Electrochick

From ITN World news last week:

Is it better to have a chemical straight-jacket, or experience the effects of bipolar mood swings?

There isn't an attainable balance between the two.

Has creativity and drive gone after years of paralizing depressions, or as a result of the treatment for it?

Is being treated right for people around you, or for yourself? Am I selfish for even considering it?

Being better also means no magical, creative, productive, risk-taking, invincible highs.

Using hind-sight, was it worth surviving the depressions to experience the highs?

It's why people with bipolar are on and off their meds like a whores drawers.

'Insight into your bipolar' - is an oxymoron.

I have daily debates with myself in the kitchen wondering if I should take the tablets that make me 'better', and control the wretching long enough for them to be absorbed - or don't, and maybe some of the good stuff will come back.

I don't have an answer to these and I don't want to be selfish.

I haven't seen myself on a webcam in years, not since Hubby had to work in Dublin all week for 2 years. Tomorrow he's going to film The Sensational Alex Harvey Band playing a gig in Glasgow. The club has wireless internet so he's going to try and set up a Skype video call so I can see some of the gig So we've just dug out our old webcams to see if they still work, and I got a shock! It makes me look so bad.

That's decided it - it'll be full hair and makeup for the webcam! lol.

************

Edit. I really wish BCUK would stop messing with our tags grrrrrrrr.

Kate Hudson, talking in December's Elle magazine: 'I'm pretty solid, actually. I'm not, like, 110lbs.

But I'm probably heading towards that.'

110lbs is only 7 stone, 12 lbs!!!!

The world has gone insane.

I found this free online mood tracker today.

Anyone with bipolar is advised to keep a moodchart to help us recognise our mood swings so we can hopefully predict them / deal with them / prevent them / whatever. And it gives us something tangible to give to our Drs so they can see how we've been doing.

It also has a tool that texts or emails you if you need reminding to take meds, and an option to let an appropriate person access your mood chart, or have them be alerted if your mood takes a turn for the worse. Not bad for free.

Beats a spreadsheet

I've withdrawn from the course.

The more I'm doing of it, the more is coming back to me, but it's slow. And my concentration span is showing itself to be too short as well. I'm having to re-read most things several times.

I was enjoying it, and studying again, and I think I'm capable of doing the work (I did it 10 years ago - surely I can do it now), but there was no way in the world I was going to get all the reading done quickly enough, let alone do the assignments. I was beginning to panic.

The tutor was really nice about it - I was a bit embarassed to tell her. A mature, professionally qualified woman, unable to sit long enough to read a page of text.

I'm disappointed that I'm not ready. I'd really hoped I was. Another one to add to the list.

I won't be able to access the online journal-searches now which is a pity, but I can still use my student card to get discounts at HMV lol (I like my music) and the job's still on.

This afternoon Hubby very kindly drove me around looking for likely subjects, and I took these:

And the most concerning of all.....
The little red brick building on the right is where the used needles are.
And the big building behind it, which is literally only across the road - about twenty yards away, is Walsall College.

The time of year when the young 'uns newly living away from home at the local university, try their hand at shopping in Asda on a Sunday afternoon.

Always young lads - not girls for some reason - and they're actually quite adorable lol.

You see them all bundled into a beaten-up 'first car' trying to park. Then they make their way around Asda in a huddle, as one, each member carrying a basket with two cans of the cheapest possible lager and a box of rice crispies.

Bless

Drizzly rain. But pretty cobwebs.

My first day in college went well. I'm being allowed to use some of the work I did for my research project on the heparin doses given over hemodialysis.

I hope it'll be much easier than starting a new topic totally from scratch. So this is a good thing

I've just come home from the meeting with my new tutor.

She's really nice, one of those people who gives off an air of calmness.

After only 10 minutes I was asking her to repeat things she'd just told me But she took it kindly.

By the end of the meeting I was nervously drumming my fingers and pen on the table, and tapping my feet - this is new she commented on it, and said that I would be able to do this course, and that I could ring or email her any time. Nice lady

And now I'm calming those nerves with a very nice sugary doughnut

....and, um, another sugary doughnut.

Ok, so it was a pack of 5. This studying could make me very fat lol.

How many unimportant tasks you can find.......

that absolutely must be done right now.......

When you've got work to do.

I've been contacted by the tutor for my new course, and she's set me some work; and I've also started reading ready for my new job which starts in a couple of weeks.

This is really scarey. I'm reading phrases like: methodological triangulation in clinical practice, and parametric data analysis.

I used to know this stuff – I'm sure I did. But my poor memory, and the time-gap is making this very daunting. I've got so much work to do! The course and the job haven't even started yet

I feel like I have several years of study and work to re-learn in just a week or so.

Grateful as I am for the electro convulsive therapy a year ago, there have been a few enduring side-effects. One of these is the loss of creativity. Ab-so-lu-te-ly stone-dead.

