I’ve been feeling really crappy over the last few weeks. Other than doing some web work and a little work on the nursery, I’ve basically been living on my sofa. Actually, if you count driving into Vancouver to pick up a massage table, the three days we had a client here, and the painting I did tonight in the basement stairwell, I’ve done a fair bit.
I finished painting inside of the cupboards in the basement tonight. I did a first coat of floor paint on the stairs to the basement too. I also went to the GYM *gasp* today.
I’ve been feeling really down. It’s been a struggle to get out of bed every morning and to get motivated to do anything. There’s nothing wrong in my life at all; I’ve got a home, a bed, food, a lovely partner, two pugs, and a lot of books around. I just feel crappy. Bed time has been my favorite part of the day.
I’m hoping that getting back to the gym will help. If it gets much worse I’ll look into medication.
My to do list is still fairly big.
Left to do in first room:
Paint inside of cabinets.- Faux the concrete walls
- arrange furniture
- hang dart board
Left to do in second room:
- Paint dividing wall red
- Faux the concrete walls
- Finish painting door
Left do do in entry room/laundry room/stairwell
- Second coat of floor paint in laundry room
Paint stairs & walls in stair well- Hang curtain to partition/hide laundry room
It will probably be March 1 before we’re finished both rooms. I think we can get the first room finished in a week or two if we do a bit every day. We’d be down in the first room Faux’ing the wall tonight, but the paint is still wet on the steps.
The rest of the week is quite busy. We have to go into Vancouver tomorrow so Leila can get an adjustment on her lap band, and we’re going to go to Ikea on the way home. Thursday we have guests. Friday we have an appointment, and Saturday we get to go to a kinky party.
We had a few threatening e-mails recently demanding we take a few of our sites down or ‘you will be exposed across the internet”.. Uhhh… Everyone knows who we are anyways, so who cares? Certainly not me. In fact, it could be good for business. The server is secure, the registrar is locked and has been warned about possible attempts to hijack the domain. Mt reputation certainly won’t be harmed, since everyone I know, including my family, knows what I do for a living. There are benefits to being completely out; nobody can blackmail you.
Bed time.
Ξ September 16th, 2005 | → Comments Off | ∇ Mental Illness |
Poor Katt is having a rough time with her depression over the last few days. She hasn’t been this low since she was hospitalized over a year ago. She has an appointment on Monday morning with a Dr, so hopefully some med adjustments can be made until her regular Dr get back on Oct 4th. When he gets back we’re going to discuss alternative treatments for depression, since her depression keeps going up and down and does not seem to be fully treatable with meds alone.
She feels guilty for the impact her depression has had on me, but I keep telling her that she’s stuck with me. I love her incredibly much, and I’d walk through hell if it meant we’d still be together. The way I look at it is that we are a team, and we fight her depression as a team just the same as we do everything else as a team. Yes, it can be difficult sometimes, but life IS difficult sometimes, but the rewards are amazing.
Ξ December 17th, 2004 | → Comments Off | ∇ Mental Illness |
Katt is home. The Dr’s at the hospital made a med change, but they were not going to give her a bed as an inpatient, and being in emerg for the weekend was going to, in my humble opinion, set her back worse than if she was at home. So I took her home. So far so good. She seems in ok spirits, and she has an appointment on Tuesday with a Dr, so it looks promising.
Keeping on keeping on!
Ξ December 17th, 2004 | → Comments Off | ∇ Mental Illness |
The newest info is that Katt is feeling worse than she did when she first arrived at the hospital. I am going to ask to speak to her Dr. today so I can impress on them the need to keep her where she is. If they discharge her I’m going to take her right from discharge back to emergency for admission. If they try to transfer her to the other hospital, she’ll just go AWOL when she gets there. I have to keep her where she is.
I just wanted to say thank you again to the folks who have offered an ear. Right now I mostly want to keep to myself. It’s hard for me to have people around or talk about whats going on when I’m distressed. Right now I want to keep my own worries under the surface so that I can continue to function as best I can and do what needs to be done.
I am hoping for the best. Everything is in place for her in terms of treatment when she comes home. It’s a matter of making sure she makes it to the treatment and follows through with it. If I can keep her safe until then, I am positive she will start to improve.
I am focusing on that thought.
2 days in hospital and they haven’t done anything for her yet. They haven’t made any med changes at all. When I asked them tonight, the current plan is to keep her there until she’s not suicidal and then discharge her so that med changes can be made as an outpatient with the mental health team.
BAD IDEA!!! Didn’t they hear what we told them when we brought her in on Tuesday night? Did the fact that I told them that changes needed to be made now *in* hospital so that her passive suicidal thoughts didn’t become active plans?! Her face dropped and the hopelessness swooped in when she heard they were thinking of doing meds as an outpatient. It always seems that Dr’s want to pass the buck to someone else so that they don’t have to deal with patients. It really sickens me.
It has been written on her chart that I am to be called when she is to be discharged and that she is to be discharged into my hands only. At least this way it makes it harder for her if she does become actively suicidal in that I would be there to stop her. As long as I am around, I can find a way to get her to the hospital, even if she doesn’t want to be there.
