Psych writeup (and another pissed off letter to write)
Yesterday I got walloped upside the head with a mixed state mania.
I posted some about this the other day: Mixed States and other annoying crap
Then the news about Kenyon happened. My manic "righteous rage" reaction is one I'm very familiar with; it's the same one that used to require me storming off into the woods with my axe until I burned off the physiological adrenaline rush enough to stop shaking and handle things reasonably. Moderated properly, it's the same element of my personality that's why I can't stop doing activism work and speaking up, and it gives me some of the bravado that can make that easier at times, because I just can't not say something. Problem is, the more manic I am, the more true that is, and it is most definitely the biggest weakness in my work career that I'm relatively unreliable about managing to control that same impulse at work over much smaller issues of "right and wrong". I don't respect rank, and I speak my mind, and sometimes it's for the greater good, and sometimes it's just a dumbass "can't shut my mouth" moment. In large part I see it as an advantage of my social privilege; I tend to expect to be listened to and taken seriously, and often get away with it solely on the basis of that, and that's a result of educational enculturation. I figure it's a good use of that privilege to use it primarily in activist directions. And I'm really rambling here, because I'm still moderately manic today. Back to where we were...
I've got fibromyalgia (and an assortment of comorbid chronic disorders), and Bipolar II. It's a huge balancing act to figure out how to keep me functional enough through the pain and fatigue of the fibro to be employable, but not to trigger such a mania that I get my ass fired over it. Both disorders are highly stress-mediated for me, so I do everything I can to keep my life pretty chill overall. I hate that I'm basically "allergic to stress", but as shorthand it's as accurate as anything else. (oddly, not at all true of a crisis; I kick into gear for those like nothing else -- it's one of my strong points)
I'm on quite an assortment of meds, and trying to balance quality of life, functionality, acute side-effects, and long-term risks. I kind of assume that I'm currently giving up somewhere in the range of 5-10 years of lifespan for the extra wear and tear all this shit is doing on my liver and other systems.
The clinic's been on my ass and my doc's ass about my FMLA time, wanting to push it lower, and my boss and I would of course both like that for our own reasons (FMLA doesn't pay anything, it just keeps me from being fired -- I'm still either burning my PTO or take unpaid days). But stress about my FMLA stuff is exactly the kind of thing that fucks me up in lightning time. In this case it was 0 - Pissing Blood in less than 12 hours. So this is what happened Friday, how it spiraled, and how it resolved:
I was essentially liveposting to FB throughout as a way of handling the stress.
Just left a message at president nugent's office. Didn't plan it but my voice was shaking with rage and my hands are still shaking. Typing a pain. Alums call and make your voices heard. Sodexo for kenyon maintenance is a betrayal. More to come. I'm also writing a letter. 740-427-5000 college switchboard.
Does UE 712 have a facebook page? I'm on my phone and searching is a pain. Yauncey Newman. Lori. The paint crew guys. Every pig roast out in the country. They're my history in the community I love.
Whoa shit. Mania just hit righteous rage. Watch the fuck out. #whyimanactivist
Just talked to eu 712. Gave my contact info, suggested they set up a facebook page we can friend in support. Informational picket happening on campus on Wednesday. Good day to call and voice support for them. May create alums in support community once I'm at pc.
In more calming news, just called my doc for a med adjust. Been meaning to, but damn am I running hot today. Still a bit physiologically shaky from the remnants of the adrenal surge from calling and voicing my anger (I was not abusive in the message just clearly furious)
And I'm very excited to get to a keyboard! Fingers have been twitching to write recs about Buffy and xena. Rewatched the first few eps of both in the past few days.
How many of your friends at kenyon were there thanks to the employee tuition benefit? Outsourcing is about screwing the next generation and making kenyon even more class-isolated than it is. *rage*
How many knox county students will the roelofs fund even have to assist if this trend continues?
Maybe Kenyon shouldn't oughta teach their students all that liberal artsy justice shit if they want to be able to do this kind of crap.
*sigh* Not a good mental state for a staff meeting. Just gave my boss the heads up to help me keep my mouth shut.
