psychologist…

So, we met with B’s new psychologist last week, no, the week before. Anyway, we met with him. He is awesome! I just hope B likes him too! When we mentioned the confusioin of the diagnosis, mood disorder vs bipolar, he said that it’s the same, which is what I had thought, but that many doctors still are of the opinion that bipolar disorder does not exist in children, so they wont’ use that diagnosis. Anyway, I think this Psychologist is going to be a good fit for B. )

So far school is going well for him. He’s had a couple of reports assigned now, and he’s not too crazy about that, but he’s working on it. He is doing really well in band too, much better than his mother did when she took band in 6th grade. ;o) He’s switched from the trumpet to the saxophone, and he really seems to be enjoying it. There are a couple of boys that he has made friends with, which is always hard for him, so we’re especially pleased with that. Fishing is his latest passion though. We have a catch & release pond in our community, and B would be up there every evening if he could. He fished the other night by himself for like an hour and a half, while we swam. The pool is right there near the pond thankfully. Last night Donovan took just him and he caught a good sized catfish apparently. Lost his hook though, but the fish had another hook stuck in it’s lip, so someone else had lost theirs as well. He caught some kind of fish last week that had teeth, he thinks it is a Pacu, which is related to the piranha. It amazes us how he cannot sit still for anything, but put a fishing pole in his hand and he’s good for hours it seems. ) It’s good that he’s found something he can enjoy so much!

Slowly…

It’s slowly coming back! My creativity that is! Last night, I was working on cards for another stamp class. Since before I was in the hospital, I’ve not been able to concentrate enough to come up with an original design. Everything has been case’d. (CASE stands for Copy And Share Everything). It’s what you do when you can’t come up with anything original. Well, last night I was case’ing cards, and I couldn’t find anything for the third card I was working on. Nothing I was seeing really appealed to me. The next thing I knew, I was getting out designer paper and boom, I had come up with an original card!!! I won’t bore you with all the details about the card on here, but if you’re interested, check out my stampin’ blog later this evening. When Donovan gets home I’ll see if he can take a picture so I can post it.

In other news, my patience seems to be coming back, slowly as well, but it’s getting here. B & A see their therapist this afternoon. Last night was a bouncy night for B. He seemed down when he was talking to his dad on the phone, but when he passed the phone off to his brother, it was like someone had turned his switch on. He was all over the place! He was upset when we asked him to take a shower, but eventually Donovan was able to calm him down and get him to shower. He’s having a hard time waking up and getting going this morning as well. He is up, but he’s just being really slow, and tired, almost whiny. I’m going to offer to let him go take a shower in a minute, that usually helps him get going. He might not want to since he took one last night, we’ll see how that goes…

Changes…

So we (B & I) saw the psychiatrist (pdoc) yesterday. She is very pleased with how well B is doing, although his lithium levels are still somewhat low. So, she increased his lithium dosage a bit. She has him taking the increase at bedtime, which she said might help him to sleep more, which would mean we can get him off one of his other meds. That is good imo. The fewer the medications the better.

As for me, we’ve noticed that the lithium doesn’t really seem to be doing much for me. She’s slowly increasing the anti-depressant I was on before, as well as bringing in another medication for depression. If this regimen seems to work, then we’ll slowly phase out the lithium. We see her again in two weeks.

That’s all the *medical* stuff. Someone asked me how I’m feeling though. It’s hard to be honest with that. Like most people, I want to wear the I’m good mask. When people ask how are you, I tend to say, OK. Or I’m good, things like that. In reality, I’m depressed. I’m more down than I’ve been in a Loooong time. I am functioning, but I have my moments. I would much rather sleep all day and not get up than actually get moving and do things. I’m really snippy/short tempered with everyone. Like Donovan says though, we’re working on it. I know that it’s a medical problem, and that there is a medication out there that will help, I’ve just got to find it. I have an appointment on the 23rd with a new therapist. That should help with dealing with things. One thing at a time. One day at a time. That’s the trick, just to do one thing at a time, one day at a time, as I can make myself get up and move. I did do some stampin’ the past few days. In fact, I’ve scheduled a class! Woohoo! Baby steps!!! What’s next…