Bipolar check-in #44

Thanks I am running on empty for sure.. Might have to just drug myself numb tonight.. I really need a sleep coma, I'd chop off a limb for 12 hours of solid sleep

Centerstone the company that he works for does not allow for phone sessions, years ago there was a huge problem of some kind, Likely involved a law suit at one of the dozens of offices.. So they stopped it across the board. I have his cell # which is a violation of there practice also, but he called left a message one day years ago pretty much demanding I call him back. That was the only time I ever called it.. He has scolding me many time over the years for not calling But I have this whole deal with I dont want to be a burden to anyone I'll never be able to change that, We have worked for ever on it... It was ingrained in me as a child.

I'll manage, I always seem too..

I am annoyed. I do have to make one more visit into Hellmart, My Xanax and Xeljanz are due to fill on the 20th-21st.. No drive through, So I am flying into the damn place and zooming right back out hand sanitizing like crazy... Social distancing... That sounds Hilarious and stupid to me at the same time

I’m still eating supper..
(It’s not salmon today)
Not hungry today

Hugs and respect to all

The orange blob is on tv again! He is not a reassuring figure. He's lied too much for anyone to take him at his word now. That said he is sure muted today. When he reads from papers is serious but then he does his out of his a SS comments that destroys the whole tone.

My sister and brother in law just stopped by. They are on there way home. They're snowbirds and have been down south. No outbreaks near them so they stopped in. Last night they stayed at a motel in Mo. It was full. All kinds of people headed for home. A couple of other snowbirds there too from Minnesota headed home. She's gonna have a hard time getting basic food for the house.

I went to the store to get the basic ST patty day meal stuff. It was still crazy there. Out of flour, sugar, bread, and deli meats are way down. No choices in canned goods! Frozen vegetables gone but they had everything I needed for my slow pot meal. Corned beef, potatoes, onion, carrots and cabbage. Got the smallest cabbage they had and the smallest brisket too. Me with my little cart surrounded by people with big carts full of goods! I'm looking forward to the leftovers which I make real hash from, yum!

So sorry you have to go to hellmart. That's going to be crazy. Tomorrow mum has PT, still. And Wednesday I need to go to Walgreens for my pills. After that we don't have to go anywhere. But at least those two places are a lot less crazy than hellmart. Sending you a big virtual bubble to wrap yourself in.

Can you go first thing in the morning? You're probably safest then. I can also imagine that the actual pharmacy section at your pharmacy store will have wiped their surfaces clean.

And yeah, "social distancing" is both hilarious and stupid. How the f*** are people supposed to maintain a 6 foot distance from other people? That's laughable! I've literally had people walk from behind me and cough right behind my back. (Not recently, but in general.) People don't give a s***.

M is staying for now at her boyfriend’s house in her college town. They saw the writing on the wall weeks ago and stocked up and started working from home before the rest of us were catching on. She is in good hands.

She and I strongly disagree with each other over the adequacy of the federal government’s response and timeliness. Hot topic!

I have a migraine today and my anxiety is a bit high. I’m working double time trying to keep my 85 year old mom home. Good times.

My therapist is doing teletherapy for now. I’m all for that.

Warm regards to all and hugs to those that are struggling.

Yeah, the orange one is not to be trusted.

Lots of people have been suspecting possible dementia/alzheimer's (apparently it runs in the family...?), so I don't know. Maybe he needs to get tested for that. I mean, if you heard him talk in the 80s vs now, there is a huge difference. He was always arrogant, I admit, but nowadays, he uses very simple sentences and says bizarre, delusional s***. I think he genuinely believes the delusional stuff he's saying, and that's scary.

Ronald Reagan had alzheimer's toward the end of his second term, and he was younger than Trump is right now. So between that and dementia/alzheimer's running in his family, I think it's worth looking into whether or not he has it. Lots of doctors and health professionals have suspected dementia with him. And all I can say is, my grandma was pretty similar, although not hateful like he is.

I just clicked to refill them online. Ill call later to see if they can get the insurance company to fill them a few days early considering the situation.. I doubt it tho.. One would think that due to this situation they would go ahead so people can go stay home and not venture out as this is getting more widespread.. Pure crazyness going on out there.

My daughter just called. She doesn't want me going out in case I get it from someone at a store and bring it back to mum. We are all concerned about her getting it. My daughter wants to set it up with my nephew that between the two of them they get the groceries and or anything we need. They will drop it off in the garage and I can wipe it down before bring it inside. I wish I could alleviate her fears but what can I do? She's home with her two kids full time starting Wednesday when the schools close here.

Yeah, insurance companies suck like that. It's pretty stupid on their part too. If someone is going to the pharmacy all the time and they get sick with coronavirus, then the insurance company will have to pay the person's 2+ week medical bill (at least in part), which is a lot more money than letting someone pick up their meds a few days early!!

I am screwed no matter what. I need Ritalin to concentrate so I can work, but I can't get it in a 90 day supply. Legally, the pharmacy can only do a 30 days supply with no refills. That means I have to go back every month.

