Category Archives: Hospitalization

It May Not Always Be An Easy Life, But It’s My Life

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And I just want to live while I’m alive.

I think it’s time to update everyone.  I’ve had a very eventful couple of weeks.  To the point where I haven’t told anyone not directly involved in said events anything about them, not really.  It’s taken some processing time.  Also, it’s painful for me to be still long enough to write anything.

So, the new year started off with a bang.  I went to see my infectious disease specialist on the second.  There was good news: I am no longer in the acute stage of mono, I am now in the convalescent stage.  Except that really is only good news on paper, because the convalescent stage can last up to six months.  And having had mono before, I know that it’s pretty much guaranteed to with me.

I felt so miserable (physically) that very day that I went to the urgent care directly as I had finished my appointment, and they pumped me full of two liters of fluid.  I didn’t have to pee once.  I tell you this, because as anyone in the medical field might recognize, it was indicative of my severe dehydration.

The next day I took my two younger sprites down to see the lights at the Denver City and County Building, as I was meant to do the day before, but couldn’t, being hooked up to an IV and all.  This may have been a mistake, as I was in no shape for it (there was much to see, so we got out and they ran around while I trailed behind and hollered for them not to get too far away), but we had a really nice time and I managed to save my meltdown(s) until I came home.

I haven’t melted down like that in a long time.  That night I was like Vesuvius.  Explosions and tears and anger and yelling and frustration. . .  Well it got very ugly.  I was emotionally and physically drained, and had made the mistake of actually looking long-term and realizing that July was when I was probably going to be back to about 85%.

See, that was (and still is) kind of a huge thing for me to deal with, because I pretty much spent three years in bed due to mental illness.  Except for appointments and very rare visits with friends, I lived my life curled up in my sheets.  I couldn’t wrap my head around being forced back into a state like that, even temporarily, and even when I was doing pretty damned good psychologically.

Well, I had a lovely friend, whom I actually reached out to — which is huge in itself — help me through that night.  And for that (among other things) I’ll always be grateful to her.

So I’m dealing with the mono recovery road, but I’m also dealing with sciatica.  I developed mild sciatica about a decade ago, in my left hip and leg, when The Artist formerly known as Babygirl (I can’t call her Babygirl anymore, I’m afraid, she’s 13 and way too grown up) had been riding on my hip for a couple of years.  It went away — I would get a tinge every now and again, but no big deal.

Well, starting last Fall, it came back, and it came hard.  A couple of the times I went to the urgent care for Dilaudid injections, the sciatica was my primary pain.

(Side note:  My primary care doctor and I — the one I was certain there was no hope of salvaging a relationship with — somehow hit the reset button during one of my urgent care visits.  A doctor at another location in the same network that my doctor works in essentially treated me as a crazy drug-seeker, which pissed my doctor off righteously, and I’m wondering if it maybe made him see the way I felt he was treating me [minus the drug-seeker part, he's never treated me badly from that standpoint].  Whatever it was, he and I are now on the best terms once again.  Just goes to show you, there is always hope when a person is a good person.)

It continued to build, and it continued to build, and after seven urgent care trips in two-and-a-half months, and a conversation on the phone with my doctor this past Thursday, I ended up spending Thursday night in the emergency room.  My doctor wanted me somewhere they could do a more thorough workup, instead of just treating the pain, and I was happy to defer to him.

It took two shots of Dilaudid (I don’t think the first one was more than one milligram, I think the second was about twice that), but finally, finally, and for the first time in months, I think, I was out of pain.  I knew that day that I was in a great deal of pain, and waiting in the ER to even get through triage was pretty ugly, but I don’t think I knew how bad the pain really was until I got out of it.

So I saw my primary in the urgent care on Friday, because his office said they couldn’t get me in until the beginning of February (he said other things when I saw him).  I have an MRI set for Monday morning to check for a slipped disk or spinal compression, I’ll be set up for physical therapy contingent on the results of that, I’m taking an oral steroid — if that helps there will be steroid injections to follow — muscle relaxers, and I’ve got my good friends ibuprofen and oxycodone keeping my pain minimal for now.

It took me some time to process all of this, and I’m probably not done — right now I’m just kind of high.  I keep hearing things from people like, “Wow, you just have one thing after another,” or, “It never stops for you, does it?”  And there is truth in those statements.

