Catching up...again

My last post was apparently a little confusing.  What I meant was that if I had the information that my patient had all this private information, some of which might even help me with my job, hanging out on the internet that I shouldn't attempt to access.  Especially when I knew it was someone like me who sometimes has a hard time being honest about some things.

Otherwise, this has been a somewhat difficult week.  I had another asthma flare-up that kept me home on Tuesday, so now I have to work Sunday when I was really, really looking forward to having 3 days off in a row.    I am looking at weeks without free days in a row.  But that just makes the week that I finally have free more precious, I guess.

I then had to admit that I am not able to treat my asthma with just the mild meds I wanted.  Yesterday I requested a med that I have to take with caution because it could theoretically interact with my MAOI and I will have to monitor my blood pressure while using it.  I'll only use it when I have a bad day but hopefully it will help keep things from cycling out of control. I hate that because it scares me, but I cannot continue wheezing, then not sleeping, then having trouble getting to work.  I also can't keep coughing constantly.  It hurts, it's annoying, and it makes me feel horrible.  I also realized that this is not currently a minor issue, and if it continues and I get a cold or sinus infection then I am going to be very sick again and again I'll be back to the "Jen needs steroids, that means inpatient, and who is going to admit her" because I have nobody to admit me medically to the hospital I need to be in to get the best psych care.  So I'm going to be working on getting a referral to a pulmonology at Dr. Brain's hospital who can be brought up to date on the situation and hopefully will be willing to admit me if I need steroids.  So that will be fun, another doctor 2 hours from home.    I really hope Dr. Brain knows one of them.  Sometimes she has specialists she's worked with before who are more understanding of psych needs, such as needing hospitalization for something usually done outpatient without difficulty.

Monday my work computer's hard drive died.  So today I spent 2 hours getting a new one hooked up while my poor trainee sat and waited.  She had a rough day.  We also had a caregiver yell at me for quite a while for doing my job.  He then declined services which is a blessing as he has been making it increasingly difficult to do my job and now I don't have to.  It did mean a lot of documentation though as that chart is likely to be carefully evaluated if he complains as much as he says he is going to.  Thankfully I had the witness to the screaming, and I also had the nurse at the physician's office back me up 100% on the decisions I made (which weren't decisions but following protocol) that he didn't like.  Nonetheless, I am tired of being yelled at for breathing.  Which I don't have anyone now who will do that, but it will move on to someone else soon I'm sure.  I just feel bad for her because he yelled at her too for a minute and she did absolutely nothing but show up with me.

And I don't think I wrote about it but I had a sobbing, painful session with Dr. Mind Monday and it's a lot to think about.  I don't think that the issue at hand was what I was so very upset about, I think it's feeling so overwhelmed and disconnected from him lately.  But we got an extra session set up for next week and hopefully things will get back to normal soon.  I hate feeling like each session is nothing but "catch up and go" and that's been how the last 2 months have been.  I need the continuity from having feedback on an ongoing basis about whatever is going on and whatever I'm trying to deal with.

On the other hand, someone (B.?) asked about my niece.  She is wonderful.  She's very chubby, working hard on sitting up, wants to be involved with everything (positively refused to nap during Christmas because there was excitement to be seen and attention to grab), and is of course a genius.  She's laughing and "talking" a lot and has formed an attachment to my mom that's so cute because she'll hear my mom, turn her head to her and just grin.  Since she also drools a ton it's a really cute, gooey grin.  She was hysterically funny at one point.  My sister tried to sit her in a box but she didn't fit.  She somehow figured out that if she kept her hands on the sides and stuck her butt way out that she could stand "alone".  She was so very proud of herself for that.  I couldn't get over how sturdy she is now.  When I saw her last she still didn't have full head control and now she can sit on my hip.  She also was very funny when my sister opened up a hat I made her.  I was goofing off and put it on my head.  Someone happened to be holding her above me and next thing I knew I wasn't wearing a hat and she was giggling.  Just so very cute.

And that's about it.  I need to write my last note and get to sleep.  I'm actually seriously considering sleep and writing the note in the morning as it's almost done and will take only a few minutes.  I just hate leaving work for morning.  However, I also want to sleep, a lot.  So we shall see what battle wins......