Again

I have another fever.  I am pretty sure I have a sinus infection although I don't have all the symptoms I usually get.  If the weather behaves I'm going to try to see the dr tomorrow but that doesn't look hopeful.

Today I saw Dr. Mind and got tired enough for him to notice just talking.  This virus is evil.  It even gave me a rash, like little kids get with viruses.  Not big, just a chunk of my abdomen was lacy red for a day or two.  Weird.  

Dr. Mind does not like exaggeration, even exaggeration when the point is being funny.  Well, that's not fair.  He doesn't like that kind of joke because he says it plays into the OCD-like anxiety I get about things.  So today I thought very hard before saying that there are about 600 steps that happen when my brother is arrested again.  And he told me in his subtle way (ha) that was too many.  But I told him I could list 600 so that was not exaggeration.  Now I feel compelled to actually prove this.  I won't since I know that wouldn't be good for me at all but there is a lot to get through.  

We talked today about how if my brother is arrested when my mom is away in a few weeks I'm not going to tell her until she is home.  She can't do anything, she couldn't get home faster without spending a ton of money on changing her discount flight and she can't do anything if she is home.  So while I know this is the right thing to do (although she'll be very angry) i'm a little afraid of what I might have to do.  It wouldn't be much exactly, getting his pets and maybe calling his attorney.  Then the cats have to go to the vet for check-ups and flea treatments before they come here and the dog would just be one more dog to take care of.  I just don't want to discuss things with the attorney or really be the one who gets that phone call.  Selfish probably but true.

I really thought I was going to fall asleep really early tonight.  I can't believe I'm still awake.  I took a nap but was still so tired.  I think my fever ruined it for me.

So tired, so achy.

What I did not need

I went from doing so extremely well a week ago to not so good this week.  Which happens; it's called being bipolar.  And since my lowest points lately are not nearly as low as a few years ago (starting to think menopause was as good for me as my gynecologist thought it might be plus thank God for huge amounts of Seroquel) I'm still ok, I guess.

Yesterday just had rough moments.  I am so sad for my aunt and cousins and can't imagine what they are going through.  And then I get sad because it is sad that I can't imagine that.  They are so close and such a loving family always.  And seeing that come out right now really emphasizes what I remember from being a child:  I wish I were part of their family.  It's just a big contrast.  In a way we've lost our father already but without grieving.  We may or may not even know if he is dead; I guess eventually we assume it.  But that 'loss' if you can even call it that gives me nothing to say to my hurting cousins now.  It's just hard to know what I'm feeling and I don't like myself for some of it because I feel like it should all be about their grief and inside I'm sad for me along with the sadness for them.

That wasn't even close to the worst moment though.  I was on facebook and saw one of my cousins' names listed as a possible friend.  This cousin is well-known for lying and creating his own reality where he can get attention through untrue stories and other less-than-appealing behaviors.  For example, we are both friend with one person on Facebook.  The man was my senior prom date, a close friend in high school and still someone I consider a good friend.  My cousin knows him.  Clear distinction there. So the man is considering buying the same kind of car I have a few months ago and my cousin gets on and writes about how I've had all kinds of trouble with mine and that mine has been a bad car.  Which is completely untrue.  I had trouble with AAA blowing the battery and some of the electrical system a couple years ago which created a bunch of drama until I made them pay for it all but that's about it.  So that leaves me having to tell my friend to ignore my cousin, the car is great.  And then yesterday morning he had tagged me in a joke about mental illness I didn't find funny, which I commented on.  He apparently meant to tag another Jennifer.  But while that's kind of an honest mistake be careful for pete's sake.  I actually have him hidden because he was being too open about the sexual aspects of his relationship a few months ago and I was icked out, especially with a 25 year age difference.

