Off on a tangent

As is very apparent, I took a nice long hiatus from my blog. I wasn't sure if it was going to be temporary or permanent, though I was leaning towards the latter, but today my therapist asked me if I'd consider journaling again. I'm not sure if she expects me to let her read the things I write, we didn't discuss that because we got off on a tangent and never made it back.

I did try to write a handful of times over the past 3 months, but the creative juices either weren't flowing at all or they were gushing out so fast that I knew the post would end up being the size of a small novel, so I cut myself off before things got out of control.

A lot has happened while I've been away. Christmas, which was uneventful. New Years, which I spent alone puppy sitting my sister's dogs. Then my daughter turned 21 and we went to Disney World to celebrate, bringing along her boyfriend and best friend. I think it was one of the cheapest Disney trips in history. We stayed at a cheap hotel off the Disney grounds which I got a great deal on cuz the week we went is typically one of the slowest at Disney. We rented a car, which I got for cheap because I pitted two companies against each other for my business, and we drove the 19 hours straight through without stopping for sleep. We also packed our own snacks and drinks. I think we spent more on souvenirs than anything, or rather my daughter did.

Through it all, I've been up, down and all around, but have not been in the hospital. Lately I've been rapid cycling or having mixed episodes. Occasionally I'll crash and just be depressed & suicidal, but that only lasts a day or two before the mania returns. With the exception of the week after Disney. I was so overwhelmed with being up and about and around other people every day for a week, that I closed myself off in the house for the following week, avoiding people as much as I could. Stayed curled up in bed, or curled up on the couch.

I've made an appointment to consult with a neurosurgeon to remove the VNS implant I got back in 2006. It's not the same doctor that did the implant and at first the nurse in this new doctor's office wanted to know why I didn't just go see the one that put it in. I said, 1) While I trusted he had the expertise to put the implant in, I know it is a much more complicated surgery to remove it, especially since I really want the leads attached to my vagus nerve removed as well and I don't want just any schmuck doing that; and 2) he lied to me when he implanted the device saying he had no idea why Medicare wasn't going to pay him (yes, he did implant it for free). I have since found out that when I had the device implanted, it was still in the approval process for use in patients with treatment resistant depression. As such, he was free to implant it and they would cover the device and the hospital charges, but not his surgical charges. Nearly a year later, Medicare decided that there was insufficient clinical evidence to prove VNS was helpful to those with TRD and they have not covered it since. I'm hoping they'll still cover it being removed because I feel like I was suckered into getting it implanted in the first place and it never did a damn thing.

After being on disability since 2004, I found out this past December that Illinois has this program where I only have to pay $24 for my license plate renewals instead of $99 and I can get a card to ride the CTA and Metra for free. Would have been nice if someone had mentioned all this way sooner. It would have saved me some money. I was able to get a refund on my license plates for last year, but I was screwed out of $450 for the other six years I was eligible for the reduced rate. Plus at least another couple hundred for riding the CTA & Metra. Oh well, live and learn, and let others know this program exists.

My therapist did give me other homework, that didn't involve journaling, which I've already started working on. She gave me the emotions mad, sad, glad, scared, surprise and disgust. I'm supposed to come up with 10 words that describe each of them in intensity (she did give me a list of feeling words to help with that). I'm then supposed to pick which words I'd rank a 1 out of 10, a 5 out of 10 and a 10 out of 10. I can make comments on the side if I so choose as well. So far I've managed to do mad and sad. They were really easy. It'll be interesting to see if I get the others done before I see her next week.