I am sorry if my stuff has been a bit scattered over the past few days and weeks. Normally, I would not post things with a lot of large capital letters, but the reason I am is because it actually is sort of what my brain looks like:
In addition to FAWKES THE FORECLOSURE KITTY.
In addition to developing a small ulcer at the TIPPITY TOP of my esophagus (and as long as I remember to suck the tums repeatedly, I will be FINE, 3-4 days, tops...on day 2!) [To give you an idea, this is caused 100% from the steroid, and YOU CAN SEE IT with the naked eye..not GERD, not stress, just basically imagine a very wide paper cut that touches everything you swallow, and if I suck (not chew. Not chew, do not chew the Tums- it should be fine in days, max)...] (Seriously. Three nurses, one doctor, one pharmacist, etc. I have heard the phrase 'suck do not chew the chewable tums' in about 100 permutations right now.) For those playing epidemiologist at home, this ulcer is, like, in a place they do not form. Not joking. Only me. (Actually, this ulcer formed in a place "not very uncommon when it is caused by a drug, and even the mild acid of your salvia can make that painful")
In addition to having a dream about a chicken recipe that was so intense I wrote it down and then had a crazy (in a good way crazy) African lady tell me it was a real recipe (it's in the crockpot, now!) that apparently I have to make because GOD says so.....
EDIT: The tagine? I like tagine, and this tagine tasted like ass. Not even edible ass. I threw it out.
In addition to cleaning part of my kitchen at 3:00 am while singing "no one is in the kitchen with Dinah" and DISLOCATING both my MY left outer fingers while doing so....
In addition to having unlimited energy and simultaneously nearly no control below the hip...(ever get on the floor to pick something up and need to stay on the floor?) and shaking so hard that I'm using a walker to get around my house....
In addition to writing an ENTIRE BOOK about cooking in less than 48 hours that is so good that three professional chef friends are saying once I can edit it, it will be the NEXT GREAT FOOD BOOK....
The Dexamethasone, which is allowing me to BREATHE, caused me (and approximately 0.13% of other female users (and many, many more male users) with zero history of mania) to enter into FULL FLEDGED, 100%, write it extra large on the side of the house full-blown DANGEROUS TO SELF AND OTHERS but too smart to hurt myself and only able to move with a walker so I'm not exactly hard to avoid-UNMIXED, NON-Complicated, Drug-induced, non-related to Bipolar disorder, full fledged (did I say full fledged?) ACUTE MANIC EPISODE WITH PSYCHOTIC FEATURES NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED.
I refer to myself as a biologist. It is my training, it is what I have worked as professionally. I have had it as a staff title. I like the term, it's easy, it fits on a card, and yes I have an MS, not a Ph.D so if you think the people who do the science work aren't the '-logists, you can argue it....
However, when I did college the very first time, I was a psych major. I do also hold a BA in psych (although I don't use it) and I thought that I might be a psychologist some day. Part of the jobs I've been required to have THAT HAVE USED that degree in the past required rigorous psych training and assessment that I always pass. At most, the worst I get on these assessments is that I am a type A personality who tends to want to fix a problem now and have no tolerance for people who do not...which is bad. When your IQ is way above the mean, and your patient is below, getting angry at them does not help, so I need to go meditate and take a break when I get to that state, rarely.... Anyways..so, I am frustrated too easily, but never, in 20 years of assessment, have we seen anything that looks manic. Not once. Not mixed, not classical....not manic. I can get agitated, but NO MANIA, no history of mania, no 'mania light,' EVER, in any assessment.
....One reason I could not deal with psych as a living was because I could not deal with the people with minor mania and similar disorders. As many of you know, there are three people in my life I have dear, loving, wonderful relationships with who have bipolar type disorders (can we call it a spectrum?). One has never (as far as we can see) had anything worse than a very, very, very bad hypomanic episode, and it breaks my heart to see her go through it...EVER.
