A Work Week…

Wake ups between 5:30 and 8. Pills between 7 and 9. Forgot to take my pill on Friday, and I still didn’t feel tired that night. I don’t know what to say. Work has been okay. There’s no one here. When I’m working on a project, I’m laser focused. When I’m working on a task with no deadline, I’m like a moth in a lightbulb factory. I hate to even consider changing doses or meds, but I’m not sure this is what’s going to work for me.

I think I need to get some melatonin or start drinking my middle child’s warm milk. I also need to put a restraint on myself to make sure I go to bed. This is going to be hell when work begins for real!
I have a doctor’s appointment on Monday, so I know we’ll talk about these things. I’ll update Monday night.

Whoa DUDE!

Ok, remember when I told you I was going to Idaho?  I went.  It’s a good thing this is a blog and not a vlog because I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be able to hear or at least understand me.  We played a lot of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, so I give you Metallica!

It all started with a drive to Plummer, Idaho.  The good side effect of not being tired is that I felt like I could drive forever, and it kind of seemed like I did.  But, a good book on tape, and I was set.  I took a bunch of pictures on my phone as I drove, and I’m going to try and share them here.  I’ve driven this drive many times before, but never with a digital camera, so that was a fun bonus.

What a crazy weekend.  I know that I took my Vyvanse at about 9 each day because that’s when I got off the couch that I was sleeping on.  It was interesting to have a few ADHD conversations with these guys whom I’ve known for over 20 years.  Some of them have dealt with it themselves or through their children.  At one point the owner of the cabin and I were talking as we were both cleaning at 2:30 am.  He’s on Prednisone for a lung issue and it makes him feel ADHD (more so than he is used to thriving with) and I on my Vyvanse, there was no need for sleep at that point.  He is watching his twin daughters grow up totally differently with their social interactions and academic success, much of it attributed to their ability to interact and concentrate… hmmmm.

Enough about the weekend.  It was too much fun, and most of it was legal

A Week of Rest (or maybe not)

Ok, the song in the head is easy today…

So, there I sat… minding my own business on a day when the kids were at school, my wife was at work and I was on vacation.  I had mowed the lawn, and decided to check Facebook.  A fraternity brother sent me a message that said to call him.  So I did. 

They’re getting the band back together and we’re going on tour. 

We’ll not really, but it sure seems like it.  A group of 16 guys are getting together at a cabin in Idaho, and I’ve been invited to tag along.  There’s a lot of work to be done between now and then, and my hopes of going to see the Sounders play tonight at Qwest Field are shot, but I think I can make it.  Today’s song of the day is Chris Rea, Road To Hell, in honor of my pending drive east to Lake Coeur d’Alene.

Remember last time when I mentioned I’d been fixated on some things?  Well, that manifested today in a big way as I mowed the lawn.  I noticed that there were a few buttercup vines winding their way through my front lawn and decided to get rid of them.  Well, an hour and a half later I had cleared about a ten foot square in my front yard of all buttercup vines (unfortunately most roots survived).  I kept looking at my watch and saying, “Five more minutes.”  Ugh!  That’s not as bad as what I did on Friday and Saturday (ya, what a way to spend the Fourth)  I pulled roots and roots of morning glory from the garden bed in front of our souther fence.  It looks great now, but I think my wife was hoping for a little more than what I was able to accomplish.

Whoa… where did this week go?

I can’t even begin to tell you when I woke up or when I took my pill.  Suffice it to say it was sporadic at best.  I have a sick baby.  I knew I would be home with him this week because his daycare is closed for licensing classes (a good thing).  But on Sunday afternoon he got sick… so instead of being home with a happy six and a half month old, I was home with a sick six and a half month old.  On Tuesday I’d had enough, and his eye was so red that I was scared, then when my wife was washing his face she noticed that he had blood coming out of his eye.  Now this kid needs every advantage he can get, look at his dad, so an eye damaged by a sty or some other thing when he’s six month old, is not going to fly.  So I took him to the doctor on Wednesday.  She suspects allergies, I’m hoping it’s not an allergy to the cat, also known as our oldest child. 

