Category: chronic physical pain

Hosp vs no Hosp

I have been thinking about this for the past hour, talking it over with the voices. They are loud tonight. I haven’t taken my night meds yet. But I am thinking this, what if I go in the hospital and they smack the “complicated grief” bullshit on me because my father died two weeks ago? I have been struggling with the hospital for more than a month now as the depression was and has been steadily getting worse. I only avoided getting in the hospital a week before my father died because I didn’t want him to die while I was inpatient.

My depression started the last week in January and then got complicated when my father had to go for radiation treatment, then two weeks later was in the hospital because of chest pain. That started his decline. We spent most of March in the hospital with him for pleural effusions, lung collapses, and ascites build up. In April, his ammonia levels were up, causing confusion and more lethargy. His appetite then became non existent and we were told he had a few weeks to a few months to live. Turned out he had just a few weeks. We put him in the nursing home on April 8th and he was gone by April 25th. Not even twenty days later.

In the middle of March, I got started on an antidepressant. Thoughts of wanting to kill myself were rampant. I should have been in the hospital but I became my father’s health care proxy during one of his admissions in March. I couldn’t go in because if they needed my signature while he was confused or needed treatment he couldn’t consent for, I had to be there. It was a delicate situation.

I think starting on antidepressant therapy helped me cope. I still wasn’t eating as I have lost a considerable amount of weight during this time. My last physical in August, I was 218. I am now 203/205. I am struggling to keep this weight because I don’t want to balloon up again. I still don’t have a full appetite like I used to have. Food doesn’t interest me much. I lost a lot of interest in things I used to enjoy. I should be watching the Sox game right now but I am blogging because I really don’t care about the game anymore. It’s lost its appeal with me, and that is not because of the team and all the drama it has this year. I have also lost interest in coffee. I don’t drink it every day like I used to. I can’t remember the last time I made it at home. I don’t go to Starbucks as often as I used to either. I just lost the taste for their coffee, which I used to love. I go there out of habit now but only if I have an appointment in Boston. Otherwise, I just stay at home.

I don’t know if I need to be in the hospital. Sure I am at risk of suicide, that is a given. But will I be helped while being in, is the question. I don’t know if it will annoy me or help me. I don’t know what hospital I will go to. If it isn’t the hospital I was in before, I will hate being somewhere else. The past three years I have been going to this unit when I need to be inpatient. It will be difficult being somewhere else that I haven’t been to before. And I don’t want to be in the ER all day and night waiting for a bed, though I will if that means going to the hospital of my choice. Last admission, I made it to the hospital and was admitted through their admission office rather than through the ER. I just cut the middle man out.

I just really don’t want to be admitted and then have the admission focused on my grief for a father I really didn’t care for or love whole heartedly. He wasn’t a dad by any means. He wasn’t loving towards us, though he probably would have said so. The only time I seen him show affection was when he won at the track and wanted to share his prize winnings. I could go on about the cruelty of the man but I won’t. That will be another blog. I will be damned if some social worker or attending psychiatrist pegs me as a complicated grief stage when it’s only been two weeks and I have been depressed since around the 19th of January. I only remember that date because I know that is when my feelings changed and my appetite became less. The physical symptoms of depression reared it’s ugly head and I was in pain. I was walking in mud. My thoughts were slow and painful. It took me hours to write a 300 word blog. All the while, I would have urges to take a bottle of pills. It didn’t matter which one I took. I just knew to not reach for my pain medication because I was not going to die of liver failure due to acetaminophen. That bottle was not to be touched. All the others were up for grabs. I had a choice or I could take all of them. Mix and match. I didn’t care as long as I didn’t see tomorrow. My hanging myself went out the window because I don’t have a beam. And partly because I don’t like things around my neck except for a tie.

My father died before I could have killed myself. I find this ironic. I know that between my therapist and my psychiatrist, both will make it so I get in the hospital. The only question is what kind of care I will have there. I know I will have a mountain of meds to sort through and I hope they don’t deny me my pain meds. I will not be happy about that one bit. I guess that it’s the care that keeps me from going in the hospital as well as the list of medication that I take. I take around 12 pills every night. I know if I go to the hospital of my choosing, it will be more like 20 pills because they will break up one of my medication. Instead of taking 1 pill, I will be taking 4. I go through this every admission. They don’t have the formulary in the hospital so they make do with another formulary, which means more pills. Guess I will find out tomorrow if I will go in or not. I am scared though. Giving up my rights and my cell phone is hard, even if it is for a little while.