Writers Write.

It has been been one hellava month around here with ER visits, hospital admissions, crummy rheumatologist appointments, sick kids, days off work. . .

So, tonight, after everyone was settled, I finally sat down to listen to a three hour writing intensive that I have been looking forward to for quite some time.

Three hours of the writing process, suggestions for my blog, recommended book lists, pages of notes, and more information to follow in the online group in the coming weeks.

All a much needed break, and I'm now a happy little word nerd, who is about to head to bed.

However, one of many takeaways from my class is that I will be writing and posting at least two or three times a week from now on, even on busy weeks and even when the posts aren't exactly how I want them to be.

 Even if the writing isn't perfect, writers write. And often. So, here we go.

Be well, and have a great Thursday, everyone!

The Song Remembers When

I may be the only person in the world who can recall the old Trisha Yearwood song from the early 1990's called "The Song Remembers When." It was actually a great song and it popped into my head the other day, when I was reading one of Trisha's FB posts (yes, I still love her) about Prince's sudden passing and realized she is sharing a lot of the distress I've been feeling about it.

I have been surprised by how upset I've been by Prince's death. It has really rattled me, left me feeling a little gutted even.

All of my life, I've been a music lover, both as a listener and singing in choirs and musicals when I was younger, taking seven years of voice and piano, the works. . . To this day, I can still explain most things best in song lyrics.

When it comes to Prince, I love lots of his songs but Purple Rain has been with me since I fell in love with it when I was 13 years old. It resonated with me, it became my dance song, I know every word, and it holds 24 years of good stuff for me. And I just can't believe Prince is really gone now.

Like all of our most favorite songs, the song does remember when.

During my time sitting and thinking about Prince and Purple Rain and all of the songs I love most, I started making a list of my very very favorite songs. 

My thought was a top ten most favorite songs list, kind of a mix tape of my life, songs that all matter to me in some big way, for one reason or another.

Well, I was finally able to narrow it down to 16, but that's as far as I can go. There are none left I'm willing to part with.

Of course, there are my way back loves like Purple Rain and Me and Bobby McGee.

But also several new but equally loved songs like:

- the Miranda Lambert song that was SO amazingly perfect to put on our wedding mix CD we gave as a guest favor. The first time I heard it, I knew it was exactly what I meant to say to my husband.

- the Ben Rector song that just floored me after my first really scary run-in with this autoimmune business.

- the Foo Fighters song that made me pull over my car when I heard it the first time:

One of these days, the ground will drop out from beneath your feet

One of these days, your heart will stop and play it's final beat

One of these days, the clocks will stop and time won't mean a thing
One of these days, their bombs will drop and silence everything.

Unexpected and unsettling from my usually upbeat forever geek crush, Dave Grohl. 

But true.

As an aside, since I have some new readers from Instagram who don't know me personally (and thank you for reading!), I should tell you that my Dave Grohl love runs so deep that our oldest dog is named Dave Grohl - and we didn't even change it when we found out she was actually a girl and just too young to tell when we got her:

Dave Grohl the Puppy and Our Youngest Daughter, Sara

But I digress. =D

So, for my list:

My Ten 16 All Time Favorite Songs (in no actual order)

1. Me and Bobby McGee - Janis Joplin
2. When A Heart Breaks - Ben Rector
3. These Days - Foo Fighters
4. Wild Horses - The Rolling Stones (but The Sundays version is my current favorite)
5. Oklahoma Sky - Miranda Lambert
6. Purple Rain - Prince
7. Desperately Wanting - Better Than Ezra
8. Hallelujah - Jeff Buckley (but the Rufus Wainwright version is much loved too)
9. Mad World - Gary Jules
10. The Man Who Sold The World - David Bowie/Nirvana. I love, love, love Nirvana's Unplugged version of this song but there will never be another Bowie either.
11. Milwaukee - Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers
12. Murder In The City - The Avett Brothers
13. Thunder Road - Bruce Springsteen
14. Vincent (Starry, Starry Night) - Don McLean
15. Waiting for My Real Life To Begin - Colin Hay
16. Give Me Novocaine - Green Day

After I made my little mix tape list, it reminded me of a quote in one of my favorite books, Love Is A Mix Tape by Rob Sheffield: 

I have built my entire life around loving music, and I surround myself with it. I'm always racing to catch up with my next favorite song. But I never stop playing my mixes. Every fan makes them. The times you lived through, the people you shared those times with - nothing brings it all to life like an old mix tape. it does a better job of storing up old memories than actual brain tissue can do. Every mix tape tells a story. Put them together, and they add up to the story of a life.

