#anyway. she upped my dosage for now and sent an email to someone who can check where i might be able to get ketamine therapy

[daz4i]

psychiatrist: do you really think you have treatment resistant depression?

me looking at her with my 13 years of suicide ideation, over 10 types of medications tried, and 6 years of trying multiple types of therapy:

[teaprose]

cw: anxiety, depression, medication, crappy therapists

I don’t know why I’m writing all this. Perhaps as a bit of a journaling device. This has been a difficult few months for me and due to the situation described below I really haven’t had anyone to talk to about it.

Tl/dr; Don’t suffer in silence. If you are on the same medication for years with no progress: it’s time to change up the medication. And also, you may have multiple therapists that just aren’t the right fit. Don’t be afraid to say so and get a new one.

Just started a new type of anti-depressant. I had been on my last one for over two years with varying doses. I have no idea if this one will work, I only just started it, but at least it’s something new.

Currently having the lovely side effects of extreme drowsiness and dry mouth. Gross.

Anyway... why am I telling you this?

Because please, please, don’t suffer in silence.

I was on my previous medication for over TWO. YEARS. while also going to therapy for the last four. My first therapist I saw for about two years for my anxiety and depression and she was a complete waste of time. She spent more time telling me about her adopted son and his issues than my own. I had never been in therapy before and didn’t realize how wrong this was. I was paying her weekly to help me through trauma and instead I would leave barely getting a word in with no actual treatment plan in place.

My second therapist, we’ll get to in a bit....

The point is... If you’re not seeing improvement after being on a medication for over two years it’s time to try something new. If your therapist isn’t working with your best interests at heart, get a new therapist.

Now medication: Every brain works differently. For some Lexapro will work, for others Prozac, for someone else something else. And then there are the doses! You get 5mg, you get 10mg, we’ll start with 5 and make our way up to 20!

Medication is not one size fits all.

Anyway, since last year I had been trying to get in to see a psychiatrist with the help of my therapist. My medical doctor can only prescribe anxiety and anti-depressant medication up to a certain dosage. For anything else you need to see a psychiatrist. Well, great! So let’s set up an appointment with the clinic psychiatrist. Easy peasy.

That was almost a year ago. Therapist kept saying “oh yeah, I’ll reach out to them” over and over and over. I should have spoken up then. After all, it took me months to get the results of my ADHD and BPD assessments back and she admitted she hadn’t sent them to her supervisor in a timely manner. 

(P.S. Assessments are meant to be done with 0 bias. They should not be completed by your main practioner except in extreme cases. My case is that she was the only one licensed to perform these specific assessments at the clinic and it got approved by her clinic supervisor).

Then, in May, roughly eight months since suggesting I see a psychiatrist and that she’d get me an appointment... my therapist ghosted me.

But me, being me, and my mental health, being it, just stayed silent. She said she was going through some things, including a family death, and she needed to take a month off.

Okay. A month. I could go a month without therapy. And so there I sat a month later waiting for her text or her call or her email. Well... one month became two. And then three. And now almost four. I eventually reached out at the end of month three and asked if I’d be seeing her again. She said she was on sabbatical. 

She said I could no longer meet with the psychiatrist on staff because I was not actively being seen by someone at the clinic. 

She said she’d get me reassigned to a new therapist. That was a month ago. I never heard from her again or anyone at the clinic.

Based on previous experiences I doubt she ever reached out to them.

So.

I lost my chance to see a psychiatrist and be put on proper medication because my therapist “went on sabbatical” and didn’t think to reach out to her clients and get them reassigned. And I didn’t reach out because I didn’t want to be a bother. Because my therapist was going through something and I didn’t want to make things more difficult for her.

I have my MSW. I know that you don’t go into therapy without a reason. But when that reason starts to interfere with your therapeutic work you are supposed to have the training and the supervision to help you. Your personal issues should never effect your clients who are already going through their own personal issues. Issues they are trusting (and paying) you to guide them through.

Now to the good news!

Fortunately my husband is also in therapy and he mentioned to his therapist how I hadn’t been to therapy in about four months. (She works in the same office).

I ended up meeting with her twice and within two weeks I had 

a psychiatrist appointment lined up (I met with her this past Saturday)

a new therapist whom I will meet tomorrow

And when I met with my husband’s therapist she told me that there is no need to suffer in silence. I had come to the clinic looking for help and been abandoned. And to have been left on the same medication for over two years when it obviously wasn’t doing anything, was just taking time away from trying something new where I could have been getting better.

