Psychiatrist says....

I'm still pretty sick. No surprise. A bit weird because I'm not sure she really knows how immense the improvement has been, but I need support to remain peaceful with staying home longer. I know I have to, and I'm doing really well not panicking about it, but I still need reminders every so often.

It was strange because she didn't follow the usual routine in the assessment. I think she knew it wasn't great. I realized after I left I wasn't even making eye contact at all. I'm definitely still looking off.

She did tell me that there is further research now that indicates lithium may be neuroprotective. I just wanted to throw that out since it came up last week.

I'm going to keep increasing the Seroquel dose. I think she'd like me to be at 600 mg or less. I'm at 400 right now.

I also have to go to my regular doctor because I haven't been taking my thyroid medicine routinely. It's hard to take an AM med when you sleep through it. I have a feeling I need to start totally over there. I also am due for the semi-annual loss of a LOT of blood. I did make it 2 months without a needlestick though. That's a record since May 2006 I think.

She gave me, by my request, a few diurectic pills to try to get the swelling in my legs down. It's uncomfortable and my shoes don't fit which makes it hurt even more. Diuretics and lithium aren't a good combination, but can be done for a few days. I have a history of leg edema being associated with high blood pressure, so this is a proactive move. My blood pressure has been great, I really want to keep it that way.

She also agrees that I'm not ready for SSDI. I really needed to hear that from her. Everyone who counts agrees with me. I am ready to learn about it, but I can keep working for a while longer.

And she wrote another work excuse. She wrote for 6 more weeks. At that point I'll hopefully go back part-time and slowly increase. Actually it's hopefully I'll go back a little sooner, but we all seem to think that moving slowly is good this time. Not just because it is helping with not having crazy med reactions, but also because I'm benefitting from the lack of stress and noise. It's weird to think I'm going to be off 11 or 12 weeks when we all thought 2 weeks when it was apparent I needed to be off in general, but my body has said slow so slow it shall be.

I proceeded to drive home, stopped to get my prescription filled and pick up a med for heartburn, and when I got home I fell sound asleep almost immediately. Even that is a huge day I guess, and all I did was drive up (2 hours), kill some time, wait 5 minutes, talk for 75 minutes, get lunch, and drive home with a quick pharmacy stop. Oh, and I didn't scream at this extremely rude man in the store who was trying to select pull-up depends. He was talking on a cell phone loudly and had his body and cart directly in front of the meds I needed. He did not move, nor did he really do much looking. Basically he was just standing. I stood and wait for over 5 minutes before deciding he wasn't going to let me grab my Xantac, nor was he going to be the slightest bit polite, and I couldn't trust myself to not be rude if I asked him to move.

So that was my day. Pretty glad for boring.