Where The Fight Began

With an awesome pdoc and a wonderful family!

The pdoc I was paired up with after the horrible ER visit, turned out to be not so scary. I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe a certified pill-pusher, or someone who needed more help than any of us. But pdoc was none of those things. He was very thorough when it came to my mental history. A 45 minute appointment turned into about 1 1/2 hours. He spent a lot of time talking with Hubs and just about the same amount talking with me. We went over previous diagnoses and previous/failed treatments. He agreed that I absolutely had an anxiety disorder and then we talked mood and if I had ever experienced psychosis.

Answering the mood part was easy….psychosis, well, what does that mean? I kinda stared at him blankly. He then started with some leading questions.

“What is the reason you don’t drive?” …..”Because I’m scared someone will hit me, I’ll hit someone else, or someone is following me.”

“Is there any reason to believe someone is following you?”………”No.”

“Do you think someone wants to hurt you?”……”Yes (insert lots of convo about baseball bats, kids not playing outside, checking doors, keeping drapes closed, ect….”

“Do you think something is going to happen to your children if you let them outside?”…….”Yes, someone may kidnap them, hurt them, yell at them (this one really happened though)”

I guess he heard enough at that point as he spread his hands across his desk and said, “Miss Becca, you can forget about the depression. You have Bipolar with psychosis. Now this is what we are going to do.”

I think at that point he realized I was looking at him like he was the crazy one. He told me to go home, educate myself, look it up, read about it, learn about it and come back in a week and tell him what I think. So…..I did and a week later I walked into his office with a completely different attitude. That’s when we got down to business. He wanted the name and telephone number of my OB’s office. He would try to contact them on his end and discuss everything with them and in the mean-time I was to contact them and talk with them from my point of view. He wanted to mainly know how they felt about treating me with Seroquel. He did not want to use Lithium or any other mood stabilizer as he felt Seroquel was the best fit. It would tackle: mood, psychosis, anxiety and sleep. Considering I have a tendency to rage during my mixed/manic episodes, he felt this was the best fit for me.

We played phone tag for two weeks with my OB, but I wasn’t discouraged. I had an appointment coming up with my perintologist and I knew I would have better luck with him and I did. After explaining everything to him, he faxed a letter directly to my pdoc explaining that he felt treating my symptom’s of the Bipolar were more of a benefit than the risks that could possibly affect Baby M&M. That week I started the Seroquel. But not at a huge, high dose. No….pdoc was scared so we started low, 25 mg.

Now I have to say, everything I researched about Seroquel told me that 25 mg was nothing more than a sleep aid and it was going to kick me on my tush. Well….that didn’t happen. 25 mg was nothing more than a sugar pill, as was 50 mg all the way up to 300 mg. Once I hit 300 mg, I started sleeping normally and feeling a bit better. But it wasn’t to last very long. A few days after hitting 300 mg, the psychosis and voices started to seep back in as did the rage. I was not doing good, it was so bad, I cried to Hubs during one of his lunch breaks home. He offered to take the rest of the day off, but I didn’t want him to. I wanted to just run away, I didn’t want another person home in my face.

I was so full of the crazies at that point that when I snapped at my (then) 4-year-old son, I realized my snapping wasn’t snapping. I was screaming at him, full-blown screaming and it was for nothing. I intend in the future to blog about this particular incident in detail. This was just to give you a short preview of what state of mind I was in when I was not well. 

Immediately I called my pdoc’s office and got in to see him right away. I told him about what was happening and everything my head was telling me and he upped me to 400mg…….that dose saved my life. Within 3 days I felt a thousand times better. I started to actually care about my life again. But more importantly, I started caring about my kids lives.

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The night I started to feel better, Hubs was rocking our 10 month old to sleep. The other children were already in bed and my oldest son was spending the night at a friend’s house. I had just got done journaling and made my way first into the girl’s bedroom. I sat at the edge of my 3 year old’s bed, stroking her hair as she slept, silent tears streaming down my face. I thought back over the last 5 years of our lives and all the mistakes and mess ups I had made along the way. How horrible of a parent I had become in such a short amount of time. I realized that my downhill spiral did not just happen that year, but had begun long before that. Most likely in my teens, but progressively got worse as I got older and had more stress triggers and responsibility along the way. 

