Rumors Of My Death That Aren't Completely Fabricated.

I haven't published an entry for a week and a half, which, by all accounts, means that there's something very, very wrong with me. I haven't been reclusive, purposely mysterious, or involved in depth with requisite school assignments; the latter, an epic fret of serious magnitude related to my surviving pursuit of my masters degree which will require extensive explanation that I'm not prepared to tackle today or tonight, for which I will beg on hands and knees for accommodations I didn't and couldn't have anticipated needing in the first place. With a drained brain and weak frame, to have *not* completely lost my sense of humor is back-pattingly high-five-ish.

It's sometimes bordering-on-annoying when it's iterated or pointed out to me the enormity of how unusual I am, with a legendary reputation of medical mystique, largely because it's frequently an insult as opposed to a compliment. Yet I'm thinking that it might be wise not to cry wolf with regard to dying because it's not funny anymore. (The jet ski death, I found hysterical, personally.)

The prescription leaflet above details a relatively new anti-psychotic, Saphris. As you'll soon read on, risks of fatality or other life-threatening complications or reactions are not even addressed, and I looked closely. Even the side effects indicate that during the drug's clinical trials, nausea and drowsiness were found in < 1 in 1,000 patients.

In the favor of condensing time, it's just easier to insert below the explanation of the events of the last few days that I emailed Kate:

Thursday: 

Same old same old here here, except for crossing the jaw dropping condition of anaphylaxis off my lifetime bucket list. The Russian Drug Czar shrink, when I said I felt like my anti-psychotic med had plateaued and I kept rapid cycling, titrated me in like 5 days off the anti-psychotic, Geodon, which I've been on for 4 years, and switched me to a new on the market anti-psychotic, Saphris. I wouldn't wish Saphris on my worst enemy. I'm a pretty almost genius layperson who knows about every drug on earth and what it's for, and who it's for.  Saphris  just came out and was reportedly aimed for bipolar II patients who rapid cycle like me and hadn't crossed my radar for review. 

Being a gambling girl by nature, I said what the hell and agreed to trying this new, powerful, almighty and heavily marketed drug to calm the crazies. Keep in mind, over last weekend, I thought for sure I had a strep throat infection with hoarseness, sore glands, a very sore throat and fever. I was tapering the Geodon and transitioning into the Saphris. By Monday, I was starting to feel gastrointestinal ick, diarrhea, cramps...which kept escalating in severity, then added itchy skin, that I assumed was just winter-dry, which brings us to this morning. The throat infection symptoms were gone and I slowly & forcefully rubbed my neck around my pained glands and just thought it was a virus I had to ride out. But then came the diarrhea and cramping, and the feeling like there's a 15 lb bowling ball in my abdomen, which began @ 4am this morning. 

I never gave it one iota of thought that I could possibly have non-stop diarrhea, a blotchy welt rash, gas, abdominal distention, and nausea because I was allergic to the new anti-psychotic. It wasn't unreasonable for me to have assumed the sickness of both my mom and Luke was the root cause of feeling lousier and less functional by the minute. I ended up at Immediate Care after dropping Luke at school (yes, I drove in that condition) and got an epinephrine shot, because my throat was closing--feeling thicker and thicker, very quickly, and was given Rx's for  2 days' worth of Prednisone (a steroid) and Lomotil (an anti-diarrheal). 

Jumped through 2000 hoops to get a fucking Zofran refill (anti-nausea) straightened out by the pharmacy idiots. I never gave it a thought as to WHY my intestines are exploding. It was literally every 5 min in the bathroom. I almost (still) speculate as to having had an intestinal blockage. 

I paged the shrink @ 5:30 am, and left another message at noon. She called me back at about 4pm. Fuckin'  idiot. She didn't know which of my meds was the mood stabilizer and which one was the anti-psychotic, listening to her accented garble on the phone trying to figure out a new bipolar cocktail. *I* shouldn't have to fucking explain to the doctor the psychopharmacology of the meds. My gastro (the famous Stosh) is in the loop. Immediate Care asked me all these goddamn questions when I couldn't speak because I couldn't breathe. Then I started crying which made breathing even harder!  Panic attacks while barely breathing are THE easiest way to stop breathing entirely. Wonderful! (After simply initialing the consent to treat with a capital A, I threw their paperwork back at them.)

