I’m a smoker and my doctor has warned me that pretty soon I would have to stop, because once in your thirties, your risk for blood clots increase if you smoke.

I had my follow-up appointment on Friday to see how the birth control (that I’ve begun taking two months ago for my PMDD) is going.

For the first time in my life my blood pressure has elevated. It’s still pretty healthy. I think it was 120/84. She said according to all my records, my blood pressure has pretty much always been 120/70.

Well… she’s pretty sure the cigarettes are causing the increased blood pressure, and if, in 6 weeks, I go back and my blood pressure is still going up, she has to take me off birth control.

I really, desperately do not want that.

For the first time in a few years, I am starting to feel more normal during that one heinous week of each month where my emotions and depression become monsters with their own agendas.

I do not want to switch to a different method, such as an anti-depressant, because the side-effects are greater, and I feel fine most of the month.

After this weekend, I have to try hard not to smoke anymore.

This is something that should have happened a long time ago, anyway; I just never had a “good” excuse to be motivated enough to quit.

If I don’t quit, I could be compromising the positive changes occurring in my life, and that would be foolish.

So, here’s to health!