Getting involved in activities is totally a must, as has been said.
In the following, I'm going to use CAPS to improve clarity and "qoute marks" to indicate doctor language (like "hernia")--just to clarify so no one thinks I'm shouting
About the "2 month grief" thing I mentioned--I did NOT mean that, after an arbitrary length of time, you should be perfectly fine and happy. Sorrow persists, often for a lifetime. What I meant was that, similar to the 2 WEEK time necessary to define a "major depressive episode", 2 months is the clinical definition of the length of time for grief and mourning to DISRUPT DAILY ACTIVITY. The word "greiving" refers, for doctors, to the time when your pain is disruptive to your regular life.
Sorrow may persist for years but it should not cause illness, missed work, distorted irrational thoughts, etc. past the 2 month point. After this point is when the psychologist will consider it "excessive" and recommend therapy to help you get along until the grief has run its course. All I meant was, he meets the textbook definition of a CONDITION called "excessive grief" and could receive treatment for it if he so desired.
I'm very sorry if this sounds like I'm disparaging anyone's feelings, because I meant to discuss it, like depression, as a treatable medical issue with specific signs and symptoms. I still weep over my dog who died three and a half years ago, but I don't consider myself to be grieving in a formal sense of the word--I can do my work, go to school, and get up in the morning without wondering if I'd be better off if I stayed in bed until I died.
Elwood, I'd actually recommend you make the appointment to see a therapist right away because you probably won't be able to see them until next week. They usually have busy calendars and you don't want to wait until you are in a worse crisis. If you recover on your own in the next few days, you can always cancel the appointment.