The final straw was this referral though.  I looked at it and there isn't anything identifying.  The account was just opened and so there wasn't much.  I scrolled down to the bottom and found a pornographic picture.  I reported it to facebook who notified me this morning that the picture was removed (it appears the entire account was removed) but that doesn't remove it from my brain and so I was awake all night upset and with PTSD triggered heavily.  I have no idea if this was my cousin's page.  There was an indication of yes but I couldn't tell for sure and don't want to know.  

Tonight I'm going to sleep even if it takes valium.  I'm exhausted.  Being sick and then not sleeping wasn't ideal.  I am still so disturbed.  Very, very disturbed.

PTSD is never a friend.

Sad

I am sad tonight.  It's partly just from not feeling well.  I'm tired of feverish aching and being hot and cold and hot and cold.  I'm also very tired.  And I'm sad about my uncle.  There are a lot of crazy feelings with that; it's hard to be sad he is gone because he suffered so much.  So very, very much.  But I am sad for my aunt and cousins and his grandchildren, especially the babies who will never know him.  But none of his grandchildren will ever have known the man he was before his accident.  I am trying to tell my cousins how sorry I am and I don't know what to say.  It's a position I'll never be in, to lose a father.  In some ways I already did.  Someday I may find out he is gone.  I hope that I do.  I have accepted that this may happen via the internet in one of my occasional searches for him.  In fact that is the most likely way, by far.    But I know what my cousins had in a father and so I know what they have lost.  Sort of.  It's strange.  And mostly it just is such a blessing that for 24+ hours he has not been in that awful, painful, suffering body.  But I know my aunt is in a horrible place and again, what do you say?  

I'm afraid of what the government is going to do to social security.  Already the House has stuck a bill into their parlimentary procedures bill that makes it illegal to fund SSDI by shifting funds from other sources.  I hope that this is stopped.  I don't trust it won't be.  And if it passes and becomes a law then SSDI runs out of money in 2016 and the proposed solution is to cut benefits by 20%.  Which means in my case that I couldn't pay for treatment.  It scares me.  I've been contacting congressmen this last week and one called back and then I've been too ill to return the call.  Rand Paul made really ugly comments that pretty much dismiss mental illness as a cause for disability and indicating that he believes 50% of those on SSDI are bilking the system.  This kind of view in people who have way too much to say about my income terrifies me.  And I'm worrying way too much about this.

I asked Dr. Brain this week if I can go up on Seroquel anymore.  She said not really but when I explained that I was concerned that we should lower my dose a bit now to allow room to go up when things blow up with my brother she said that she'd be comfortable adding a small amount more short term.  It's hard to know if I can even tolerate that; what I'm on now is side effect city.  But anything is better than starting a transition to a new drug at that point.  Right now we know that the version of Seroquel I'm on goes generic in 11/2016 so sometime I'm going to have to try to change.  I want it to be when there are several options though because right now my best option is an older drug and I really don't want that.  I've had too much trouble with the cleaner atypicals to feel safe going on something less specific to brain chemistry.  The one that is most likely is better than most others (loxitane) but still not a fun drug.  So I know she'll get me through whatever happens and my doing well lately will help but it is scary.  I've known I was maxed out on everything for a long time so this isn't a surprise, just I've managed a long time without a battle.

I really need to get to sleep but I forgot to take my meds on time and don't feel sleepy.  I may take some vicodin in a while for the achiness and sleep effect.  Otherwise it's valium or not sleeping much and neither of those sounds good right now.  At the moment I'm breaking yet another fever so I have to wait that out.

I'm also hungry and not much tastes good. I had a BLT and that did taste good but now I'm out of bacon.  

So maybe I should have titled this grouchy and not just sad.  Both I think.  I just want to well, I don't know.  Feel good would be a nice step.  I don't know why this bug is making me feel so whiny; I've been much sicker.  I'm just tired of the symptoms which are annoying I think. Also I'm thinking there's a good shot this is becoming a sinus infection and I don't want to be sick next week too.  I have only had 1 sinus infection since I stopped working and it wasn't bad.  When I worked in nursing homes I had them all the time.  So even if i get one I'm kind of due but yuck.

