The Little Things

Paul mentioned earlier this week that today was supposed to be a good day - weather wise.  I stored that little tidbit away and made plans to take advantage of good weather.  Which for me is mostly about cleaning; opening windows and hanging blankets/curtains/rugs...

The sky does not look promising, however.  Pockets of deep gray clouds snuggled between cerulean patches of sky.  It has been raining and raining and raining over several days.  In between raining, the wind blows like the 4:30 train passing by.

I miss Heather.  You're so involved with really living, Heather, that you don't have time to give me my weather updates.   How can I function this way??

In summary, I believe I will now have to adjust my POD.  A new Hidden Object game may do the trick...

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 In other news.  I dropped Sean off in Providence for his position aboard a cruise ship.  The couple weeks leading up to the 'final' goodbye were, um, stressful.  Lets leave it at that.  You'd think being in a contained environment would reduce Sean's ability to create his crazy crisis drama chaos stuff.  After three or four days he ended up being assigned a week's medical leave.  He tells me he is due to report back in Baltimore to another ship.  We'll see.  It's not easy being Sean's mom.

So in light of the difficulties surrounding Sean's behavior, and what that does to me, I decided to use the opportunity of his absence to get a grip, shall we say.  I found a therapist, an  independent psychiatric nurse therapist out of Waterford.  I had my first appointment with her earlier this week.  I think I finally found a person with whom I can connect when it comes to the complex effect having a child with some sort of brain wiring dysfunction.  She deals with it in her own family, while concurrently attesting that she does not have all the answers, nor does anybody.  I like that.

My goal will be to develop strategies and strengths during Sean's absence from my life in order to reclaim my own life.  I cannot do it when Sean is around me...he is a powerful force against my sanity. 

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Segueing into my next topic;

The therapist and I discussed medication.  I can feel the stress in my body and I just want something to 'take the edge off'.  I told her years ago that Atavan helped me function for a few months and I was easily able to wean myself off when I had had enough, and that I didn't really want a maintenance medication, but something to take situationally. 

Although she is not opposed to Atavan, she believes I could benefit from a maintenance substance for depression and anxiety.  I don't want to swim that stream again, but I probably should defer to her greater knowledge and experience.  She is not like the more mainstream psychiatric groups in the area and doesn't prescribe lightly.

Being as concientious as she is, she looked up my current medications...the ones I take to help prevent kidney stones.  The potassium I've been on for some time, but the other one, not so long.  The urologist told me it was a medication normally prescribed for blood pressure.  However, it has been shown to help the body absorb calcium.  I think that is verbatum.  He asked what my usual blood pressure was, which surprisingly is something I have no problem with.  It's not wonderfully low, but low enough to be ok.  He said he would give me the lowest dose of this med, if I got dizzy or anything, just cut it in half.

After years of kidney stones, with bouts getting more severe (multiple at a time) and more frequent, it surely was time to do something.  And nobody was more ready than I.  So normally I research any meds that are prescribed me, but this time it didn't matter.  I was trusting this urologist hands down.  These stones were getting pretty hard to deal with.

After describing to the therapist these meds, and what they were supposed to do for me, she said, "that doesn't make any sense".  She had looked up the blood pressure med and found that it was a diuretic...a water pill.  I didn't know that.  After a little more research, she did find where it helped kidneys excrete excess particles of things like salt, and calcium.  She felt better about it.  But not about prescribing meds without checking in with the urologist first, to make sure they weren't contraindicating the meds he had prescribed, or would interfere in anyway with my kidney function.  She asked that I call the urologist's office and find out.

I tried to tell her she had no idea what she was asking.  I told her I could almost guarantee I would not get a reply to a message, that it was Thursday and both doctors were in surgery all day.  She simply said to leave a message at the desk and the doctor should get back to it when he had a break.  I thought, "ha ha".  To my self, silently so as not to appear sardonic.

But I was right.  I  like my urologists, both of them.  But their office protocol and staff leave something to be desired...not all of them, but I have had some bad experiences with their lack of concientiousness.  Is that a word?  The phone answerer said she would leave a message for the doctor to call, and he would get back to me.  I asked to please take down the exact nature of my request so he could do his research BEFORE he made is call back.  She said he was in surgery and it might not be today, she would just take a message to call.  I said, "no, please take down the names of these meds with a request to let me know if they would interfere with his treatment plan for me".  The attitude came out of the receiver so thick I had to wipe my phone.  She apparently complied and I said thank you.

I have not heard from the urologist.  Damn it.  I KNOW he is busy, but there is a lot of support his staff could give him in order to help him help his patients.  I know because I used to do it for the doctors in the group for which I worked.  If he had the correct information in front of him, my request on top of my chart, it would take him probably three to five minutes to determine the answer to my question, get back to me, leave a message if I don't answer..."yes" or "no".  And then, AND THEN, my OTHER provider could proceed to treat me.  Do doctors realize that their treatment involves the WHOLE patient?  Even if it is outside their specialty?  That in not supporting my needs, he could actually be contributing to my demise?????  (from where does Sean get his proclivity for drama?)

But seriously.  You know it's valid.

I tried calling the urologist office this morning.  Busy, busy.  I'll keep trying, but I am getting increasingly frustrated with them.  The therapist was expecting my return call with the answer yesterday afternoon.  By the time I get through, it may not be a pretty conversation.

Never mind the fact that I had a follow up ultra sound five days ago, with no result forth coming as of yet from them.

I hate people.  They're all stupid, and for too long now I've given grace to errors.  But too long, too many.  I'm done.  If you're stupid, own it.  Cause I'm not gonna forgive you anymore.  *smiling*

The sun is out.

Sincerely,
Elfscooter