Wednesday 13 May 2015

Appointments and more

The dietician came back three weeks ago, although I know I haven't written much about her appointments. There really hasn't been much to say. She asks the usual:
"How's your week been?"
"Intake?"
"Have you been doing any exercise?"
"Cooking?"
"Sewing?"
"Anything exciting happening? Anything you wanna talk about?"
And I'm just a mess of mumbles and shrugs and broken sentences.

She still isn't weighing me, although there's not much happening of late anyway, and I just... don't feel like talking much at the moment. Trust levels plummeted to 0 after the 'disagreement' a few months back, which doesn't help. This week we spent most of the appointment talking about Billy and Misty, but at least it got me out of the slump for a few minutes.

After last week's appointment, I had to go see the GP. I was pretty sure I needed more antibiotics, and needed her help with dressings. I had some cuts on my leg from the week prior, and one of them probably should've had stitches, but my GP wouldn't have been working and the last GP who gave me stitches for self-harm was just... not a pleasant experience. But she and the nurse held it together with steri-strips, which hurt like hell on a week-old wound, and I was given a double-course of antibiotics. That make 60 days this year (if I took them with a 100% hit-rate - it takes me 1.5-2x as long to finish a course, usually). Yes, I am keeping track.


I have my regular double appointment with the GP tomorrow morning, which I can't say I'm looking forward to. I still haven't told her about my further cutting down on antidepressants, which I can see she mightn't be too happy with.

I think when I last posted about it, I was still taking 30mg (down from 45mg, which at one point was 60mg), which is what my GP recommended to see if it helped with sleep, though she wasn't too keen on the idea of me coming off them. That became 15mg quicker than I originally intended. But let me say first off, that I haven't had any side effects or withdrawal symptoms.

My main motivation to hurry-it-up was after noticing on nights I forgot it, my restless legs never acted up. I've had it on-and-off for the past few years, and when I think back a bit, I could potentially tie it to when I started mirtazapine. I haven't had them since I cut down to just 15mg.

I also haven't been the greatest at taking the gabapentin (the newest of the stream of useless antidepressants), but that's another story. The only ones I'm really fussed with are the seroquel and lorazepam. The new MHN can apparently do prescriptions, so I think I'm just going to leave things where they are until then.

But I'm really not looking forward to talking to the GP about it tomorrow, even though I kinda really do need her advice on where to go from here.


On an unrelated note, last week was my mum's birthday - exactly seven days after mine. For the most part, I just tried to keep calm and avoid any potential breakdowns or panic attacks or extra stress, that otherwise have the potential to ruin entire days. But I did, with my brother's help, organize a special breakfast and, of course, a gift.

While she was in the shower, I got working on my sneaky breakfast surprise. I set up the table with a vase of flowers, her gift, and a box of Ferrero Rocher and the breakfast plates.

I made her favourite, Nutella-stuffed French toast, again thank's to my brother's late-night grocery shopping on my behalf. It's nothing like what we normally have for breakfast, but hey. I just had to flip the last batch when she came out of the shower, so I hurried up and got things sorted.

"You're not allowed to go in there for... three more minutes!"
Reminds me of Christmas as a child, when mum would at least want her morning coffee and smoke before presents started, and would put a sign up on the lounge room door ('from Santa', naturally) saying we weren't allowed in until 8:30am.

After breakfast, she unwrapped her gift, which was a little bottle of Chanel no.5 perfume. It came in the prettiest gift wrap, I just had to take a photo.


The only flowers left at the gas station at 2am
when my brother finally got home.




xxBella

6 comments:

  1. Beautiful gifts Bella
    I know you and your mum are really close
    Just like me and mine
    I would be so lost without her
    But hey that's a coincidence
    My mums birthday is a week after mine too
    In September

    I sent you an email
    If you didn't get it check your spam
    As I know some of my emails have ended up there
    If not let me know and I'll send it again

    You are dealing with so much dear Bells
    And you handle it all with great strength and courage
    Please don't ever give up
    Please say you will keep fighting x

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  2. Mirtazapine didn't give me restless legs, but I did gain 20 kilos :(

    What a beautiful birthday set-up! Nutella-stuffed French toast... Well it's my birthday in a few weeks, maybe I should try it out :)

    Be safe, Bella.

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  3. What a lovely birthday surprise *-* I bet she loved it

    It's funny, the birthday thing, I'm exactly one week older than my cousin, and my little sisters birthday is the next day from mine. Mine's on the 22nd of September and hers on the 23rd. My parents only managed to reproduce on their wedding anniversary apparently.

    Take care my dear, you are an intelligent and very strong lady and I am so proud of how you are dealing with things and how hard you are trying to keep going. I'll repeat it again, take care of yourself, you are precious. <3 Love you

    *hugs*
    Mandy xx

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  4. i can't look at the dietitian the same way. i really can't. that was crossing the line for me, and i cannot imagine how frustrated you are with her. i can only imagine what kind of dread you must feel around her. push on through, hun.

    i'm sorry to hear about the self-harm. it really makes me upset. i feel inclined to say that i hope that this period passes soon and you are able to breathe a little more.

    these drugs theoretically should have an effect, but if they don't, then why the hell would you take them? drugs = side-effects. drugs = side-effects. drugs = side effects.

