Medicine and volunteering

        Got up at 10 this morning. Before that though, I was up at 8 AM and used the bathroom, after that I made a left turn and went into the kitchen. The kitchen is where I keep my medicines and vitamin containers. Sure, I could keep them in the bathroom, if I had shelf space. I don't though, so I keep the containers on the kitchen table. It's not like we ever eat there anyway. It's just more convenient to eat in the living room. Anyway, while in the kitchen I procured my Modafinil pill and took it. 8 am was 2 hours before I was scheduled to get out of bed. Yes, I had my alarm set (for 8 and 10 am). Why? Because just knowing that it's set gives me a reason to go to bed around midnight. Otherwise, it would be easy (like last week) to stay up til whenever and probably sleep until early afternoon, thus wasting the (in my opinion) best part of the day to do things. I have decided to take my anti-fatigue pill a couple of hours before rising for good in the morning, because I've experienced a delay between the time that I swallowed it and the time it started working. In the past I've taken my anti-depressants, anti-fatigue, and vitamins all at the same time in the morning. Then for some reason I would get sleepy. So I'm thinking that 1) the anti-depressants were making me feel sleepy, which then off-set the anti-fatigue medicine. Or 2) The anti-fatigue pill makes me sleepy for the first couple of hours. In the past if I waited and took the anti-fatigue pill until I felt tiredness overtaking me in the afternoon, I had trouble getting to sleep. Therefore I've been taking the anti-depressants at bedtime (in the event taking them were making me sleepy right after taking them), and taking the anti-fatigue pill before I get up for good, to give it time to start working (just in case it was the reason that I got sleepy a couple of hours after taking all the meds. The anti-depressants and anti-fatigue meds effecting one another?).  Thinking about it though, I'm not sure if that was actually happening. I just assumed it was one or the other 'anti-' pills. In hindsight though, I don't remember getting sleepy right after taking just the anti-depressants (after I no longer took the Modafinil). Crap! Why didn't I take *just* the Modafinil to see if it made me sleepy? Only answer that if you're good at answering rhetorical questions. Now I am going to do that so that maybe I don't *have* to get up 2 hours before staying out of bed for the day. As Homer Simpson would say, and I now repeat, "D'OH!"         
          Anyway, I like to get stuff done early in the day so that I don't have to worry about them. It's also when I have more energy. Things like going to the library to check it out, also to ask them if they could use a volunteer, and if so, when. I also want to find the free food pantry and see if/when they could use volunteer services. I did help a food pantry in Missouri, and actually had a decent time hanging out with and helping other volunteers. We didn't help more than once because we were planning on moving here to Texas, so we spent all of our spare time afterward packing and getting ready. I didn't volunteer in Austin, TX because I couldn't get a handle on my fatigue. Although I did use the food pantry, or one of them, to get some free food one, financially short month. I am feeling like it would be a good way to 'give back', even if it is in a different city/county. See,  I've been feeling useless for a while now and don't like it. I *need* to do something to make me feel worth existing on this planet. I also intend to check with the hospital and ask if they could use the help. I've been hesitating going there because moving things (like sheets, blankets, towels, etc.) around while using a cane would cause me to be too slow and then it wouldn't be worth it for them or me to even try helping. I know.. I shouldn't think like that, but I do. Actually, eventually I want to volunteer for an animal shelter, old folks home, etc. Don't know when I'll have the time to help all of these places, but help I will, by golly!

Flower Garden - in the beginning

I was going to wait to post pictures of my first attempt at starting my flower garden until I had seeds in the planters. Unfortunately, when trying to set the packet of seeds up on the step to get a picture of it as well as what you see to the right, the packet slid through the crack between two boards of the step and there is no way I'm going to go through the hassle of taking a board off the top of the step to get said packet that only cost 20 cents. I'd have to take the screws out, then pry one of the boards up (that's also being held down with nails along with screws) to get to the seeds. Not worth the work. I can't even remember what the name of the seeds were/are that are inaccessible. That's how important they are to me. Anyway, a friend on Facebook is going to send me some other flower seeds once she gets the SASE that's waiting for the mail person to take out of my mailbox. Sure, I could just run to the grocery store that probably has seed packets on the cheap, but I'm in no hurry.

These are the newly filled with potting soil containers that are waiting to be prepped by being impregnated with seeds. According to the instructions, they need to have water added to moisten the soil before putting the seeds in.