But, with the exception of The Night Of Vesuvius, I’m alright. Better than alright.  Even that night was just some dealing and processing I had to do to get to here.  My mental health is well intact, praise God, and everything else will fall into place as long as I have that.  After being without it for so many years, I feel like as long as I’ve got it — and all of the support my amazing friends and family show me — I am leading a charmed life.  It may sound cockeyed, but then so have I been cockeyed for pretty much all of my life.  ;)

You may not be hearing from me much, as I have instructions not to sit for long, and when I do rest, the only way that I’m comfortable for any length of time is if I lay down and stick two big pillows beneath my hips.  You try working on a laptop at that angle.

But I’ve been playing on Twitter; if you don’t already know me there, my handle is @BlushingScarlet.  That I can do from my phone, which is easier to stick on my stomach and type with.  I’m going to still do everything I can to be a good admin for A Canvas Of The Minds, which now has so many wonderful authors that they can easily run they site without me (which is good, I may not be writing much there for the present).*  I’m reading posts from my phone, and clicking the “Like” button is my version of “I was here, thank you for giving me something worthwhile to read”, and sometimes I will attempt a comment — though those can get a little too runaway for a phone and a girl like me.

My personal correspondence is going to be a little slower.  And by that I mean even slower than normal.  Same with comment responses.  But just know it isn’t because I’ve forgotten, okay?  I love you all so very much.

I’ll leave you with the pictures I took in the ER while high as a kite on Dilaudid, Prednisone, Valium, and at least one or two other things.  I honestly just remember there were multiple shots and I swallowed a cupful of pills, and those of you who know me well know that for me to have been that willing to put so much blind faith in any doctor, things were pretty bad.  But I had fun trying to take pictures amid the tangle of wires (blood pressure cuff on my left arm, pulse oximeter on my right pinky, oxygen hooked up to my nose, mp3 player headphones in my ears to help zen me out) in my little ER bed.  Thank God the nurse left the sides up, I probably would have fallen out.

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And also, I give you the immortal words of Jon Bon Jovi, from the song Its My Life: “My heart is like an open highway/Like Frankie said, ‘I did it My Way‘”

“Don’t bend, don’t break, baby, don’t back down. . .”

I won’t if you won’t.

Kisses,
Ruby

*Speaking of Canvas, we can now boast of two Freshly Pressed authors! In case you missed it, DeeDee was Pressed in December for her piece Coming Out Bipolar, Round 1, and just this past week Alice was Pressed for her piece Epic Quests and crap like that. Congratulations to them both; they write good shit, and more importantly, they’re good eggs. Now they just have to get something they’ve written for Canvas Pressed!

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2013. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Lessons I Have Learned: When Going To The Emergency Room For Psychiatric Reasons, Make Sure The Hospital Has A Psychiatrist Available To Assess You

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So last night it finally happened.  Enough became too much and I decided I couldn’t take it anymore.

I didn’t down a bottle of pills or fill up the bathtub and slit my wrists, no, not Ruby.  I very calmly and rationally decided that the way I had been “coping” could not continue, and I drove myself to the nearest hospital emergency department.

Yes, some one specific thing did happen that triggered me last night, but that wasn’t why I reached this point.  I had dealt with the mixed, I’d been dealing with the ultradian, but not in any real, functional sense.  I was gripping tight to the moment, hiding out in my room and watching old comfort films, completely cutting myself off from any and all contact with the outside world, sleeping whenever possible.  That’s the one thing I can say about being on a perpetual emotional rollercoaster, it exhausts you enough to cure insomnia while it lasts.

But last night I realized that even for me, this was getting to be too much.  I don’t have a psychiatrist.  I had a consult with one on Thursday, and though we scheduled a follow-up for a couple of weeks out, I don’t see it working.  I have another consult scheduled for January, and while I have a better feeling about this doctor just from one phone conversation, that’s still two months away, and I could meet him and he could be nothing like I had thought (hoped).  All of the other doctors my previous psychiatrist recommended have declined to see me on the grounds that they feel they can’t help me because my case is too complicated, or occasionally just that they’re not taking on new patients.

Now don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the honesty of the former reason, it saves me and the doctor involved a great deal of time and frustration.  But I am at the point of just Googling psychiatrists in my area and calling random names that come up.  I don’t know how much you lovelies know about Google and the way its algorithms work, but the doctors who show up first on there are unlikely to turn away a new patient, any new patient, no matter how out of their league she is.