I did not go mildly manic. I did not get 'mixed symptoms.' I went 100% around the bend apeshit, horseshit, monkey shit CRAZY. If I had been at work, doing my job properly, and a PI who stops in once a week to make sure I am there had given me a (probably useless) "pointer" (try holding this device you're trained in like THIS (the wrong way), for example.) I would have, without batting an eyelash, broken the nearest large vat of acid over his head and put a test tube through his eye, screaming "This isn't Sparta, this is lab science." In the interest of safety, for example, I am not allowing myself to touch any of my pets, because I'm afraid I might accidentally hurt one....Not intentionally, just like, if a bird bit me I might throw it. So, kisses though bars, for example.
It is literally not safe for my body for them to stop the drug that induced the mania, except maybe by readmitting me to the hospital...I haven't even been out a full 2 months this time, so, PLEASE, NO.
Instead, in part because I am lucid enough that I will tie myself up before I hurt myself or others, I am on a very high dose of a very strong sedative, and my family is keeping an eye on me, hawk-like. The net result is I am up, down, sideways, backwards, etc., at any time of the day. I do not think, as when I called the doctor at the worst of it, that I am in immediate danger of dying...but when I called that doctor I felt like I had an hour to live. It was one of the 2-3 most terrifying things I've ever felt...and when I was a kid I was a fearless badass.
Twitter, the internet and emails saved my life this week. Those of you who know me from science were all over the 'get thee to a doctor, you're not right.' You people saved my life. Even feeling muddled, crazy, alone in a room of people, you people saved my life.
So, that's what happening. I have 10 days left to get though the steroid and the sedative before the new sets of tests and drugs and doctors. So now I am going to lay down and see if I can get a whole 9 hours for the day, which is what they want. Mental illness is some crazy-ass shit. We need to take it seriously in this country...but that is my update. AND IT WAS TERRIFYING.
[In fact, as many of you know, the worst shit for me lately (other than being poorer than I've ever been and not working) has been working though the last bit of neurological rewiring post-surgery (I have minor memory loss and physio-neurological lapses from a bad anesthetic reaction 1/2011, believed fully recoverable, usually w/in 3 years I'm already basically all better), and the complete flooding of my brain with neurotransmitters in the form of the mania is giving me LEAPS AND BOUNDS with that. I was told the last 10% of shit is the hardest (getting my slow fingers to move like I want them to, etc.) I went from feeling I was at 95% on that to feeling I'm at >99%) So that's better.]
In addition to FAWKES THE FORECLOSURE KITTY.
In addition to developing a small ulcer at the TIPPITY TOP of my esophagus (and as long as I remember to suck the tums repeatedly, I will be FINE, 3-4 days, tops...on day 2!) [To give you an idea, this is caused 100% from the steroid, and YOU CAN SEE IT with the naked eye..not GERD, not stress, just basically imagine a very wide paper cut that touches everything you swallow, and if I suck (not chew. Not chew, do not chew the Tums- it should be fine in days, max)...] (Seriously. Three nurses, one doctor, one pharmacist, etc. I have heard the phrase 'suck do not chew the chewable tums' in about 100 permutations right now.) For those playing epidemiologist at home, this ulcer is, like, in a place they do not form. Not joking. Only me. (Actually, this ulcer formed in a place "not very uncommon when it is caused by a drug, and even the mild acid of your salvia can make that painful")
In addition to having a dream about a chicken recipe that was so intense I wrote it down and then had a crazy (in a good way crazy) African lady tell me it was a real recipe (it's in the crockpot, now!) that apparently I have to make because GOD says so.....
EDIT: The tagine? I like tagine, and this tagine tasted like ass. Not even edible ass. I threw it out.
In addition to cleaning part of my kitchen at 3:00 am while singing "no one is in the kitchen with Dinah" and DISLOCATING both my MY left outer fingers while doing so....
In addition to having unlimited energy and simultaneously nearly no control below the hip...(ever get on the floor to pick something up and need to stay on the floor?) and shaking so hard that I'm using a walker to get around my house....
In addition to writing an ENTIRE BOOK about cooking in less than 48 hours that is so good that three professional chef friends are saying once I can edit it, it will be the NEXT GREAT FOOD BOOK....
