How can being in hospital lead to toxic levels of Lithium? Which was found out accidentally as the locum on the weekend asked for a blood test. Perhaps because she noticed I couldn’t see straight, held on to the walls as I walked to stop from stumbling and my speech was slow and slurred. I thought I was just stoned from all the meds. Toxic levels of Lithium – 1.2, which I was – leads to quick kidney and liver failure, with death ready to hand you over to God at any minute.
But never mind all that. They have taken everything away again or lessened the dose, and I am back where I started chemically (with one additional mood stabilizer) and personally – NikNakNoNo is back. I am handling each hospitalisation better and my recovery is that much stronger. I get counselling. I get spiritual healing. I paint boxes. I get to bio-kinetics. I talk to my family and friends. I write. Getting better is a serious business and I have new plans for the world when I get back in it.
Some examples
Look after myself and nurse my Bipolar cycles
- More gym/ Pilates
- Moodscope Online every day
- Counselling and healing continues
- Using Seroquel on weekends to bring me down
- More NOs than YESs
- More Art Days and Days of Art on my own
- Little drinking, and if I cant contain myself, then no drinking
Look after my relationships
- Having fun with N without booze; never withdrawing
- Focus on my nine-year-old son – is he ok or does he need meds or counselling?
- Do I really know what’s going on with my girlfriends and do they need me?
Deal work like an adult
- Chat with work about what is working structurally for me and what isn’t
- Take a risk at work….. set the boundaries and let go of the outcome
- Chat with the whole of Banking about the impact and effect of their accusation of ‘victimisation of women’
Seems like I have much to do, but in fact its more of the stuff that feeds my soul and protects me and my family and less of what the world would want.
Not much at all, and I get out of Ward F, Sandton Clinic, tomorrow morning. Compared to the weeping of two weeks ago, I am now weeping for the transformation that has just begun.