...and the Beat Goes On

So eldest daughter and grandson stopped by unexpectedly out to the house yesterday. I was surprised, but not unpleasantly. Had spoken to her (obviously) but not seen her for awhile.

She seemed uncomfortable, but that was not uncommon. It was her "I'm not on medication" mode. She said her doctor has tentitavely suggested she may be bi-polar. GEE, YA THINK?!?!?!? I mean... c'mon. (Even SHE admits to having these "impulsive, manic" phases.) So, the class of medication they put her on, the 'new' one, wasn't really designed to do well with that diagnoses. Personally, I think if they would have just gotten her records and READ THEM (doctors seem to not do that these days, for some reason)... they would have seen the pattern and also would have seen that although she'd not been on this particular medication before, she'd been on that class of medication and not had very much success with it.

So, she goes back on the 'old' medication on October 4. I asked if she'd then have to take it awhile before she could go back to work. She says she has a doctor appointment on the 20th... as well as a therapy appointment with a new therapist... and, yes, she won't be going back to work until after that appointment and the doctor signs off on it.

She admits that the things she thought were side effects from the old medication were still happening... if anything, getting worse. Things like insomnia and restless leg syndrome. She didn't like taking medication on medication, now she's finding out it wasn't caused by the original medication and she is back where she started, if not worse, because now the anxiety and depression are back - she claims it as nearly as bad as when she had her ECT treatments. Not good. I'm counting the days until she can get back on her regular medication that we know works... and she can just get stablized and centered again and get back to a normal routine.

...and it keeps going and going.

The More Things Change... PT IV

So. She gets started on the new medication. She is happy with it. Says it is working. Husband has talked to her, she seems upbeat and doing well. I talk to her. She seems upbeat and calm and doing well. She is to go back to work on Monday. That would be last Monday.

I didn't want to bug her, but send her a text Monday night asking her how it's going.

I get back a text. "Today has been craptastic. Have a doctor appointment in the morning. Want to go back on the old med."

My hopes are dashed that things were going well. She has her doctor appointment and he's putting her back on the old medication. However, she has to stop taking the new one for, yes, two weeks. Then, of course, it will take a bit of time for the full dosage to get into her system.

Honestly, yes I am worried about her health. I am also worried about her job. I don't know how they can keep her on. I know they can't fire her while she's off on disability, but as much as she has cost that company I can't imagine they wouldn't be trying to find any little excuse to let her go when she is there. My husband fears she will lose her job and with her history not be able to find another one... and, yes, then she'll be back living with us. I fear she will end up on permanent disability and I wonder what kind of a life she's going to have.

Well... I know this has gone on and on... sorry about that. I just get so frustrated and lucky you gets the brunt. Well, if you are still here and reading, thanks for sticking it out. If you jumped around and got to the end and said "yes! the end!" then thanks for being here for the end.

I kinda doubt it really is the end, tho'... if you get my drift. Just another chapter in the saga.

The More Things Change... PT III

Strange posts began appearing on Facebook. She'd say something bizarre then the next day she'd take it off. I called and she said she didn't like the Xanax, that it made her unfocused and she didn't know what she was doing with it. She'd write something in the middle of the night, then get up the next morning and see what she'd written and not remember. She told me she had phone conversations with her ex-mother in law as well as her ex-husband and neither conversation was very clear to her. Not good.

Then she sent a long email to my daughter-in-law and supposedly to my younger daughter. The title was something about "An Apology"... in which she said she was sorry for not listening to them last spring when they were trying to help her. When my DIL tried to call her back she got voicemail so left a message telling daughter that she didn't need to apologize, that they just wanted the best for her. Well, then daughter called back and left a voicemail on DIL's phone saying, "oh, I wasn't apologizing, I have nothing to apologize for". HUH? What are you doing titling your email "An Apology" for then???? Argh!

Well, younger daughter never got the email to start with... and found out about it from DIL. Out of the blue, elder daughter tries to call younger daughter, and leaves a rambling voicemail in which she was crying and mumbling and generally difficult to understand. Younger daughter played it for me, not knowing how to respond and we were concerned. When I tried to call my elder daughter back I got no answer! Now husband comes home, hears all this and he starts trying to call her. Over and over and over. No answer.

Worrying that she's done something, he and I jump in the car and go to her apartment. Mind you, this is now almost 10 o'clock at night and it is 30 miles away. He and I are worrying about worse case scenerios as we drive. He asks if I have a key to get in her apartment. Uh, no. So then it is, "well, if she doesn't answer the door, do we call the cops?". Probably so. This is how we were thinking.

