A whole new life

Today will mark the beginning of a new chapter in the life of Psych Patient, MD.

I withdrew from therapy, and I am going to wean myself off of all of my medications.

I have also undergone a few of the most stressful life changes a person can endure.

This ought to be a roller coaster of a ride.

Please don't try this at home.

Love and Money

Daddy cut off my allowance. Daddy don't love me no more.

Talked to my therapist about this last night. My therapist told me that it is okay to feel hurt over this, so I guess it's okay to write about it.

My father has been extremely patient and generous with me since I left the world of medicine. I don't like being dependent on my father for money, yet I still dragged my feet as far as becoming financially independent. A few months ago, I asked my father for money to pay for an online course in medical transcription. I told him I would have a job within 6 months and be able to pay my own living expenses. He said okay.

I have kept him up to date with my progress in the course. He knows that I have not yet finished the course. I called him two weeks ago. After a minute and a half of one-word answers to my questions, he hung up. He has since been in New York City on business, but I have not heard from him. I expect that I never will.

Now, I knew the day would come when my father would stop financial support. At 42, I am way too old for an allowance. I guess I thought that he would at least be man enough to come right out and say so rather than simply hang up on me.

My father shows his love with money. When he talks about how much he loves his family, it's always about the financial support he has provided. My father worked hard all of his life to provide for the family. He has very specific hopes and dreams for his family. None of us have met his expectations. It wasn't for a lack of trying. Lord knows that each of us have done our best to please that man. We just don't measure up to the standard he set. No matter what we do, we never will.

Earlier I mentioned that I have been dragging my feet on finding a job. I think I figured out why. I shattered my father's dreams by not finishing my medical training and going into practice. But I knew in my heart that if my dad helped me financially, he still loved me. To me, financial support IS love.

So I can't pay the rent, can't pay for medications. Heck, I didn't even pay my therapist last night. But what bothers me most? Daddy doesn't love me anymore.

Virtual Doctor Visits

I'm listening to talk radio this morning. I find out that one health insurance company is testing a system where you go online, give your symptoms, and get a response from a medical doctor. You are charged your normal co-pay for this virtual visit.

These virtual visits are meant to enhance medical care. No more taking off work to go sit in a doctor's office for a couple of hours to see the doctor for 15 minutes. No more pulling the kids out of school for a day to see the doctor. No more phone tag with the doctor's office with questions.

These virtual medical visits will also make employers, who foot the majority of health insurance cost, happy because it will cut down on lost work time. Schools won't lose money because of absent students. And the health insurance company collects the co-pay that normally goes to the doctor.

Nothing was mentioned about mental health visits. That is probably because, for the purpose of health insurance, mental health is not considered a medical problem and is therefore a separate category unto itself. But that is a rant for another post.

Now, callers to the radio program brought up the following potential problems with these virtual doctor visits.

• privacy issues - Your medical record is confidential information. Where is the information from these virtual visits going to end up?
• incidental findings - How often have you gone to see the doctor for one thing and, during the visit, had the doctor notice something else that should be cause for concern?

What do you think?

Book meme

Here is an interesting and fun meme that I found as I was cruising my favorite blogs.

These are the rules:

1. Look up page 123 in the nearest book to you at the time.


2. Find the fifth sentence and write it down.


3. Then write down the three sentences that follow.


4. Tag other bloggers.
   

I wasn't specifically "tagged" by Two Write Hands to participate. I wasn't specifically excluded either though!

The book nearest to me, that is not a textbook or a manual, is Falling Leaves by Adeline Yen Mah (no relation to me, as far as I know). I don't remember when I got it, but I had to wipe a thick layer of dust off of the cover, and the bookmark is at page 114. Damned ADHD.

"I think that is admirable, sir. I wish we had religious tolerance in China. Unfortunately, we only have barbaric intolerance. I hate to inconvenience the kitchen staff but it is against my religion to eat certain foods."

Scintillating, isn't it? I'll have to start reading the book again to find out what that's all about.

What do you read (or halfway read)? Consider yourself tagged.

Letter to my mother

Hi Mommy,

How are you? Are you warm enough with the clothes we sent you? Daddy sent more money today for you and Susan. I hope you have enough, and that you are happy.

I have thought a lot about you over the past seven years. I never thought that we had much in common. Then I remembered that you left your mother in China when you were young. You did not have her to talk to when you got married, or had babies, or had problems with Daddy. It's too late for me to have a baby, but I don't have you to talk to for all that other "woman" stuff that you were going to tell me about after I got married. I don't have my mommy for my adult life, just like you didn't.