Anyway, this is also the most boring post ever.  I think i need to quit trying to think until I am not sick.

A day late but oh so many reasons why

Yesterday was my birthday and my blog's birthday.  I am 39 and the blog is 9.  The blog's age is much more surprising to me than my own.

For many years I was rather superstitious about my birthday.  I wouldn't have called it that, I could list all the things that had happened on that day which made me a rough day.  Dr. Mind worked very, very hard with me so that I stopped dreading it and eventually came to enjoy it (nieces helped with that).  

But today was one for the superstitions I claimed I didn't have.  For one thing I have influenza.  This is our 2nd round.  I think the first time we had Influenza A and then my uncle had B and his immune system was so bad I think he was a carrier of B and my mom caught it from him.  I have now caught it from her and it is so much worse.  Fevers and body aches so bad that it took vicodin to sleep last night and it's looking like again tonight and Advil every 4 hours.  I've had stomach upset and nothing tastes good.  Even saltines taste terrible.  So I'm mostly living on sherbet which tastes ok but is so cold when my fevers go up.  So far I'm controlling the coughing by not moving much.  I don't want to have to deal with asthma meds when I feel like this.  Agitated and achy and exhausted don't go well together.  I read today, when it was too late, that if you think you have influenza this year you do and call for tamiflu.  Tomorrow is too late for it to do anything.  Even today might have been since I started having a sore throat Monday and it just took until today to build into something painful.

And then my uncle died.  In many ways this is a blessing; his suffering the last month has been beyond my ability to explain.  Horrible.  It is so good that he is finally at peace.  But my poor aunt.  I don't know how to explain their relationship except that it was a true love story, always.  That was clear to me as a tiny child and it never changed.  They were the opposite of my parents, always willing to take on 2 more girls and their family was happy together.  When I was small, when there were just 2 or 3 little girls and my brother who usually stayed at my grandparents we went to their house or they came to ours nearly every weekend.  When the last 2 babies came (5 in 3.5 years, all girls) that slowed but we still were together a lot until my aunt wouldn't have her children around my father.  

even then we had a lot of time together, it just was always at their house.  We went camping as a big group when there were 3 of us under age 2.5.  And their family did so much for us whether it was getting my sister and I away for a week in the summer or taking us places or in an incredible move the year my parents divorced there was no money for Christmas presents.  My aunt showed up with a carload of them.  They cared when that wasn't easy to find and it is so sad that she has to find a way to live without him. They were such a team that soon after his accident he was able to talk her through wiring ceiling fans and doing various home improvement tasks.  He read directions and explained and she used her hands since his didn't work well.

I haven't seen him or them much at all in the last 9 years.  But I'm still so sad tonight.

And I'm also not particularly rational because I feel like crap.  And now I'm crying which makes my nose run and I know I dropped the tissues.  So I should get those.

Thinking

Today I saw Drs. Mind and Brain in one of my exhausting long days.  I actually am doing really well right now, well enough that I was offered the chance to go 2 months between seeing Dr. Brain for the first time in 12, nearly 13, years.  I didn't do that because I have too much stuff up in the air with my brother and uncle and even just that I seem to be getting sick with whatever has made my mom very ill for the last week (my throat hurts.  And I just realized I got too into the Ohio State game and forgot to take my meds so I'll never get to sleep.....off to take those now...)......So anyway (great, now the cat is throwing up so I have to clean that up and give her medication; I think she ate grain somehow today).....Anyway, getting sick.  That alone can throw my mood and if it is respiratory it means inhalers and albuterol and those make things worse too.  But anyway, I talked to both a bit about being ready for the hit that is coming when my brother is arrested again, this time for real.  I'm afraid of it.

And that led me to the thought of the week.  I mean that literally; I'm going to think about this for a week and then discuss with Dr. Mind.  He doesn't know yet.  I had all that lovely driving time (2.5 hours plus extra for rush hour plus a bunch extra for taking the wrong ramp and heading for Michigan thinking there would be a connection to the interstate I needed when there wasn't) to think.

