I'm glad you had a day of laughter.

I know so well the fear of falling back into a place you've just left. It is horrible. This whole year I've been fighting with that and then wondering if I had just fought harder if I would have prevented another round of depression or mania, even though I know it has to go completely away before I'm not going to keep cycling. I think that's been the hardest part of this year because it has been the part most like before I was diagnosed and early on and I keep wondering if I have gained anything in 13 years. I know I have but it sure doesn't feel like it some days.

Are you able to get back on that other dr's list for a 2nd opinion? Your dr is neglecting you. You went in saying you thought you needed hospitalization 2 weeks ago (3?) and he disagreed which is a bad thing to begin with because how does he know that for sure? My dr is hospitalization cautious but would never, ever tell me she knew better than I did if I said I should be there. Then he is telling you to start clozaril totally differently than clozaril says to start it and with an interaction considered major by the interaction checkers. Then he delays starting it for weeks by not returning your calls or simply letting you know the labs were in place. This is NOT good care. You said in another thread that he keeps you out of the hospital. That's good when you are getting actual care but if he isn't going to treat you you should have been where you could get care weeks ago. My pdoc has had numerous times she could have hospitalized me and didn't and even times my therapist wanted me IP and she disagreed. But she never, ever would leave me hanging about a treatment that she was deeming an alternative to IP and which she decided to use when I was saying I was very unwell and thought I needed IP but my family thought otherwise. There is so much wrong in that...Even when my pdoc was going through chemo and radiation and wasn't working every day and wasn't feeling great when she was working she would NEVER have done this to me. I offered to change drs because I knew I would be a burden during the months of her treatment and she said no and kept me but I'd just started the MAOI and needed various adjustments over the first few months and she kept up with all of them, on time. Sometimes now I have to wait b/c she doesn't do patients every day but even so when it is serious I'll hear back. The last time I emailed her for a dose change I heard back as she was boarding a plane that night. And she didn't just change the med, she asked about the details of something I said was really upsetting me. When I see her Monday she'll remember that too.

I kind of think sometimes that you are so used to your pdoc being bizarre (that's the only word I can think of for overmedicated to off nearly all meds cold turkey to back on some meds to ignoring your statement about hospitalization to clozaril without complying with the directions or warnings to then just ignoring you period for weeks while you sit at home feeling horrible) that you don't know it can be so different. I know you had another pdoc before but you've mostly had this guy and he just isn't meeting a minimum standard of care.

I am so frustrated at your dr because I know what mine does and how different it is and I want you to have what I do. I know you feel loyal to him and your family does too but what he's doing makes no sense and if you saw another dr for a while you'd feel loyal to him/her too and you would lose the bizareness.

I'm probably overly passionate here and I'm sorry for that. I worked in healthcare long enough to see some truly horrible drs and some of them convinced their patients that they were wonderful and then turned around and provided bad care. And I couldn't do anything. It was so frustrating. One physician was a huge factor in my leaving one job because he was diagnosing people with things like cancer without doing any tests and then not treating their symptoms and they died when they could easily have had something very treatable if they'd just had a minor test or two. I couldn't stand to see him more or less kill people anymore. Another one I remember was an orthopedist who I think accidentally cut a nerve during surgery. It's a risk of surgery and the patient wouldn't even have been upset. But she did want to know why things looked weird and why her recovery was only partial and didn't make any sense (not like I could say "um, I think you don't have a complete nerve anymore".) He wouldn't return my calls and I was worried we were going to harm her by being aggressive so I wrote an order to stop treatment pending consult with ortho. Normally an ortho would take that very seriously since the rehab thing was my expertise and therapists don't send patients in early often. This ortho REFUSED to see the patient and just sent back orders for me to treat. I had quite a conversation with his nurse (I couldn't say what I thought was wrong) and the patient finally called herself and refused to get off the phone without an appointment but that was pretty much a bad dr trying to not have to tell a patient that he made a mistake. There were others but it made me passionate about poor patient care and that is what you've got. Inconsistency that leads to poor care.

And I've said way too much and I'm sorry. I just can't stand to have you go through this more. There is no good reason; if he can't work he needs coverage. One thing my therapist and pdoc both do is that there are people that know a little about me so if either of them is unable to see me there is back-up who are familiar. Nobody should not be taking your calls......

Shutting up now. Sorry for the rant.