I know, I KNOW, how hard it is to find your voice in moments like this. We don’t want to be a bother. We don’t want to cause trouble. We don’t know if they’ll believe us when we’re hurting. We don’t want to hurt their feelings if we want a different therapist. There are so many reasons we don’t speak up.

But please.

Don’t suffer in silence.

Find your voice and advocate for yourself.

You are worth it.

[myfeels-havefeelings]

Day 3 - Two Can Play at that Game

Azel regarded Callen cautiously. The young man had been known to cause trouble, with complete disregard for the wellbeing of others. He’s been in and out of the correctional facility many times, now. Too many times for someone of his age. But he supposed it was warranted, considering all he's said to have done. What Azel didn't understand was why they sent Callen to him.

“So... You’re supposed to be my new therapist or something?”

“I'm not a therapist, or anything of the sort. Please don't refer to me as such.”

Callen shrugged. “They made you sound like a therapist, my bad. So what are you, then?”

“Nothing you’ve heard of, I'm sure,” he answered dryly. “Since you’re here, and I doubt they’ll let you leave anytime soon, why don't you tell me your age and a few of the things you’ve done recently?”

Callen raised an eyebrow, leaning back in his seat. “Shouldn't you already know that info? They gave you my file.”

“Yes, but I’ve yet to look at it. It’s better for you to willingly give that information out; to show that I do not have complete control in this situation.” Azel ignored the suspicious look he was given, reaching into his desk drawer to pull out a medium sized notebook. “This will be yours while you’re here. Please use it at least once a week, preferably halfway through or near the end. That way I can better monitor your thought process.”

“How are you going to monitor anything if it’s only once a week?”

“Well, Callen, you’re going to be here for awhile so there will be a lot to look over in the coming months. And you are free to write in it more often than that, if you feel it is necessary.”

Callen took the book, putting it in the bag he was given when they first decided to send him here. “Right. Well, you’re not going to see much progress. And I'm pretty sure you’re gonna end up dropping me soon, anyway.”

Azel hummed. “We’ll see. Do you plan on answering my previous question?”

Callen huffed out a laugh, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desk as he clasped his hands, chin resting on his knuckles. “Since you asked so nicely. I'm 22, and the most recent thing I've done is-”

-

-

“I would have appreciated a heads up about how volatile he was, Kara.”

Kara chuckled, the sound coming out slightly muffled through the phone. ‘I thought you would have guessed that, with all the statements and reports about him.’

“I assumed he was unstable, yes. But not like that.” Azel sighed, running a hand over his face. “Is there anything else I need to know, that you have yet to mention?”

‘Not that I can think of. Everything else should be in his file.’

“And you’re sure?”

‘As sure as I can be at the moment. Listen, I gotta go. A new order just came in, and I can hear you-know-who screaming about it already. If I remember anything, I’ll call.’

“Okay, thank you. And please don't antagonize her this time.”

‘No promises. Bye!’

“Goodbye.” He sighed again after hanging up, running a hand through his hair. This would be more of a problem than he thought. He should go through the medical records, at least. That way he would know what medications he was taking - if any. He doubted they kept him on them once they moved him out of the facility.

-

-

“So, you didn't change your mind,” Callen mumbled as he sat down, setting his bag at his feet. “I thought you would decide to drop me, after yesterday.”

“I've dealt with worse. How are you feeling today.”

“That didn't sound like a question, but I suppose I'm feeling fine.”

Azel nodded, opening the folder on his desk. “Are you sure? Because according to your medical records they had you on antipsychotics, and a mood stabilizer. So I would assume you'd be experiencing withdrawal symptoms by now, since they've taken you off of them.”

“That would only happen if I'd been regularly taking them in the first place. Which, obviously, I was not. And I thought you weren't going to look at my file?”

“I haven't touched your file. Your medical records are in a different category, though. As that is information that I constantly need to be up to date on, as it is crucial to your wellbeing.”

“And everything else?”

Azel waved a hand, “Knowing how much damage you've done, and what exactly you did, isn't something I necessarily need to be on top of. That's information you may share on your own, if you feel the need.”

Callen gave him a blank stare before rolling his eyes. “Okay, sure. So what's the other reason you brought up my medical records? That couldn't have been the only one.”

“There's the fact that you didn't need any antipsychotics, considering you never showed any signs of psychosis.” He flipped the folder around, pointing to the section he'd circled earlier. “And the fact that the dosage they had for your mood stabilizer was entirely too high, which ended up having the opposite effect.”

Callen glanced over the paper, frowning. “So they were trying to kill me.”