And here's the big thought:  Dr. Mind says I can handle this, that I've handled worse things and I can draw from the strength of knowing I have done that.  I suppose that's true although right now it feels like that is a really, really bad thing and I know that is because I remember what it felt like to know at first and even though this time there won't be the shock and horror from before (especially if all goes as planned and I don't know details) my mind says that is what will happen because it was what it was like last spring.  So there's that; he's right that I have handled worse and even have handled the worse end of this.  But what I want to know is why do I have to deal with SOMETHING ELSE?  It seems like my resume for dealing with crappy stuff is pretty full.  And honestly the argument that i can deal with this because I've handled worse, that just emphasizes the point that I've done my fair share of handling things.

I try to not ever ask why me because the answer is why not me.  There's no point in asking a question that has an obvious answer.  But I think, with approval and support of Dr. Mind, I want to have one week to think about this.  I want to know his answers.  I want to have a chance to think about what has let me be so lucky as to experience extra grief and pain in life.  And I don't want the answers to be all the things about what I've learned and the strength that comes from this.  I just want to think for a while about what it would be like to NOT have my past come back and slap me in the face over and over, no matter what I do to cope with it.  I've worked very hard to deal with issues that will inevitably bubble up again when my brother is arrested.  I want to know why they can't stay put away and dealt with.

I don't want to sound like I'm asking him for permission to spend a week feeling sorry for myself because that's not what I want.  I just need to think more about the why me/why not me thing a little more than my pat answer allows.  I hate that I'm doing well, so well, for the first time in years and that this is at risk just because I care about my brother.  Most people don't find that a devastating thing to do but for me it is and it's not just devastating it has become a choice that I've had to make.  And I'm fine with my choice but I am just a little overwhelmed by what it means.

And so I want a week.  A week before dealing with this means potentially increasing my Seroquel to a level I don't even know if I can tolerate, a level that can only be temporary anyway.  I asked today because if we couldn't go up at all we needed to discuss going down a bit now which nobody wants to see because this dose works for me, even though it is very high and has some side effects I dislike.  I have no other meds that can go up and do not want to have to add an older drug when I am dealing with family needing me since the older drugs could have all sorts of other side effects and would require extremely careful monitoring because of my history of extra-pyramidal symptoms.  The extreme dose of Seroquel may have that risk as well, probably does, but we know I've been on very high doses before and for a long time now without EPS and that hasn't been true with most anti-psychotics.  So Seroquel is just a little more trusted for me.  

I don't even know exactly what I am saying or what I want.  I think I just want time to be sad that I have to face a big sadness yet again.  I hope I can make Dr. Mind understand what I'm thinking.

Life and Death

I haven't had a lot to say; there's a lot on my family's collective mind right now.  My uncle who has had numerous extremely nasty health issues since a motorcyle accident paralyzed him about 9 or 10 years ago is dying.  And sadly it hasn't been the most peaceful, slipping away in his sleep, that we all wanted for him or that he deserved.  The life he has lived since the accident has been a horror story in many ways and his death has not been an easy one.  Currently he just keeps hanging on despite having had no nutrition or fluids in many days, being on doses of pain meds that should suppress breathing, oxygen levels low enough to cause death typically, various organs have shut down and he has had end-of-life breathing patterns yet he is still here.  It is heartbreaking and it is so hard because he and my aunt are the love story everyone wishes they had.  For me personally I have not seen him more than once or twice in the last 10 years but he was so kind to us when we were children.  It takes a brave man to take on 5 girls with a 3.5 year age difference between oldest and youngest and he did it, a lot.  My favorite memory is the last time I saw him before his accident.  It was my sister's wedding and the groomsman I was supposed to dance with had no more idea than I did how to dance and my shoes were incredibly slippery which was making it even worse.  He was laughing so hard at us that he was nearly crying.  I don't think too many people paid that much attention to the sideshow but we were very close to his table and well, we were a disaster.  A huge disaster.  It is a miracle we didn't wind up laying on the dance floor, it was that bad.  So it is a kind of quiet time here, contemplative and with lots of checking in on the situation calls.  My mom went up I think 3 days in a row and then weather and a bad cold stopped her but in that time my cousins (who all have young children) have been able to fill in the gaps and my aunt doesn't need her so much and wouldn't want her there anyway.  