Fuck. GP won't prescribe a mood stabilizer. Since my psych left her practice I apparently now have to find another one ASAP. Fuck.
unfortunately the prob is that I need a mood stabilizer; I'm already on an antidepressant, and it's the manias I'm having trouble with. It's sort of unavoidable when we're trying to treat my fibro enough to keep me functional, since provigil and Cymbalta can both cause refractive manias in folks with bipolar. I knew at the time that I'd probably need one, and asked her for one, but she wanted me to see my psych instead. I thought that was reasonable, but now that I know I don't actually HAVE a psychiatrist at the moment, I'm much more stressed that she won't help out with at least a brief script. I'm doing mostly ok at avoiding problematic life effects from the mania by focusing my energy where it's useful, but I'm struggling more with that in the past few days, and really starting to feel that dangerous edge where I make stupid decisions (like chewing out bosses over workplace injustices, and things like that).
On the other hand, the reason I work for the most for-profit non-profit I've ever seen is for the cooshy cooshy medical coverage. Thank maude for that. I'm frustrated, but I'll be fine; I've got about as much medical privilege as it's possible to have in this country.
Also now in tears at my desk due to that one bit of mildly frustrating and not all that surprising news. Hate mixes states. Hate them.
And all better again now. *sigh* Ah, the joys of biochemistry walloping you in the back of the head.
As I told Dad this morning, after apologizing for the state of my finances and its impact on him, "I'm trying to be a responsible crazy person". Currently on hold with psychiatry. (talking about this so much partly because I just do, and it's what's going on in my life right now, partly so other folks with psych issues, or who know folks who have them, can possibly gain helpful insight)
Maybe not gone, just at another office! *fingers crossed* http://my.clevelandclinic.org/staff_directory/staff_display.aspx?doctorid=15029
No longer sees outpatient. Boo. New psych search on the fly for someone I can work with. Oh fun. (as you might imagine I'm a picky pain-in-the-ass opinionated patient)
Didn't reach her directly; after a great deal of confusion on the phone trying to determine if she even still existed, they accidentally transfered me to the inpatient floor; I found out from them she's inpatient-only these days.
I've got a pretty hardcore doctor-sorting approach, and I'm implementing it. Trying to do it all before end of business so I don't end up slacking and putting this off for months.
And folks wonder why we'd rather deal with symptoms than with the system... On hold again, probably my tenth useless phone call in the past 20 minutes. Oh, nope, now the appt center is too busy and routing calls to someone who can't put me back in queue to wait for them. Fucking lovely.
Argh. Psychiatry takes 3-4 weeks to schedule a new patient. Appt Center sent me to Concern, which is the employee counseling program. Which would be lovely, if I needed counseling. Back on hold with Appt Center again. Guess a month out and new patient paperwork is how it's going to have to go. Here's hoping I don't try to instigate an office revolution in the meantime.
Can't even actually make an appt with anyone. I'm now "on the list" for the triage nurse to call me back sometime in the next few weeks. Then they'll decide if I get to see someone. *simmeringresentment*
Nurse Oncall, as suspected, can do nothing. Back to my GP to explain what I've tried so far and try again on getting her to see me and talk about this. Trying to hold down the panic those kinds of conversations elicit in me -- as someone with multiple chronic illnesses that started in my teens, I've never shaken the perpetual fear of being tagged as drug-seeking or non-compliant (or hypochondriac, or sympathy seeking... the brainmice go on and on!) For fuck's sake, it's not like mood stabilizers even have "fun" potential, and I still feel paranoid as shit.
exactly! My brother's used my posting frequency to monitor my mood states for years. (more on LJ than here, but it's especially dramatic here)
"Well then, you're just going to have to go to the Emergency Room." I'm going outside to chainsmoke and cry for a while now.
Yup. It's a ridiculous waste of everyone's resources and time, but if it's the only way for me to have the necessary meds for the next month, gotta do it. Just so full of rage that it's actually come to that.
unfortunately, I've been off mood stabilizers for years; I can normally balance my life acceptably well without them, and the ones I tried in the past weren't remarkably effective for me (Tegretol, Neurontin). I can't try Depakote because of a possible life-threatening reaction, and I'm unwilling to go on Topamax without overwhelming reason, so I want to try Lamictal and see how that goes. The reason I need one now is that I need the provigil and higher dose of Cymbalta to stay employable fibro-wise, and those are working great in that regard, but I need to add a mood stabilizer back into the mix to try to cut the peaks off the bipolar highs when they interact together.
my feeling exactly! As I was ranting to my Mom -- "Do they KNOW how rare it is for a bipolar person to seek treatment during a mania?"
what makes me so angry is the waste of time and resources. I'm not in crisis, per se. I just know a month more without mood stabilizers means a month more when I might get myself fired or broke from being unable to keep my mouth or wallet shut.
