Where things are

Yesterday was frustrating.  I'm sure I've written at some point with past hospitalizations about my frustration with the social worker who very clearly does not like me.  Well, this time I tried to get ahead.  I asked her my 2nd day there to come see me for a couple minutes.  She stopped and told me she was out of time but "first thing Thursday".  Fine.  Thursday came and went and she never came to see me.  She was there, she saw nearly everyone else, but not me.  I knew this Tuesday would be likely to be my last chance and I still knew nothing about the IOP program that another social worker had recommended that I attend.  So I asked her to come talk to me.  She said she would and that she was working on my discharge stuff.  I told her I had specific ideas about when I would start IOP and also that I wouldn't be available after 4 because I had a phone call with Dr. Mind.  She never came.

Yesterday we discovered she hadn't started my discharge.  A social work student came and then later returned to tell me they had no information on the program I wanted to go to and that they would not be able to refer me.  I was very upset and pulled the OT aside and talked to her.  She was kind and efficient and she had heard me ask the social worker to come talk to me.  So she and the nurse found a way to refer me.  When I was signing paperwork I was told I had to start the next day.  I called the place and told them why I wasn't able to start today, etc.  They called back and told me if I wanted the hospital referral to work I had to start today but could do a psychiatrist referral next week and start then.  However I would not be allowed to see Drs. Mind or Brain.  If I self-pay I can sort of lie and do it but it would still be "a conflict of interest".  I assume for them as it wouldn't be for me and Cleveland Clinic does their intensive outpatient completely differently.  Their program also is not the same structured thing that Cleveland Clinic runs; they anticipate a 1-2 week use of the program although some people do stay longer.  Cleveland Clinic runs for 5 weeks for everyone, making sure everyone get the same skill set.  For one thing I am not giving up my doctors; no way would that be good for me.  For another this sounds more like babysitting during the early phases of recovery than what I want.  But I should have known this Tuesday at the LATEST so I could have decided and had help finding something else.  Instead I am searching for a program.  There's another one in the area but it would be 75+ minutes of driving each way and that is too far for 5 days/week.  And again, I should have have help with contacting them but I didn't so I will have to do that myself if Dr. Mind thinks I need to take on the drive.

So this made me totally stressed and upset and then I had to fill pill boxes, throw out unsafe meds (I threw out 2 cups of pills that were unsafe to have around, plus several bottles that I wasn't really worried about but didn't need either).  (By the way, if you ever have to dispose of pills the best way to do it to mix them into clay kitty litter and water.  That keeps someone from finding them and steal them whole.  Trick courtesy of hospice.)  So I did that and then locked up both the meds I will only have access to by bringing the pill box to Dr. Mind's office where the key is and the ones that are safer plus 2 weeks of pill boxes are in a combination lock box with the thought the combination and my shaky hands will slow me down enough to think in an emergency.  My sharps are gathered (and it's scary how many razor blades I could find in this house) and in a box on my porch.  I wasn't supposed to have them sitting in the living room so I put them out there so I didn't have to go back out to the car.  I figured someone stealing them would be a favor.

And that's about it from the other side of that wet, sad land in which the rainbow grows.