I have seen "bad deaths" before (isn't that an awful term?) and this isn't one of them.  They are controlling his pain although they've had to resort to injections which isn't pleasant but he can't swallow and IVs would only prolong his suffering so this is the only effective choice (they tried another way and it didn't help).  There is no screaming in agony and no pleading to not die.  Those are "bad deaths".  This is just a long one, with more suffering than seems fair after years of increasing suffering, and a body that just won't give up.

It is so weird how it all works.  My cat who I was told was so sick that I really didn't think she would survive the summer is clearly intent on living to be 20 in July.  She has gained weight, eats well, and has even gotten stronger lately (she can pull herself into my bed without using the carefully disguised step system I made for her on the other side.  She hasn't done that in a year).  She looks healthy, is a decent weight and honestly her worst problem is that I can't find glucsomaine treats without grains that make her very, very sick so her arthritis gets to her some days.  But even as I type she's saying that she'd prefer I stop and keep her warm (like that is possible with these wind chills....my heat pump is past its' ability to keep the house warm so I'm living under a pile of blankets in fleece pajamas).  She shouldn't be here.  And not to compare a pet to a human life but my uncle is young, not even 69 and he shouldn't be dying and certainly not in this manner.

And the hardest part is that life goes on.  I'm feeling good right now.  But I suspect I'm about to make a decision that will compromise that.  See my brother is going to be arrested again literally any day now.  We've passed the average and are more than living on borrowed time and for now I'm just praying it doesn't happen until my aunt doesn't need my mom as much because my mom will fall apart when this happens.  I see Dr. Brain Monday and am going to ask her if she will up my Seroquel any further if there is an issue, like not coping well with that arrest.  She might but I think it is not very likely as I'm on a very high dose, there's only one more boost to reach the maximum she prescribes for anyone ever and I have a few side effects that are my body not tolerating this as well as possible.  (OK, fine, peeing is an experience instead of something I just do.  And forget peeing and reaching into a drawer for something or petting a cat or anything; it takes full concentration.)  This has been a side effect of other meds but not quite as badly and I had very frequent UTIs with it then.  Anyway, if she can't increase if needed (and I'm not sure I'm willing to try the higher dose if not necessary because of weight gain) then I am going to ask her to lower my dose so that we have room to go up when I really need it.  I'm doing well right now and hopefully am able to wiggle a little.  The argument against this is that I started doing better than ever before when I hit this dose so why risk it, but I have nothing else to use without introducing a new med if I struggle with the inevitable--and I don't see not struggling there.

I am so glad to be done with PT.  I am so much better with less committments. I'm doing well at getting my exercises in at least 3 times per week or more and I'm making big gains still.  Things I couldn't do when I was discharged without pain and cheating are easy now.   Plus I'm not really interested in walking on ice this year and rather than going to appointments and praying for a good handicap spot it has been a blessing to just hole up inside while it is icy and scary cold.  I was so mad Monday because I was excited to get to show Dr Mind "No brace!" and although it wasn't snowy here it was in the city so I had to put my brace on in his parking lot before I could walk in it.  The lot is weird; there are 4 slots that are nice if you get them but I rarely do.  There is a top lot where mostly staff parks but I'm allowed to while physically disabled but I always forget to even look there.  And there's a lower lot with a decent walk up a little hill to get to the offices.  So it may be a while before I get to show him just a sock.