The shrink said on the phone that she's never seen such a severe reaction to this drug. Of course she hasn't. It just came out and I don't recall being on the guinea pig list. I should've red flagged her when she talked about the drug and said, "Well, the pharmaceutical rep said..." THEY ARE SALESPEOPLE, NOT DOCTORS!!!!   

Then she suggests Lithium. Hi, Gumby, that's for Bipolar I with severe manic episodes, and I'm Bipolar II with mixed mood episodes. Totally wrong option. She rattled off a couple more (like Zyprexa, which she decided to Rx against my better judgment and desire to remain on Geodon). Never mind that Zyprexa has been recalled and outlawed in the state of NY for its incredibly alarming reactions and side effects. Yeah, no thanks. She wanted to boost something with Abilify, which was even dumber because that's a antagonist chemical that enhances the effect of an antidepressant, and this is an issue with my anti-psychotic. How do people who are so uniformly retarded thrive in this world purely because there's an "MD" after their name? I'm up to taking like 15 Benadryl at once but still itch all over my body. Sleep is impossible. Lomotil's not working at all. I am like one shit away from an IV and a heart monitor. Or a goddamn stroke. And Prednisone! Our favorite! It drives normal people psycho and loonies suicidal. Love it. I'm keeping up with fluids but I'm SO thirsty.

Drugs I desperately need are caught in red tape. Drugs I don't need and didn't even request are ready. It's so fucked up.I would gladly take pancreatitis over whatever this reaction is that can take 3-5 days to exit my system. This is NOT side effects from the drug. It's a REACTION. A SEVERE reaction. 

I can't even compose any more thoughts, but there's more to this whole stupid story. I'm crying too much right now. The doctors and the pharmacies and the rest of the fucking world don't know what's happening and why, and I, for once, am the only one with my head screwed on correctly. The lunatic in the asylum is powerless and unmedicated, but nobody has died yet and don't forget that I'm very, very smart. 

Best part? Soon, Guy Friend, Lady GuyGuy and some grouping of their kids are going to South America for 17 days. SEVENTEEN DAYS. They're moving a daughter to Chile to teach English for a year or something. (That whole Mother Jones CIA expose on the USA planting operatives and spies under the guise of "teaching people to speak English.") He said he'll check on me, he promises. He also said 90% of people would've caved in a long time ago, but I'm strong and I hold on. I don't like it when he's off radar for 3 weeks and doesn't have international cell service, which is "total bullshit" according to Best Male Friend, who is wrangling assistance with Annie Management Relief Efforts during Guy's vacation.

Friday:

The prednisone (only 10 mg!) caused me to defy all logical behavior I had to spare, and I did all sorts of crazy shit around the house until I took 3 Ambien and tried to fall asleep, leaving a veritable trail of disaster all around, only briefly sleeping and having frantically 1) searched the whole house and talked out loud looking for Luke, when Logical Me *knew* he was at Craig's and 2) bawling in steroid-fueled, shaky, hysterical panic and cavernous emptiness nothing could assuage for 4 hours about school, my bipolar disorder, &  my needy-little-girl reliance on Guy Friend to keep me feeling safe. More than 3 people have now asked me honestly how Guy manages to flee the USA for weeks at a time when I'm acute need of him, and his love and support. I understand Guy, being Guy, wanting to cut himself off from the rigors of First World problems (like me) and enslave himself to nature and an alternate universe as soul-quenching, contemplative enrichment. I also find it totally douchey.

I had therapy @ 2pm Friday, and I only went to see that idiot because I needed to extrapolate info from her for a major paper on a social service provider which is due on Monday, but is completely not going to happen, which I'll have to explain at length to the professor. My only armor towards the school is a very poorly composed, brief letter the therapist wrote to one of my professors. If I don't go to class tomorrow, it'd behoove me to see Stosh, get a medical note, & yell at the psychiatrist more in favor of Geodon. 