And this is the same containers as you see above, only these have been moistened. They are now waiting for the seeds. Of course I'll hydrate them again before I add the seeds. This is what I was going to wait until the seeds were in before posting, but they'll look the same once the seeds are in them, so I'm posting pictures now. Lucky you!
          In other news... I went to bed around 7:30 AM on Thursday morning, but was only able to sleep until about 1:30 PM. I ended up staying up for the rest of the day, only napping for an unscheduled amount of time while watching a basketball game. I decided to skip taking my daily/morning meds, which included an anti fatigue 200 Mg tablet of Modafinil (generic Provigil) so that I would be more tired than usual at bedtime, to see if taking the anti fatigue medicine at bedtime and hopefully sleeping all night and waking up and having more energy, would be possible. I don't think I should've taken the entire tablet, as I was only able to sleep a couple of hours. Staying awake all morning, then all day today (Fri.), and will only take half of the Modafinil tonight at bedtime. Hopefully I'll sleep longer, then I'll take the other half on Saturday morning when I get up, providing I sleep more than a couple/few hours of course. If I end up staying awake all morning/night, I'll try to stay awake all day Saturday, go and get some Melatonin to take before bed WITH half a tablet of Modafinil and hopefully sleeping several hours on Sunday morning. Then take the 2nd half Sunday morning. If taking a sleep aid and half of an anti fatigue pill doesn't work, then I'll just take Melatonin before bed on Sunday night, and take the whole 200 Mg tablet of Modafinil on Monday to hopefully energize me for the rest of the day. If the Melatonin causes drowsiness on Tuesday morning, then I'll discontinue the Melatonin and go back to taking just the full dose of Modafinil on Wednesday morning. Now, thinking about the taking of Melatonin with a half dose of the Modafinil, I'm thinking of not doing that and just skipping straight to the Melatonin at bedtime Saturday night and the full dose of the anti fatigue medicine on Sunday morning. If I have a "Melatonin hangover" on Monday morning, I'll go back to just the Modafinil on Tuesday after I wake up.

The life of the tired old soul

          It's been said that I'm an old soul. It's been said that I'm not so much an old soul, just a tired one. As I've gotten older, it does seem that I am tired more, so maybe I an old soul after all. Then again, fatigue is a symptom of Multiple Sclerosis. I took something called Provigil for the longest time, and it did seem to help. At some point I was switched to the generic version; Modafinil. Haven't taken that for a while because it was too slow (took too long before I felt more energy after taking it) to work. Then I noticed that once it did start to give me energy, that it was around my usual bed time at the time, which was midnight. So I'd go to bed and lay there awake for hours (which is now 'the usual'). I also used to take Trazodone 30 minutes before bedtime so that I would fall asleep fairly quickly. That was fine, but it occurred to me that maybe I wouldn't need the Trazodone if I wasn't taking the Provigil (Modafinil) during the day, so I stopped taking it. I did continue to take the Modafinil for about a year after I stopped the Trazodone. So now I take neither, but I have very little energy during the day, but if I take something for that, then I can't get to sleep after I go to bed, at least that's been my the reason for about 6 or so months now for not taking the Modafinil. However, I'm now starting to reconsider taking the Modafinil again. Okay, so I won't go to sleep at midnight, but there really isn't a strong necessity to go to bed at midnight anyway. Therefore I might as well have the energy during the day, and then just stay awake until I am tired enough to sleep, then just sleep until I wake-up. I don't have to be up before noon, 1 or 2, or later in the afternoon. It's not like I have things I have to do at a specific time, so I might as well sleep. Nobody will miss me while I am asleep anyway. Sad, but true. If I need to do laundry; well, the laundromat is open 24 hours. If we need groceries, all I'd have to do is drive about 10 more miles than usual, to the store with groceries that is also open 24 hours. In other words, there's no real reason to worry about how long the energy pill takes to kick in, so I might as well take it.
         

When I decided to write in my blog tonight, I was just going to fill everyone in on the exciting things happening in my life. But in all honesty, there is nothing exciting happening in my life to write about. The only thing "exciting" that I has happened out of the ordinary is the accident of someone backing into my front fender last week and denting the car just behind the headlight on the driver's side. It was the fault of the person who hit me. I've already contacted their insurance company, who told me to get an estimate on the cost of repairs and have that faxed to them. I did that last week, and am now waiting for the money to come in the mail so I can get the car fixed. I got a letter from the insurance company saying they are going to pay $1500, unfortunately for me, the estimate to fix the car is $1700. Um, I don't have $200 to add to a check of $1500 to get the auto shop to fix it. So, if indeed they do send me only $1500, then I'll make other arrangements. We shall see.

          On another note, I'm starting to think it's probably nobody's great loss to not be dating me. I don't really have anything that I'd be adding to the life of someone else, so she might as well find someone else. I consider not even watching for "her", but then I think, "I deserve love too, dammit!", so I keep my eyes and heart open, even though I really am just tired of trying. <heavy sigh>