From the desk of Ren LaForme

Growing up is a lot harder than I thought. I used to worry about what I would eat in the lunch room at my high school and what to wear in the mornings.

Now I’m making decisions that could affect my life-long relationships and my career.

I’m scared for the future. I’d never admit it to anyone face-to-face, but I am. I’m will graduate in seven months. I have no idea I’m doing after that.

I could apply to graduate schools. My grades aren’t the best — but those are for my psychology major. If grad schools focus on my journalism major, it looks like I’m doing pretty good. And I got a respectable score on the GREs.

But I don’t want to leave my girlfriend to further my schooling. I don’t want us to end up in two different cities. People who give up opportunities for a relationship are stupid — I know — but this girl is the one and I’m not going to let her go. Plus I never really wanted to go to grad school. The whole thing is just a whim for me.

I could also decide to not attend graduate school and travel with her to whichever school she gets into. I really want to get out of the Buffalo area and all of the schools are looking at are in larger cities. It would be fun to live on our own somewhere exciting.

This is the option that will most likely happen. I’ll get a job somewhere — hopefully a writing job — and work while she gets her master’s degree. I like this option because it’s the one we’ve been discussing for a while and I don’t really want to continue schooling at this point.

But this option scares me too.

A lot of the schools she is considering offer internships in far-off places like New Delhi and London. Obviously, I wouldn’t be able to go and I don’t know what would happen to me if I was left alone for 12 weeks or more.

My girlfriend went to Los Angeles over the summer for five days and I almost had a breakdown. It was really hard and I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. It’s not that I don’t trust her — I do. I trust her more than I trust my own family.

I honestly don’t trust myself. I’m pretty needy when it comes to relationships. I’ll be the first to acknowledge that I lean far too much on my significant other. I spend all of my time with her and all but ignore my friends. But we both enjoy all of the time spent together so it’s a non-issue.

Of course I would encourage her to take the internship. Journalism is her dream and this would be a career-making experience, and I’m not the boyfriend that holds her from her future.

I just get weird when I can’t see her. I can never seem to find anything to keep myself occupied. When she doesn’t call because she’s busy, it upsets me because it makes me feel unimportant. I’m not sure how I would react if she left for 12 weeks. I feel like I would end up doing something unnecessary to get her attention and act passive-aggressively toward her until I got it.

I don’t want to ruin this. I means too much to me. How do I deal with her being gone?

P.S. This post is a low point for me. I promise to not write anything with so much melancholy in the future.

Sadly, I don't have a picture of Ginger. This is the best I could find.

A member of my family died on Tuesday and I’m partially to blame.

When I took Ginger to the veterinarian in mid-spring this year, he told me that she was 10 to 15 pounds too heavy for a beagle, needed a change of diet and should start taking medicine to prevent heartworm.

I noted his thoughts, told my grandma (she’s technically the owner of the dog) and then I failed to follow through.

I owed her more. She was always there for me when I needed her.

When I was contemplating ending my 5-year-old relationship early this spring and began taking long walks along the Erie Canal bank, Ginger always happily walked right along side me, tail wagging and tongue flapping in the air.

When Keeley went to Los Angeles this summer and I got so lonely that I wanted to plunge myself into the canal’s murky waters, Ginger walked along side me with what I swear was a smile on her face. She enjoyed my company and I enjoyed hers.

There were so many nights where I came home from The Spectrum and saw Ginger staring out of her doghouse, waiting for me to take her for another long and rambling walk – to feel that connection between man and his best friend one more time. I would say something like; “Sorry, Ginger. Maybe tomorrow” and then crawl into my bed.

We never got that last walk. I never got to say goodbye.

My parents were sitting on the porch when I left the house Wednesday morning. They told me the news. They had found her lying on the ground late Tuesday evening, breathing frantically. She appeared to be in some sort of seizure. They called several area vets until one could finally see her.

The vet took one, long stare at her as she lay on the cold operating table – but there was nothing he could do. She was already gone.

And so was my chance to say goodbye. I don’t even have a picture of her.

The human body is a complex beast. Treat it with respect, or the consequences can be dire, as I recently discovered

I was diagnosed with a underactive thyroid gland during the summer last year. My doctor prescribed me a medication and promised that I would feel a lot better. At the time, I didn’t know that I needed to feel better — I thought that I felt completely fine — but I followed his advice anyway.

My doctor turned out to be right. After just a few weeks of taking the medication, I felt more energetic, more clear-headed and generally less “icky.”

Flash forward to January of this year. I got a little busy — I started as senior news editor for The Spectrum, arguably the most taxing role on the paper – and I neglected to call my doctor for a refill.

It’s not an uncommon scenario. According to a study from researchers at the University of Illinois, up to 1.3 million disabled Americans do not take their medication as prescribed. Over half suffer from health problems as a result. And that’s just disabled Americans — how many members of the general population don’t take their drugs?

Did not taking my meds make me feel any different? A little bit — I noticed that I had a harder time focusing, but that was about it. I became slightly irritable and tired but I blamed that on the job and didn’t give it much thought. Eventually, I called my doctor and got some more meds and it went away.

Two weeks ago I ran out of my prescription again. I just switched to my school’s medical insurance plan and I wasn’t sure how to get my meds so, for whatever reason, I put off picking them up.

It’s turning out to be a huge mistake. Apparently, 75mg of a little thyroid hormone has a huge effect on the body. I’ve been ridiculously tired, I’m constantly bogged down and I can’t focus. I was unfortunate to discover another side effect this time as well — my mood is altered, and for the worse.

I’ve been dating my girlfriend for over four months. In that entire time frame, I haven’t gotten mad at her once — our relationship has been an enormous ball of lighthearted fun. But things have been different the past two weeks. Suddenly, it’s the end of the world when she doesn’t text me — even though she’s hanging out with a friend. I get mad when she’s friendly toward a person I don’t like. I lose it when she shows interest in taking a trip that I might not be able to attend.

And I feel alone — so alone — that I just want to crawl into my bed and shut off all contact with friends and family. I want to be a slug under a rock — dead to the world.

Eventually, my thinking brain overtakes these bizarre and carnal emotions and I get over it, but not before it takes its toll — I end up mad at myself over my thoughts. My girlfriend has been nothing but perfect, I have no reason to feel those feelings toward her. So even though I feel better about everyone else I still feel like garbage.

I’m going to pick up my medicine tomorrow. I need to end this.

If you’re one of the millions of Americans that have decided to forgo your doctor’s orders and dump your pills — I suggest you do the same. It could help you more than you think.

http://www.ubspectrum.com/article/45

This is a column about my girlfriend, Executive Editor Keeley Sheehan.

Last semester, my columns focused on mostly political and global issues. One of them was more of a memorial than a column.

So this semester, I wanted to do something a little bit different — I decided to focus more on my own life. I chose to write my first one about Keeley since she is such a huge part of me right now.

It was a fun and whimsical article to write and I look forward to writing more personal columns in the future.