And part of my deal with myself about taking a minimum meds approach to the bipolar is that I do actually seek help when I note that things are getting beyond my ability to cope with by adjusting my life and environment.
And the extraordinarily messy state I'm in at the moment that's making me so useless at work is pretty much a direct effect of my attempts at interacting with the medical system today. Fuckers.
Chad's on his way to get me for a hot date at the ED, and I'm leaving work early in the middle of a messy downtime, which blows for my coworkers. Ranted to my mom and ate mulberries off the tree in the back until I got a bit more in hand and could come back into the office with some shred of dignity intact.
Thanks, both of you! Although interacting with the health system has left me a weepy enraged mess, I'm not actually in crisis per se, and there's no reason to worry overmuch. I just can't believe that to have a friggin' mood stabilizer (oooooh, the abuse potential!) I'm going to have to waste everyone's time and resources with an ED visit.
I think my big challenge is going to be NOT yelling at people. Poor ED staff, getting me after this whole mess.
Seriously? My once in a blue moon interstitial cystitis picks NOW to act up? Nothing like bladder pain to help soothe a grumpy Sarah. *headdesk*
Success! According to behavioral health intake line, ed wouldn't be able to help anyway without admitting me. Awesome woman pulled some strings and got me in for an appt 9am Monday with an accomodating doc she called directly. Yay!
Responsible crazy person action accomplished against all odds, we now return you to you regularly scheduled political ranting and randomness.
I'm going to be writing a letter about this. I'm sure I'll post it here as soon as I do. Seems to be the weekend for writing stern missives.
Also, thank you all for the support today; it really did concretely help. Being able to access that kind of support is why I'm so in favor of being out about psych stuff.
*nodnod* I very much believe that. I also believe in modeling my reality when I think that may be helpful. Some folks are sadly unaware of what that kind of support looks like, which can make it harder to find or create.
great work to be doing! i often function as an informal patient advocate for friends and family, which makes it easier to advocate for myself when needed
Least favorite comorbidity with my fibro bar none. Stress this afternoon seems to have set it off. Hopefully will go away by tomorrow. Took me years to get diagnosed, so figured I'd share. Interstitial Cystitis, and another
my symptoms today are negative test for nitrites, positive for leukocytes (inflammation without typical sign of bacteria), i have intense constant bladder pain, can't stop having to pee, but only drops, and visible blood. worst I've had it in ages.
i had a PST test back around age 25, but that's unusually early onset - my symptoms started in my teens along with the fibro. the flares run together with my fibro flares so i mostly treat it as another fibro symptom
i take ditropan for it as needed, usually just during flares where it's a problem. the ditropan i took earlier is already starting to help, and I'll probably stay on it a few days.
visible blood is really rare for me. it's more often like you describe. activity tends to help me and i just saw that sitting for long periods can be a trigger.
Today:
Getting set for a lovely relaxed day with Chad. The rest of the world's stressors can go hang for a few hours.
Also shroomin now. Love that I have a life where "I'm on psychedelics, now seems like a good time to get around to posting nekkid pics online" isn't a horrible idea.
Have a big post in mind about my psych stuff and my psychedelic use, actually. Particularly things I've found medically helpful.
Having fabulous conversations with Chad and Grafton about concepts of community.
Also feeling almost entirely emotionally reset from yesterday, which is excellent. I can think straight without so many thoughts at once I can't focus. I'm not physically jittering any more than normal. Feeling pretty cool and composed overall. Physically much improved too. Still a bit sore and tender, but light years from yesterday's storm of suck.
no worries at all! the benefits of a broad support network; it was all good and i had the support i needed!
So, that's how it all went. Now that I'm not stressed about not having needed meds for the next month, and have an appt coming up on Monday, it's no big deal to cope with the mania, even if it does mean I'm up at 5:30am writing recap posts of my own FB.
