Hi BCTSers and visitors, I’m Renee M and am almost 71. GRS 1992 with Stanley Biber; yup, I'm a Biber Babe.
Some older members might remember me; I never contributed very much, a poem, a short-short, and some Beatles songs with lyrics modified. Lately, I comment and even message a little; how I say whatever I’m trying to communicate isn’t very well constructed or clear, but I try.

My biggest problems at the moment are clinical depression and pseudo dementia. I think my depression is inherited/genetic. Problems started in college and for most of life since then I’ve been taking antidepressant drugs. There seems to be some connection between p dementia and having depression for a long time. I think I’m still reasonably smart; it takes me longer to absorb and understand info, but my logical thinking seems to work. The biggest problem is my memory; short term is pretty bad and I have more trouble remembering things from long ago, too.

I started writing this, in TextEdit, more than a month ago, maybe 2 months. I want to finish and post this because my 12 yr old dog is dying of cancer and we’ll have to have our vet euthanize him in the next few days. Rusty is a medium large male with a rusty orange coat with some white markings. He weighed about 75 lbs maybe 2 yrs ago but is now 50 or so. We first had the vet check him because he was losing weight and his appetite was off and on. After lots of checks, he had an X-ray that looked suspicious; the vet couldn’t seem to take good X-rays. We then took him to a vet specialty place where he had an ultrasound which showed one kidney vey messed up. It was too late for a simpler cancer treatment, we didn’t have the money and we figured he would just be suffering more for probably little result. That was last Oct. He was given 3 to 6 months to live. He’s lived 3 months more, but has been noticeably suffering more and more the past few weeks. He is still eager for his morning half mile walk, pulls hard, wants to chase cats and fight with other dogs that bark at us behind closed gates. The rest of the day, however, he just lays around and eats very little. We think he’s suffering a lot.

Otherwise, I’m biking more than the last few years. Almost every year since about ’95, I’ve biked 1000s of miles each year; my big year was 5300 miles. Since 2016, the pseudo dementia diagnosis had me bummed out and my biking’s been 300 or less. Somehow this spring when I started biking I was able to stick with it and fight off the depression. I’ve ridden some 500 miles and I’m quite a bit stronger. I’m still weak but, I can cruise at 16 mph instead of 12 or 13 like when I started this year and about the most I could do the last few years. My long ride’s been 34 miles with just a little climbing.

Big Hugs,
Renee