She also has an appointment with her mental health clinic Dr set up for Tuesday, so there is definite ability to make med changes within the next 5 days. it is hard to get her to see it as positive though. Any time she goes to hospital and they don’t do anything for her, her faith that anyone cares diminishes, and her hope that any changes will be made that can help her also diminishes. She’s barely running on vapours. I do my best to reassure her that at least the hospital keeps her safe while she is suicidal and that med changes are going to be made soon, regardless of if she’s in hospital or not. There are a tonen of medications she hasn’t tried yet, and there is a medication that has worked for her in the past that she can start again.
It is so hard to convince someone who is that severely depressed that there is hope. They just don’t seem to believe it. I try to keep reinforcing that she’s got a Dr at the mental health clinic that will change her meds, that there are meds she hasn’t tried that she can try, and new medicatiosn that are coming out for depression in 2005 that work on med resistant people like her, and that I love her no matter what.
I try to pass my own hope to her. I am absolutely certain that she can be helped with consistent medication and monitoring. I’ve seen medications help her before. These last 8 months of mismanagement by the hospitals and by a Dr that abandoned her care by moving 3 hours away without notice have really hit her hard though. I know she does her best to be safe and keep in mind that there are options she hasn’t tried yet. I do my best for her, I really do.
My worst fear in life is that she would somehow commit suicide and that I wouldn’t have her in my life any more. I don’t want to be without her.
Thanks for the comments of support. Katt was admitted to hospital tonight. She was having too rough a time and we felt she’d be safer in hospital and also have quicker access to treatment. She sees a Dr. next week, but quite honestly that wasn’t fast enough. So she’ll likely be there for a few days to a week, depending on how well treatment works. She’s got a bed in the ‘waiting for an inpatient bed’ area. We’re hoping she’ll be transferred soon so she can have more access to Dr’s etc.
If you have a little positive energy to spare, please consider sending some her way. She could really use it right now.
Katt has been really struggling with her depression in the last month. This last week or two has been particularly rough for her. Normally it would be at a stage where I’d bring her to hospital, but she has lost faith in the hospitals as the last 3 or 4 time she’s gone in they have not made any changes at all for her so she doesn’t want to go anymore. Unless she’s in acute danger I won’t force her to go. So far she seems to be keeping herself safe and is really struggling to keep her head above water. That means she sleeps a lot to avoid the feelings of depression she has.
She has a Dr’s appt on the 21st with the guy who deals with her medications, so I am hoping he will be willing to make soem changes. The current combination she is on does not work for her, but no Dr has changed it in over a year. I also think that her lack of having psychotherapy has been really detrimental too. Her old psychiatrist moved without notice about 8 months ago, so she hasn’t had any real support in 8 months. She’s been seeing a psych nurse at a community mental health clinic for 6-8 weeks, but it was all intake and assessment and the first time she saw a Mood Disorder specialist was just a week ago. I really really hope that she will get some changes made on the 21st. I really hate to see her feeling so hopeless and depressed. I want so much more for her than a life that is centered around her depression.
She’s so concerned that she’ll never get relief from her depression. She’s had Dr’s say that she’ll likly be depressed for the rest of her life because once depression recurs it often continues to come back, and that only added to her feelings of hopelessness. Each time a new treatment is ruled out or is tried and doesn’t work, she gets more and more sad and worried that nothing will help her feel better. What if she tries everything and it fails is her biggest concern.
I keep positive and reinforce that there are still lots of options to look into now that she has a Dr that can see her regularly. I know there is something out there that will work for her because she’s been on medications before that have helped her a lot in combination with psychotherapy. Treatment has worked before, so I have no doubt it will work again. Hopefully she’ll be put on the med combination that worked for her before asap or will be tried on a new medication that she hasn’t tried before. Her community psychiatrist is very positive that there are medications that will work for her and that there are new medications coming out in 2005 with a fantastic treatment profile for her type of depression.
Her community psych nurse is available at short notice too, so if she runs into trouble, I have to remember to call them and see if they can see her for crisis support if needed. It may be a better intermediate step to hospitalization. Hopefully she won’t need the latter.
Shopping therapy usually works for her too. I dug into savings and put aside a fair chunk of money so that we could do some home improvement and get a few things that we wanted. While she’s shopping she seems to be having a lot of fun and buying things seems to be fun, but afterwards she slips back into depression. I think when she stops moving she starts worrying about running out of treatments to try and about the possibility she may never feel better than she does now and it ends up in a vicious cycle.
I will be staying home with her until I think she’s safe to be on her own. Sometimes that changes on a day to day basis. She has plans to go to the BDSM munch tomorrow night with a friend, which is awesome. I’ll take that opportunity to go and refill her medications and get some meat in the house for dinner. Katt’s health and safety is really important to me. It takes precidence over exercising and movies and books.
I’ve spent some time researching new medications, and their efficacy compared with medications she has taken in the past. I know what drug family has worked for her in the past, so I will let her Dr know and maybe there’s something new her can try in that family. Her Dr wants to know what meds worked, so I’m giving him the best info I can. I don’t want her to have to wait another 7 days though. 7 days feels like a lifetime when she’s so depressed.