Back to last night.  So I thought things through and decided my best option was to head to the ER.  I wasn’t a threat to myself, nor a danger to others, so I knew they couldn’t hold me against my will.  All I wanted was an assessment, some direction, something for my moods (preferably an atypical anti-psychotic, which by itself should tell you something, because those bastards have always been miserable for me in the past), and some Xanax for my anxiety if I could get it.  I figured I would get my consult with someone from the psychiatry department and be on my merry little way – at least merrier than when I had arrived.

Except for one thing.  My nearest hospital doesn’t have a psychiatry department.

It’s no small hospital, either.  It specializes in all sorts of disciplines, has won awards for its achievements, and when I went in for the pseudoseizures (on a Saturday), there was a neurologist available to read my EEG.

But I guess mental health just isn’t really that important.

What ended up happening was this:  The ER doc did a cursory exam, checking my wrists and legs for any signs that I had harmed myself.  I get it, in that situation my word is not sufficient.  I was then made to go pee in a cup.  Drug screen, again something that (apparently) is routine in these situations.  P.S.  While I “get” why these things are procedure, they still piss me off and made me feel violated in a small way.

It was about then that I noticed the gaggle of police officers in the general vicinity of my room.  I had seen them coming in, but I wasn’t really focused.  A little later on the gaggle had dwindled to a single officer, and it was obvious he was settled in for some reason.  It was about then I began to have my suspicions that the reason was me.  The way he would deliberately not look up at me when I passed him coming out of my room, or deliberately not look in when he passed my room – to, I dunno, stretch his legs or something – made it quite apparent he was very carefully watching me from the corner of his eye.  This entrenched my suspicions more deeply.  Was I being paranoid?  I sure didn’t feel that way.  I felt like I was a potentially unstable “mental patient” and he was there to subdue me, should things get out of hand.  Not the nicest sensation I have ever felt.  But, once again, I “got” it.  I had chosen to be there, I had to play by their rules.

To continue with the evening, the “assessment therapist” was busy somewhere else and unable to see me until morning.  I had the choice of being discharged with the information for the place where they could “assess” me, maybe on Monday or Tuesday of next week (Psychobabble for a week, minimum).  At the point and in the state I was in, even a legitimate Monday or Tuesday seemed an eternity away, much longer than I could wait.  I guess the term “emergency” is highly subjective.

My second choice was to be given some Xanax, spend the night there, and see the “assessment therapist” first thing in the morning.  I went with door number two.  The bed was not terribly comfortable (ER beds are nothing like hospital beds, for those of you who don’t know – they’re pretty much a thin plastic mat draped with a sheet), but the nurse was nice and I figured this method would expedite things.  Ha.

The said “therapist” arrived in the morning at about eight.  Boy, did that bitch ever choose the wrong line of work.  She went through her little assessment form (coughing her disgusting old lady smoker’s cough throughout), never once smiling and only glancing up at me a few times. Two questions:  If you have voluntarily chosen this as your line of work, shouldn’t one of your job requirements include the ability to show at least a slight degree of understanding and empathy toward the patient?  And if you’re trying to get a read on someone’s mental state, isn’t it important to take in as much detail as you can?  Body language, facial expression, tone of voice, affect in general? Apparently no and no.

I understand that assessing some crazy chick in the local emergency room first thing in the morning is not necessarily the most fun way to spend your Saturday, but through all of this does in never once occur to her that “there but for the grace of Thee go I?”

I’m reporting that motherfucker if I can get it together to do so on Monday.

And the upshot of it all was that she wasn’t going to put me on a mental health hold (damn fucking straight she wasn’t, I guarantee I could have taken down her and the hospital security guy outside my room – he had been swapped for the real cop in the night, I guess when I was deemed slightly less of a threat – and anyone else who tried to get in my way if they tried to hold me without my consent), and she could get me in to the mental health center Monday or Tuesday, with an appointment with an actual psychiatrist in two to three weeks (Psychobabble for a month to six weeks).  I pretty much told her fuck you, I’m better off handling this one on my own – in only marginally more polite terms.