Chad's been really, really awesome. He took incredibly good care of me last night both physically and emotionally (for a while I was having so much trouble with the mania that I just couldn't think, and I was in enough pain from my bladder that all I could do was lie in the tub; I came very close to just having my carryout burger in there). Today I woke up with the Ditropan making a huge difference; last night it'd taken ditropan, two extra tramadol, some ibuprofen and an extra skelaxin for me to be able to go more than twenty feet from the bathroom. I've had some minor pain today, but not even bad enough to interfere with sex, which is pretty damned fast recovery. Yay, modern medicine! (Ditropan honestly did make a huge difference for me -- for a while I was getting conditioned against sex by the misery of IC attacks so frequently after it)
I posted some about this the other day: Mixed States and other annoying crap
Then the news about Kenyon happened. My manic "righteous rage" reaction is one I'm very familiar with; it's the same one that used to require me storming off into the woods with my axe until I burned off the physiological adrenaline rush enough to stop shaking and handle things reasonably. Moderated properly, it's the same element of my personality that's why I can't stop doing activism work and speaking up, and it gives me some of the bravado that can make that easier at times, because I just can't not say something. Problem is, the more manic I am, the more true that is, and it is most definitely the biggest weakness in my work career that I'm relatively unreliable about managing to control that same impulse at work over much smaller issues of "right and wrong". I don't respect rank, and I speak my mind, and sometimes it's for the greater good, and sometimes it's just a dumbass "can't shut my mouth" moment. In large part I see it as an advantage of my social privilege; I tend to expect to be listened to and taken seriously, and often get away with it solely on the basis of that, and that's a result of educational enculturation. I figure it's a good use of that privilege to use it primarily in activist directions. And I'm really rambling here, because I'm still moderately manic today. Back to where we were...
I've got fibromyalgia (and an assortment of comorbid chronic disorders), and Bipolar II. It's a huge balancing act to figure out how to keep me functional enough through the pain and fatigue of the fibro to be employable, but not to trigger such a mania that I get my ass fired over it. Both disorders are highly stress-mediated for me, so I do everything I can to keep my life pretty chill overall. I hate that I'm basically "allergic to stress", but as shorthand it's as accurate as anything else. (oddly, not at all true of a crisis; I kick into gear for those like nothing else -- it's one of my strong points)
I'm on quite an assortment of meds, and trying to balance quality of life, functionality, acute side-effects, and long-term risks. I kind of assume that I'm currently giving up somewhere in the range of 5-10 years of lifespan for the extra wear and tear all this shit is doing on my liver and other systems.
The clinic's been on my ass and my doc's ass about my FMLA time, wanting to push it lower, and my boss and I would of course both like that for our own reasons (FMLA doesn't pay anything, it just keeps me from being fired -- I'm still either burning my PTO or take unpaid days). But stress about my FMLA stuff is exactly the kind of thing that fucks me up in lightning time. In this case it was 0 - Pissing Blood in less than 12 hours. So this is what happened Friday, how it spiraled, and how it resolved:
I was essentially liveposting to FB throughout as a way of handling the stress.
Just left a message at president nugent's office. Didn't plan it but my voice was shaking with rage and my hands are still shaking. Typing a pain. Alums call and make your voices heard. Sodexo for kenyon maintenance is a betrayal. More to come. I'm also writing a letter. 740-427-5000 college switchboard.
Does UE 712 have a facebook page? I'm on my phone and searching is a pain. Yauncey Newman. Lori. The paint crew guys. Every pig roast out in the country. They're my history in the community I love.
Whoa shit. Mania just hit righteous rage. Watch the fuck out. #whyimanactivist
Just talked to eu 712. Gave my contact info, suggested they set up a facebook page we can friend in support. Informational picket happening on campus on Wednesday. Good day to call and voice support for them. May create alums in support community once I'm at pc.
In more calming news, just called my doc for a med adjust. Been meaning to, but damn am I running hot today. Still a bit physiologically shaky from the remnants of the adrenal surge from calling and voicing my anger (I was not abusive in the message just clearly furious)
And I'm very excited to get to a keyboard! Fingers have been twitching to write recs about Buffy and xena. Rewatched the first few eps of both in the past few days.
How many of your friends at kenyon were there thanks to the employee tuition benefit? Outsourcing is about screwing the next generation and making kenyon even more class-isolated than it is. *rage*
How many knox county students will the roelofs fund even have to assist if this trend continues?
Maybe Kenyon shouldn't oughta teach their students all that liberal artsy justice shit if they want to be able to do this kind of crap.
*sigh* Not a good mental state for a staff meeting. Just gave my boss the heads up to help me keep my mouth shut.
