random thoughts on hospitalization

Random thoughts on hospitalization

I have been doing a lot of thinking the past couple of hours. I don’t know if I will end up in the hospital that I want and might end up at a hospital I was at 15 years ago, before I was diagnosed with cauda equina syndrome. The hospital there was a good place. I got the help that I needed. But I wasn’t taking narcotic pain medication at the time. I hope that they will allow me to take my pain meds.

I also hope they will allow me to take my own OCP. Without these pills I will be screwed and I will have my menses messed up. Most places will allow it and I brought an unused pack with me. I have to remember to bring my charger and my journal because the journal has my medication list in it.

I wrote my mother a little note saying where I was and not to call me because I might not have access to my cell phone while in the ER or on the unit. If I am at the unit I was before, it won’t be a problem. But if I am at the other hospital, I don’t know what their policy is as I haven’t been there in 15 years.

I am very tired. But it’s still kind of “early”. I am afraid that if I go to sleep now, I will wake up before my alarm. I am also hungry but I don’t know what to eat. I probably will just fall asleep anyways so I don’t need food.

I want to email my psychiatrist about going in the hospital ED and whether I will have access to my cell phone or not. I will find out soon enough. This is so hard. I know it needs to be done but the anxiety surrounding it is tremendous. I got to remember to wear my slip on boots and not my sneakers because I don’t want them to remove the shoelaces. I hope they allow me to have my headphones. It will suck not being able to listen to music.

Longest Day Ever

Longest Day Ever

My sister wanted to see my father by T so I went along with her because I haven’t seen him in a few days. I also wanted to be there to see if I could see the social worker and the accounts person to ask questions about my father’s stay. The regular social worker was on vacation so I met with his covering one. She was nice and gave me the information that I needed. She also gave me the number for his doctor who I have to call to find out about his prognosis and other medical issues he is having.

My father didn’t look good. He was barely able to speak he was so weak. We were able to get him in a wheelchair and bring him outside for a little bit. He was really tired afterwards. My sister and I decided to catch the bus back home and that is when the longest day started. We waited over an hour for the bus. I was standing most of the way. My leg is killing me and so are my feet. We then decided to walk toward Mass Ave to catch the bus. That turned into a forty-five minute drive. I was so tired that I tried to sleep most of the way. But no, that wasn’t going to happen.

After we reached home, we had to go to the wake. I was already dressed up for it though I thought I would have time to change into a plain white T-shirt instead of my Cauda Equina one. Nope, no time. Had to rush to the funeral home. It was sad. There was even more standing at the home because the guy was young and there were a lot of people at the wake. No sitting for me. My leg already was hurting and I wish I brought some pain pills. By the end of the wake, I wished I was the one in the casket and my friend’s husband was alive.

Random 124

I got a text from Walgreens saying that my prescription was ready. It was the Zoloft that I put in last week. I had received a mail order that my doc mistakenly put in so now I have more than a month’s supply of 50 mg. If I want to go up when I see my doc in two weeks, I can do that. There is a difference in color between the mail order pills and Walgreens. I have a light color green and a dark color green. Just hope they work.

After I picked up my script, I decided to have another pastrami and cheese sub from the good sub place. It was better today than it was yesterday. I had breakfast this morning. So now I just need to have dinner and I will be okay. I think the not eating was really playing with my mood because I feel a little better with something in my stomach. I am not saying the depression has gone away but my mood is a little lighter.

While I was at the sub shop, my cousin came in and we talked for a little while. He was trying to get me to write for news papers and such. That really isn’t my thing. I rather just work on my book. I don’t understand why my family pushes me to have a job when I am disabled. I would love to work but I just can’t right now. I am in too much pain and that is just walking around the block to Walgreens and the sub place. I have been walking more but I pay the price and no one really knows this except the blog and Twitter world.

I feel downhearted after talking with him. Even now I am hurting with my ankle flaring up for just the little walking that I did. It really makes me sad that I could have been done with college if I just didn’t have a psychotic breakdown. And now that college is so expensive, there is no way for me to go back and finish my degree.

Last night was rough. I was in a lot of pain and then when I took something for the pain, it increased. It was a tough night to get through. It’s very tiring to deal with pain. I slept until 1230 and that almost never happens. I had woken up around 8 to have breakfast and then I went back to sleep. Now I am in pain again and I just want to give up. I am just so sick of being in pain all the time, every single day. And no one gets it.

just a ramble

About an hour ago, my foot exploded in pain after I took an NSAID and some Neurontin. Now the pain is a little bit more manageable. I keep thinking over today’s events with the AAS conference tweets. I like that my Twitter buddies went to difference speaking engagements so you got different things. I especially liked the Marsha Linehan talk. She is a great person, though I didn’t like her at first. That was many years ago and at a time when DBT was the “thing” to do for people like me.

Now I would love to see CAMS to be the “thing” to do. But I don’t think I will ever find or convince my therapist to take a workshop on CAMS. She thinks her way is the right way and there is no more “learning” to be done because I do it. I am the suicidologist, not her. I think her attitude reflects most therapists that have become set in their ways. She is collaborative, don’t get me wrong and I am grateful for that but when it comes to my suicidality, it increases her anxiety and so I get shafted. I have to “limit” what I tell her so she doesn’t freak out. She has become better since the letter that I sent her last September. She is more willing to do what needs to be done in therapy to help me rather than hinder me. I give her credit for that. I know it wasn’t easy to give up my sessions this week. Whereas before, she wouldn’t think twice about canceling. It would be a no and that would be all. I would have had therapy whether I liked it or not.

I think next month I need to spend more money on my laptop because the cooling fan is going. I saw how it was to be replaced and it’s too complicated for me. I am going to ship it back to Dell and use my old laptop. I should make sure that it works before I send this off. I changed the battery on it because it needed a new one. That was the easy part. I am just grateful I have a backup laptop that I can use for what I need. I know internet explorer is useless on it. There is a problem with the hard drive that makes it impossible to update windows. I never got a new hard drive because it’s a pain re-installing everything.

I emailed my psychiatrist and told her I wasn’t going to the hospital because there was zero data supporting that it would be helpful or useful for me. All it would do is babysit me and I don’t need to be babysat. The last time I was in the hospital, my psych thought it would be “helpful” for the team to know that my father was sick and that I was his “caretaker”. I went in there because I couldn’t handle being transgender, or being in chronic pain all the time. I went there for my needs not my father’s. I was pissed that she brought it up. And it’s not like they were doing psychotherapy with me, though I am sure they were billing my insurance company for it. It’s just stupid. I rather go to the city hospital and stay there for a few days. It will be worse as I won’t have any electronics to play with, including the use of my cell phone.

There are a lot of things that I need to talk to my therapist about and I hope that we don’t talk fifty minutes of my father’s ailments. I don’t mind talking to my psych about my father because we just briefly talk about him and then we talk about my symptoms and how I am doing with it. We don’t spend the whole time talking about my father’s problem. My therapist is the crazy one. We always talk about the same things with my father. It’s never different because his ailment doesn’t change. He is a sick man and will probably die within a year if he continues to deteriorate. I have come to terms with that. My therapist just doesn’t see it and wants to talk about it like it’s so very important, thus avoiding my other side, the depression and subsequent suicidality.

I feel like taking a handful of Neurontin tonight. I just want oblivion. Maybe I will take a high enough dose and see what happens. My luck, nothing will happen.