So I was discharged with a prescription for Xanax and instructions to follow up with my PCP on Monday.  The doctor wouldn’t even discuss the possibility of an anti-psychotic, because they’re apparently “too strong and serious.”  Really?  Because last time I checked, both benzos and anti-psychotics are schedule IVs, with benzos carrying a much higher potential for and incidence of abuse, dependence, and addiction.  The translation here from Doctorspeak would be “I known nothing about atypical anti-psychotics, so I’m going to hand you some benzos.  Those I give out like candy on Halloween.”

I’m not going to say that I regret having gone to the hospital.  It will certainly make a splash with my primary when I tell him.  I have always been very anti-hospitalization (for myself, I know that it can be a good and necessary thing for many people) as far as psychiatric issues, never have I been to the emergency room for them, and in the five years I saw my former psychiatrist, I think I used his emergency doctor on call service maybe four times.  So if nothing else, my PCP might be able to get me in to see a competent psychiatrist very quickly.  He’s a jewel, he takes good care of all of his patients, but he pulls more strings more frequently for me than I think any other patient he sees.  I think I’m kind of like the daughter he never had (two sons a few years younger).  He’s a very good man, and I am very lucky to know a good thing when I see it (and follow it around from practice to practice to practice to practice over the course of more than a decade).

Moral of the story:  Should this situation ever arise again (God forbid), I’m going to drive twenty minutes instead of five to a hospital which has the capability to treat me.  Do your research when you’re sane, boys and girls.  It could really help you out a great deal when you are in dire straits and need good information most.

Note:  If you don’t read this blog regularly, you might gain further insight into this whole period in my life by reading the following posts:  It Was The Worst Of Times, It Was The Worst Of Times, Charting The Course To See Where I Fell Off The Map, I Am Disabled, and I Put The HOT In Hot Mess.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

The Rest Of The Story

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So I didn’t exactly tell all of you lovely readers the entirety of my situation in my last post.  Read on and you’ll find out why.

I’m tired.  I’m so, so unbelievably tired that I can’t do anything and I just got off of the phone with my doctor tossing around possible causes.  All I do is sleep like the dead.  Yesterday afternoon, I had it all set in my mind.  I thought, I’m just going to take a short nap and then I can get my laundry and my packing done.’  Only the puzzle pieces had not yet come together in my head – that happens with me sometimes – so I didn’t set an alarm, and my ‘short nap’ lasted about 14 hours.

I then woke up this morning, thought, ‘Fuck, what am I going to do now?’  posted the entry before this one, talked to my mom for about half an hour, then – you guessed it – I went back to sleep for about three hours.  The only reason I’m awake now is because of the aforementioned phone call from my doctor.

You see, it took a couple of weeks, but it did slowly dawn on me that sleeping upwards of 22 hours a day is not really normal.  I had been having so much trouble sleeping at all, if you remember, so at first I thought my system was just sort of “catching up” and re-regulating itself.  Then, when it persisted, I figured I was letting myself sleep too much, which was making me more tired (one of those stupid but true things that happens).  So I tried restricting my sleep time and doing things to energize me.  Fail.  I would fall asleep while doing things.

This morning it finally dawned on me that, hey, this ain’t normal and it ain’t going away either.  Three possibilities crossed my mind: hypothyroidism, anemia, and the dreaded specter of mononucleosis.

I’ve never been hypothyroid, but my doctor had expressed concern after my last emergency room visit that the thyroid hormone I had been taking to treat depression might have done permanent harm to my thyroid.  It tested normal a few weeks ago, and he doesn’t seem to think that’s causing this.  With this conclusion, I tend to agree.

Anemic is also something I’ve never been, I just know it can make you tired, and thought if I was potentially going in for a blood draw, we ought to check that while we’re at it.  Doctor didn’t think that was the case either.  Okay.

But the mono thing. . .  Let me give you a little background.  Another entry into Ruby’s Medical Incredible.  I have had mononucleosis at least twice, and I actually am pretty convinced I had it a third time and it was just never tested for then – because actually it would have been the first time - so we’ll never know, now will we?

(By the by, remind me, someone – and I mean this seriously, it isn’t like all of my other “Maybe I’ll tell you about that some time” moments – multiple someones, everyone, to write a post about why I have such a certainty about that potential first time with mono.  It’s an interesting idea and I could use some feedback.)

