Super-Special Orthopedist also recommended serious weight loss to alleviate some of JD's pain and to also help him get through the proposed surgery. JD has been very successful at Atkins in the past, and is losing weight on a more-modified form now. Super-Special Orthopedist recommended a more-South Beach approach, so I'm going to check out the book this weekend, and hopefully, JD will read some of it.
Really, JD and I have been a little bit lax the past 2 weeks or so (me much more so than JD), so we are both going to need to recommit. I think that means that I will have to join Weight Watchers, since doing this on my own is really not working. I'll also need to really be exercising.
My encouragements to JD about exercise of any form have not helped at all. While there is the matter of his foot pain, there are other forms of exercise he could do. For example, swimming would be great for him, and both Special Orthopedist and Super-Special Orthopedist recommended using the recumbent bike. Plus, he could also do upper body work.
Last night, I asked JD if we set up sessions with a trainer would that help. JD was not receptive, but it may have just been a bad time to ask.
The problem with depression is the vicious circle that it causes. You feel down, so don't do anything, so you get depressed, so you can't do anything, so you get more depressed. See?
JD's baseline with meds is a little bit down anyways, so falls further pretty quickly. A graph might help with this. Let's do one, shall we?
As we look at this graph, you see that the blue line represents JD's baseline with meds. Baseline means that you're feeling neutral, OK. Not ecstatic, not depressed, just at zero on a graph. JD's baseline shows much more sad areas than happy areas, showing that it's a lot easier for him to get sad than to get happy, and his happy periods are shorter than his sad ones. (Mine is the opposite). When JD is not on any meds, his sad period becomes longer and deeper, and happy is shorter and shallower. So, deeper depression and much less happiness.
What anti-depressant meds try to do is move your baseline so that your neutral level is at 0 and not in the negative range. Different drugs work differently on different people, so with me, my antidepressant helps to put me a little above 0 as my neutral, where for JD his meds get him to a -1 or -2 as his neutral. Much better than -100, but still more negative than positive. Add this to JD's glass-half-empty paradigm of life (learned with his mother's milk) and you get someone who does not take news of any nature well.
**The above represents my thoughts on depression and IN NO WAY represents what a real doctor would tell you. The above is for explanation purposes and cannot be used as medical advice.**
Sorry if this was a downer -- I'm feeling really good right now because we have a plan to battle JD's pain and there's light at the end of the tunnel.
1 comment:
You explained very well.
He can be happy to have you.
I hope it all works out well.
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