London, a Spring Tonic

I have been treated for mental illness for more than 20 years. My problem is a depression manifesting itself in uncontrollable anxiety. Over the past two decades I have been treated, with medicines, and have done very well. Had I not been so treated, God knows what would have happened but I sure wouldn't have produced nine books, thousands of editorials and articles, hosted hundreds of radio programs and so on.

Because I have done so well I couldn't understand why, starting around mid January last, I began to get terrible symptoms. I was under a great deal of stress to be sure, but that's what I do for a living and I've always handled it. Here I was, shivering as if I had a fever, unable to shake the overpowering sense of doom, falling into crying jags. This was no fun and put a lot of extra pressure on my partner, Wendy. What the hell was going on? Coincidentally, my blood sugar readings (I'm a type-2 diabetic) began to plummet to the point I began to worry about low blood sugar and hypoglycemia!

(Incidentally, I take medicine for diabetes because my body doesn't produce insulin in the proper amounts and medicine for depression because my body doesn't produce enough serotonin).

Without going into details, there was a screw-up in my medications. I was taking a new diabetes pill that looked just like one of the depression medicines I've been prescribed. I confused the two and as a result I was doing great on blood sugars and lousy on depression. The fault was mine. I've never learned the proper names of my medications preferring to describe them as "that little white pill" or "the orange one that's diamond shaped." I went nine weeks without appropriate medicines for depression before I realized what the trouble was. There were three consequences.

First, I had a great look at what I was like without help. It was a very sobering and scary experience.

Second, I learned the names of my medicines.

Thirdly, before I discovered what the problem was, Wendy and I decided to go to London for a week and see if that helped. On April 15, proper medications in hand, we took a Zoom Airlines (a fairly new, excellent service) to London Gatwick.

ABBA and Wilde

Why, I'm often asked, do you go to London all the time instead of Hawaii or Mexico where those who can afford overseas vacations find preferable? A number of reasons.

We get a hotel rate at a four star hotel in South Kensington which compares very favorably with Hawaii or Mexico and the airfares are about the same. And neither Mexico nor Hawaii have for me the things I need for a proper rest. They don't have Mamma Mia, the great ABBA classic, for example, which I saw for the fifth time and Wendy for the sixth. It's not often that we have the chance for plain, uncomplicated fun which Momma Mia gave us -- as did the brilliant Penelope Keith in the Oscar Wilde classic, The Importance of Being Earnest.

Then there are the bookstores, huge ones like Waterstones on Piccadilly and small ones like Bookthrift in Thurloe Place nearby the hotel. And, of course, the fascinating used book stores on Charing Cross Road plus the Sunday book sellers' tables under Waterloo Bridge on the south side of the Thames. Wendy and I have a deal. One day we split, with her ogling the shops of New Bond Street and me doing the used book shops. Routine bag for me this trip -- only seven used books and, to balance it off, seven new ones! Every time we go to London, Wendy packs a duffle bag for my book acquisitions, every trip I vow that won't be necessary, every trip Wendy was right to pack the extra bag!

Making the rounds

Why do I buy all these books? If I live to 100 I'll never come close to reading them all.

The answers are not complicated. With a good library, I always have a good choice of books; I enjoy owning books just as a stamp collector enjoys owning stamps; and I'm a bookaholic who steadfastly refuses all cures, 12 step or otherwise.

Then there's the world's best pizza (say I, an expert who has the avoirdupois to confirm his judgment) in, of all places, the basement of Selfridges Department Store at Frankies (formerly Café 400).

Last but scarcely the least, there is our regular long walk in the parks. We take the Circle Line to Notting Hill, look in the bookstore that carries great CDs, then head to the top of Kensington Gardens for the grand trek. We stroll past the Round Pound where the au pairs and little charges feed the swans, coots and ubiquitous Canada Geese, then amble down to the Peter Pan statue.

Then it's under the bridge to Hyde Park past the Princess Diana memorial (not much in my view), then lunch at the Lido on the Serpentine where, as we munch on a bun and sip our cappuccino, we watch the English with their marvelous contempt for stupid laws throwing sticks into the waters for their dogs right under the "No Dogs Allowed" signs.

Then it's the magnificent Rose gardens at Hyde Park Gate where the flowers bloom even in winter. We then cross the road by the Duke of Wellington's home, Apsley House, into Green Park, past the memorial to Canadian service personnel then through Canada Gate and we're at Buckingham Place. The last park, St. James's, is the gem of them all and it must contain the best fed birds (including pelicans) in the world.

"Oh, a wondrous bird is the pelican!
His bill holds more than his belican.
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week.
But I'm darned if I know how the helican."
--Dixon Lanier Merritt, 1879-1972

Perspective restored

When you exit the park you're at the Horse Guards Palace Parade Ground and there's the cabinet war rooms with the magnificent, fairly new Churchill Museum, which is a must see.

One more thing. Being abstemious by nature we didn't tarry too long of course but there are the wonderful London pubs, now a pleasure to visit since the smoking ban went into effect raising, not diminishing the number of patrons.

I returned last Wednesday, fully rested and raring to go. Credit the medications or London? Leave it at this. If it was the meds, and London was just a coincidence, I'll take as many of those coincidences as I can get!

Related Tyee stories:

• Dueling with Depression
  One man's struggle to free the grip of melancholia.
• My Paxil Nightmare
  I never expected to take the anti-depressant this long -- or get addicted. The warnings came too late, but argue for a new watchdog on medicines.
• Does Winston Churchill Still Matter?
  A visit to London's new Churchill Museum confirms the answer.