The extent to which Maine Center (my public aid mental health providers) professionals twist a situation to nullify their culpability/liability onto the patient, me, is frightening . Why didn't *I* tell the shrink sooner that I was sick? Because I assumed I'd caught an infection from Ma and Luke. Only after the immediate care anaphylactic shock shot did I realize I'd been getting sicker and sicker as the week went on, and that the reactions timed and were poised to blaze my bloodstream and brain exactly when I started taking the new drug, overloading my system, which was shutting down. Whoops!

So the shrink makes it my fault and the counselor backs her up, and nobody's advocating for me except me. Guy said I have a better psychopharmecutical medicine based knowledge than any doctor I could ever see, which is a compliment. Also, Maine Center should watch their mouths very closely with regard to all this ass-covering as they deny negligence, praise one another for their clinical competence, and make me the bad guy. The reality of it all was at the moment when the shrink handed me the samples of the Saphris and when I asked what side effects might occur, she curtly referenced drowsiness and an occasional upset stomach, and said that the drug is well-tolerated. I'm sure the perky young saleswoman, who introduced the shrinks to the drug, probably didn't mention that on extremely rare occurrences, this fucking medicine will introduce a slow, uncomfortable, painful ascent of the patient up into the Pearly Gates. Death is kind of a buzzkill to throw around when you're peddling toxins. 

A gentle reminder memo should be placed upon every medical professional and mental health practitioner's desk, which reads "It's probably really not smart to argue with and lie to someone who just got an "A" in Psychology Ethics and Law. Like, especially when she's on steroids. Because Annie on steroids is ANNIE ON STEROIDS."  I have no interest in profiting or conniving compensation for the suffering I endured at the hands of Maine Center. All I want is to be treated and treated WELL. What type of compensation or financial gain and accolades these mental health providers expect as the rewards for their work should NEVER come before the well being of the people who have come to them for help. If I was really a bitch, and sued everyone who have almost killed me by virtue of their own stupidity, trust that Luke and I would be living a far more cushy lifestyle. 

It's pretty crappy that they're also not available for psychiatric paging on any weekend, I'm in between PCP's right now, defaulting ALL of the Annie Physical Management back onto Stosh. 

Saturday

After a 24-hr respite from the toilet and trying to bulk my system with small portions of bland solids, the diarrhea is back and the world's left me ONE Lomotil until tomorrow's magic release of 100 of them. 

Probably *should've* started the spare steroid eye drops I have LAST night before I crashed at 8pm, when I ignored that my eyes were swollen, red, blurry, clouded and that my pupils were the size of Jupiter and I had a migraine. Dumb, rhetorical questions like "How do you know you have allergic conjunctivitis?" weighed against all the other presenting evidence, are colossally fruitless. In all, though, I slept a straight 14 hours, only arising once to urinate at 4am. 

Guy hasn't checked on me since Thurs night, despite my bevy of texts, and only replied today because his own lymph nodes were swelling and he's on day 7 of a sore throat, right before his trip. I had a little trouble sympathizing, given he could've put himself on an antibiotic a week ago, and not doing so was a heroic superhero attempt to be awesome when he was just being stubborn. It was all I could do not to reply that I sincerely hoped that while he is hiking in Chile, scorpions bite him, giant insects buzz around his head, and that Lady GuyGuy is constricted to death by an anaconda. XOXO. Swollen lymph nodes, seriously? No, go on...

Oh, Luke just told me anacondas don't constrict, they bite and eat people. Details, details. 

You can't accuse me of being the asshole....Thursday night, Guy felt compelled to send a text suggesting I totally dope myself on too many benzos and knock both myself and my immune system out. I told him I hadn't even had a chance to explain, that it wasn't funny, and to just forget it. "Ringy dingy" went the phone and he was apologizing for upsetting me (again). See, when we say things in jest, sometimes they're not funny whatsoever, you know, Guy?

In any event, tomorrow will be raft with straightening out school stuff, not itching, not going to the bathroom and being functional. No, I don't think any of it will be accomplished.

Tomorrow morning's edition of "Rhythms" will focus on whomever is hyper-focused in a creepy, stalker way in order to gather dirt or ammo on or against one of my friends. Be very, very afraid.