It was very brave of you to leave your home and your country to come to the United States, not knowing what the future held for you. I never thought about that while you were alive. I realize now that I did not get my courage and determination from Daddy. It came from you.

I miss you.

Love,
Eva

What makes a couple?

Aaron and I have been together for almost three years. In that time, we have been on ONE date. We went to a Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert, which was fantastic by the way. You've gotta see them if you ever get the chance.

So what have we been doing all that time? We built two online membership programs and other miscellaneous web sites. We networked with other budding Internet entrepreneurs. We dreamed about the future when we would have the time and the money to do whatever we wanted to do.

To work toward that future, Aaron took a job that forces us to be in a long-distance relationship. He has since come to the conclusion that we really don't know each other. I cried when he told me that. I got scared. I thought he was going to leave me. Then I got angry. I thought we were on the same page, and now he wants to close the book altogether? Where was his sense of commitment? Now, I have to agree with him. We never did the work of becoming a couple, and now we have to figure out how to do that long-distance.

It's my fault that we skipped over the getting-to-know-each-other phase. We met online in business, we partnered together for business, and I just got enamoured with building a future together. I learned things about Aaron that made me believe that he would be an ideal life partner for me. We share the same values. We have the same work ethic. And he loves me. What else do I need? During all this time, I thought I was meeting all of his needs, but I wasn't. I jumped right into the building-a-life thing, and forgot about the courtship.

I count my lucky stars that Aaron is willing to see if we can become a couple in the true sense. Doing that long distance is going to be tricky. He could easily have said forget it, it's not worth the hassle, but he didn't.

Thank you, Aaron.

Forgiveness

During one of my rare father-daughter moments with my dad, he asked me why my sisters and I were upset about him adopting an adult son in China. I told him that all us girls thought that he had gotten over not having a biological son, so when he told us about the adoption, we were hurt that we were not enough for him. He looked quite puzzled. Then he explained how he needed a "son" in China to take of family that was left there. It had nothing to do with us girls. He didn't mean to hurt our feelings. But there was no apology for hurting our feelings. Basically, he didn't mean it that way, so we shouldn't take it that way.

Over the years, I've come to decide that it was his way of asking for forgiveness. I mean, he isn't about to apologize, so I better stop expecting it to happen. It has taken me a long time to understand forgiveness as something I do for myself. When I forgive someone, I am no longer going to expect anything to make up for whatever hurt I experienced. I don't feel like anything is owed to me anymore. What's done is done, now it is over, we can move forward from this point on. That does NOT mean, however, that I forget what happened. Forgive and forget? That is for doormats. Forgiving releases me from heartache. Forgetting just gives license to others to abuse me repeatedly.

So I forgive my father when he hurts my feelings. That's how we continue to get along. But I never forget, because how else am I going to learn how I want to be treated by a man?

Why I don't need cold medication

Last night I felt like crap. I was nauseated, so at first I thought it was my lack of cooking skills. Then came the headache, and finally a tickle at the back of my throat that told me for sure that I was about to come down with something. I popped a couple of Tylenol and went to bed early.

I didn't sleep well. Woke up at 4 am all stopped up, and I couldn't go back to sleep. I popped a couple more Tylenol, then bundled up and went to my bank ATM to make a deposit. It made perfect sense to me because I would have no trouble finding parking so early in the morning, and, lo and behold, I didn't! Got back to the apartment, worked on the computer for an hour, then decided to go back to bed. Even though that was about the time that I usually take my psych meds, Effexor XR and Adderall XR, I opted not to take them then so I could sleep a little more.

I have too much to do today to spend the day in bed, so I finally took my meds. Guess what! My sinuses cleared!!

Now, I am not advocating using Effexor or Adderall as a sinus decongestant. One or both, however, did help clear my sinuses. If they work the same way that over-the-counter cold medication does to clear sinuses, then

1. taking OTC cold medication on top of my meds will NOT help my cold
2. whatever side effects that are associated with how the meds cleared my sinuses would be doubled if I took both my psych meds and OTC sinus decongestants

Most OTC sinus decongestants have mild stimulant properties. While stimulation can be fun, the side effects from drug-induced stimulation are not. When I was in college, I had a professor who missed a lecture which was uncharacteristic of him. The next day he explained that he was in the emergency room being evaluated for heart problems. His heart was fine. Apparently the three pots of coffee he had consumed during the previous 12 hours sent his heart into palpitations.

Moral of the story: Just because you don't need a prescription for it, don't make it safe.