Detour

So this post isn't really about cancer at all. Feel free to wait until the next one.

Andrew is in the hospital--he came out for a visit during his fall break and he wasn't doing well, so he checked himself in, brave man. This is the fourth time in less than a year and half that he has had to go through this, and he is in the process of applying for leave from his job from the rest of the semester.

Out of nowhere in spring 2013 he began dealing with anxiety, depression, and other health issues. Note that I am not saying mental health, because I hate that term. His health was suddenly not what it had been, and that continues.

It's pretty bad and it is part of the reason that I moved out here, because I thought that we needed a family network around us. I wasn't doing such a great job of taking care of both Jamie & Andrew, and I was missing a lot of work, even with the help of our dear friends in Washington and great support from my colleagues at Evansdale Library, and then this new job opened up and I was so grateful that I got it and happy to come back closer to home.

All of these are good things, but I just want to say that hiding things like depression and anxiety, which is what I've been doing with respect to Andrew, really does make them seem worse than they are. As soon as I began telling people about what was happening in real life I found that they were very supportive and many knew or had experienced similar things themselves. Bottling things up created a sense of isolation that was greatly ameliorated when I began talking about how Andrew was doing and how he was feeling.

Today he is not doing well and he is not feeling well, but he is safe. And I hope that soon he will be more than safe.

If you know Andrew, you might be surprised to read this about him. because he has typically been a sunny person. But he is going through a hard time right now, so please think good thoughts for him.