No matter what though... I only have 2 Zoloft pills left and need to go to the pharmacy anyways... whenever they decide to fill it. We have a drive thru though, so I don't have to expose myself to too much.

RE: Pharmacy pickups, I just called my pharmacy- small mom & pop place- to see when my meds would be ready. I am going to run out in 3 days. They said they'd be ready for pick up tomorrow morning. So I'll just zip in there, grab them and zip out. There is almost never a line- just sometimes one person in front of me, but even that is rare.

@~Christina, I hope you feel better! What you described about your tongue sounds most unpleasant!


I'm worried about my mom catching the virus because she gets things worse than most people when its just a regular virus. She has COPD or something like that. Plus she's 73 in a few weeks. She's not in a nursing home; she still lives in her own home with her husband who is 60. She brought me some sweat shirts from Disney World. I dunno what to do with them. I already picked them up and put them on the back of my recliner. She commented, when she was here a bit ago that I look like I've lost weight. Well with a little more walking plus I'm not eating a lot. I'm just eating when hungry or if I get a not-eaten headache kind of thing so save the little food we have. Noah on the other hand is still at Sharlene's. I argued with him this morning about going over there in general. Her mother still goes back and forth to work and I don't know anything about her work. And yesterday, two of my lunch friends (well friends in general, but that's where we met) went out to a restaurant for lunch. I said I wasn't going because I'm low on money which is true, but I also didn't want to drive half an hour each way and waste my gas just to expose myself to people at a restaurant. I asked one of them how the lunch went and she said it went well. All of that said, I'm getting tired of being afraid all the time. I don't have a pdoc appointment until the end of April. And I don't have a T at the moment. If push comes to shove, I wonder if pdoc can just do a phone session. It would be a little weird, but it would work. And crossing fingers and toes that I stay stable for as long as possible! I wonder what psych hospitals are doing with all this. Talk about social distancing with people who aren't at their tip top shape to begin with!

There is gum with baking soda in it that can help as can toothpaste with baking soda. I got the gum on amazon. It's called Ecodent Between. It really helped me when I was on something that caused serious dry mouth.

Wow, I have never heard of that kind of gum, but I will have to look that up because I have dry mouth too.

Btw, you seem to know lots of cool things like this. How do you find them?

Just wondering if you read certain websites or read certain newsletters

I pick up things here and there.......some of it is from working in nursing homes and home health for years. Sometimes I just click the right link. This just came from my dentist. I love to research and when something comes up in my thoughts I just read until I am satisfied. I have lots of weird interests.

Supposedly coronavirus can last up to 9 days on a surface, but some doctors suggest that maybe it's only a few hours or a few days (much like SARS). So if your sweatshirts do have coronavirus particles on them, you can wear them in 9 days if you want to be completely safe.

Here is a good article that talks about it lasting from a few hours to up to 9 days:
Coronaviruses: How long can they survive on surfaces?

As for psych hospitals—yeah, it's likely you could get sick there. I doubt they will ban visitors, since it is not a nursing home, skilled nursing facility, etc.. But as I said to BirdDancer, all it takes is one nurse to get sick and "spread the wealth."

I suppose you could demand hand sanitizer before eating or taking pills? But I suppose you're still at risk anyways if someone coughs in your face, so there's that...

I only have 2 weeks more of my AD and they still haven't approved my patient assistance yet.I'm stretching things out the best I can but I may be finding myself IP to find out what that is like right now for all of us. I'm praying for a fast resolution so I don't have to do that. I can't imagine a locked unit being remotely safe from the virus.

Is this Emsam you're talking about?

If you are talking about Emsam, I think there is no generic, correct? If so, can you ask your pdoc for Emsam samples?

Another thing I thought of: I don't know if this would work, but can you go to the hospital (if/when you run out) and request an Emsam prescription there? Would you be able to then make an insurance appeal and state that you went to the hospital as an "emergency" and that they gave you an Emsam Rx? Then I think it would be harder for them to reject coverage for the time being if that's what the drs prescribed "in an emergency," or that maybe the hospital can help you come up with a payment plan until things get sorted.

Dunno. Just trying to see if there is a way the hospital can help out so that you're not in a locked unit in there. Obviously you're exposing yourself to coronavirus just by going in there, but it'd be better than being in a tiny Petri dish for a while.

@bluebicycle So what do I do with my sweatshirts? They are on the back of one of my recliners right now. I took them out of the bag they came in and looked at them and put them on the chair. Oh yeah and the bag is hanging on a doorknob.

N3 is coming home soon. I'm cooking some chicken for him. Hopefully he gets home before its finished or it may get over cooked. My mom wants to have a talk with him about the virus. He really is irking me a bit because he insists on going to Sharlene's (and in previous days, out to a restaurant) and staying there overnight. He says nobody is going in and out of the house "except her mom goes to work".

It is Emsam.

My pdoc doesn't have samples. I doubt many do as it has been out for a very long time. But the hospital my pdoc works in does not allow drug co. reps to give employees anything, including samples, to avoid undue influence.