There is a DBSA support group 25 miles from here that I want to try eventually but for now I'm taking a break.  4 full months of PT along with being nearly 7 months out from the surgery that has dictated everything I do for so long has been a lot and I just need some time.  Plus I need to go back to PT eventually and it's better to do the support group after that when I won't be starting and stopping.  And the winter weather won't encourage participation.

In the final news my credit card has lost its' ability to reason.  I was just notified my credit limit was increased to an amount that is almost my entire income.  I could buy a car on this credit card.   Not a great car, but a car.  Yay for a good credit score but wow.  Back when I was working and my credit score was not quite as high but my income was 4 or 5 times this much they wouldn't increase my limit at all.  And I will be paying off another card totally in 2 weeks so may get another limit increase then.  

One of the better ideas I had when I was still employed but knew I was going to have to quit was that I applied for a couple of credit cards with my old income.  It has done wonders for my credit score and in the next months that will go up even further after the one card is paid off and old late payments come off my record.  I have great credit for someone with no ability to pay it off.......

Anyway, that's enough for now.  So much happening at once....

The end of this year

I certainly didn't expect this year to be what it has been, the year of my brother's arrest and the year of the ankle.  But we don't get to choose and so that is what it was.  It had good moments; my nieces always are good moments and our beach trip was fun.  Today was great: I am officially done with ortho unless I have more problems (I have mild plantar fascitis so may be back with that but hopefully not) and I no longer have to wear a brace unless it is a risky activity.  I planned this visit for today so that I would end the first 6 months of healing on the last day of the year of the ankle (injured it March 15 and since I was sick all of January and has lithium toxicity and was adjusting to being off lithium for February and March there wasn't much good left in the earlier year) and it worked perfectly.

I still have a great deal of rehabbing to do but that seems to be getting faster; I can do things this week I couldn't last.  It will be slower this week and maybe next since my ankle is swelling in anger from walking without the brace but it will adjust.  And in 6 more months I'll be pretty fully healed.

201 days.  5 casts.  16 weeks on crutches at least 50% of the day.  6 weeks nonweightbearing.  5 months of PT (plus a pre-op month).  6 weeks on reclined bedrest.  1 home nerve block system.  6 weeks in a boot.  6 weeks of night splint.  3.5 months in a brace.  5 minutes to hear that all is well.

I like this

So Christmas is over and we all survived.  There were some hard parts; my brother was pretty emotional and that was hard.  He talked to me about his regrets about what he did for the first time and that made me cry once I got home.  That was really rough.  But we made it through and once again the first time it is different is over.  My mom was so ready for it to be over that she had everything down and put completely away by the 27th.  But she did make it through and that's all you really can expect right now I think.  She and I had a rough time because she got me presents but wasn't very lucky.  One thing she got a variation of what I wanted and the variation didn't work well for my needs; she'd forgotten conversations we'd had before about the thing and what I wanted.  She got clothes but in the wrong size.  And I asked for a specific camera that Amazon said was an upgrade from the camera I had that got sand or salt water in the lens on vacation and wasn't working very well; it wasn't the upgrade for that camera and didn't work for me at all (I have to have really good image stabilization because my meds make me shaky; this left me taking blurry pictures).  So a lot of my stuff wound up being exchanged.  I apologized a thousand times because I knew she was upset and that made me think a lot about what Dr. Mind told me not long ago, that one of the parts of the abuse I lived with that I still carry is that I will take blame for anything and feel guilty and apologize about things that I didn't do or can't control just to avoid having things get worse.  I certainly did it with this.  But it all worked out; the new camera has been ordered and we returned the clothes and wound up finding a sweater that I love and when we went into another store that was having a big sale I found jeans and since I had one pair of jeans that fit and 2 pairs that were too loose and fell off my hips if I wore them jeans were great.  She made me get 2 pairs so now I'm really good for clothes for a while.  These are about the nicest jeans I've ever had and they were marked down to affordable so that's good too.

