Couch 239: Cape Coral Couch

LT, thanks for the suggestion about B12. The first thing my neurologist did was blood tests for everything like that. Between the blood tests she ran, and the blood tests at my gastric bypass check up (all types of vitamin levels), I am confident we've looked at everything there, including things like copper.

I did fine during class on Saturday but I just can't get most of that group to talk. It's tedious for everyone when you have only 6 people in a class and they won't engage! (This is at our site in a nearby city. We only started with such a small cohort because numbers are down at our main campus program, but if anyone drops out I don't know how we're going to teach out this group! And every year, at least one person drops out before January.)

Maybe I'm not doing as bad as I thought? Plus, I read the criteria for Social Security disability and I don't meet those yet! I'll just keep carrying on.

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Scarlet, if my doctor did not treat me as a partner in my own health care I would definitely look for a new one but I'd stick with that doc until I found someone else.

Today is my former Therapist's 50th Birthday .......which seems crazy since when I saw her she was almost entirely in her late 30s.

I'm glad you've been checked out thoroughly (including copper--I admit I know that one because of a House ep)! I'd figured you had been, but some doctors only check the really obvious stuff. Your class sounds like quite a challenge--maybe some of the other professors on here can offer suggestions?

And I imagine you feel you're doing worse than you really are. I know that tends to be the case with me with my work (editing).

Session with Dr. T went OK today! I'd been really anxious about it since the email conflict than a fairly tense session Tuesday morning before I went out of town. Felt a bit of the connection again and feel we had a fairly productive conversation. We'll meet again Tuesday (in person this time--he had to do virtual today), then he's away for a week.


More later--need to do the first of two fantasy football drafts today, while also nursing a migraine (that started early this morning).

This year i turned 70, and my t is 77? Geez, i remember singing "When Im 64" to him for HIS birthday and thinking he was ancient THEN!

L turned 72 this past spring; so that means I started seeing her when she was 62, only a little older than I am now! That's kinda wild.

I took today and tomorrow off work, and squeezed out another meal with my son and his gf by inviting them to breakfast this morning. They're just about ready to go, leaving tomorrow morning. We're going to go see them off, because h has to pick up son's car (he's driving it to their new place for them, and then taking a train back.) I will have the house to myself for like 6 days. I will probably be sad and moping around anyway after my son heads out, so I might as well be alone for that I suppose! It's like a whole era of my life is ending or something, him moving so far away, me turning 60, etc.

I'm upset with my therapist. He knew I was ill because I thought I had covid and told him. And he seemed like he was glad I told him about my two previous ER visits, so I emailed him about going to the ER again and then letting him know they were admitting me. He responded Saturday morning with a "keep me posted, thinking of you" message. They let me go, I picked up my 4 antibiotic pills, came home and fell asleep. When I woke up, I was confused because it was now dark outside and had a message from him "any updates?". I responded with a quick health update and let him know I was struggling with some emotional fallout from all this. No response. I feel like I'm being unreasonable here, but I'm pissed that he gets to ask me what's going on to satisfy his curiosity, but then doesn't respond to me.

I'm still not feeling great. Even with this crazy antibiotic, I still have UTI symptoms and when I took a shower because I was feeling gross, my blood pressure dropped to 100/65. I don't feel physically well when it's that low. I don't really know what should prompt me to reach out for additional medical care at this point.

Thank you all for letting me vent about all this crap lately. I appreciate the support.

I don't think I'd ever want to see a Therapist that old, my former Disability Lawyer is probably (if she is still alive, I really don't know if she is or not) about that age now.

Hugs, NP. I'm sorry your T hasn't responded and also that you're still not feeling well. That's odd about your BP dropping--I think hot water can have that effect at times. Did your heart rate also go up? Wondering if the antibiotics could be affecting your BP or something like that.

My BP being too low was one of the issues I was having in the ER. I have high blood pressure and it's only partially controlled right now with the med I'm taking. When I started feeling ill earlier this week, I noticed it was normal, which is low for me. Before I went to the ER, I had felt like I was going to pass out and it got worse when I got there. I think it was like 90/60 when they first took it and then I was having some weird stuff while I was in the waiting room (for 5 hours!) like the lights were too bright and I was seeing spots and just felt like I needed to lay down. But, yes my pulse rate was also elevated. I forget that my monitor also records that. Maybe I'll give it a day or two before I call someone about any of this.