I think I handled the sick kid, Mr. Mom and house husband duties pretty well.  I have discovered that I become fixated on things that I’ve never been fixated on before.  Timing or Vyvanse?  Who knows, but I find myself spending hours weeding or doing things around the house that need to be done, but we just don’t haave time for.  Hopefully this will be a good thing in the long run.

Tryin’ to keep up

So, this has been a crazy week.  The first official week of a teacher’s summer, and as you already know I spent three days in meetings.  My sleep struggles continue, but honestly, it’s hard to tell what is me just being summer-time lazy thinking I can stay up late because I don’t have to be at work at the crack of dawn, versus what is the drug keeping me awake.

I am still on the 50mg dose of Vyvanse.  I sat through our 12 o’clock meeting Wednesday and I think I did very well.  One of my strategies is to be the official note-taker in the meetings.  I type as much information as possible into OneNote and then the notes are automatically shared with the team.  A lot of times I get distracted doing this, but today I was able to follow along, and instead of making stuff up when I got lost, I actually asked the people to repeat themselves.  A step in the right direction?  Admitting a fault… what have I gotten myself into?

Tomorrow will be interesting because I’m announcing a Seattle Sounders game.  I used to do this at every game.  Once in a while I would have trouble keeping the starting line ups straight.  I would skip people, etc.  I think I have strategies in place to remedy that, but this will be my first game on ADHD meds, so I hope to see an improvement over the last time I announced (two years ago).

New Dose Day 1 & 2

Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Wake Up: 6:00am
Pill: 6:45am
Medication: Vyvanse, 50mg
Current Song in my head: Sing to The King – Passion Worship Band (Meadowbrook Church actually)
Sing To The King by Passion Worship Band
Starting the day in a training.  Feeling a lot of energy.  I’m not very interested in this training and I’m more of a chapreone than a participant, so I’m not paying much attention…

Ok, so the first day on the new dose was a waste.  Because of the content of the training I was in, I didn’t pay much attention and just flitted about like a hummingbird.  Today, I have a meeting at noon.  I came in early but not without challenges.  So, let’s start this post over.

Date: Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Wake Up: 5:30am – This baby needs to learn when it’s sleep time
Pill: 8:45 – More on this in a moment
Medication: Vyvanse, 50mg
Current Song in my head: Lady Bug Picnic

So, I woke up with the baby this morning, or more accurately, my wife woke me up and asked me to take care of the baby so she could get a little more sleep.  I hate when this happens, because I want sleep too, but I am also aware of the fact that I probably snored through two hours of my wife nursing our baby, and so I get up, rub the sleep from my eyes and try not to fall asleep as the baby plays with the toys we have in a basket for him in the living room. 

At 6:30 my wife came out and said she was going to take her shower.  I helped the girls get dressed and we were all ready to take on the day.  I was trying to get to work early enough to accomplish some things before my 12 o’clock meeting.  I dropped the girls at daycare and realized I hadn’t taken my pill.  So I stopped by the house.  Checked email.  Read a couple of blogs and headed to work.  About 10 minutes from home I realized I hadn’t taken my pill while I was at home.  So I went back and took my pill. 

Now I’m at work, and I can’t remember jack!  I got up a few minutes ago to get an envelope.  I couldn’t find one, but walked past my bosses office and remembered that I was going to tell him something.  Could not for the life of me remember what that something was.  So I wandered.  Talked to a friend, and then finally remembered that I had an idea of how to address an email question he had asked.  FRUSTRATING!  So, now I sit here writing a blog post that no one will read, dreading a three hour meeting to discuss ways to prove proficiency in technology.  I hope this works!

Another Prescription – Day 15

Date: Saturdayay, June 21, 2008
Wake Up: 10:00am
Pill: 10:15am
Medication: Vyvanse, 30mg
Current Song in my head: I truly don’t have one

Jump to my Doctor’s Appointment 
My wife is almost asleep on the couch watching a rerun of Law & Order: Criminal Intent. I’m wandering the internet, checking Facebook, updating blog titles, generally relaxing. It was a busy day. At 5:30 the baby woke up… I played with him for an hour until my wife was ready to get up and feed him, then I went back to bed. I woke up later than I normally do, even on the weekends. Had a bowl of cereal for breakfast, then went and got gas for the lawn mower, so I could accomplish what needed to be done.

