For now I am going to dreadmill when I can, and train when I can and not worry too much if I can’t make it because there are other things more important right now.
- It’s time to consider an air conditioner again. The condo is getting very hot now that the weather is nice, and it’s almost unbearable inside. The thing about getting an air conditioner is that we’ll only use it 2 months of the year, and the other 10 months we’ll have nowhere to store it. So we’re pondering.
- I am thinking of selling the treadmill and just running outside. There are two reasons behind this. 1) it takes up too much space. 2) the weather is never bad enough that I can’t run outside if I choose to run. Weighing the pros and cons of being able to work out while watching TV as opposed to having more space and actually going outdoors more. Wait.. when I say it like that the answer seems kind of obvious.
I am hungry now. It’s time to eat so I can settle and then sleep soon.
Check this article out about a very promising method to prevent transmission of AIDS and HSV.
http://chealth.canoe.ca/health_news_detail.asp?news_id=10900
Check out this article for more details:
http://www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,63799,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1
There’s huge backlash against the adult industry right now from payment processing companies. Amex stopped processing for adult business in 2000, and it looks like Visa could do the same soon.
I really feel for bondage.com. I know how stressed I’d be if my processing company pulled out from underneath me. I hope they have a backup plan and can get things moving smoothly again.
The girl is back home. After a third opinion she decided that ECT was not something she wanted to pursue right now. The risks for her type of depression were higher than the norm with ECT, and she felt she could manage her depression better with more frequent therapy and some new medication.
I’m very happy to have her home.
I just got great news. Katt’s request for the new (to her) treatment modality was approved today. Both of us are really happy - and a little nervous. The new treatment is pretty involved and it requires that she be moved from the brief stay ward to the long term in-patient ward for 7-8 weeks. I think she is safe right now in terms of suicidality especially considering she’s got a lot of hope that the new treatment plan will be very effective.
She’ll be able to come home during the day occasionally and stay overnight from time to time, but they’ll want to keep her under observation to make sure there are no adverse effects from the treatment.
I’ll be a bachelor for 7-8 more weeks. Wow. I can let my condo get all messy now and Iggy and I can drink beer and eat pizza every night. Well, ok, we won’t. I like a clean home, and pizza is only novel for a few days before it grates on me.
Anyways. More information soon. I’ll actually talk more about Katt’s treatment once I get the okay from her. I have historical carte blanche to talk about anything about her, but with this I feel the need to check in.
——–
Addendum to this post.
I’ve gotten Katt’s okay to talk about the treatment she’ll be undergoing for her depression. Starting next week she’ll start a series of ECT (Electro Convulsive Therapy) sessions over the next 7-8 weeks as an inpatient, and after that she will likely undergo maintenance ECT over the next 10 months. There is more information HERE about the current state of ECT treatment in the world, and the common misconceptions regarding ECT treatment.
We’re really encouraged by the success rate with ECT treatment for medication resistant people with depression and suicidality. The risks are minimal (view the whole entry to see an article by an MD on ECT), and the possible benefits are staggering.
At this point we feel it is her best option for recovery.
I’ll certainly miss having her at home. And I’ll also have to determine the best way to operate the websites while she’s gone. I may end up being photographer and photo editor for a while and do shoots with models on my own. I have enough content for a few more weeks on most sites, and the ehadshave site is good to go for a long time, but I’ll run our of original content within 2 weeks on most other sites. Guess I better get my ass in gear!
If you want to pass on well wishes to Katt, you can send them to my journal and I will pass them on to her. She will be incommunicado until she gets home.
(more…)
re posted:
One of the joys about being in the brief stay part of the psych ward is that you don’t get to choose your doctor. Unfortunately, the girl has got a doctor that completely doesn’t get where she’s coming from, which has meant that ehr depression hasn’t been treated properly thus far.
It likely would have been better if she had come home a few days after going to the hospital after the crisis point passed, but the lack of treatment there has only contributed to her poor mood.
We find out on Thursday if a new treatment modality will be authorized. Much of her stress has been over trying to get a new treatment that they are reluctant to provide, even though this treatment has a high success rate for treatment resistant depressives. If they decide to go with the new treatment, she’ll be in hospital for at least another week, but if not, she’ll be home Thursday.
Quite honestly, at this point, I feel that she’s better off at home anyways. My faith in the medical system is at an all time low. The treatment for suicidally depressed people just isn’t there in the hospital environment.
I think the plan is to get her on some new meds when she gets out of the hospital, whether the new treatment plan is approved or not at the hospital, and increase her frequency of visits to her community psychiatrist. I’m also going to discuss a crisis plan with her community doctor that does not involve hospitalization in case she becomes suicidal again.
We managed for 2.5 years without any suicide risk before she crashed last week. It seems to me that with the community team we have behind us that we can eliminate that risk to a very high degree. I really hope we can, because it’s awful to see her so sick. It’s awful to see her hurt so much inside.
I think she’s mostly really shocked that she actually got suicidal again. She’d thought the suicidality had passed and when it came on all fo teh sudden within a span of 2 days it really threw her for a loop and shook her confidence in her healing process.
I have been doing what I can to interact with the professionals at the hospital to try to increase their knowledge of her situation, and I’ve been talking with her community psychiatrist and she’s been contacting the hospital as wel. I’ve also been contacting external agencies to set up appointments and passing them along to her community psychiatrist.
Overall I’ve been managing pretty well. It sucks to say it, but I got ‘used to’ living with a person with unpredictable depression 2.5-4 years ago when her depression was at it’s worst. I can slip into crisis handling mode very quickly.
The other unfortunate aspect of the situation is the impact it has on the other people in Katt and my life. It’s not easy to have someone in your life that suffers from depression that, at times, can be dehabilitating. It takes an enourmous toll on your energy and can be very emotionally draining. I try to keep that in mind when people offer me support, because the stress inevitably migrates, and I want to be extra sure I’m not over burdening anyone. I am incredible greatful to the people in my life that have helped support me during the last week, especially my lovely girl, Tanuki. She’s been amazing and has gone above and beyond.
I’ve had practice, so I am able to deal with the stress very effectively. Part of my ability to cope comes from unshakeable inner belief and absolute faith in Katt. I know what kind of person she is, and I believe in her. It’s that belief that helps me move forward and do my best for her.
Even with my absolute faith in her, I have always had a backup plan, because if you have a partner, friend, child, or parent, that is or has been suicidal there is always the risk that they could, at some point, succeed in killing him or her self. Suicidal ideation isn’t a rational thing. When someone becomes suicidal it is is as if their own death becomes the ultimate solution to all the pain they feel inside, a way to escape anguish that they feel they can’t escape any way else. When the person you love is suicidal, you are not dealing with the rational person you care about. They are wearing a mask that filters all of their perceptions and intentions, and when they are wearing that suicidal mask, you have to be prepared for anything.
I will continue to move forward with absolute faith in her, because I can’t imagine a world without her. I have explored the worst outcome possible and how I would react to it, and knowing that, I have the extra resolve to move forward and continue to support her and take care of myself and my loved ones.
I have realized through this process that as long as I care for myself, allow those who care for me to support me, and have faith in Leila, that I have the unlimited will and capacity to do whatever it takes to keep her safe and help her become well.
I’m a good man.