So far, the story is looking pretty good I say, and I'm looking forward to all the rest.

As it happens, I'm also fond of ink and I got the Kanji symbol for music tattooed on the inside of my left wrist several years ago:

Awhile back, I considered covering it, only because I get tired sometimes of trying to explain it to people when they ask.

I'm glad I didn't now though.

Now. it looks like seven years of voice and piano with my sweet grandmother driving me there until I was old enough to take myself, voice competitions and awards, learning large parts of Les Mis, Cats and Phantom of the Opera, hundreds of concerts attended, dozens of record shows with my dad, 16 favorite songs, and the ongoing search for the next addition to the list.

All good good things.

All my heart.

Rest easy, Prince.

Thank you for the music.

You will be missed but know that we are all still listening on.

A View From The Psych Pod

Our oldest daughter, Laura, is diagnosed with bipolar disorder and has been in the hospital four times over the past few years:

Of course, that is a serious diagnosis, but, honestly, as a parent, her illness had not escalated to a point where I imagined it might change the course of her life.

She is still very young, and it was my hope that, with medication management, things would stabilize after her teen years.  

I guess I was living in denial.

Until a few weeks ago.

Over Spring Break, several high risk behaviors she had been engaging in came to light and we were so upset.

At the same time, her behavior was escalating again.

By Friday, April 1st, we decided she was going to have to go back to the hospital.

Unfortunately, as I was preparing to take her, she took a massive overdose of one of her medications and had to be rushed in by ambulance.

That night was one of the worst of my life.

Her vitals were all over the place. At one point, we couldn't wake her up. It was just horrible. . .

When she finally recovered from the overdose, there was not an adolescent psych bed available anywhere in the state, so we spent the whole weekend locked in the psych pod of the Children's Hospital ED:

We were there from Saturday morning until Monday morning, when Laura was transferred to Mountain View in Gadsden.

Since she has been at Mountain View, they have increased her medications tremendously with some success, they have had to give her Thorazine to manage some of her episodes, and I have finally started to accept that Laura is living with an SMI (Serious Mental Illness) Diagnosis that will be a major part of her life.

Because this admission seems to have brought a significant change in her, we are realizing that we have to also make some new plans for her when she is discharged:

- She will not be returning to her school and we are scrambling to figure out what will be best for her now.

- Of course, after a serious suicide attempt, we are having to rethink her schedule (we do not want her to be alone) as well as things she has access to in our home.

- I haven't been happy with her psych team previously. I am hoping to continue care with her psychiatrist through Mountain View and perhaps see a counselor through our church? Since our previous team obviously wasn't working, I'm going to just start over.

- She will not be allowed to associate with her old friend group as she was making some very poor choices with them. This will be a challenge.

- I will be looking in to what additional resources are available to help her. She needs all of the support she can get.

I worked as a psych nurse for quite some time and I'm familiar with the meds and the behaviors and even the progression of the illness if it isn't controlled but it's been a major adjustment to accept that these things apply to my Laura.

She seems to have rapid cycling bipolar which is the most difficult to treat because this is their typical day:

It also makes it challenging to live with them, as their moods are constantly changing from one extreme to another.

I am hopeful that the med adjustments that are being made in the hospital will help her as they have more than doubled her mood stabilizer.

They have also tripled her antidepressant which will hopefully prevent another April 1st from EVER happening again.

So now we wait and plan and search for help and pray and pray and pray.

Be well, friends.