The time with my nieces was delightful as usual.  Anne really understands the dynamics of gifts this year and was happy to give things as well as to get them.  It was sheer chaos with the girls but so much fun to watch them.  And they are just so sweet.  The baby opened a box of books I gave her and had her daddy reading within minutes; Anne was enthralled by a gross motor toy.  She was so tired; we were watching Annie while the baby napped and she almost fell asleep on my lap until she noticed her daddy carrying in an unwrapped present that she has been wanting for a very long time.  That woke her right up.  

But today was a kind of special moment.  I don't know if this comes across on here or not, but I'm really shy.  Shy to the point that sometimes I can't manage to do things that I should do because it is too hard.  But this year I forced myself to hand Dr. Mind a present.  Back in May when we went to the ocean I couldn't go in the water because my ankle was too unstable and I would lose my balance and risk injuring it even more.  I wound up spending many hours sitting in the sand sorting out tiny shells that I never wound have bothered with otherwise.  I also came home with many pieces of shells because I realized that these broken bits of shells, pretty much nothing on their own, were beautiful when put together.  I had vague plans to make Christmas ornaments using some of these.

So I did that and while the ornaments are wonderful it was actually kind of hard work.  But I still had all of those pieces and a vague idea from the beach that I wanted to make something for Dr. Mind.  I wound up getting a small jar, not much bigger than what I would call a vial and put in it sand and then pieces of many, many broken shells.  I wrote a note about how grateful I am that he helps me find beauty in what is often broken and last week on my way out I shoved it at him and kind of ran, telling him that he might have to shake it to get it to settle after it was in my coat and he'd see what I meant..  All week I have hoped he wouldn't say anything because I didn't really want to acknowledge it, whether he loved it or hated it, I just wanted to move on.

Today I went to see him and he didn't mention it.  He knows me well after almost 9 years.....But I saw what he thought about it rather easily.  There is a bookshelf that is more or less directly across the room from where I sit.  I spend a lot of time looking at it when I don't want to look at him.  In fact when he re-arranged the books on it I noticed immediately, just to show how much I stare at this thing.  On top of it he keeps various things like a photo of his son, a couple of things his son gave him many years ago, something his wife gave him that I suspect is a joke and now the little vial of shells.  It was something so small and simple but I think he understood what it really meant, which is something more along the lines of "thank you for being there through everything I've thrown at you for almost 9 years and for being who you are".  

I'm glad.  I always hope he knows that I know what he has done for me but I am never sure because I never have the words to say it.  

Big day

Today I finished PT!!!!  I really will be going back at some point when I am not in a brace to work on some higher level things that I haven't done in 5 years but for the moment I am done and since that stuff won't be urgent I'm going to take at least a month off unless the othopedist sees something that he wants me back in therapy for when I see him next week.

But i met all goals or exceeded them and I cannot tell you how happy I am to not be doing forward and sidestepping step-ups.  After 5 months of them I am totally bored with this exercise which I did nearly every visit, starting with just a couple of inches soon after I started PT and on and off a BOSU (half ball half plastic flat base) the last couple of months.

I've come a long way and had an incredibly good therapist working with me.  I don't think I could have asked for better.

I saw a woman in there today who was talking about ankle surgery but must have just had a scope done or something more minor because she was walking pretty normally.  She's having a lot of pain slowing her down and I kept thinking how blessed I've been with that.  I had bad pain after my scar tissue tore but aside from that I haven't had much pain during rehab.  Today I was sore from a weather change and from realizing that I can finally squat and push up with my bad leg, something I've overdone in happiness.  The last month things have gone so well; in November I was pretty sure and the PT was agreeing that I'd be doing this for another month but the last 4 weeks everything came together and I came really far really fast.