We get there, knock on the door, and she answers! She's been crying, but tells us she's been on the phone with her brother (our eldest boy)! Oh, geez. So we sit and visit for a bit and try to figure out what all the drama was with the email to the girls. She doesn't think daughter should have shared her phone call with us... but, hey, we were just as upset and worried as she was and had no idea what she was trying to say and were just trying to find out what was going on! I'm sorry, but when you try to kill yourself four times, some privacy goes out the window.

She tells me the Xanax isn't working. She then tells me she's not taking it, since it makes her feel funny. I ask her if she's called her doctor like he told her to. Uh, no. After she calms down and promises to call the doctor the next day we leave. Next day he puts her on something else and she tells me it is much better. Whew. One more week to go until she can get on the new medication

The More Things Change... PT II

A week goes by after the party. I go to work on Monday morning and am only there for an hour when the phone rings. It is eldest daughter, crying. Could I come pick her up from her work. I ask what happened and all I get is... I need to go and they don't want me to drive.

Fearing she has been fired, or who-knows-what, I leave my job and rush over to pick her up. She has been sobbing. Tells me that she quit taking her medication two weeks before and now is bottoming out.

Really? REALLY? WTF?

She says the doctor told her he would try her on a new medication in September as she didn't like the side effects of the one she was on... and she just decided to take matters into her own hands and go off the medication herself because "she wanted to see if she could be like everyone else". Oh.No.You.Didn't.

I tried to explain to her that just as I have to stay on medication and/or will always have to watch what I eat because of my body not making what it needs, causing diabetes, she will always have to be on something because her brain doesn't make enough of the chemicals it needs to keep her stable mentally. She admits this is probably true, but she did it anyway and then she got scared and took two doses of the old med.

We went to my house and tried to call her doctor. Several hours later we got a response and they got her into see him - the next evening. So, for the rest of that day, night, and all the next day I tried to keep her calm and took care of her as well as I could. We went to her place and got her things and she had calmed down enough she could drive so we picked up her car and took it to her apartment. We made arrangements for her son to stay with his dad and made the best of it.

The next day the doctor said he couldn't start her on the new medication because she'd taken those two doses. If she hadn't, then he could have. As it was, she'd have to be off the old one completely for two full weeks before starting the new one. He said she was safe to go home alone and then he gave her some Xanax to help her get by for those two weeks.

It didn't work.

The More Things Change... PT I

You've heard the rest. I didn't blog this summer. Not here, not the other one. I started back on the other one and I was going to let this one rest, but unfortunately frustration has reared up again and I can't help but vent. Bear with me... or click that little "x" and get on with your life.

Eldest daughter moved out into her own apartment the end of May. Things seemed to settle out a bit as she got into a routine of her own space, her own schedule and around our house there was a collective sigh. We managed to see her fairly often and she was getting the grandson through some summer activities, then suddenly school was just around the corner.

When younger daughter graduated from college mid-May, the family got together and went to the ceremony then had a family cookout. It was pretty low-key but nonetheless eldest daughter managed to put on a grumpy face and leave the ceremony early... going home and being decked out in her finest sweatpants before the rest of us even got home. The rest of the day's activities were overshadowed by the glowering woman in the sweat pants.

After that episode and the moving out, things seemed better for awhile. Eldest daughter was still doing things with some friends she'd made at work, and she seemed relatively happy. Fast forward a bit to the middle of August. I had planned a surprise birthday party for my husband to take place at our house. The idea was to get him out of the house (younger daughter and I took him to the fair) and the ruse was we were going to go home mid-afternoon to meet up with the other kids and their spouses, the grandson, etc, and cookout. Little did husband know that 80 of his closest friends were waiting for him. I'd gotten both boys roped into preparing things, a friend of the family grilled the meats, and my daughter-in-law gathered up some of the food stuff. I wanted elder daughter to feel included, so asked her to pick up the cake and help out however she could. As it turned out, she did... and she and grandson made a nice banner out of an old sheet and some spray paint.

The party went amazingly well and yes, he was surprised. As the food was being laid out, eldest daughter and grandson were first in line and I had a chance to thank her for all her help and tell her how nice the banner looked. I didn't have much time to visit then, and a short while later when I went looking for her, I was told they'd left!

I sent her a text to thank her again and mentioned I had missed getting to visit. She said she'd been getting anxious so left, which was fine, except I heard later from my son that she actually made kind of a scene and "peeled out" when she left. Not sure what was up with that.

With lots of things going on I didn't really have time to dwell on the topic... not then.