Treatment Records

Evening.  Day 111 on Lexapro.  Mood: 6 in the field, ~4 in my room.  Today was another field day, only of the more interesting variety. My team surveyed all inventory sites and opportunistic roadsides (more or less places we pass and go "hey that's a good place to look for bees"), and those kinds of sites are far more enjoyable than agricultural fields. There's a much higher diversity of plants, and that greater plant diversity supports greater insect diversity. Plus, they tend to be just plain more interesting locations than fields of wheat or clover.  Ah, I paused for a long while as I was writing and I lost whatever train of thought I had.  The sites were interesting, I saw a ton of cool plants (but didn't catch a lot of bees). One of the sites was adjacent to a pasture where cows where grazing, and during some downtime, I walked up to the fence separating them from me. The level of intelligence in their wary faces as they watched this strange new...

Afternoon.  Day 110 on Lexapro.  Mood: Hazy, bimodal range from 3 to 6. I spent all day in the lab today; in fact, I'm still in the lab as I compose this post. Here is the only place that really feels like home to me, even though I can't get in before 7 or 8am, or after 9pm, or on the weekends.  Half of the day was spent making potassium cyanide kill jars, since I'm apparently the only member of the team that knows how. It's kind of nice being the cyanide master here; it makes me useful, gives me a reason to be kept around. Turning basic things into vital research tools is my only irreplaceable skill at this point, since there are other people that are good at hand-netting, and other people that are good at bee ID, and other people that are good with general insect ID, and other people that know plants.  I was a bit sad as I made the jars, though, since I've gotten much faster at producing them, and ran out of paper to make plugs (I use a tightly coiled st...

Afternoon. I'm not going to even bother justifying the late post; no one cares anyway. Day 109 on escitalopram.  Mood: 5, and 3.  Yesterday was the second day out in the field for the summer, even though I'd planned on being in the lab (two people canceled, and I wasn't about to just let the rest of the team carry extra weight just because I didn't want to be in the sun). It was even hotter than the first, though I felt significantly better about it.  I worked in a team of three, and we did three agricultural fields. They were mostly barren - in one field, only a single flowering clover was reported in vegetation surveys. As a result, trying to catch bees was hellish to say the least, around three hours of wandering around fields, looking for bees that just weren't there. Thankfully, though, there were stands of trees around the edges of each site, so we had some small refuge from the sun's rays. It wasn't a ton of shade, and each shaded area just go...

Afternoon.  Day 108 on escitalopram.  Mood: 5, +/- 1.  Today was the first field work day of the summer! It was VERY hot (the high was around 90), and I spent more or less all of my ten hour workday outside, but I enjoyed it. Field work, even when it's boring, gives me something to focus on. Something that isn't inside my mind.  My partner and I surveyed four sites - two agricultural fields, a wooded area, and a roadside. The ag fields had been hayed recently, so there were relatively few flowers growing. This meant very few bees - in a total of 320 person-minutes, or five and a third person-hours, we hand-netted fewer than 30 bees across both fields. The wooded area was no better. It was entirely dominated by a nightmarish amount of poison ivy, and the few flowers that were present ( Erigeron  sp., black eyed Susan, and wingstem) were all at the end of their blooms.  I'm extremely glad that I don't react to poison ivy. The stuff was nearly s...

Almost up to date!  Yesterday was day 73 with escitalopram.  Mood: 6.  'Twas another day in the field for me. I woke up before my alarm, eased into consciousness around 5:36am, and the initial annoyance evaporated when I realized that this gave me ample time to eat an unhurried breakfast, which consisted of a veggie sandwich and...something else. I can't recall.  Anyway, I met with some other team members a little after 7, and finally made it to the research site around 7:45 after getting a bit lost and turned around a couple times. We kind of just pulled off onto the side of the road and trekked into a field - a very wet, very, VERY muddy field. After a while, I stopped attempting to avoid puddles, as my feet were completely soaked through anyway. The more irritating thing was the dew coating everything - after about five minutes of walking through the grasses and agricultural weeds, the fronts of my jeans were soaked from knee to ankle.  To speed thi...