Our neighbors are trying to sell their house so we’re trying to look like good neighbors. Not that we’re bad neighbors, but we’re really trying to improve our yard after years of neglect by the previous owners. Yesterday I pulled weeds in the flower bed in front of our downstairs windows, and in the stepping stones from the front door to the gate to the backyard. By the time I was done I had the yard waste container two-thirds full, and I hadn’t mowed the lawn in over a week. (That’s what Madeline Hunter called a birdwalk).

So after I got gas I mowed the backyard. I get bored just going back and forth, so today I mowed in a big circle. I started in the middle and worked my way out. Then I went side to side in front of the playset, and then did another big circle on the other side. It’s interesting. I had a doctor’s appointment at 2:45 (more on that soon, I promise). I came home and took care of the baby for a little while, and watched the girls ride their bikes till it was time to mow the front yard. This time I did arrows pointing toward my neighbor’s house. They have an open house tomorrow, and while we really like our neighbors, they already have another house so they need to sell this one. Not as noticeable, but still pretty cool. We still had some errands to run, so we did that, and then had dinner at 7:20. After that we went and toured the neighbor’s house. We’ve lived here since September of ‘05, but we’d never been inside. Same floor plan but it looks entirely different. It was tough to get the girls to bed, as is to be expected when they’re up so late. I did okay, I saw myself starting to lose it, and then backed myself up and helped our middle child get into bed peacefully.

Ok, now the doctor’s appointment. It was quick. I’ve lost five pounds. I expected that since I’m never hungry anymore. I showed the doctor my blog, he said it was a first. For me it’s a form of accountability. Even though I know very few, if any, people read the blog, if I don’t have a post there I know anyone who tries to look at is going to say, “Oh, he’s just an ADD guy, and can’t stay focused long enough to post his blogs.” Based on what I was able to tell the doc, he has changed my prescription from 30 milligrams to 50 milligrams. The 60 I took on Monday and Tuesday had me awake far too long. Hopefully 50 will keep me focused just not awake alllll the time. He also told me I need to start exercising. I need to anyway, but now I have orders. He asked if I’ve found any other resources and I told him that I’d joined the Vyvanse support group on their website. It seems to have trouble so I haven’t followed up. Yesterday I became a member of the ADDitude website, and I’ve found a few blogs about adults with ADHD. I don’t have anything against parents of ADHD kids or even teenagers blogging about their ADHD, but I need grown ups, professionals dealing with ADHD to help me see things I can do to improve myself.

I forgot to tell him about my big personal breakthrough that I hope will move me farther down the road. I’ve figured out how to sync OneNote with my iPaq, so now I can create a to do list on my iPaq and sync it when I get to work, so I can have a OneNote notebook to remind me of the things I thought about, but have typically forgotten. 

That’s all for now! Happy Summer!

Progress – Day 12

Date: Wednesday, June 18, 2008
Wake Up: 6:30am
Pill: 7:20am
Medication: Vyvanse, 30mg
Current Song In My Head: I’m Gonna Catch You – Laurie Berkner

We love this song. It’s a lot of fun to sing with the girls. Of course tonight I was singing it as I was chasing them down the street trying to motivate our oldest to keep moving on her bike. She so desperately wants to learn to ride her bike without training wheels. Our four year old just wants to keep up with her big sis, but until she can do that, she’s just happy to ride past her baby brother screaming his name causing him to burst into raucous laughter.

So I was thinking this morning before I got in the shower.  Traditionally, and this goes back to my mid-20’s, there has been a list of people I run through in my head every morning.  It’s stupid, it’s people I should not be thinking about and I’ve never understood why I can’t get into the shower without running these people through my brain.  It dawned on me this morning that I hadn’t thought those names in over a week.  It’s a simple thing, but gosh darn it, I thought it was pretty cool that I’ve been able to skip that step.  It’s just a small indication of the progress I’m perceiving that I’m making in living with ADHD.