I've hardly picked up my camera at all since the ECT. It feels like failure, and when people have asked, I've been telling them I just haven't felt like taking pictures. Shouldn't I just be pleased I've been 'fixed'?

Anyway, over a glass of wine and the X Factor - I've confessed, and Hubby has offered to take me out tomorrow with my camera to an abandoned factory (urban and industrial are my favourite subjects), to see if I can get some inspiration.

I hope so. Maybe I'll have a photo to post tomorrow

Right then........

I've found the course, "Research Appraisal". It's a post-grad stand-alone module so it's only 3 months long, and I think it could be just what I need to update ready for my new job. (£405 though !!!)

Unfortunately it doesn't look like they give grants for post-grad courses. But rumour has it that my new employers might pay for it

So I'm sending off the course registration tomorrow.

It's the first studying I'll have done for years, and I'm a bit anxious about it - but excited too

They've given me my new job title now - "Medical Research Consultant" - which sounds waaaaay too important lol.

I didn't actually apply for the job (I really want it though), and I'm worried that their confidence in me is going to be mis-placed. It's been a few years since I did this stuff.

I desperately want to update, and so I'm looking for courses at my local university. The catch is that I don't have any money to pay for it!

Amazingly..........I've been offered a job

I'll be consulting on medical literature searching.

It'll be my first job since I got too ill to work (which had led to a stay in hospital and 15 ECTs).

It's a newly-created post so I don't even have a job title yet!

They're aware I'm manic-depressive, and as none of the work has to be submitted immediately I can work when I can.

And it's great to know that my nursing experience and masses of studying will be used at last.

This is going to be so good for my self-esteem, and two wages coming into the household will be really useful!

Yay my new bosses for giving me this chance.

I'd better get myself up to speed again

I'm stopping blogging now, but I'm leaving this one up for anyone who is searching the web for info on ECT.

I hope it helps you.

As a finishing note: ECT can get you out of a crisis, but the memory-loss is severe.  You have to decide if it will be worth it.

But don't be frightened about the actual treatment.  It's fine.

If you would like to ask me anything regarding my experience of ECT, please feel free to contact me via this blog.

Good luck 

Everyone thinks that I've improved more than I think I have.

I had proof today that I must have improved.

I was doing a short photography course prior to the ECT (today I remembered it).

I had only got as far as the first assignment.

I thought from the feedback that I had done badly.

When I re-read the feeback today, I saw it entirely differently. I had actually done quite well.

Interesting proof.

If I see one more thing about crappy Sex and the City.......

..............I'll throw the tv out of the window.

Aarrrgggggggh!

Is it me?

It's just dawned on me, that at 40, I'm supposed to:

Have wrinkles – (deep-set or otherwise),
Have tired eyes that need a roll-on to correct them,
Dye my hair with dyes that hide 'even the grey',
Eat yoghurts that help my digestive system,
Require products that make even my skin supple,
and others that 'plump it up'.

All advertised mostly by 20 year-old models.

How stupid do they think we are?

Until today, I hadn't even looked to see if I had wrinkles around my eyes (it turns out I do).

Before I took any notice of those adverts I still thought of myself as young. It only just dawned on me that these adverts were aimed at me.

F**k them. I think I'll continue to ignore them

A curse on the advertisers

Phaaaaah!

An agreement's been reached (unfortunately doc, it had to be done).

There's been a tussle going on between 'us' and 'them'. And that's why I haven't been posting for a couple of weeks.

I'm feeling a fair bit better - 15 electric shocks done and finished. Life is a bit odd now though lol.

But I get to enjoy discovering fun stuff twice! Which is pretty cool

ECT is hard - and for everyone involved. But it's better than the alternative. The pros have to be weighed against the cons, and for me it was worth it.

This blog name has turned out to be appropriate . But the profile pic of the nurse will have to go now - not such a huge loss I think.

I liked the pic though - shame about that

Dr said this morning, that once we get to this many ECT's that the maximum benefit has probably been reached.

Which is not what she said last week.

The agreement is that I have 2 more (tomorrow and Tuesday), then stop and plan for discharge, monitoring if I go up or down in the following weeks.

If I get worse, then I'll be put on maintenance ECT.

I'm disappointed. And I'm worried I'll be 'abandoned' by them (it wouldn't be the first time).

I want to be Classicrockchick again.

The wait is annoying me.

D'yaknow, today we think my personality is beginning to change, for the better I hasten to add . (well it couldn't have been worse lol)

I've had a really nice day today.

And Hubby's introduced me to Starbucks' chocolate frappuccino with cream.

Oh yes.

Uh uh . And now I'm addicted.

I'll be persuading him to take me there again tomorrow. Mmmmmmmmmmmmm