The first time it was medically documented was high school, and it knocked me flat on my back for a few months.  I would quite likely have died from starvation within those first couple of weeks, had it not been for my mother.  She would literally wake me up a couple of times a day, keep me awake long enough for me to drink a vitamin shake, and then I would pass back out.  I was damned near comatose.  I came slowly back to consciousness during those months, but I had to drop an entire semester of classes.  It actually hit me so hard that after a summer spent convalescing, I returned to school – only to have to drop that subsequent semester halfway through.  I was still so easily exhausted that I just couldn’t keep up – or more accurately, awake.

Venture into mono-land number two (or three, maybe), happened about four years later and put me in the hospital.  I was tired, but not in the manner nor to the degree detailed above. I was vividly yellow from jaundice and severely dehydrated.  Initially my bumbling medical team (this would be the time when my regular doc was out of town) thought – nay, they were convinced - that it was gallstones.  The gastroenterologist (God bless him) who was scheduled to operate on me the following morning took one look at me and said, “She doesn’t have gallstones, it looks to me like she has mono.”  Apparently they never tested me for that one, because that was back in the days when they still thought you couldn’t get mono more than once, not unlike chicken pox.  There, now you have a better idea of how old I am.

Sure enough.  The jaundice element was because my liver swelled into hepatitis (my spleen, of course, swelled as well) causing the attractive flavescense in my pallor.  Both my PCP and my infectious disease specialist told me that I was the first documented recurrence of mono (blood work to back it up) that either of them had ever seen.  They’d seen relapses, yes, but that would be sort of what I had during high school.  Four years in between does not a relapse make.

Back to the present, my doctor didn’t think mononucleosis was likely either – and I don’t know that I do, but damn, it does feel an awful lot like it.  The few suggestions he did come up with – well now that I’m fully awake, I wish I had argued my point more forcefully (or at all) because I know myself and they’re wrong.  That’s something else going on with me lately, I’m so worn out that I can’t even be bothered to get upset or fight my own battles.  Which is going to mean so much more to those of you who know me and have for some years.

I’m not depressed, although I have had random bouts of crying here and there for absolutely no reason that are easily suppressed and pass quickly.  And I’m not pregnant, a possibility my doctor raised.  Or if I am, another entry into Ruby’s Medical Incredible.

And in the first thought of, last mentioned case, I know depression in all of its many presentations and manifestations, and this is not one of them.

So what is it, then?  Right now I’m thinking mono and hoping that I’m wrong.  Although that really isn’t such a huge deal, it’s pretty innocuous as illnesses go, just a pain in the ass, and I don’t have a job or classes or responsibilities (as such).  I just have to power through the errands and the packing, I’ve got my mom as my backup, should she come home from work tonight and find me asleep, she is to wake me up, I mean really awake so that I can show her I’m all packed.

Here I go.  May the Starbucks be with me.

Moral of the story:  Time and tide.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

So There Is A Hospital In My Future, It Would Seem

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Hopefully the psych ward will not be involved, though.  I’ll explain.

First, though, I have to apologize.  Lulu (LunaSunshine), Jondi, Manic Monday, I owe all of you comment replies (lots of them!), and I mostly haven’t been keeping up with your blogs.  Even yesterday, when I was just doing ‘maintenance. . .’  Well, things started out okay, but then I got really grumpy and pissy, and I don’t interact with people when I get that way, with very rare exceptions.  By the time I was shaken back into a good mood (much thanks to my dear, dear friend Andrea, and my new friend, her brother Brian, for that) I was just wiped out.  I know that you all understand, but hopefully I can manage to get some things done this evening.

So the hospital.  Basically, I tugged on Superman’s cape, and as a result, I am once again experiencing psychogenic non-epileptic seizures (PNES), also call pseudoseizures.  If you want to know more about my personal experiences with this particular issue, and a little excerpt from an expert about why they happen to begin with, you can read my post about all that jazz, An Unspeakable Dilemma.

Well thankfully, I had done some reading, and that, along with increased self-analysis and subsequent changes in my life, had caused their cessation.  Totally and completely, for months.  I thought I was set, so I got stupid and told people this (quite proud of myself, no less). . .  And, ta-da, here I am again.