I then thought about how much I loved, adored and cared for my children. How I would do everything in my power to protect them. Protect them from the horrifying side of Bipolar. How they were the reason that I needed to fight through this and do whatever it took to be as stable as possible. It was for them…..not for myself, but for my kids. That my children were the most important reason for me to do whatever I could to hold it together. That the depression, no matter how debilitating it was, was not going to lie to me any longer and make me believe that they were better off without me. I knew with my whole heart, that my children were the reason I needed to tell that liar to, “Shut up!” I kissed Macie gently on the forehead, climbed up the ladder to kiss LA and walked out of  their room. 

Next I went into the boy’s room and sat next to JP…..My illness had probably affected him the most. I hadn’t bonded with him the way I had the other children. His life had been filled with nothing but chaos and a very distant mother who took most of her verbal aggression out on him. My tears weren’t as silent this time, but I tried hard to keep the tone down, I didn’t want him to wake up scared because Mommy was sitting on his bed crying. I ran my fingers through his hair, ran a finger down his cheek and just watched him sleep for a long time. I knew I messed up with this kid…now I needed to figure out how to fix it. I kissed him on his forehead, just like I had Macie and then kissed AC and walked out of the bedroom back to the kitchen where I could be alone with my thoughts. 

I can’t say that from that point on everything fell into place and I was happy person once again. If I could, there would be no reason to continue with this blog and it would just make sense to stop right here. But what I can say is, that it was from that point that I really started to fight this and it is the reason I am doing this blog. I want other parent’s to realize there is more to our lives than this damn diagnosis that in the beginning can make us believe our lives are over.

Until next time……

Becca ♥

 

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A Story Unfolds Part 2

May 18th 2011 is a date I will never be able to forget.

Mid-morning my tdoc called to check on me. She suggested an inpatient facility that was a little more homey then what the hospital could provide. She felt it would be a good fit for me and gave me a few numbers to try and get a referral there. This was not something I was afraid of. If I could go somewhere, in a comfortable setting and get the treatment and care I needed, then it didn’t seem so scary. I immediately started making those calls.

By 4pm I was talking with a real nice girl about going inpatient. She proceeded to take my information over the phone, talking to me the whole time, asking questions about medications, any hospital stays, my reasoning for wanting to go inpatient and when I gave it to her, everything changed! She immediately asked if I needed them to send an ambulance out to me. “Of course not!” I yelped and half choked into the phone. “I just want to get the referral to Nice Place so I can avoid going into the hospital. This kind woman’s voice changed. “Ma’am, you have 15 minutes to get your husband home from work or we are sending an ambulance for you!” Panic raced through me as my heart started to pound so hard I thought it was going to plop on the floor in front of me.

There was no way I could allow them to send an ambulance to get me. That would completely take away all my rights, I’d be alone, without Hubs, my children were home with me and they’d be confused and scared, not knowing the full details of what was wrong with me and there was also the problem of my Aunt, Uncle and cousin living in front of me. They…..would not be able to be kept out of the loop and this was amo I didn’t want them to have. So, I asked the girl to give me 10 minutes to get in touch with my husband and she could call me back, that I was safe, I had my kids with me. I was and still am forever grateful that she gave me those 10 minutes. It was then that I realized the number I called was not for the inpatient facility I was hoping for, but for our local crisis hot line.

Hubs was completely baffled by what was going on. I don’t think he really understand the extent of what I was going through, or at the very least, he didn’t want to admit it. He was home in less than 10 minutes after I spoke with him and the girl from the crisis line was back on the phone with me, informing me that she had already called the ER and they were expecting me. Ugh!! I wanted to avoid the hospital at all costs, it was why I went through the avenues’ I did go through only to end up having to go there anyway. I knew at this point, I had no choice. If I didn’t comply, they would surely send an ambulance and possibly the police too.

I can still remember the look on my children’s faces as they watched me walk out that door. My oldest kept hugging me, telling me I’d be okay. I think he understood even though not a single person had breathed a word to him. The others’ hugged me, but I could see in their eyes they were afraid, for themselves and for their Mommy. They were confused and scared. They had no idea. All their sad, little eyes followed me as I walked out the door. I had no clue how long it would be until I saw them again….

I do not remember the ride to the hospital at all. I remember getting in the car, but after that is a complete blur. I have no idea why, but I have blocked the entire car ride out. Maybe it was the finality of actually going and there being no turning back. Or maybe it was because this would actually be my second trip to the ER for the same thing. The last time, was was 13 years before and I kept thinking about how procedures were done back then. I was petrified!

