Yesterday I went to the grocery store. In the course of buying $104.00 of groceries (I didn't have any coupons! and had to buy all kinds of non-grocery crap like razor blades and Ben-Gay...or "Ben Alternative" as we sometimes call it) these are all the things I dropped:

1 bag of salad mix
a green pepper
1 bottle of iced tea ("Clean up in the deli!")
2 seperate types of cheese
6 rolls of paper towels (but they were all bundled together, and they don't break)
My car keys, wallet, AND debit card all at different times in the check out process....

The checkout lady was very nice, but I did catch a bit of a look like "hmm. she's certainly neatly dressed and talks okay, but I guess anybody can be an alcoholic" Which, of course, they can. It's just that isn't my particular illness.

Then, when I got home, it took me 20 minutes to bring the bags in....and my driveway is right outside my door.

I had to face it: the modafinil isn't doing a thing for me. And Dr. Doglover is right: if I try to go back to work like this I'd last til about 10:00.

I was supposed to call his office to let them know how it was working....so I did. "Isn't it doing anything for you?" E., his PA asked.

"It doesn't seem to be."

So the verdict: double the dose! Okay, okay, I read that I'm taking a half dose in the tissue paper insert thing. But now what if I have to take twice as much medication as my insurance won't cover? I wish he'd told me to try something else.

And, of course, I can't go back to work on the 5th. Well, I can see the point of that: it may not be a good idea to have an employee who is not fully adjusted to a controlled substance wandering around the workplace.

I guess I should use the time to really work on my resume. It's not hard to write a resume. It's just that I'm very conflicted about the whole thing with the job. I keep telling myself that if I did okay on the job when I was sick, I might like it a whole lot better now that I'm in better shape. I tell myself that I need to change my attitude about it: underwriting is not entirely about keeping the people who need it most from getting life insurance. It is also about making sure that people who might, on the surface, seem to have a greater risk of mortality, from paying too much for life insurance.

But it's all so abstract! I never see this person, never hear their voice. I can be happy in almost any situation in which I can be of the least service to people. I liked bill collecting a lot better than sales, even though I was better at sales than collecting when I started. Bill collecting solved a problem for the person. The debt wasn't going to go away, it was all a question of how it got solved. Selling loans was basically, at least at Beneficial, enticing people to get themselves into more debt when they could barely afford the debt they had. Sometimes customers would say to me "you're going to burn in hell for your job" (as a bill collector) and I'd think, well, maybe for the loans I sold. But I got thank you notes from people as a bill collector! "You were so kind and posative on the phone! I can see how to solve this problem now! Enclosed is my payment." And those meant more to me than the awards I got for the amount of money I collected.

I just can't get myself to care about the right stuff. I don't care if the company I'm working for makes it's goals or pays its stock holders well. I don't care if someone I don't know and will never even talk to has a grade 1 or grade 2 tumor. It doesn't make any difference. Generally speaking, they're probably going to get well if they have good doctors. I don't care about the details, especially in the abstract, the theoretical, the "life-of-the-mind" stuff.

"Faith without works is dead" (James 2:17) To me the work of the mind, without the work of the heart is useless. Yet I was unsuited for the jobs I'd like best before I was sick, and now they're totally out of the question. How can I feed and comfort alzhiemers patients if I can't even hang on to my own spoon? I feel as if I was already useless and will only become more so. Yet, if I let that kind of thinking take hold, I will truly be of no help to anyone, even myself.

People say you have to adjust to an illness, but it's not the illness to which you have to adjust. So I dropped some groceries - so what? That's an easy problem to solve. Use two hands. Hold it by the bottom. Hold it over the cart. Clip your keys to the strap of your handbag.

It's the re-ordering of priorities to which you have to adjust. When I went to trade the car in, I had to decide, new or used? Before, price was the big issue - indeed, the only issue. If I broke down and it was 90 degrees outside, well, that would suck, but it would only be an inconvenience. If I got stuck in the snow and forgot my cell phone, well, that would be mighty stupid of me....but I'd just walk to the nearest house and phone someone. Now it's not like that anymore. Stuck on the highway on a hot day could make me a lot worse. Who knows how well I'd be on any given day in the winter?

I have to live with being a little bit of burden now to avoid becoming a huge burden later.

Well. I have to go over to the DMV. That ought to improve my spirits!! At least I don't work there!