    "I have VERY little faith in the medical profession though." thanks, Shelby. i just had to point this one out. honestly, i don't trust that drugs have that much of an effect when you're talking about mental conditions. so far, from what i see, it helps very few people. i genuinely think that if you put them on a placebo, you'd get the same effect. i genuinely have this theory that any benefit from an anti-depressant 80-90% of the time you could get by giving a person a placebo and telling them that it would help.

    i also believe you'll come through this on your own. hopefully sooner rather than later. you're a smart girl, and i genuinely do see a brighter point in life for you, even if it's not obvious now. i've come to expect the unexpected in the most beautiful ways possible. your happiness is more important to me than so many other things in life. there is something that is SO special about you, Bella, that i cannot illustrate into words so easily.

    ah! my mum is around 4 days before me. :3

    your mother sounds like a gem. i'm glad your family is a good one, or at least sounds like it. little things in life do matter now. <3

    Chanel perfumes make me giggle. they smell so nice.

    the first time i zoomed past this post, i genuinely thought the Nutella stuffed French toast was some form of pasty with pepperoni in it. whoa does your mind place tricks. that's nowhere close now, is it? bad Sam.

    -Sam Lupin

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  5. funnily enough, i could follow the track of the comment you've left me rather easily. :)

    "I love that you remember things like the supplements." i barely do i promise. i just remember - it's Vitamin D. or is it Calcium? what the hell is it? i was convinced that it was Vitamin C after some point because my mind had melded the Vitamin D and Calcium together from memory to "Vitamin C".

    again, funnily enough, i haven't believed in the Vitamin D could exacerbate/cause depression until i've met someone that has a congenitally low Vitamin D level and had developed both depression and anxiety. the depression she told me about, the anxiety i remembered was when i had to leave her alone someplace and she wasn't comfortable at all (unfortunately for me, it wasn't a choice for me staying :( it's relatively hard to talk to people about it so easily, especially because i don't know how to express some things verbally as i can in writing).

    "You could say pretty much anything to me and I wouldn't think of you as an arse (and that's not something I can say about many people)." thank you very much. it's just that i know that when your mood is low, your mind does tend to play tricks on you. the simplest thing you read in a wrong way sometimes and i didn't want those to be one of those things. because had the situations been reversed and i was feeling that low then if it had come from someone like Oliver Wood, i would've been very upset.

    i do not mean to coddle you if that's how it comes across sometimes. it is just i feel like we are in a fragile state of mind sometimes and anything could make you feel worse. and i would rather sound like an overprotective coddler than make you feel the least bit discomfort. ^_^

    "This was just so comforting to read. Knowing you understand means the world to me." i'm glad. i try my best, and hopefully, that's enough to make you smile. :)

    ("*in the most Percy like voice i can muster* i'm Headboy, you know. i'm going to have to report this."
    OH MY GOD you actually made me laugh out loud. I did not think this was possible today.)

    of course, it is. i'm Sam. or Percy. i can do whatever it is i please. ;) though really, reading that one genuinely made my week. whenever i read back on this comment, this is one of the biggest highlights!

    "Spoiler alert: I did not get my ice cream. It was not a good day :<" i'm sorry. if it makes you feel any better, i've eaten enough ice-cream for you, me and all of Blogger. funnily enough, i've had approximately 2L of ice-cream within the past two days. i hide my shame with the statement "oh, but i'm in recovery."

    (comment is too long...again)

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  6. "We bought another 5kg of cheese yesterday. My brother eats cheese plain, always has, it's weird. He'll just cut off a chunk and bite into it." i am your brother. i promise. i do that all the time. especially with sharp cheeses like cheddar and parmesan. the taste moulds in your mouth from a softness to a sharpness and back to a sharpness. it's very pleasant. i used to do this with gouda but it got sort of overdone.

    Bella drunk at 5am? sounds like a plan for next year. should help me too. i think we'll all be so terribly awkward it'll be strangely funny. i'm actually grinning because you see, i cannot differentiate between British or Australian accents. they sound exactly the same. my sister once died laughing because i didn't recognise a really REALLY obvious Australian character as Australian. i just say 'i like him. i like his accent'.

    Sam is smart when it comes to all these textbook things. come to social protocols and the obvious and Sam is left staring blankly not knowing what the hell any of this means.

    those scales are beautiful. they remind me of those - i can't believe i'm saying this - but remember, PDAs?

    "The ganache itself is 500g. The cake batter was 1.3kg before baking..." all i could think about was how i'd hate to be that poor sucker that ends up moving the cake from Point A to Point B. i should take this cake to Body Pump and use it as a weight. your cake is LEGEND.

    somehow, i felt like i something offensive there. if i did, disregard it. :) it was not intentional.

    1/2 an hour for Sam? lovely. i don't know how long i spent typing up this comment.

    -Sam Lupin

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