I went back down to the 30mg dose today because I’m tired of staying up till 1:30 without having any fatigue except in my eyes.  Yes, the Vyvanse is keeping me awake, I don’t know that it’s insomnia because I don’t even try to go to bed, but it definitely keeps me alert.  As a result my eyes get really scratchy because they’ve been open for so darn long.

Work was weird today as we wind down and try not to work for free in the summer.  I have some things I need to do on Thursday, and I have a meeting at 3 so I’ll be at work.  Then on Monday and Tuesday we have a training all day, but after that I’m on vacation or on a time card so I make sure I get paid for the time I work.

Woo hoo.  Summer has begun!

Focused Frustration – Day 11

Date: Tuesday June 17, 2008
Wake Up: 6:30am
Pill: 7:20am
Medication: Vyvanse, 60mg
Current Song in my head: Britney Spears – I’m Not That Innocent 

Ok, so I’m watching America’s Got Talent. That has to account for the reason I have Britney Spears in my head. They just had a Britney Spears impersonator on the show. The impersonation was very spot on, until he took his hat off. Yes, I said he. This dude is just plain scary. He had the look, I didn’t think he danced that well, but you can be the judge of that (at least until YouTube takes the clip away).  Fast forward to about 30 seconds to see Britney.

I was on the double dose again today and I must say that my focus is good.  But… I was up until 1 o’clock this morning because I’m just plain not tired.  Forget insomnia, I have too much energy.  It will be interesting to see if this happens again tonight.  I woke up late, not realizing that my alarm had gone off, then I had to iron a shirt because the collar on this thing is way too 1985 for my personal taste.  I got to work on time because we have a sick child, and mom stayed home with her, so the rush to get out the door was not as dire as is typically the case.

I was fine at work today.  The team meeting was a positive experience for me medically, I was on task for the most part.  The meeting wasn’t that great, as it was a bit of a logistical nightmare with my new boss in his current school using the video phone, and the rest of us in a conference room.  We were able to be on the same page using OneNote, but we had some issues because our SharePoint portal was down. 
It’s a frustrating time of year, because so much has to be done, but we’re also being asked to organize a ton of stuff for the beginning of next year.  I am not sure where to start, but I know that I have to have as much done as possible before I leave work tomorrow.

While I have your attention, and trust me, I know those moments can be fleeting:  I have cool kids.  Today, my oldest worked very hard to learn how to ride her bike without the training wheels.  She’s been very frustrated because all of her friends have those extra wheels off, and she doesn’t.  Today, not only was she pedaling up and down the street like nobody’s business, her dad was able to pay attention to it without his mind wandering to the seven-thousand other things he typically thinks of while keeping his children safe on the mean streets of our home town.  I had the baby with me, we sat in the grass while the girls rode their bikes.  It was a lot of fun.

I emailed with the vice principal at a local high school today, that is close to home, but not in the school district in which I am employed.  There’s a possibility that I will be the new announcer for their football and basketball programs next year.  I have spousal approval, now I just have to get hired.

I think that’s all that’s running through my mind right now.

I’m Still Here – Day 10

Date: Monday, June 16, 2008
Wake Up: 5:30am (baby woke up first)
Pill: 7:20am
Medication: Vyvanse, 60mg
Current Song in my head: Go Go Godzilla – Blue Oyster Cult
(dang that Auto Trader Commercial!)

General Notes:
Dang, I got a lot done today. I’m not sure it’s what I needed to do, but I got a lot of it done. As you can tell by my absence of posts, I have had difficulty getting to this. The end of a school year is crazy for everyone I guess. We’ve had birthday parties, and sick kids, father’s day and our anniversary, so I guess I’ll blame those things for not journalling.

Medical Notes:
I switched my dose today. I upped it from one pill to two (60 mg). I felt the difference. I will do the same tomorrow as I head into our big meeting of the week. No noticeable adverse side effects, although I haven’t eaten lunch since I started this process.