healthcare
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Saw my doctor yesterday morning. She’s new to me, I’ve only met her once before. She’s my primary care provider, not a psychiatrist. I’m a wimp for blood draws. But I had to go to the lab for it. One time I fainted, feeling terribly woozy and lightheaded right beforehand. It doesn’t hurt that bad…
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A year ago today, the cops hauled me out of my apartment, and I was locked up in a mental hospital for a couple weeks. To this day, I still have flashbacks, a lot of anxiety around it, shame around it. I left that apartment and have moved back into my house. Living with my…
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There are some things worse than death. I witness it every night at work and probably get a little secondhand trauma from seeing some of the horrible shit people go through. Dementia and acute delirium is a case in point. Gone are the things that made you who you were. You are a human shell;…
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I am about to take my meds. For days I have been neither depressed nor happy. I am going through the motions, doing the things I need to do. I have to talk to people sometimes. I take care of the patients. I had a specialist look at my floor. The bright blues I painted…
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I have felt absolutely sick to my stomach. I can’t eat, could hardly sleep. I can’t get my mind off the VA and my job and my healthcare and the fact a far right, obsessively anti-LGBT oligarchy is taking over. I haven’t heard back from my provider yet, so I’m calling back today after work.…
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I still cannot fucking believe it. I am reeling from the way I found out I got my 100% – seeing an impending deposit for back pay in my bank app. When I went on VA.gov and signed in, there it was – right under my name, my new service connection: 100%. This is life…
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My patient is not getting better, he regressed tonight. They had taken him out of restraints and tried to keep him that way. They had also removed the foley catheter. When I got here, he peed everywhere and was trying to get out of bed. He got aggressive and even tried to hit me, but…
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There is little I can do about my reasonable accommodation request over the weekend, but I do have a phone number to call, or I can try to navigate their portal from a work computer. I figure I’ll just call them and expedite it, because I’ve already worked the floor once. I’ve been doing this…
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I am exhausted! But I am also damn good at what I do. I didn’t mean to be, it just happened organically. I’ve been at my local VA hospital as a lowly CNA for ten years, with the help of supported employment and a case manager. I started working for an agency back in January…
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During my second week in the hospital, I finally called my mother. What a disaster. I had been stabilizing pretty well on medication changes and Dr Floura’s careful dialing in of the right doses and times. I had learned a lot about myself and that this depression was largely existential in nature, exacerbated by my…
Documenting my journey through the mental health system 