Where the hospital comes in, well about two months ago I had a visit with a lovely neurologist regarding my migraines (different doctor from the one mentioned in The ‘Miracle Max’ Moment - my very first post ever, sigh).  She was great, and treated me with a very holistic approach:  The migraines are related to the mood disorder and the pseudoseizures (by then they weren’t actively a problem anymore, but we still talked about them) and other neurological issues I was having.  It was refreshing to have someone take everything into consideration, instead of just blaming my bipolar for all things (which they clearly just lacked answers for and could not cop to) – from headaches to bruising.

This neurologist said that while the neurologist who read my EEG was very good, he specialized in neuromuscular issues.  Which meant that while he could still interpret an EEG quite competently, he probably wouldn’t be as well-versed in picking up the finer points of things seizure-related.  She told me very calmly, but very firmly (I swear they should have her magically teach all doctors to speak like this) that were I to have any more pseudoseizures, I should definitely be checked out by the seizure disorders clinic at the hospital there (where I had my appointment with her).  This was also where the ER doctor who initially diagnosed me referred me to follow-up, it’s a university hospital with a stellar reputation.

So.  From what I understand, said clinic hooks you up to an EEG and monitors you via video. . . overnight.  I don’t know how many of you have had an EEG, or are uncomfortable being video-taped (or whatever fancy digital thing they use these days), but how the hell am I supposed to sleep with all of that crap stuck to my head, in my hair. . . and knowing that I am being recorded, as well?

But I will submit to this, because the issue at hand (or head) is that you can have PNES and still have an organic seizure disorder, just as you can have something like epilepsy and still experience pseudoseizures.  They need to rule out that there is anything else going on, and this is apparently the very best way in which to do that.

Much as I relish another trip to the hospital about as much as one to the dentist (oh, that’s right, I don’t think I wrote about my most recent emergency room visit on here. . . oy), I know this is not something to be taken lightly, and while it probably isn’t anything serious, if it is it’s much more serious than having a tooth fall out.

So here I go again.  I’ll try to keep you all updated, but it will likely be some time before I get an appointment or know anything.  Plus, my memory is for shit lately (if lately encompasses a year-and-a-half).

Moral of the story:  I need to listen to myself, because Jim (Croce) and I have had this discussion so many times. Watch this and learn the lesson that I am apparently incapable of absorbing: 


(This song and video are solely the property of their respective owners and artists. Absolutely no copyright infringement is intended.)  

Love, love, love this song.  And Jim Croce, as well. 

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

To Hospitalize Or Not To Hospitalize

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That seems to be the question.

I have spent all of my life saying, “No, no, no, under no circumstances, absolutely not, I never want to be put (or put myself) in a psych ward.”  I have a friend who has been hospitalized on several occasions, and she said it made her feel safe and taken care of.  Me, I can only imagine feeling trapped and regimented and told what to do, when to do it, what to eat, which meds to take and when. . .  Well, if I weren’t crazy upon checking in, I certainly would be after a day or so.

I have to be in control, you see.  I have to decide what I want to eat, and whether I want to eat it at three in the afternoon or three in the morning.  I need to be able to run to Starbucks when the urge hits me.  I need to be able to lay in bed on days when I just cannot face the world, not made to get up and “interact.”

But twice lately I have been seriously thinking about the unimaginable, about “committing myself.”  I am not a danger to myself or anyone else.  But the first instance was close to a month ago, when I was very out-of-control manic.  I felt like I hadn’t any other options, and that if nothing else I would be in an environment where I could get the kind of close scrutiny and observation that I needed, and hopefully something helpful for the mania.

Thank God the drugs I did have kicked in that day, because I don’t want to be scrutinized and observed.  I’m not a research project or experiment.

Today, the catalyst for these thoughts was a great deal simpler.  I woke up.  That’s all, I woke up and couldn’t go back to sleep.  And I thought about having to face the world, and the day, and talking to people, and having responsibilities, and even just not being able to shut out the things dancing around and around in my brain.  And it got me thinking about the hospital.  After the last time, I even went so far as to ask my doctor if I were to do it, which would be the best hospitals in the area.

I want somewhere to hide.  From myself as well as everyone else.  I don’t really think that hospitalization could provide that, from what I have heard.  I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a private room, and that alone would push me over the edge.  The nurses and doctors coming in to give me medications, to check on me, to encourage me to/make me go participate in group and individual therapy sessions. . .

But I don’t know what to do.  Will someone please help me figure out what to do?

