Recovery is a dish best served cold.

So I got out of the crisis house just in time to have a really severe sinus/dental infection. Very similar to one I had in August, and we all know where that one went, right? Yeah, sometimes recovery is anything but what you hope it will be. Actually there's more to this tale than I am telling so let me go back a bit.

I signed myself into the crisis house because I was 100% definitely having a manic episode in the way that I have them. Spend a lot of money I don't have and can't afford? Check. Getting irritable well beyond my usual playful irritation to the point that I am yelling at loved ones because they dared to try and help me? Check. Paranoia in the form of becoming convinced any medical personnel that are trying to help me only want to keep me in the hospital? Check. That's a full blown 3 stroke manic episode for me. Time to talk to a doctor and get help.

But when I called my prescriber, he was on vacation for another week, so I arranged with my therapist to go to the crisis house so I could be supervised because I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't cause any damage. The house would also fast track me to a doctor's care so I could be seen as soon as possible. Which meant keeping myself calm until they had a bed for me. Fortunately, that meant just waiting a few nights, and checking in a week after the mania had kicked in. This is significant because I have had to wait much longer for help. So a week of keeping everything neutral wasn't that bad. I checked in on Friday and saw the doctor Saturday. Again pretty quick.

But Monday I missed my appointment because I had fallen asleep with my AirPods in while watching a movie. The psych tech couldn't wake me from my movie for an appointment I had no idea I had. They never told me I would see the doctor Monday. They said a maybe at best, but not to get my hopes up.

So, Tuesday I made a point of letting all of the staff and most of the residents know that I was ready for the dr to execute the second part of her plan. Part one was reducing my anti-depressants and raising my mood stabilizer. She had already told me if that wasn't enough she would raise my morning mood stabilizers as well. From how I was feeling and drawing upon a lot of experience, I knew we were halfway there, but I needed to see the dr so she could write the prescription to raise the morning meds. But Tuesday came and went with no doctor visit.

Wednesday I asked if I would see the doctor and the staff told me I wasn't on the list. This irritated me, as I figured they would not let me see the dr until Saturday, and there was no way I would get released before xmas. And this is the first xmas where I just really wanted to see my whole family for xmas. That was all I wanted. So I was getting a bit miffed about not being able to see the doctor. 

Then, while I was finding out that I wouldn't be seeing the doctor on Wednesday, they told me I was to be moved into a room with one of the other men in the house. I've always been a bit prickly when it comes to other men in my bedroom, haven't always had the best experience with them. Generally it's very hard for me to sleep if I don't know the other person in the room when I fall asleep. This can be mitigated by starting at a new place with a roommate, but when you have gotten used to having your own room...

Plus the guy who was getting my room was not someone I liked very much.I felt like they were rewarding him for acting up. They assured me they weren't and I agreed they probably knew things I did not, but, still. That was my last straw. So I stated that if I wasn't going to see the doctor and they were just going to put me in with someone else I had gotten all I could from the house. If I was going to start losing sleep on top of missing xmas, I was unhappy. I don't need a lot of sleep, but I do genuinely need the little bits that I can get. SO, I announced I would be leaving the next day, unless something convinced me otherwise. I spoke to a couple nurses and staff members about my plans. Stated I had more than enough mood stabilizer to cover me until my next visit with my regular prescriber and that this dr had said what her next step would be and that I was more than comfortable executing that on my own from the privacy of my own home. Plus I was starting to get sucked into some of the inevitable drama that happens in any psych unit/house/ward.

So, naturally the staff moved me up a bit and made sure I saw the doctor that day. (Just a little note, I hate it when the do stuff like that because they are just playing into the hands of the c crazy person. Like, now I know I just have to threaten to leave and I can see the doctor. Bad choice there)

The doctor told me she was uncomfortable with me leaving. She wanted to raise my meds, but she also wanted me to stay through the weekend because xmas is always so stressful and she didn't want me to come back to the house because I had a bad xmas. I told her I would go to the hospital next where I would have access to doctors before I came back to the house. So then she told me they rarely discharge on Fridays which is so stupid I won't even acknowledge that. I had made up my mind and all the doctor had done was make me feel guilty about my decision.

Until I brought the visit up with one of the staff, and he pointed out that the dr who had spoken to me once in my life was uncomfortable with me leaving. BUT every staff member that had gotten to know me, and my therapist were all pretty comfortable with my decision and even encouraged it. Plus, it is a business, and they made way more money having the house full on a holiday.

So home I went. I had gotten my cannabis card while I was in the house so I hit the dispensary that afternoon and mellowed out for the next couple of days with my cat. It was fantastic. So Much kitty love, so much joy.

Xmas morning I woke up, I shaved and showered, put on some nice clothes and made myself presentable and headed out of my parking lot towards my dad's house and promptly hit a car as I was pulling on to the first street. Minor accident, but scared the bejeezus out of me. So I stayed home on xmas. I played video games and chatted on the phone with family members. Not exactly what I wanted but definitely a good day.

So the next week I could feel the anxiety getting bad. I was having a hard time leaving the house, I was scared of driving for sure. I couldn't get myself into the gym like I had hoped, and my health was deteriorating. I was starting to have sinus troubles. My headaches were getting worse day by day and I finally decided I would go to dad's and hopefully I would feel better. But once I had made the plans for dad's my tooth started hurting. Then it got so I couldn't eat because it hurt so much. There's not a lot of soft foods on the mediterranean diet. Just sayin'.

I went down to dad's and took us grocery shopping. It was good, but I was trying my best not to let dad know how much pain I was in. So after shopping, I went home unpacked groceries and reported to urgent care to get some antibiotics. I've been on those since Friday. They are kind of working, I've moved from liquids to soft solids, so I got that going for me. Cardiac Rehab starts up again Wednesday. I'm really, really hopeful that will make me feel healthy again, because as of right now I just feel like liquipoop, and it isn't pleasant. It feels like there is glass jutting out of my jaw that keeps breaking and I keep hacking and c coughing a lot. I think it might be working up to a respiratory infection but now sure. But thanks to the urgent care, I know it's not covid.

I hope.