This past Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I my physical health was improving so much that I felt confident I was going to be able to get back to work this week. Then, yesterday I started feeling worse again...I tried to go to Mass in the evening but only made it 15 minutes before I felt like I needed to leave because I was starting to not feel well. I had gone back and forth about whether or not I should call my pdoc about this and finally called the after hours number last night. He told me to stop taking my lithium until he could see me and then got me in this morning. He spent two back to back 20 minute appointment slots to try and figure out what might be going on. After going over the tests that were run when I got an IV on Wednesday, and hearing about my symptoms for over a week now, he thinks it is probably lithium causing this so we're going to wait out it leaving my system (could take 4 days) and then see what happens. I'm trying really hard not to beat myself up over the fact that I didn't call sooner, especially since I've used up most of my sick days. I only have 1.5 days left so if I can't get back in I'm going to start losing pay...

Since my mood improved a lot with this med change, once the immediate release lithium gets out of my system, his plan is to have me try taking the extend release lithium to see how that goes. He wants me to start that sooner rather than later, if this lithium getting out of my system makes me feel better, to try to prevent major mood changes. The thought of doing this terrifies me because of the immediate release not sitting well with my body but my psychiatrist and I agree that we're running out of treatment options...he's even sent me for a second opinion already. I go back to see my pdoc Thursday so we'll see how things are going then.

I really hope I can get back to work tomorrow. I'm still really weak, but if I can not pass out I can make that work. I can't really afford to lose pay over this, especially because of the medical bills I gained needing and IV and tests. But, more importantly, this is having a huge impact on my students, especially since my school isn't putting a consistent sub in my room...

Oh, and my mom is showing her true colors right now...

Thank you all for a safe place to share this stuff.