It has not been a good week....

 I have had this post it the `Drafts` section of Blogger for a couple of weeks, events were too raw to allow me to finish it. Now things have settled down, I feel I can bear to finish and publish it, if Kim agrees. If not, you wont be reading this!
   This last week has not been a vintage one for the Ark and its crew. The worst problem has been with Kim`s health. Friends will know that she suffers from depression and has done for many years, on and off. Although in the past it has been a severe problem at times, even leading to hospitalisation, for some years it has mainly been under control by taking a small dose of medicine daily. Like my own drug to control high blood pressure, as long as you take the dose you are fine, though in Kim`s case it is more of a balancing act and like a trapeze artiste, the drop is always there, waiting...
  On this occasion, the cause of the latest loss of balance was self-inflicted. Kim`s Doctor, and even more so her Cardiologist ,have warned that her normal medicine, Anafranil, is not all that good for her heart. Luckily, she has been steadily reducing the dose until it is just sufficient, to a level, in fact, which is unlikely to do any cardiac damage. However, as a precaution, it was decided to try another more modern, `cleaner` drug, Stablon. As Kim was in good spirits at the time, and as it was Spring ( ha!) it was thought a good time to try the change.
  So, the `dirty` but tried and tested Anafranil was discontinued and the new wonder-drug started. There seem to be two problems with anti-depressive drugs. The first is they don`t work for everybody, each person suits a different set of drugs. The second is that they take up to three weeks to work---or not to work, if you get my drift. So we started on the three-weeks `probation` with me keeping a careful eye on Kim, I may not be a specialist in drugs, but I AM a specialist in Kim! The first week, things seemed fine, no darkening of mood. Then the progress seemed to level out and by the start of the third week we suspected we were in trouble. Kim was starting to feel miserable and low and by half-way through the week, it was clear the Stablon was ineffective in Kim`s case. A final straw was the killing of our ducks and hens by the trespassing dog of a friend of our neighbour. On Friday, she was starting to get weepy  I insisted on going back to the Doctor. One of the effects of depression is that Kim becomes less decisive, but I felt we were approaching a drop-off point and to wait until Monday would be dangerous. The Doctor agreed and we returned to the old drug, which, I am glad to say, has returned Kim to her usual self. You can imagine our relief! The Doctor doesn`t feel there will be any problem in continuing indefinitely on the low dose, though Kim plans to reduce it further, perhaps next year, we shall see!

  Bye for now, going to submit this article to the Editor!