For John Cade

It has been a very bad week. I won't go into the symptoms because they're extremely boring. But all aspects of My Undiagnosed Health Problem have been acting up, with impressive intensity, this past week. Also, I finally have an appointment with a specialist on Monday. I'm dreading it, afraid he will be completely useless ("Golly, I don't know what's wrong with you!"). Or worse, he will proclaim that all my problems are due to the fact that I AM FAT.

Though I'm miserable, my mood is holding steady. I mean, I'm not happy, but I'm not slipping into a deadly depression. Lithium has kept me, well, me through all of this. I'm so grateful for that. I wish that the Australian doctor who discovered lithium's therapeutic benefits was still alive. I wish I could thank him. I wish I could make some maudlin public gesture of gratitude to him. He deserves something much bigger than this post.

John Cade (1912 - 1980)
You took away a lot of suffering in this world.