The ER also won't have any; when I go IP I bring my own because it is too rarely used for them to stock. If I got a script it would still cost $945 and I just don't have that. My current fight is with patient assistance, not insurance and I doubt I could convince my insurance to reduce the cost if I made the decision to fill the script.

I get it through patient assistance but somehow it has gotten screwed up about 10 times (I sent the paperwork to my pdoc's office 1/22 and it has been one problem after another since) and I've gone from having surplus to 2 weeks worth. And in that 2 weeks they have to approve, send it to my pdoc (can't send it to me because they don't have a pharmacy) and then my pdoc has to either send it to me or I have to go to the petri dish of her office which includes 5 hours of driving so I'd have to use a public bathroom sometime and that doesn't seem so smart. So things have to happen fast.

To be strictly honest and yes I know this bad, I'm stretching my patches out to extend how long I have, wearing one for 2 days. I don't know what I'll do if I run out; I"ll have some time before I feel unbearably bad and hopefully we'll get the meds before then but IP is a distinct possiblity, although it is also a really good fighting point. I'll just have to fight it out as hard as I can if it comes to that. Maybe we can increase my clozapine and while I can't function on that dose who really needs to function right now (being on disability of course)? I suppose there are options, they just mainly suck. And from past experience when my AD levels drop enough I need IP ASAP (this was when I went on Emsam, not because of stopping it. I've not stopped it in 10 years.) So maybe it has a long enough half life to buy me some time.

Thanks for the suggestions. I hate shooting down idea after idea; this is just a weird situation (like why is "legal" working on my application now?????? Nobody explains these things). Thanks for letting me think it through and realize IP isn't completely inevitable.

Well I called to cancel my neuropsych appointment this morning. About an hour later, I got a call from the psychologist to ask if I would like to reschedule, but he had not received my message yet and was planning to reschedule me anyway. So, we were on the same page. I also called to cancel therapy, but my therapist got back to me and said we could do teletherapy using Vsee.

OCD/anxiety is pretty bad right now. I am thinking of going on a walk before it gets dark. If not tonight then tomorrow. I am teleworking today and tomorrow as a trial and I am already dealing with feeling a little trapped. Sending compassion and healthy vibes to all.

I should go read. Should I read the book "What Your Doctor May NOT Tell You About Circumcision" or "An Unquiet Mind"? Or maybe skip both of those and go for "Gorilla and the Bird" again or "Electroboy"? Maybe "Madness"? I've read them recently except I'm about half way through "An Unquiet Mind" but it seems slow-going.


N3 just read something to me from on line that said the divorce rate has spiked in China "after couples spend too much time together because of the corona virus quarantine".

Moose, have you read Weekends at Bellevue? It's about a female psychiatrist who worked in the psych ER at Bellevue for weekend shifts for several years. The stories about people who came in are really interesting as is her thought process in helping them.

I'd read an Unquiet Mind....

I have another suggestion for you but I can't remember the name. I'll find it and tell you later.

That sounds really interesting actually. I dunno if I want to buy a book over Amazon right now. Are they even up and running?

Uuuugh. Today was so stressful. Things are still unclear at my job. All the paras are nervous that corporate is not going to pay us. Especially the one to ones like me. My clinician said districts might refuse to pay for a one to one because we weren’t assisting the student behaviorally. But that’s not fair! I am assisting him academically still!! My job is to provide behavioral AND academic support. I don’t know. It’s all so unclear. We are physically going in to school tomorrow again but I can’t go past tomorrow because I don’t have anyone to watch my son. I can still work from home as agreed but if they choose not to do that and just have us come in to the building each day and call from there, I’m screwed. I hate this. Besides, I have a feeling we are days away from a complete lockdown in my state. All schools statewide have been ordered to close. All restaurants, casinos, bars, gyms, movie theaters, entertainment venues, etc are closed. All non essential business are supposed to close. RS doesn’t have to close as of right now bc his work has less than 30 people but who knows. These are very uncertain times.

I feel like I need to keep buying more food. I’m paranoid that we will be quarantined for months, not weeks. We have a lot though, we might just need to go vegetarian for awhile lol.

My therapist has switched to teletherapy. I’m not sure about my pdoc, but I’m not scheduled to see her until May anyway. I have to count my meds though; the Pharmacy originally said I would get one month with two refills but this is my second month and it says no refills. My pdoc called in 90 days worth in feb but my insurance won’t cover 90 days at a time (wtf). I dunno, I have to call.

My heart wasn’t racing and I could breathe today but I kept getting dizzy again. I’m supposed to get a CBC to check for anemia but idk when I’ll be able to get that done.

Well, my hospital cancelled ECT for the foreseeable future. That's not good for me. Then the San Francisco Bay Area is going on lockdown for two or three weeks, not sure which. So that's the earliest I'd get my next ECT and I'm having scary suicidal urges. I need that ECT. And my T has emailed me to say she'd prefer some sort of teletherapy, either by phone or videocall. Great, I don't like talking on the phone.