Last night I doubled my dosage, and feared the worst. I woke up at 6 a.m., and grabbed a handful of Saltines—strategically placed on my night table before I went to bed—to settle my stomach, then washed them down with a gulp of club soda. It was hard to get back to sleep, but I finally did, for a half-hour, around 8.

The nausea is staying with me, but isn't deterring me from eating gummi worms that came in the mail today as part of a promotion. (Sometimes, the swag you get here is so nice, you feel like you should mail it back to maintain your integrity. Other times, it's a bag of gummi worms.)

So, yes, I'm having side effects, but I'm going to hang in there. You know why? Because feeling a little queasy is waaaaay better than being mentally ill. One of my enduring frustrations is when I talk to people who refuse to take medication because they don't like the side effects. Most often these are people whose lives have been completely derailed by their illnesses, people who are out of work, who struggle to function on a daily basis. Yet they stop taking a medication because it gives them dry mouth.

You know what? You can stuff a bag filled with cotton balls in my throat, and leave it there, and I'll still take the meds. Because what's dry mouth compared to my sanity? I don't want to gain weight, or feel sick, or be so tired I have to leave work early. But is it better than being psychotic? Oh, yeah. So much better. I'd rather lose my libido entirely than go through the crap I've been dealing with for the past few months. So bring on the side effects! If the medication works, I'll deal with anything.

[Photo of organic cotton from The Kids Window]