Back home after inpatient stay

[seriously]

As I posted a couple weeks ago, I have been having much worse bipolar symptoms for the past month.

I finally ended up inpatient and got home today after 7 days in the hospital.

This was my first time inpatient and it was a very interesting experience.

While I was inpatient I was clearly cycling every 24-30 hours or less. Strong stress/anxiety provoked a new cycle. From start to finish cycles ran 6 to 10 hours.

Never quite made it to full manic - my diagnosis is still BiPolar (BP) II - despite using my washrag to clean my room, bathroom and the ward's entire main hallway (including windows and the pictures glued to the walls) at high speed on day 3!

I feel like my brain is really tired. Mostly I've just slept since I got home 6 hours ago. I got up to clear out the e-mails and briefly visit you all and now I think I am going back to sleep now.

 

[TerryJ2]

Sheesh. You must be exhausted.
I assume you checked yourself in? The doctors and nurses probably appreciate people like you, who already have a diagnosis but need serious tweaking. So, they changed your medications?

Wish I could help more ... but I can send hugs.

 

[keista]

Never quite made it to full manic - my diagnosis is still BiPolar (BP) II - despite using my washrag to clean my room, bathroom and the ward's entire main hallway (including windows and the pictures glued to the walls) at high speed on day 3!

Maybe you should have switched over to your virtual chain saw art. Maybe then you'd be considered fully manic.

I hope it was an 'interesting' good experience.

 

[TeDo]

Glad you survived and let us know you're okay. I don't know much about Bipolar but I am very familiar with inpatient. Kudos to you for doing what you needed to do for you. I am proud of you. Welcome "home".

 

[gcvmom]

Hope they were able to do more to help you than just give you a mini vacation, not that that is such a bad thing considering all the cr@pola you've been dealing with lately. Did they adjust your medications? Give you better medications? Give you medications that are more fun? Give you mints on your pillow? All joking aside, I hope the family was able to hold things together o.k. in your absence. I know what a critical role you play on a daily basis there and I'm sure you were missed.

Update when you can. And welcome back!

 

[tiredmommy]

Welcome back! I hope you're feeling better and that the inpatient put you back on the right track. Get some rest... we'll be here when you can check in again. {{{Hugs}}}

 

[seriously]

Yes to the medications change - I didn't take the time to change my sig yet.

They added 600 mg Trileptal/day plus fairly generous amounts of Klonopin/Visteral prn during the stay.

I checked myself in voluntarily but they made it clear they would not hesitate to keep me.

Ah yes - no, no mints on the pilllow. Giggle. But perhaps the free-flowing Klonopin took it's place?

This particular hospital has a "high functioning" ward for people like me, although after the cleaning incident they mentioned moving me to a different ward if things continued in that direction. Mostly had folks dealing with anxiety and depression - either Bipolar or chronic depression.

Family held together OK. No major incidents. But wife (as I expected) was a backslider about holding the line on the house rules - in the name of peaceful coexistence. Not the best decision on her part but I wasn't there to offer support and I suspect I am going to be MIA for a while yet as my brain recovers.

I should have gone in at least a week before I actually did - the night I spent 3 or 4 hours feeling like I wanted to beat my son's head in with a baseball bat and told our family therapist she started saying I needed to go inpatient.

I told her that by the time I got to the hospital I wouldn't be suicidal/homicidal and they wouldn't take me. She suggested I think about lying a little. Unfortunately by the time I did check in for my little vacation I had no need to lie.

My brain is worn out again now so I'm going - see you tomorrow and thanks for all the well wishes.

 

[HaoZi]

Hope you're getting that rest. Sounds like an interesting experience, surprised you didn't get offers to hire out for cleaning! I'm glad it was a good experience as such things go, be nice if they had that attitude of keeping in with some of our kids. Kiddo has done well on trileptal, expect salt cravings and wear extra sunscreen.

 

[gcvmom]

Isn't hindsight fabulous?

I hope the Trileptal helps you. It's helped my husband a bit (shhh! He doesn't think he's bipolar) especially with his obsessiveness and manic project sprees (think laying a brick walkway in January and February until 11:00pm most nights when your wife tells you it's really time to come in now and not wanting to stop, and keeping that up for days on end until you give yourself something that looks like carpal tunnel and suddenly you can't even use the keyboard at work because your fingers don't want to work anymore). He takes a much higher dose, though, for seizure control (the mood stabilization is apparently just gravy). It does make him tired, but that seems to come and go.

Get your rest and keep checking in when you are up to it. I hope you are on some kind of follow-up schedule with psychiatrist/therapist.

 

[Lothlorien]

I hope you are getting your rest and are feeling better today.