“Wait, what?” Azel exclaimed in confusion. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

“Whenever I had to take the meds it made my moods worse when they wore off, which gave them more reason to hurt me. They were trying to get it to the point where they would have no choice but to-”

“Stop,” Azel interrupted, holding a hand up, “that's enough. I get where you’re going. But I really don't think they were trying to kill you, Callen.”

“Then what were they trying to do?” he asked as he crossed his arms over his chest, voice tinged with agitation. “Cause that seems like the only plausible direction, with how they treated me.”

Azel wondered if he should look at Callen’s file, if only to know what all they did to the boy. But he decided against it; it’s not as if they would put corrective measures in the records. It would be too risky, and there would be the possibility that the facility could be shut down from abuse and torture charges. Maybe he should have Kara look into it.

“At most, I think they would have you constantly sedated and under watch for being too violent. But if you were taking the correct dosage as often as this says you were supposed to, you would have been catatonic since you were also on unneeded antipsychotics.”

“A living corpse.”

“No.”

“It’s the same thing. Either way, I’d be pretty much dead. They were trying to kill me!” Azel winced slightly at the yell, sighing internally when Callen knocked the folder off his desk as he surged up out of his seat. “It was their faults in the first place! I never did anything wrong, they were just too much of little bitches to handle the fact that I was stronger! If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have been out of my fucking mind. I wouldn't have hurt those people! But are they going to say that? Are they going to take the blame? Of course not!”

Callen kicked the chair over in his anger, and Azel watched in mournful resignation as he practically tore apart his Peace Lily plant in the back corner of the room while ranting about all that happened. At least he was getting information out of the fit. He’d have to clean up and replace the plant. He huffed. And it was a present from his father, too.

“Did you get it out of your system?” he asked after several minutes, mentally mourning the loss of his plant.

Callen panted from exertion, hands clenched into fists at his sides. He stared blankly ahead for a long moment before walking back over to the chair and setting it up, sitting down after. “Sorry. But that's what I mean. After they started me on the meds, I was like that after they wore off, but worse. And I felt threatened with them around me, so I lashed out.”

“Which is understandable,” Azel stated. “Please refrain from attacking my plants in the future.”

“No promises. So now what?”

“Now,” Azel started, reaching down to pick up the folder and the few papers that fell out, “we try to get you the correct dosage of the correct type of mood stabilizer. They were giving you a stabilizer for depression, when you needed one for manic episodes. After correcting that you should begin to have less fits.”

“And that'll work?”

“Let's hope it does, or you'll have to start working to pay me back for the damage.”

Callen snorted pulling his legs up, hugging his knees to his chest. “Sure. Hey, did you know I once skinned someone alive?”

Azel hummed as Callen began explaining the process, tuning most of it out.

This boy was going to be the death of his sanity.

-

-

Kara laughed at Azel's retelling of the session. 

“So you just let him explain in extreme detail?”

“It was better than the alternative of possibly sending him into another fit. Have you found anything?”

“A lot, actually. I was just waiting for you to finish.” Azel stood, walking over to stand behind her. 

“Here are the records of any treatments he received, down here are his hours in solitary confinement. Then...” She switched to a different tab, scrolling down. “These are all the times he was supposed to take his medicine, and the highlighted areas are the times he actually did. I also have video feed to go through.”

“Wonderful. Thank you, Kara. Can you email those to me? I'll go over them tomorrow night.”

“Sure thing. Have you figured out why they sent him to you, yet?” she asked, turning to face him. “I mean, it's been three days. You'd have to know by now.”

“I don't think the higher ups at the facility fully understand what I do. They certainly wouldn't have sent him here if they did. But it's their funeral, so I suppose it was a good thing it happened.”

Kara grinned. “Should I tell her? We can start preparing now.”

Azel shrugged, moving to grab his things. “If you want to. It won't be for a long while, but early prep never hurts. I'll see you tomorrow, Kara. Take care.”

“You too, Azel.”

-

-

Callen was wide-eyed with surprise, eyes scanning over the papers in front of him. “You... H-how... How did you get all this? I know this stuff isn't in my file because they never report these things. What... Did you hack in or something?”

Azel waved a hand. “Not me, but an associate of mine. She's very good at digging things up. We also have video files of how you and the other patients were treated. We can take all of this as proof, and set up a very good court case against them.”

Callen frowned, setting down the folder. “Just a court case?”

“Do you have any other ideas?”

“Well, not really. But won't they just be put in jail? It’s not as if they can really do anything to them, considering how much money they have. They could probably bail themselves out, anyway.” Callen’s face twisted in rage. “That's dumb. They shouldn't be able to do that.”

