Chronic frustrations of chronic illness

I’ll likely never reach a point when I don’t feel embarrassed about the bipolar outbursts I have from time to time.
 

You’ll notice I said “outbursts” and not “episodes.” A depressive or manic episode can be awful, don’t get me wrong. The progressive lows that lead you further and further into depression and the unpredictable flights of thought and paranoia of mania, can certainly leave one paralyzed. But it’s the outbursts that occur in the midst of these episodes that I find truly embarrassing.

It’s the little things that put me over the edge. Most recently my husband complained because I bought a spicy chicken sandwich from Wendy’s for dinner and didn’t bring him back one. One small comment about how he didn’t appreciate my fend-for-yourself attitude toward Sunday dinner sent me off on a tirade.

You might just chalk this off to normal female hormones. But it’s not. When I say I began raging like a lunatic, I’m unfortunately not exaggerating. Imagine Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood.

Fortunately no one was physically harmed in what I am now referring to as the Spicy Chicken Tirade, but its still not much of a laughing mater. When you experience depression, mania or a mixed-state your frontal lobe doesn’t function properly. The frontal lobe is the part of the brain that enables one to think rationally and see beyond the current circumstance. Without a fully-functioning frontal lobe, I’m left with no way to see beyond my most recent rant and the memory of me raving like mad, un-medicated women.

 

According to my most recent lithium levels, I shouldn’t be surprised by this weekend’s outburst. For reasons that I won’t go into on this blog, the level of lithium in my blood had decreased despite the fact that I was still taking the same dosage. My levels were too low to be therapeutic.

My doctor had told me this. She told me that I would need to increase my lithium levels soon, and yet I waited until I had symptoms that showed that I needed more lithium in my blood. This may seem silly. Why not just trust the lab work? Well, because it’s summer in Kansas and with heat indexes edging toward triple digits I struggle to stay hydrated on 900 mg of lithium a day. Adding an extra 300 mg in the summer scares me a little. In fact, many things about bipolar disorder scare me a little.

 

But the reality is that I need a therapeutic dose of lithium. An extra pill a day washed down with lots of Gatorade and water will get me back to normal. For this I feel truly blessed.

The thing about having a chronic illness is that you always have to be monitored and adjustments will always have to be made. That is, after all the definition of chronic.

 Realizing that I am in need of chronic care is humbling. Accepting that I am in need of chronic care is life saving.