Evening.  Day 71 with Lexapro.  Mood: 5.2.  This is the first day of no doses, and as with the accidental occurrences, my mood is a bit better. It's too early to say that it's the lower levels of escitalopram in my system, or the relief of completing two things that were sources of stress and the knowledge that I can sleep in tomorrow, if I so choose. So far so good, I suppose.  I, again, was unable to make it to my first class today, and would have stayed in bed until my 2pm class had I not remembered that my timeslip for my lab assistant position is due today. I'm not about to run the risk of not being paid for the work I've done for the past two weeks, when I've put in almost twice my normal lab time. Speaking of, today was payday. It felt good to see some extra money in my account, though much of it immediately went to paying off my credit card balance. I really, truly hope that Scotland is worth the income I'm losing due to it.  There's a new...

Good evening from the village failure. Day 68 on escitalopram. No benefits, no side effects, but I can't stop taking it just  Mood: 3.5. Things have gone wrong, I know that they have, but my head is just numb enough to my usual anxieties that I can't find the motivation to change.  Well, I stayed up til 3:30ish this morning, fighting off the very strong urge to cut by writing instead. I'm not sure if what I chose to write was healthy, because I have a three page suicide letter and a short will now, but it kept me from giving myself further superficial incisions. In an odd way, it was very calming and very grounding to get it down, what I'd want my final words to my family, my friends, and the various teams I'm a member of. I've scrawled down things before, but the suicide notes of the past were angry, and finger-pointy. This one was different in a lot of ways, full of apology and regret.  I'm going to keep the file, just in case, but I hope that it n...

Yes, this post is late.  Day 64.  Mood: ~3.5.  I spent approximately twelve hours in my lab, starting to work at 4pm 28 Apr and leaving around 4am 29 Apr. I told myself that it was because I wanted to finish processing specimens before the weekend, and that's what I told Favorite Person and Curly, who both inquired. In truth, though, I needed a long distraction from the mounting sense of being a failure. You see, from an early age, much of my sense of self-worth was based on my academic performance, and my involvement with things. I had praise for my intelligence heaped on heavily from the beginning, and that praise somehow eventually generated extremely high standards set for myself, standards that I've never been able to meet.  Then, I befriend Favorite Person, who I watch meet and exceed the bar I set for myself, achieving what I expect of myself but am never able to accomplish. I'm always happy for her successes, because that's what friends do, but watchi...

Evening. I don't know why I bother with a formal greeting when there's no one to offend.  Day 63 on Lexapro. Mood: a very watery 3.  The feeling that my head is full of fog continues today, which was detrimental to my ability to get work done. It took almost eight hours to get about 120 specimens pinned today, when it should have taken three at the absolute most. There are easily another hundred specimens left to process, and I can't take that long on them tomorrow. All of these bees, and leps, and flies need to be mounted before I leave my lab for the weekend; otherwise, I'll start getting backed up, and that thought stresses me out quite a bit.  Something I've noticed today is that the thought of eating is slightly distressing, and that eating makes me gag a tiny bit. Those, combined with the fact that ingesting anything - eggs, veggie sandwich, cookies - makes me feel absolutely disgusting is concerning to say the least, but I still believe that it'...

Meh. Evening or whatever.  Day 61 on Lexapro.  Mood: 5, +/- 0.5.  Today, I spent an hour and a half training one of my team members for the pollinator inventory on the fine art of bee pinning. He's an enthusiastic learner, picking up and improving rapidly. Since I'd completely forgotten that I said that I'd teach him, and thus had no specimens in the lab that were unmounted, we went out to the Japanese garden on campus to collect a few eastern carpenter bees and honey bees, two species that are extraordinarily common and easy to work with. At the end of my little lesson/workshop/thing, he'd pinned a total of nine bees, including handwritten location tags. Surprising me more than a little, he asked me to "grade" his work - overall, I'd have to give him an A.  The sense of satisfaction I had at the end, once he'd left the lab, reminded me of the love of teaching I've always had, the burning need to share the information that I've accumula...

Evening. Or morning, I don't know what's the appropriate greeting after midnight.  Day 60 on escitalopram.  Mood: 5.  I spent five hours total pinning and labeling yesterday's specimens. It's tedious work, sure, but it's work that I'll be paid for. We don't have nearly enough insect pins in lab, but that's kind of not my problem, not really - if we run out, it's not on my shoulders. Pro to being the undergrad in the lab, I suppose.  Speaking of yesterday, I'm still a sniffle-y, sneeze-y mess. I truly regret not taking allergy meds before going out for field work, because I coughed and sneezed so much yesterday that I literally hurt if I breathe too deeply today. Hopefully I'll be better tomorrow.  Favorite Person has deemed me a superb Googler, and as such brings any questions that require searching to me. Questions like the age of a TA we both have, which I found, and then some. I think that I had entirely too much fun digging up s...