Hm, weird. I'd keep an eye on your BP and heart rate. It's odd that your BP went that low when it's usually high. They did rule out sepsis, right?

Also, do you get migraines at all? The seeing spots and lights being too bright sound like an aura (the spots part--the lights being too bright could be part of the actual headache, and you can also get those symptoms without your head even hurting, an ocular migraine).

I think they ruled out sepis? They didn't seem to know what exactly was going on.

I don't get migraines, but headache has definitely been part of this whole ordeal. Interesting that those symptoms correlate. I felt drugged when all that was happening. In an unpleasant way.

Are you still taking blood pressure medicine?

My neighboir tried to invite me over for coffee because she thought i might be lonely. I was trying to explain that i dont really get lonely and if i do there are people i chat with on the internet but she thought that it wasnt the same as having someone in front of you. Inwas screaming inside that it is waay better than that because i dont really have to answer right away and i can wander away and do things without being considered rude and if i have someone in front of me i just clam up and cant even think of basic things to say. Why dont people understand? My T didnt understand either he thought it was some sort of trauma related thing but i dont think it is as i have always been this way since very young.

I had a therapy appointment with my T on Saturday night. But her internet sucked. She kept getting frozen and the words were choppy. Eventually we lost contact but I called her back even though we only had a few minutes left of session. We literally just like confirmed session time for Tuesday and that was it. I should have thought to switch over to the phone quicker because it wasn't really helpful with it being all choppy and frozen all the time.

My T used to take Zelle as payment but now for some reason she can't. She kind of explained it but I didn't really understand. So she offered Pay-Pal so I did that but it charges me $1.17 to send her the money. Ugh. So I asked her if she could get Venmo but she didn't seem keen on that. So what we ended up doing is split the cost of the fee. I'm going to take $0.60 off of what I pay her so that we basically both end up with half of the charge of the fee. I'm still a bit annoyed that I have to pay a fee at all. I mean she did say I could mail in a check, but I don't want to do that. Time. Energy. Cost of Envelopes and stamps. Ugh. So I guess we are stuck with Pay-Pal for now.

I've decided that hospitals don't coordinate communication with the patient very well. After reading my chart, reading online what sepsis is and looking up some of my lab results, I most definitely was septic. I think it just responded well to the IV antibiotics. I think the underlying infection that caused the sepsis is what they weren't 100% sure of. I think it was probably good that I went to the ER as I also read this stuff can kill you quite easily.

Is PayPal connected to your checking or savings account? If so, you should be able to send it to "Friends and Family" with no charge. If you need to use a credit card or if you use the other way of paying (I forget what it's called), then there is a fee. So see if maybe you can do the Friends and Family? Or if she'd be willing to cover the entire fee?

I know my T has to pay a small fee for me using a credit card (it's less than what he used to, since he switched to Ivy Pay), but he's OK doing that for me and other clients for the convenience (I imagine he also wouldn't want to deal with a stack of checks!)

Another thought is, would she be willing to have you just pay her, say, every 2 weeks or even monthly? That would make using a check less of a pain/expense.

Oh, that's scary! I'm glad you responded well--maybe they caught it really early? Are you supposed to follow up with them or your regular doctor at some point?

Ugh, that's really frustrating. It seems like she should have given you more time or offered you a session at another time for no charge if the issue was on her end. And wasn't it just a week ago that she was considerably late but didn't give you any extra time at the end? That would all really bother me.


Hugs, if wanted.

Oh, thanks for the info. I usually use my debit card for therapy but I did use a credit card this time for some reason. Maybe that is why there was a charge. I will see on Tuesday if there is a charge when I use my Debit card.

It's a small thing, but it is something that is going to irritate me over time because I feel like it is a business expense that she should just deal with. (I know she offered me other options like a check but that is just way too much work.)

And I was a bit annoyed that she didn't say anything in her text about the session being all weird because of technology. But if it is like that on Tuesday I am going to speak up and ask that we switch to a phone call. I don't know why I didn't think of that sooner on Saturday.

Haha. Again with the communication. I'm not sure. It says to follow up in one week, but where? I won't have a doctor until October 5. Should I just go to the urgent care for that? Even if I'm feeling okay?

It is definitely a business expense that she should be dealing with, the same as with the Zoom that you were paying for. It's not very professional of her that she's leaving you to deal with these things.