Tuesday April 10, 2007 8:34 PM

Well, we're here in Massachusetts. I've been up since 5. Jim had therapy at 8, then we headed out. We made a couple of stops, then when we got up here I stopped at the supermarket to pick up something for dinner for myself. We checked in just before 4 pm. I could have used a nice nap but got my roots done and had a haircut at 6. After this I'm going to collapse. Jim has two appointments tomorrow, the last one at 2:30, so we'll head back home in the late afternoon.

He was pretty good with the food today. He used a can before we left and then another at each of the rest stops. But he's still irritable, and I really blasted him today. He snapped something at me to the effect of, "Well, you said you needed medicine for your bi-polar", blah blah blah and I unleashed a diatribe. I told him, "Yeah- I needed medicine, and I didn't get it for 26 years! And I spent 10 years depressed. You've been depressed not even 10 WEEKS...talk to me in another 9 years. And I did not snap at everyone around me and treat my spouse like some kind of a dirty dishrag. And could I eat then? Yeah, I could, but everything went running out the other end right away. I was AFRAID to eat. I was in the bathroom 20 times a day and sick as a dog! And I didn't have a nice husband at home to help me and push and push to get me treatment! (Note to Greg...I don't mean YOU, I mean Kenny). And the medicine they put you on may not even help you. You may have to try different medicines, you may have to have your dosage adjusted a few times. It could take a couple of MONTHS to get everything right. In the meantime, you have to TRY to find something to help you pull yourself through. I went back to school to pull myself through. What are YOU going to do? And I can't have you continue to talk to me the way you do in front of Jimmy because then you're sending a message to him that it's o.k. to talk to Mommy like that. If you're going to keep doing that then you're just going to have to stay somewhere else until your meds kick in. You might not have even made it to Jimmy's kindergarten graduation if you left that tumor in, never mind his high school graduation. Aren't you glad you're going to be here to see that? And you've only been going to therpy for ONE WEEK now. What did you expect to happen in a week? You're already making progress. No one said to you this was going to be permanent!" Then he's bitching that now when he sticks his finger in his ear his mouth tingles. Well, first, what are you sticking your finger in your ear for? And second...what are you complaining about? That means the nerves are coming alive again. That's a GOOD thing!

That snapped him out of it for the rest of the day. Maybe I'm just going to have to stop being nice and go off on him on a daily basis. He has made some progress. He's now graduated to practicing swallowing spoonfuls of water, and when he speaks afterwards he doesn't sound like he's speaking under the ocean. That's a far cry to what he was sounding like a week ago. But the therapist is all over him to use his voice as much as possible and KEEP HIS HEAD UP instead of drooping it down all the time. He's also got to lay off using hand signals instead of speaking. The voice therapist sent me with a note for the ENT. "Has he healed enough to try to produce a Mendelsohn manuever?" I'd love to know what THAT is. It sounds like a gymnastics move. Apparently it has something to do with your larynx. This I gotta see.