The Dexamethasone, which is allowing me to BREATHE, caused me (and approximately 0.13% of other female users (and many, many more male users) with zero history of mania) to enter into FULL FLEDGED, 100%, write it extra large on the side of the house full-blown DANGEROUS TO SELF AND OTHERS but too smart to hurt myself and only able to move with a walker so I'm not exactly hard to avoid-UNMIXED, NON-Complicated, Drug-induced, non-related to Bipolar disorder, full fledged (did I say full fledged?) ACUTE MANIC EPISODE WITH PSYCHOTIC FEATURES NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED.
I refer to myself as a biologist. It is my training, it is what I have worked as professionally. I have had it as a staff title. I like the term, it's easy, it fits on a card, and yes I have an MS, not a Ph.D so if you think the people who do the science work aren't the '-logists, you can argue it....
However, when I did college the very first time, I was a psych major. I do also hold a BA in psych (although I don't use it) and I thought that I might be a psychologist some day. Part of the jobs I've been required to have THAT HAVE USED that degree in the past required rigorous psych training and assessment that I always pass. At most, the worst I get on these assessments is that I am a type A personality who tends to want to fix a problem now and have no tolerance for people who do not...which is bad. When your IQ is way above the mean, and your patient is below, getting angry at them does not help, so I need to go meditate and take a break when I get to that state, rarely.... Anyways..so, I am frustrated too easily, but never, in 20 years of assessment, have we seen anything that looks manic. Not once. Not mixed, not classical....not manic. I can get agitated, but NO MANIA, no history of mania, no 'mania light,' EVER, in any assessment.
....One reason I could not deal with psych as a living was because I could not deal with the people with minor mania and similar disorders. As many of you know, there are three people in my life I have dear, loving, wonderful relationships with who have bipolar type disorders (can we call it a spectrum?). One has never (as far as we can see) had anything worse than a very, very, very bad hypomanic episode, and it breaks my heart to see her go through it...EVER.
I did not go mildly manic. I did not get 'mixed symptoms.' I went 100% around the bend apeshit, horseshit, monkey shit CRAZY. If I had been at work, doing my job properly, and a PI who stops in once a week to make sure I am there had given me a (probably useless) "pointer" (try holding this device you're trained in like THIS (the wrong way), for example.) I would have, without batting an eyelash, broken the nearest large vat of acid over his head and put a test tube through his eye, screaming "This isn't Sparta, this is lab science." In the interest of safety, for example, I am not allowing myself to touch any of my pets, because I'm afraid I might accidentally hurt one....Not intentionally, just like, if a bird bit me I might throw it. So, kisses though bars, for example.
It is literally not safe for my body for them to stop the drug that induced the mania, except maybe by readmitting me to the hospital...I haven't even been out a full 2 months this time, so, PLEASE, NO.
Instead, in part because I am lucid enough that I will tie myself up before I hurt myself or others, I am on a very high dose of a very strong sedative, and my family is keeping an eye on me, hawk-like. The net result is I am up, down, sideways, backwards, etc., at any time of the day. I do not think, as when I called the doctor at the worst of it, that I am in immediate danger of dying...but when I called that doctor I felt like I had an hour to live. It was one of the 2-3 most terrifying things I've ever felt...and when I was a kid I was a fearless badass.
Twitter, the internet and emails saved my life this week. Those of you who know me from science were all over the 'get thee to a doctor, you're not right.' You people saved my life. Even feeling muddled, crazy, alone in a room of people, you people saved my life.
So, that's what happening. I have 10 days left to get though the steroid and the sedative before the new sets of tests and drugs and doctors. So now I am going to lay down and see if I can get a whole 9 hours for the day, which is what they want. Mental illness is some crazy-ass shit. We need to take it seriously in this country...but that is my update. AND IT WAS TERRIFYING.
[In fact, as many of you know, the worst shit for me lately (other than being poorer than I've ever been and not working) has been working though the last bit of neurological rewiring post-surgery (I have minor memory loss and physio-neurological lapses from a bad anesthetic reaction 1/2011, believed fully recoverable, usually w/in 3 years I'm already basically all better), and the complete flooding of my brain with neurotransmitters in the form of the mania is giving me LEAPS AND BOUNDS with that. I was told the last 10% of shit is the hardest (getting my slow fingers to move like I want them to, etc.) I went from feeling I was at 95% on that to feeling I'm at >99%) So that's better.]