Fuck. GP won't prescribe a mood stabilizer. Since my psych left her practice I apparently now have to find another one ASAP. Fuck.
unfortunately the prob is that I need a mood stabilizer; I'm already on an antidepressant, and it's the manias I'm having trouble with. It's sort of unavoidable when we're trying to treat my fibro enough to keep me functional, since provigil and Cymbalta can both cause refractive manias in folks with bipolar. I knew at the time that I'd probably need one, and asked her for one, but she wanted me to see my psych instead. I thought that was reasonable, but now that I know I don't actually HAVE a psychiatrist at the moment, I'm much more stressed that she won't help out with at least a brief script. I'm doing mostly ok at avoiding problematic life effects from the mania by focusing my energy where it's useful, but I'm struggling more with that in the past few days, and really starting to feel that dangerous edge where I make stupid decisions (like chewing out bosses over workplace injustices, and things like that).
On the other hand, the reason I work for the most for-profit non-profit I've ever seen is for the cooshy cooshy medical coverage. Thank maude for that. I'm frustrated, but I'll be fine; I've got about as much medical privilege as it's possible to have in this country.
Also now in tears at my desk due to that one bit of mildly frustrating and not all that surprising news. Hate mixes states. Hate them.
And all better again now. *sigh* Ah, the joys of biochemistry walloping you in the back of the head.
As I told Dad this morning, after apologizing for the state of my finances and its impact on him, "I'm trying to be a responsible crazy person". Currently on hold with psychiatry. (talking about this so much partly because I just do, and it's what's going on in my life right now, partly so other folks with psych issues, or who know folks who have them, can possibly gain helpful insight)
Maybe not gone, just at another office! *fingers crossed* http://my.clevelandclinic.org/staff_directory/staff_display.aspx?doctorid=15029
No longer sees outpatient. Boo. New psych search on the fly for someone I can work with. Oh fun. (as you might imagine I'm a picky pain-in-the-ass opinionated patient)
Didn't reach her directly; after a great deal of confusion on the phone trying to determine if she even still existed, they accidentally transfered me to the inpatient floor; I found out from them she's inpatient-only these days.
I've got a pretty hardcore doctor-sorting approach, and I'm implementing it. Trying to do it all before end of business so I don't end up slacking and putting this off for months.
And folks wonder why we'd rather deal with symptoms than with the system... On hold again, probably my tenth useless phone call in the past 20 minutes. Oh, nope, now the appt center is too busy and routing calls to someone who can't put me back in queue to wait for them. Fucking lovely.
Argh. Psychiatry takes 3-4 weeks to schedule a new patient. Appt Center sent me to Concern, which is the employee counseling program. Which would be lovely, if I needed counseling. Back on hold with Appt Center again. Guess a month out and new patient paperwork is how it's going to have to go. Here's hoping I don't try to instigate an office revolution in the meantime.
Can't even actually make an appt with anyone. I'm now "on the list" for the triage nurse to call me back sometime in the next few weeks. Then they'll decide if I get to see someone. *simmeringresentment*
Nurse Oncall, as suspected, can do nothing. Back to my GP to explain what I've tried so far and try again on getting her to see me and talk about this. Trying to hold down the panic those kinds of conversations elicit in me -- as someone with multiple chronic illnesses that started in my teens, I've never shaken the perpetual fear of being tagged as drug-seeking or non-compliant (or hypochondriac, or sympathy seeking... the brainmice go on and on!) For fuck's sake, it's not like mood stabilizers even have "fun" potential, and I still feel paranoid as shit.
exactly! My brother's used my posting frequency to monitor my mood states for years. (more on LJ than here, but it's especially dramatic here)
"Well then, you're just going to have to go to the Emergency Room." I'm going outside to chainsmoke and cry for a while now.
Yup. It's a ridiculous waste of everyone's resources and time, but if it's the only way for me to have the necessary meds for the next month, gotta do it. Just so full of rage that it's actually come to that.
unfortunately, I've been off mood stabilizers for years; I can normally balance my life acceptably well without them, and the ones I tried in the past weren't remarkably effective for me (Tegretol, Neurontin). I can't try Depakote because of a possible life-threatening reaction, and I'm unwilling to go on Topamax without overwhelming reason, so I want to try Lamictal and see how that goes. The reason I need one now is that I need the provigil and higher dose of Cymbalta to stay employable fibro-wise, and those are working great in that regard, but I need to add a mood stabilizer back into the mix to try to cut the peaks off the bipolar highs when they interact together.
my feeling exactly! As I was ranting to my Mom -- "Do they KNOW how rare it is for a bipolar person to seek treatment during a mania?"
what makes me so angry is the waste of time and resources. I'm not in crisis, per se. I just know a month more without mood stabilizers means a month more when I might get myself fired or broke from being unable to keep my mouth or wallet shut.