How the hell could a hospital help me, anyway?  I’ve been on every drug, no exaggeration.  Would you like to talk with my psychiatrist, because he’ll confirm that for you.  I’ve had 16 rounds of electroconvulsive therapy, which only made me worse.  I’ve tried IPSRT and CBT and EMDR (which are all common types of therapy for bipolar disorder), and I didn’t find relief from any of them.  What could the psych ward of a hospital do that hasn’t already been done?

There’s just this one thing.  The fact that after a lifetime of saying, “Absolutely not,” to the idea of inpatient treatment, I have now thought seriously about it twice within the span of a month.  And on my own, without suggestion or coercion or manipulation.

The thing that made me so angry about the ECT, in retrospect, is that no one asked me why I had suddenly changed my mind on something I had been so violently against.  So I guess the best way to end this would be to ask that question myself:  Why am I seriously considering changing my mind on in-patient treatment, when for all of my life I have been against it?  

The best answer I can think of is that I’m scared, and I’m lost, and I don’t know what else to do.  Does that count?  Is it enough for me to do it?  It’s most certainly a far better and more legitimate answer than, “Because my doctor told me I have no other options.”

Maybe since I have had these thoughts so frequently, it’s a sign that I’m headed toward an inevitable action.  And certainly if that’s the case, then it’s much better to bow to it now – when I can do it myself, instead of being forced into it, when I can ask the questions and get the answers that I need, and when I am still coherent and competent enough to be an active force in my treatment, and get the hell out if need be.

Moral of the story:  Sorry, no moral today.  It’s just all way too much right now.

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.

Perfect

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That’s what the shirt I’m wearing says, anyway.  I got it at a Sara Evans show – my dad’s band was the opening act.

But it’s times like now that I have to remind myself how, well if not perfect, then pretty damn spectacular I am.

I think I’ve kicked the mania in the ass with a loading dose of gabapentin, and what I’m told is a high dose of Valium, along with some blasts of Xanax, just for safe measure.  This is a good thing.  Except that when the mania goes away, the depression sets in.  I have meds to treat that, too, but I’m waiting to see how bad it gets, because I don’t want to start a whole rapid-cycling/mixed episode mess.

I have, essentially, become my own psychiatrist.  I don’t recommend that people do this.  But I’ve got the years and the knowledge and the safety net to know what works for me and what doesn’t.  This isn’t delusional or grandiose thinking, it’s fact.  I didn’t go through all of that time in Hell without being wiser for the experience.

I thought about calling my primary care yesterday morning (I’ve got his private cell).  And I even thought about putting in a call to my ex-psychiatrist.  But I know more about psych meds than my primary, and I know exactly what my ex-shrink would prescribe for me, and I won’t take it.  I still thought about calling them, but for a different reason.

All of my life I have been violently opposed to the concept of hospitalizing myself.  My sister thinks of the hospital as a safe place, where she knows she cannot hurt herself and will be taken care of.  I think of the hospital as a prison, somewhere you cannot escape, where you have to eat your meals when they serve them to you (and you have to eat what they serve), someone tells you when to sleep and when to take your pills and when to come out and be social with the rest of the patients.

I can’t do that.  Part of what keeps me alive is knowing that I can run out for a pint of Ben and Jerry’s at two a.m., and I can go to the book store or the mall when I please, I can talk on my phone to whomever, whenever I would like, I can set the social metrics that are right for me, as opposed to the algorithms and treatment plans the books and studies and years of practice have hardwired the doctors to believe are “right for me.”  I need my freedom to stay alive.

But yesterday morning, I sat on my mother’s bed doped up and destroyed from the lack of control, and I discussed with her the fact that maybe it was time for me to voluntarily check myself in, and that I should call up my doctors to get their opinions on good facilities.  I was not a danger to myself or anyone else, I just really felt it was potentially my best option, and going inpatient would at least get some fresh eyes and intense scrutiny on my situation.

Then, thank God, I went into my bedroom, put I Love Lucy on the computer, and slept.  Like the dead, for about nine hours.

But I cannot seem to go up without going down.  So tonight, I focus on the good things about me.  I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m telling myself and they just won’t stick.  Nature of the beast, I guess.

Moral of the story:  ”If all your friends were named Cliff, would you jump off them?” (Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius)

© Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Ruby Tuesday and I Was Just Thinking. . . with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. This work is protected under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.