As you’ve probably guessed, your favorite bipolar blogger is back home from three days of getting ed-u-ma-cated on some really important stuff related to my job. I swear, my brain is crammed so full of information that I’m afraid it’s going to leak out and get all over the place!
Which probably wouldn’t be surprising, given the nature of things lately. This week, I had to make the hardest decision I’ve ever made in my entire life, and though I don’t have even a scintilla of regret for doing what I did, I’m on overload, and I know it. With the exception of those blessed six weeks of stability, I’ve fought my illness HARD since February, and the Fates have not seen fit within their miserable black hearts to cut me much slack.
It doesn’t help that Miss Thing from my doctor’s office forgot—or didn’t bother—to let me know until Wednesday afternoon that he wanted me to stay on the higher Geodon dose, and had already ordered thirty days’ worth from my pharmacy on Monday. So I went two nights without the proper dose, which in the great scheme of things doesn’t matter much; I was a little restless and irritable last night, but I got rid of it with a twenty-minute swim in the hotel pool followed by a session in the Jacuzzi.
No, it’s the principle of the thing, and I mean to have that discussion with him tomorrow. I am a paying customer, and I expect to be treated with courtesy and to have my concerns addressed in a timely fashion. I know it’s not my pdoc’s fault—he didn’t hire her—but I do want him to run interference for me to her actual supervisor. I don’t wish the girl any ill, nor do I think she deserves a formal reprimand, but I still wonder how patients who aren’t as fabulously ‘together’ as I am (cue the hysterical laughter) get their needs met when she’s on duty?
But that’s a job for tomorrow. For today, I am proud that I took a stand on something that is important for my mental health, but absolutely crucial for my husband’s….and if I have erred, it was on the side of our almost 33-year marriage.
It’s amazed how much he’s changed in the few weeks since this burden has been off his back; he’s been grumpy and irritable—literally—for years, and now he can often be heard meandering around the house, whistling or humming pleasantly. He’s open and cheerful with me, even when I’m struggling; he doesn’t bitch at the grandkids for making noise anymore; he no longer complains so much about petty crap, like the dishtowel facing backwards (where I hung it) or the hair in the drain (I’d like to think that got in there because there’s somebody with long hair running around our house who’s NOT me!).
But it was when I told him of my decision—and its results—this afternoon, I swear I saw five years lift from his face in the time it took me to tell my story. He’s never been a praying-out-loud sort of fellow, but he looked straight up to Heaven and said “YESSSSSS!! Thank You, God!”
And that made it worth all the blood, sweat, tears, and agony it cost me to make things right with him and show him that he’s #1 in my life, once and for all.
There’s no place like home!
bpnurse 