Upon arrival at the ER, I think Hubs half carried me in there. Once inside, I stood partially behind him, my body shaking, my hands trembling, my mind racing and I was doing everything I could to stop myself from hypervenilating. When we got up to the reception area, tears flowing down my face, I whispered out just 3 words, “Crisis Worker please.”

I was thankful that I didn’t have to go sit in the ER waiting room. I really don’t think I could have handled sitting there, a ball of nerves, breaking down in a way I had never done before. They ushered me right to the back and when the triage nurse took my blood pressure, it went up even more out of shock over how high it was. 183/120′s……I was sure I was going to have a heartattack and die right there before they could do anything to help me. Next, I was ushered into the back and taken to a small wing off to the side of the rest of the ER. Here, was a wing I soon realized, reserved for “special” people just like me. A nurse had me quickly go into the bathroom and change out of all my clothes and put on some ridiculous, paper, blue suit. I was then taken to a stretcher that sat in the hallway. I felt absolutely humiliated. First I had to answer a series of questions with the triage nurse, then I was stripped naked, the blue suit did not fit even though I was 5 months pregnant, it kept slipping down and the legs were too long and then I was put on a stretcher, in the hallway, in between the nurses station and the doctor’s office. If that wasn’t bad enough…..a nurse came to sit with us and she was someone we knew from school. Her first words, “So, how have things been?” I truly wanted to smack her in that one moment. Instead I sneered at her and said, “Well, I’m here aren’t I?” She felt stupid and shut up after that.

Two hours later a crisis worker finally came to talk to me. They moved me into an empty room and we talked about why I was there. She was nice, very kind and compassionate, but she really, really wanted me to be admitted, especially after she heard my plan. I begged her to let me go home. I promised I would keep myself safe. I promised that if I started to feel that way again that I would come back. I begged that if they really felt like I needed to stay to please let me go to the other facility, she claimed there was no bed available for me. Later I found out, it was because I was pregnant and the other place was no equipped to deal with a pregnant lady if she happened to go into labor or have other complications. So…..the begging continued. She called Hubs in. I think she thought he would be on board with her, but what she didn’t know….Hubs didn’t know my plan. So Hubs stance was with me, “I want what my wife wants. If she wants to go home, then that’s what I want too.” I have no doubt that had Hubs known what my plan was, he would have never said that.

In the end, the CW decided that if Hubs was willing to stay home and take care of me until I could be seen by a psychiatrist, then she’d let me go and that’s just what Hubs did. He promised. After that I was free, went and changed into my normal clothes, happy to be rid of that stupid, jail suit, put my sneaks back on and I was sent home with a list of psychiatrists to call.

When I came home, my babies were already in bed. Tucked in tight for the night. They had no idea that I was home. The olders’ were in bed too, but they got up to hug me and tell me how happy they were that I was home. My oldest hugged me tight, for a long time and whispered in my ear, “I would have missed you Mommy!” He hadn’t called me Mommy in years up until that point.

That night Hubs and I sat up for a long time talking. I still don’t think he absorbed everything I was trying to tell him. I don’t think he was able to understand how horrible I truly felt…..even I did not understand most of it. I was completely baffled by how horribly depressed I was and how everything and everyone around me just made me feel worse. I tried explaining how overwhelming just brushing my teeth was, but I think even that was incomprehensible for Hubs. He had always seen me as the high functioning, get everything done, everything in order kind of gal and I was falling to pieces in front of him and had no explaination as to why.

The next morning we started the phone calls. At first, I was terribly discouraged. All the pdocs’ in my area were booked for 3 months or more. 3 months!! Who in the world can wait that long when they are in the depths of depression? But…..the very last number I called had an opening for that Saturday!! I was thrilled, that maybe we could finally get somewhere with all of this.

Unfortunately it was just an intake and it would take another 3 weeks before I could actually see the pdoc, but I was okay with that. 3 weeks was so much better than 3 months! And those 3 weeks flew by because I had Hubs home for over a week helping me out. I put the kids homeschooling on hold and lounged around the house, ridding myself of any unneccessary stress and just being…..which helped A LOT!

Pdoc day finally arrived and it was far from what I ever could have expected!

Until next time……

Becca