Evening. I'm very tired, and very full of food.  Day 59 on Lexapro.  Mood: 5.5 - 7. Today wasn't half bad. I spent ten hours doing field work today. It was pleasant out - the sun was shining, there was a light breeze, it wasn't too hot or too cold. There were things to see, things to catch, plants whose names I needed to learn. I had people to share my knowledge of insects with.  I felt light when I was out there. Almost elated...today felt like a brief reset.  I'm exhausted, and there's little else to say about today.  Until then.  I can't believe my eyes,  It's a world without sex Everyone here just wears full-length pants  And loose-fitting turtlenecks  Men and women wave to each other  At a respectable distance Without the thrill of boning, What is life?  We must speak to the council of Dick Elders tonight... 23 Apr 2017

Evening.  Day 44 on escitalopram.  Mood: Seven, and two.  Today was the first day of field work for the pollinator inventory that I'm being paid to assist with. We hiked up a trail - clambering over some rocks, crossing a tiny stream under a tinier waterfall - and solidified our methods in this big, beautiful semi-wooded area that was absolutely carpeted with flowers. There were tons of blue-eyed maries, dense patches of Virginia bluebells, vibrant dwarf larkspurs, showy celandine poppies, spring beauties, violets and pansies in many colors, quizzical Dutchman's breeches, equally quizzical squirrel corn, blue phlox - we even saw a few white trout lilies, which are apparently rare. While the rest of my team - my professor and the two graduate students gathering data for the inventory and for their own projects - were figuring out how they were arranging pan traps and doing floral abundance assessments, I wandered around, armed with a net and a field bag, seeing what ...

Evening.  Day 36 on escitalopram.  Mood: 5  I don't know if the doubling of the amount of Lexapro in my system or the natural ebb and flow of my depression is the cause, but I feel significantly better today than I have in a while. It's too early to draw any conclusions, though.  Overall, today was a pretty good day. I had two exams that I was incredibly stressed about, so getting them over with was a relief to say the least. I also gave one of the letters from the counselor I spoke to to my biostatistics professor, since her class is the one my depression is having the biggest impact, and I wanted her to be aware of what's going on. (Favorite Person has this instructor for another course, and she very strongly dislikes her. I like this professor as a person, not so much as a teacher. Never enough direction where it's needed.) She was understanding, which I truly appreciate, and didn't write me off as I feared. She also stated that she figured that somethin...

Hi there! I hope you had a good day today.  Day 06 on Lexapro. As with the past few days, I'm not noticing any more side effects, which is better than I hoped for before starting. It seems to be stimulating my appetite - even though I'm eating the same amount for breakfast as normal, I'm getting hungry far earlier in the day than is my "normal" - which is interesting, because one of the well-documented side effects of escitalopram is decreased appetite.  My mood is still overall pretty good, pretty positive. In a couple words, I'd say that I felt playful and airy today, something I haven't felt in a long time. There's a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that the good times won't last very long, but I'm attempting to enjoy it while it's here. I met with the professor I work with (I do research on a group of bees found in the American southwest south to South America in a pollination ecology lab) today to discuss and begin fleshing...

Hello there. I hope that you're doing well, whomever may be reading this. Day 05 on escitalopram. I'll probably switch back and forth between calling it by its chemical and trade names, depending on how I'm feeling. No real tiredness today, and definitely no nausea (though I was ravenous far earlier than is normal). I noticed some involuntary jaw clenching throughout the day, though I have no idea if that has anything to do with the Lexapro, or just me being stressed about looming deadlines. Overall, I feel pretty good. Last night's storm was more severe than it sounded from the inside - tornado sirens went off in town around 10:30pm, and then again around 3am, 4am. I only know about the later sirens because I overheard people discussing them. They failed to wake me; it's a good thing that no tornado actually happened because I definitely would have slept right through it and woke up in a field miles away. A contact of mine wrote me about an opportunity to p...