Processing

Sorry for being so quiet.  This week has my head spinning.  I am constantly thinking about and praying for Dr. Body and his family.  I have been through 1/21st of that experience (my younger brother had a serious stroke at birth and nearly died) and it left a strong impression on me.  In addition I think and pray for Dr. Brain, who is about 2 weeks into her recovery process.  She ordered me not to worry about her, but it's kind of hard to not worry when you care.  And I do care.  Sometimes she makes me mad, but I still love her and know what she has given me in the last 8 years.

I also am not past my fearful experience with the yelling person.  I have asked at work if there is a way to document this so that I have something that says it happened and if there is anything to do to help me not spend my life afraid he'll see me.  The truth is that I may be afraid easily, but it is not a sign of stability when he is still angry enough to make a point of letting me know he was aware of me and angry at me nearly 3 months after he got upset because I followed medical protocol he didn't like.  I do at least feel like I've taken control in some way by doing this, but I still have to work on some of it to make myself feel ok again.  I also want to find some way to complain to the hospital about the nurse who made fun of my meds and then didn't even listen when I needed to be somewhere safe before refusing.   I have no doubt she thought I was paranoid because I'm "psychotic" (the diagnosis you get from taking antipsychotics even though the point of the "anti' part would be to not be psychotic, and also as Dr. Mind pointed out not all people on them are even psychotic at all, although I countered that with 'at my dose they are' and that's true.)  Regardless, it doesn't matter what she thinks of my meds, keeping me safe should be a goal, and not lecturing me because she didn't clearly go through discharge instructions or listen when I said i was going to the ankle surgeon for follow-up (if this makes no sense don't worry about it, just more of the overall annoying experience) would be reasonable. That was a very bad experience, period.  And it's taking time to get past it.

I also got a little more idea of the complexity/severity of my asthma from Dr. Body.  As with everything for me (and because of the inability to manage things by aggressively starting with oral steroids or doing oral steroids at any time when I have gotten worse as typically would be done), I'm being considered hard to control.  I changed inhalers for primary control again and this is the last "typical" primary med.  And to emphasize the difficulty we've had with control I'm starting at the maximal dose.  Although the original point was to let me ask questions, we didn't get to do that with as many as I had given that Dr. Body was busy, behind, and needed to do an exam as well.  I did ask the question I am most afraid of; what happens if I get a cold.  He avoided it for the most part.  He told me to immediately email him for antibiotics and to tell him which has worked in the past and he'll get me on that the second he knows and that avoiding sinus infections (which I get with 100% of colds) is important.  He did note that part of my sinus infections are because my nose is very small with crooked nasal passages (deviated septum, I try to not think about where that came from because I have no memories but suspicions) making this even more critical.  Unfortunately because I can't use cold meds sinus infections have resulted from every cold I've had since starting lithium 9 years ago.  I have avoided colds this whole winter, kind of like having whooping cough makes up for that, but eventually I'll get one.  And I think he's not answering the question because from what I've read the standard at that point would be the steroids we've avoided so carefully.  In theory I should be able to take Mucinex (unless it's against the MAOI rules) but both doctors have said no to it for years because I was taking it when I had the reaction to Lamictal (a rash that can, oddly, become fatal if not treated), and they are afraid I would have a related allergy.  They may need to rethink whether trying it is reasonable in this situation.

I've tried to read about asthma but it's so confusing.  My other issues make nothing apply to me and I am not the typical asthmatic in any way except that I have the right history for it.  It makes it hard for questions to get answered, and then when I can't get answers i try to find my own, and that doesn't work either.  So that has been frustrating.

Anyway, way too much on my mind.  Hopefully my head stops spinning soon.