Locked up, Day 6

It started with a night of bad sleep. I had nightmares and kept waking up. I know I talked to the tech several times.



I started feeling dizzy from time to time from some minor blood pressure changes. This was expected and hasn't turned into anything major.



I ate my whole breakfast for the first time. I didn't get the sausage I'd ordered (totally legal on the MAOI diet), but I ate the rest. This turned out to be good since they substituted my whole lunch with a grilled cheese sandwich.



I talked to the doctor about the diet. I showed him the list I'd been given and then told him about my food card saying no broccoli, cauliflower, parsley, or spinach, none of which are on the main list. Then we talked about my not even really needed the diet and he said he'd modify it. He did ask me to watch soy intake, so no veggie burger, but otherwise I should be ok. He did write the orders, but nobody followed them all weekend because the dietician wouldn't change it but instead left a note in my chart that the doctor said made no sense, saying she wouldn't be responsible, etc. I asked to speak to her so she could explain the diet and a request was put through. She never did come back and now that I really do have dietary precautions I don't know entirely what they are. Nice, huh?



The doctor also increased my Seroquel dose to 600 mg per my request. He also said I probably could go home Tuesday, a day sooner than I'd last been told. I thought about it and realized I'd rather go home Wed. so that I could see Dr. Mind the next day. I wrote that down to ask the next time I saw him.



We had a group I was very disappointed with. Br. Brain had told me all about this one person who did weekend activities and everyone always had so much fun with her, etc. Well, she decided to do yet another "read aloud, lecture, and don't really discuss" group. This was on guilt. She bothered me also by bringing in a personal example from her life. This is normally fine, but this was something very sad and kept getting teary because I wasn't handling sad. It was the most boring 30 min. ever.

Then we were supposed to have a group on med compliance/management that I wasn't looking forward to, but nobody mentioned it. So from that point on it was an unscheduled day.

I spent 4 hours that day out of my room. I wore my sound blockers and made a collage. I was so tired of tan and green by that time that I made the most colorful collage I could come up wtih. It took a lot of focus since we couldn't have scissors without direct supervision, so the whole thing was torn and pasted. I also played cards with another patient for a while. It was good to do something different. Because I couldn't tolerate the noise I spent most of the time I wasn't in groups in my room, trying to read or doing very simple crossword and logic puzzles. Which was ok, but not enough options. By the end of the day though I knew I'd overdone it and I was really tired and anxious.

I also did laundry and changed my bed. I love clean sheets and clean pajamas.

The most disappointing thing was when we were paged for the last group. There was one nurse I'll write about eventually who I did not like, partly because of her condescending, long, boring groups she subjected us to when the group was designed per the other nurses to be just a time to talk about what happened during the day, something that was actually USEFUL. That group wasn't on the weekend schedule. When it was called I was as frustrated as I'd been since I was admitted. Thankfully the nurse who would be in charge the next night asked what kind of group we wanted so Sunday I got to look forward not having condescending group.

Saturday was the first time I was well enough to feel sad that I didn't have/allow visitors (event though it as the right decision), and I started to really miss my cats. They are so calming and I really needed that.

It also was the first day I was well enough to begin to see how horribly, frighteningly ill I had been. I think if I hadn't gone when I did Dr. Mind would have had to put me inpatient at my appointment I would have had the day I was admitted. 48 hours after I walked in there I was more out of control and dangerous to myself than I'd ever been before.

I also started thinking about how it is great that this works, but that an MAOI change to any other antidepressant would need a washout period and would put me back in the same place and that I need to talk to Dr. Brain about alternatives because I cannot ever go through another washout like that.

And that was day 6. Can you tell I was feeling better when I wrote about that day?

I was weighed and had lost 6 lbs since admission. I was somewhat surprised because since I wasn't eating I had been adding calories where I could, like using 2% milk, drinking pop, that kind of thing.