And part of my deal with myself about taking a minimum meds approach to the bipolar is that I do actually seek help when I note that things are getting beyond my ability to cope with by adjusting my life and environment.
And the extraordinarily messy state I'm in at the moment that's making me so useless at work is pretty much a direct effect of my attempts at interacting with the medical system today. Fuckers.
Chad's on his way to get me for a hot date at the ED, and I'm leaving work early in the middle of a messy downtime, which blows for my coworkers. Ranted to my mom and ate mulberries off the tree in the back until I got a bit more in hand and could come back into the office with some shred of dignity intact.
Thanks, both of you! Although interacting with the health system has left me a weepy enraged mess, I'm not actually in crisis per se, and there's no reason to worry overmuch. I just can't believe that to have a friggin' mood stabilizer (oooooh, the abuse potential!) I'm going to have to waste everyone's time and resources with an ED visit.
I think my big challenge is going to be NOT yelling at people. Poor ED staff, getting me after this whole mess.
Seriously? My once in a blue moon interstitial cystitis picks NOW to act up? Nothing like bladder pain to help soothe a grumpy Sarah. *headdesk*
Success! According to behavioral health intake line, ed wouldn't be able to help anyway without admitting me. Awesome woman pulled some strings and got me in for an appt 9am Monday with an accomodating doc she called directly. Yay!
Responsible crazy person action accomplished against all odds, we now return you to you regularly scheduled political ranting and randomness.
I'm going to be writing a letter about this. I'm sure I'll post it here as soon as I do. Seems to be the weekend for writing stern missives.
Also, thank you all for the support today; it really did concretely help. Being able to access that kind of support is why I'm so in favor of being out about psych stuff.
*nodnod* I very much believe that. I also believe in modeling my reality when I think that may be helpful. Some folks are sadly unaware of what that kind of support looks like, which can make it harder to find or create.
great work to be doing! i often function as an informal patient advocate for friends and family, which makes it easier to advocate for myself when needed
Least favorite comorbidity with my fibro bar none. Stress this afternoon seems to have set it off. Hopefully will go away by tomorrow. Took me years to get diagnosed, so figured I'd share. Interstitial Cystitis, and another
my symptoms today are negative test for nitrites, positive for leukocytes (inflammation without typical sign of bacteria), i have intense constant bladder pain, can't stop having to pee, but only drops, and visible blood. worst I've had it in ages.
i had a PST test back around age 25, but that's unusually early onset - my symptoms started in my teens along with the fibro. the flares run together with my fibro flares so i mostly treat it as another fibro symptom
i take ditropan for it as needed, usually just during flares where it's a problem. the ditropan i took earlier is already starting to help, and I'll probably stay on it a few days.
visible blood is really rare for me. it's more often like you describe. activity tends to help me and i just saw that sitting for long periods can be a trigger.
Today:
Getting set for a lovely relaxed day with Chad. The rest of the world's stressors can go hang for a few hours.
Also shroomin now. Love that I have a life where "I'm on psychedelics, now seems like a good time to get around to posting nekkid pics online" isn't a horrible idea.
Have a big post in mind about my psych stuff and my psychedelic use, actually. Particularly things I've found medically helpful.
Having fabulous conversations with Chad and Grafton about concepts of community.
Also feeling almost entirely emotionally reset from yesterday, which is excellent. I can think straight without so many thoughts at once I can't focus. I'm not physically jittering any more than normal. Feeling pretty cool and composed overall. Physically much improved too. Still a bit sore and tender, but light years from yesterday's storm of suck.
no worries at all! the benefits of a broad support network; it was all good and i had the support i needed!
So, that's how it all went. Now that I'm not stressed about not having needed meds for the next month, and have an appt coming up on Monday, it's no big deal to cope with the mania, even if it does mean I'm up at 5:30am writing recap posts of my own FB.
Chad's been really, really awesome. He took incredibly good care of me last night both physically and emotionally (for a while I was having so much trouble with the mania that I just couldn't think, and I was in enough pain from my bladder that all I could do was lie in the tub; I came very close to just having my carryout burger in there). Today I woke up with the Ditropan making a huge difference; last night it'd taken ditropan, two extra tramadol, some ibuprofen and an extra skelaxin for me to be able to go more than twenty feet from the bathroom. I've had some minor pain today, but not even bad enough to interfere with sex, which is pretty damned fast recovery. Yay, modern medicine! (Ditropan honestly did make a huge difference for me -- for a while I was getting conditioned against sex by the misery of IC attacks so frequently after it)