July 18, 2005 – No one’s available to take your call at this time.

Well after yesterdays near meltdown, I’ve decided that I have a problem that I’m incapable of solving on my own. I know that I suffer from mild depression, I mean reading this blog, who wouldn’t? I’ve been taking an anti-depressant since I’ve been diagnosed with breast cancer and I’ve went from a case of mild depression to a case of extreme depression accompanied by a daily sobfest. Even my 5 year old daughter has made remarks about how much mommy cries, and believe me, I’m usually not one to cry – even my husband would agree that once upon a time I had a heart of steel. And you can rule out the whole hormonal chick thing, because I have absofreakenlutely zero hormones, so that is out of the question. So I did a little background research on depression, since there is some history of it in my family, and found that depression is described as involving 5 or more of these signs from this “list” for most of the day, nearly every day, for 2 weeks or longer. I had 13 out of the 17 on the list. Not good. Now while I still believe the anti-depressants I am on now is responsible for the current sobfest, I do however agree that I could be depressed. I mean I have been through a lot. I haven’t had much help or support, and I never really grieved or took the time to heal. So I decided, first thing this morning I was going to get up and find me a therapist to get me some help before I went in this afternoon to pick-up my compression sleeve that finally came in from Germany. So I called my Insurance Company to find out what providers where in Vegas, because really, what do you look under, head doctors, or doctors that specialize in mental illness? I don’t know; I’ve never done this before. They gave me some numbers, and I started my calls. But I wasn’t having much luck. For an office of that nature shouldn’t you be reaching a receptionist or something? That alone was upsetting me. It was frustrating, because here I am trying to call and get help and no one’s answering, yet at the same time I’m having to deal with getting my daughter ready to go with me to run my errands, which meant I needed to give her a bath and dress her, as well as make sure she had been fed and had something to entertain her. So while she bathed, I continued making more calls, and still the same thing, no answers. HELLO, you people are supposed to help those patients suffering from depression, and while I’m not extremely depressed, there are people out there who are and are unfortunately suicidal and need your help right away, but YOU’RE not answering your phone. One place I called, believe it or not had the cheesiest answering machine that they wanted me to leave a message on. Uh, I don’t think so. Get a receptionist or an answering service, not some cheap $30 answering machine from Wal-Mart. When people are depressed they want to be able talk to someone, and talk to them now, not their answering machine. I can call and talk to my parent’s machine. Or my machine at home for that matter. I guess tomorrow, I try again, but not with that doctor. There are two things in life I can’t stand, flakey people and liars – it’s hard for me to forgive either one.
So after we picked up my compression sleeve, we went to go do something that I thought she would consider fun, since the whole time we were at the doctors she kept asking “are we going to do something fun after this?” We headed out to the Boot Barn and FINALLY got her those boots she’s been begging for since she saw the making of the Jessica Simpson video for “These Boots (were made for walkin’). It took me a lot oh reasoning with the stubborn little 5 year old, but I finally got her to realize that red wasn’t the best color choice for her since she doesn’t own a lot of red. She ended up with the pink Durango’s shown – but the outfit is the closest she will ever get to Daisy Duke’s as long as her Daddy’s still alive (and that’s to say she doesn’t give the man a heart attack first!) All I can say is looking like that, she really does look like she does belong in Elko, and all that’s missing is the horse.
While some times she absolutely drives me nuts, she also at the same time is often the only thing that makes me smile (in my daily life here in Vegas) and when I look at her I see a bit of Ruben and remember why I chose to live, and beat cancer in the first place. It was too soon for cancer to take me away from my baby, and it was too soon to take me away from the man I love - AND I AM NOT READY to let anything else come along and screw that up for me, because 5 and 1/2 years just isn’t long enough. But I know for both of their sakes that I must get better SOON!