Back to the Tracks
Yesterday was treatment #27. Damn. If you had told me there would be 27 of these when I started, I'd have laughed at you. Now, the only thing funny is that it seems that I have to keep going to keep feeling better. I woke up in Recovery yesterday sitting upright in my bed with a nurse walking my way saying "Hi, Mike. How are you feeling?" It was Chris, my favorite Recovery nurse. "Fine, [couldn't remember her name right away], but I wish they would get my treatment over-with." I never know where I am when I wake up in Recovery.
After #27, I certainly feel better, a little scattered today, but not depressed. Looking at the summary of good vs bad days over the last 3 weeks I did for my doc, I should have seen things slipping sooner. I think I didn't see it because I didn't to. I didn't want to think that the "better" wasn't holding. But my summary clearly showed the little depressive episodes getting deeper and closer together.
Its tough trying to balance having a limited number of psych visits per calendar year, knowing that your "employer", with whom your short-term disability has now expired, will be cutting me off from an insurance perspective soon, my long-term disability just got denied, and who knows how long SSDI might take to get approved. If I need to keep going to stay better, there is a problem that will soon arise.
Much of the fodder for the depressive dips has been financial and employment driven. I know I'm not making much, if any, money right now. Melissa is a teacher. So, our life-line is limited if I don't get back to work. Working on job applications and interviewing has given me a good sample of my stress tolerance at present. Everyone keeps telling me to slow down and to worry about getting better and not about getting back to work. But HOW an I supposed to do those things knowing that the life-line is limited unless someone makes money, and my family is relying on ME to do that (at least it doesn't seem that anyone else is in position to extend that life-line.) "Slow down, but hurry up!"
So, Melissa and I have made a decision of which I never would have thought I would be this open and accepting. There are still some questions to answer, but it seems like it just might be better for all of us. We are talking about relocating to NW Arkansas, where Melissa's family is. Big move from Denver to Arkansas. I know because I've made that move in the reverse order. But for the equity we have in this house (we've been here 10 years in a flaming housing market) we can buy basically the same house in NW AR and have less than half the mortgage payment. Cost of living is astonishingly lower there than it is here. The pace of life is slower too, which will probably be good for me and Mic. And then there is family to support Melissa. She can't possibly keep up the pace she's kept for the last several years forever without some help. The "community" is much smaller and her family is plenty connected to get us whatever employment we need to make things work.
The big questions surround mental health services for both Mic and for me. I'm sure ECT won't be available in the immediate area, but Tulsa is 3 hours away and Little Rock is 3. By the time we move, I would hope to be down to "maintenance" treatments, or none at all. Maybe, even, with the stress of money and pace of life diminished, the anxiety, mania and depression will go with them. No answers yet. But we met with our realtors today and will start staging the house for sale right away. If we are going, we want to be moved by the start of school in the fall. And if we aren't going, then we have to figure out what options we have (which, at this point, do NOT seem bountiful.)
It will take, in any event, a mind in better health than I had the past weekend in order to get a home ready to sell. Amazing how much SHIT you accumulate over 10 years with 2 kids and a wife who is absolutely purse and shoe crazy (albeit otherwise amazing.) I'll keep you posted. I think I'm going in for treatment again on Friday just to assure a solid weekend (Even if I am relatively stupid for Saturday...its just packing old crap into boxes and deciding to FINALLY throw some stuff away...) I drift between being excited about "starting over" in a new setting and a new home, and being very very sad and apprehensive about leaving the few people here with whom I have stayed close through my illness. But I am sure, nonetheless, that NW Arkansas can use some outspoken advocates for the mentally ill!
Hang in there
After #27, I certainly feel better, a little scattered today, but not depressed. Looking at the summary of good vs bad days over the last 3 weeks I did for my doc, I should have seen things slipping sooner. I think I didn't see it because I didn't to. I didn't want to think that the "better" wasn't holding. But my summary clearly showed the little depressive episodes getting deeper and closer together.
Its tough trying to balance having a limited number of psych visits per calendar year, knowing that your "employer", with whom your short-term disability has now expired, will be cutting me off from an insurance perspective soon, my long-term disability just got denied, and who knows how long SSDI might take to get approved. If I need to keep going to stay better, there is a problem that will soon arise.
Much of the fodder for the depressive dips has been financial and employment driven. I know I'm not making much, if any, money right now. Melissa is a teacher. So, our life-line is limited if I don't get back to work. Working on job applications and interviewing has given me a good sample of my stress tolerance at present. Everyone keeps telling me to slow down and to worry about getting better and not about getting back to work. But HOW an I supposed to do those things knowing that the life-line is limited unless someone makes money, and my family is relying on ME to do that (at least it doesn't seem that anyone else is in position to extend that life-line.) "Slow down, but hurry up!"
So, Melissa and I have made a decision of which I never would have thought I would be this open and accepting. There are still some questions to answer, but it seems like it just might be better for all of us. We are talking about relocating to NW Arkansas, where Melissa's family is. Big move from Denver to Arkansas. I know because I've made that move in the reverse order. But for the equity we have in this house (we've been here 10 years in a flaming housing market) we can buy basically the same house in NW AR and have less than half the mortgage payment. Cost of living is astonishingly lower there than it is here. The pace of life is slower too, which will probably be good for me and Mic. And then there is family to support Melissa. She can't possibly keep up the pace she's kept for the last several years forever without some help. The "community" is much smaller and her family is plenty connected to get us whatever employment we need to make things work.
The big questions surround mental health services for both Mic and for me. I'm sure ECT won't be available in the immediate area, but Tulsa is 3 hours away and Little Rock is 3. By the time we move, I would hope to be down to "maintenance" treatments, or none at all. Maybe, even, with the stress of money and pace of life diminished, the anxiety, mania and depression will go with them. No answers yet. But we met with our realtors today and will start staging the house for sale right away. If we are going, we want to be moved by the start of school in the fall. And if we aren't going, then we have to figure out what options we have (which, at this point, do NOT seem bountiful.)
It will take, in any event, a mind in better health than I had the past weekend in order to get a home ready to sell. Amazing how much SHIT you accumulate over 10 years with 2 kids and a wife who is absolutely purse and shoe crazy (albeit otherwise amazing.) I'll keep you posted. I think I'm going in for treatment again on Friday just to assure a solid weekend (Even if I am relatively stupid for Saturday...its just packing old crap into boxes and deciding to FINALLY throw some stuff away...) I drift between being excited about "starting over" in a new setting and a new home, and being very very sad and apprehensive about leaving the few people here with whom I have stayed close through my illness. But I am sure, nonetheless, that NW Arkansas can use some outspoken advocates for the mentally ill!
Hang in there
posted by DeMental at 5:29 PM
1 Comments:
I got approved for SSDI due to brain damage from ECT, but I think I am probably the first and only person ever to do that. And it is not easy. You need all sorts of tests and evaluations.
How can you expect your insurer to believe that you are disabled longterm or permanently due to treatment?
You cannot phrase it that way. It has to be disability due to brain damage (there is a category for that, cerebral something). But you have to bite the bullet, get tested and pull together a credible application.
Post a Comment
<< Home