I saw Allison yesterday and I was in a very irritable yet agitated mood. It was lucky that we sat in the interview room as it has no windows I could stare out of, unlike when I saw my therapist and I was like “oh look, a plane” about every 5 minutes. Instead I just sat fiddling with my rings and twisting my foot round and round. She gave me a pen to fill in some stuff and a couldn’t stop clicking it. I’m wondering if I am on the way up, after all it is a week since I started taking the anti-depressants again (at the recommended higher dose) and the only anti-depressant that doesn’t send me sky-high when the dose is increased is venlafaxine. Unfortunately, despite the claim of weight loss as a side effect of reboxetine, I am not one of the ‘common people’ it affects. God damn it.
Allison and I talked about the case review at the GP’s surgery and how she became involved. She apparently is still worried about me as I still pose a high suicide risk. In fact, that reminds me that she still hasn’t given me my dressing gown cord back when she said she would in the following appointment from when she took it off me, and it must be over a month that she’s had it now. We spoke about the cancer and how I realise that I have no effect on the course it will take. I pointed out to her that although I haven’t been compliant with my mental health treatment I have been consistently compliant with the cancer treatment; going for chemo, radiotherapy, attending appointments etc. I am doing as much as I can to recover and to get into remission but unfortuantely it is an illness that will take it’s own course and no one can prevent it from doing what it feels like. It is curable and they can try and halt the spread, but ultimately it has the upper hand.
When I said this to her she looked shocked and asked if I had realised that it could kill me, and what my thoughts on that were. I explained the above to her and said it was miles apart from mental health where you can take some responsibility for your recovery in engaging with talking therapies and exercising etc. She said that I was taking an ostrich approach to it (i.e. sticking my head in the sand) and this is why there was a case review about me. Apparently I am a suicide/self-harm risk (which I proved by ending up in A&E just the other day), I am not necessarily entirely stable in my moods yet (could be because I have only just re-started taking the tablets – a fact she is aware of) and I am being flippant when it comes to serious matters.
I told her, in no uncertain terms, that they didn’t seem reasonable enough excuses to hold a meeting behind my back which I only found out about with a call from the crisis team (and every person in that room at that time knew my view on involving the crisis team in my life) and not being able to pick up a repeat prescription, whereupon I couldn’t get an answer out of my GP.
I also asked why the idea of consulting Dr Mc before my appointment was not mentioned to me earlier as I had a right to put my case forward before I have to see him in person (this afternoon). Yet again, she couldn’t think of a reasonable answer. I felt like I was going round in circles, trying to get a straight answer and being fobbed off with the same crap that everyone has been mentioning in a risk assessment since I was discharged in February.
I am still quite angry, yet can sort of see their viewpoint of me being a danger to myself and because I span the NHS and the private sector it is often difficult for the two to communicate (despite the advent of emails and fax machines they still are in their 2 little boxes and inevitably I act as the go-between telling my GP and Allison what Jane and Dr Mc have been suggesting/doing and vice versa).
I have to see Dr Mc this afternoon and I can feel myself going quite high. The hallucinations are back despite being on an anti-psychotic and I know he will suggest a different mood stabiliser. I am quite happy with the lamotrigine, the medication I want changing desperately in the reboxetine in favour of venlafaxine. Not because it is a better anti-depressant, although in some ways it is as it stopped the complete mood swings (it just left me in a complete depressed state, although I hasten to add that the suicide attempts took place whilst I was on duloxetine), but because when I was on it I weighed at least 2 stone less.
No matter what I try, staving myself, eating healthily, purging food after I have eaten it, taking as much exercise as I can (difficult with a leg that is just out of plaster and lungs that mean I get breathless easily) I cannot shift this weight. I cannot buy the OTC drug Alli (orlistat) because I have lost a little weight and my BMI isn’t 28 or above. I have toyed with the idea of amphetamine based diet pills, or ones that contain caffeine/guarana but then last time I ingested a lot of caffeine I went totally manic.I want venlafaxine and I want it now. I found an old prescription for it in my drawer but unfortunately it is nearly a year old so they won’t dispense anything from it now. I know it sounds like I am being petty but my weight means a lot to me and at the moment it is constantly praying on my mind, every second or every day.
I guess I just have to wait and see what Dr Mc says this afternoon. I bet he says that he wants to give the reboxetine a bit more of a chance to kick in and that the mood stabiliser needs reviewing. In fact if I was a monetary gambling girl then I would put money on it.
Ruth