There is still so much to gain.  My endurance is still low, mostly from 6 months of low activity and the 6 weeks of bedrest.  I get tired really quickly.  I still have balance issues and proprioception issues and I have to do a lot of work on retraining my ankle to correct itself.  (ie when I stand on just that leg and it gets tired it will start to turn under and it doesn't automatically make the little movements to correct that which it should do automatically.  That will be something I work on for months).  But I'm walking with barely a limp now and I think when I get rid of this brace, hopefully next week, the limp will start to go away quickly.  I feel weather changes quite a bit but I don't think they can do anything about that.  I still need that leg to gain strength not as much in the ankle as in the calf muscle; it won't ever equal the other side probably because of my 5 year delay in surgery but it will get stronger than it is now.  

But it's all good.  This phase of my life is moving into the next phase, the 2nd 6 months of healing.  Yay!

Sometimes the little things matter so much

Today was better.  Dr. Mind clarified what he said last week, we left it at that although I later realized that I was doing precisely what he said I am doing but for a reason he can't know because I've never told him.  We also had a lighter session, no big focus on the depression or the potential sadness of the holiday.  It was what I needed and I'll be glad to get there next week and talk about what he doesn't know and how that factors in.

And then I just got what I needed, a kind note from Dr. Body.  Because synthroid is typically a morning medication I have tried to take it that way.  (It has to be taken on an empty stomach, something that I somehow wasn't told until I'd been on it for years and so I don't worry tremendously about that since I do fine with the current dose).  It also needs to be taken consistently.  The problem with this is that when I have a bad spell I don't always manage to take it and time will pass and suddenly I'll know that I've not had it for far too long.  So I'll try to get back into taking it and if I'm still symptomatic with the bipolar I'll fail and eventually will have missed far too much, requiring new labs to be sure that I haven't caused a need for a dose change.  In the past I changed to taking it at night and did that for a long time but this summer I was doing great with taking it in the morning and I was taking another med in the morning as well.  That med just has gotten pushed down to one dose which isn't ideal but I can't help it right now.

Anyway, I had written to him that I would probably need labs, messed things up, etc. and sorry.  And instead of telling me how important it is to keep taking the medication or pointing out that having my thyroid out of whack will make my bipolar worse or any of a dozen other tactics he just said not to worry, that I hadn't done anything bad but that we'd check labs in case and that taking it at night was not a problem.  He didn't have to be nice; those other things are all true.  But as he always is he was understanding and patient with me and I need that little bit of kindness.  It took forever to find a family doctor who was well, willing ot be my doctor at all, and who would also work with me to make sure that physical problems were addressed but without messing up my psychiatric issues or causing drug interactions.  Back when I started seeing him and he agreed to that I was "only" on lithium and depakote so I had interactions but not as many or as dangerous as I have now.  He's seen me through numerous times I've messed up my thyroid (giving him further right to get frustrated, and he might but he never shows it) and has handled drug allergies, medication interactions and restrictions (plus meds that I can't take because the side effects are too extreme for my bipolar) and he has always been patient and kind.

That's not something you find every day or easily.  I had a year that I just couldn't find a primary care doctor who was in my area and would take me as a patient and in that time my crappy but at least he'll see me doctor refused to treat severe cold sores that I had on both sides of my mouth that were so deep they bled and were there for 7 months before my psychiatrist finally said it was ridiculous and treated them and I wound up reporting him to the medical board who investigated him (but found him free of wrongdoing a year later) after he said "you can't take this antibiotic with depakote so here's this one".  It didn't work so I called back and he didn't want to see me, called in a script for the med he said I couldn't have.  I called the office again and another dr called in a safe script.  That didn't work so I called in again and once again he prescribed the med he had said was contraindicated.  Again I called back and was given a different antibiotic, this one make me extremely sick and I called again.  I'm sure you can guess what happened.  So after that I complained to the medical board who took it seriously and then I had to find another dr and found Dr Body, newly done with residency and very willing to take a challenging case.  It took a few months for him to get used to the idea that I had the conditions I did and was still functioning in the work role I was in but once he stopped forgetting I wasn't on medicaid we did great.

He has no idea how much his little kindnesses help.  I could never explain it to him.  I hope he knows at least a little.