“Avoid the table if you’re going to hit something, please.” Azel pulled the folder back to him, closing it. “Now, have you written in the journal at all? It’s been enough days; I thought I should ask.”

The brunet shrugged, pulling the journal out of his back and handing it to Azel. “I had a fit, last night. And wrote in it. I doubt it makes much sense.”

“It’s better than nothing,” Azel muttered as he flipped it open to the first page. He blankly stared down at the jumbled, scratchy writing before huffing. At least his thoughts were very obvious.

It wasn't my fault. I didn't mean to

They shouldn't be allowed to taser kids

She was so small and they HURT her

They should be burned, exactly like they did to the others

BURN THEM DOWN

Don't hurt anyone. Don't. You’ll be hurt

HE WAS A BABY AND THEY KILLED HIM

They should all suffer

Azel continued reading what he could, only slightly worried at the repeated statements of burning the place down. He paused when the writing changed from chicken scratch to perfectly readable, the heading just above being ‘How To: Burning Bodies’. He felt he should stop, but he would have to read this eventually.

Callen fidgeted uneasily as Azel continued to read, glancing around the room as his leg shook, fingers tapping on the desk. Writing during his fit had not been a good idea at all, and he was regretting it more and my each passing second. He doesn't even remember what exactly he wrote; he just knows there was a lot of angry words. Maybe he should have looked it over before coming in today.

“Callen.”

“Hm?”

“Stop picking at the chair. Walk around if you need to, but don't break anything valuable.”

Callen was out of the chair immediately, restlessly pacing around the room. He ran his hands over the spines of the few books on the wall shelf, tugging the petals off a few flowers as he passed them. He should have read it over before bringing it in. He shouldn't have even brought it in in the first place. How stupid was he? There was no way they’d let him stay after reading that. They were going to send him back, and he’d have to sit through all their “treatments” again to be “corrected” of his behaviours.

He didn't want to go back.

Azel watched in quiet worry as Callen stood frozen, shoulders hunched with clenched hands. This couldn't be good. “Callen, come here.”

He didn't move, didn't even seem like he heard him, so Azel stood and walked over to him. “Callen,” he said softly, resting a hand on the boy’s shoulder, “are you alright?”

“Please don't send me back,” Callen whispered.

“What? Why would I do that?”

“Cause- cause you read it! I don't remember what I wrote, but I was so angry, and now you don't want me here anymore cause I'm too dangerous. You’re going to send me back.”

“I'm not going to send you back, Callen. That would be counterproductive; I would be sending you back into a dangerous environment that would set you off again. Sending you there would basically be forcing you into a situation where you have no free will; I would never do that to anyone.”

“But... But then what are you going to do?”

Azel led him back over to his desk, having him sit as he picked up the journal. “This page here,” he started, flipping to the third to last written page, “is where you started writing a plan on how to burn down the facility.”

“I... Yes.”

“You did not finish the plan, but I would like you to put some more thought into it. This is the only alternative to putting them in jail, after all.”

Azel grinned at the feral look on Callen’s face at the statement, gently patting his back. “Once you finish it, bring it to me and we’ll go over it. Alright?”

“You’re... You’re really willing to help me burn that place down? You’re willing to help me get everyone out?”

“Of course. I wouldn't suggest it if I wasn't. And besides, the facility started it anyway. They should know other people can play their games just as well. And that's exactly what we’re going to do.”

Callen grinned, eyes shining with glee. “Thank you, Azel!”

“No problem, kid. Now go get some lunch, this session ran a bit longer than expected.” Callen nodded, putting the book back in his bag before standing.

He was finally going to put them down.

-

-

I’m actually keeping up with this, oh my gosh. This is part one of the bit with these two, and part two is going to be done with Day 4′s prompt. Thank you all for reading!

Day 1, Day 2 and Day 4 and the prompt list.

[canaryatlaw]

alright. it’s 9 pm here. I’m obviously trying to get to bed early since I have to wake up at 5:30 am and go take the fucking bar exam. Predictably, I’m a ball of nerves right now. But I’ll be fine, I always am. I’m good at tests, it’s easy for me to recall information, and though essays always give me anxiety initially once I get there and start writing them I actually like them, and tomorrow is all essays. 10 of them total. 1 where they give you a whole packet including law in the jurisdiction and write your analysis totally from that, which will probably be the best one for me. Then there are 3 Illinois specific essays and 6 multistate essays. it’s a lot. but anyway, today. I did get up when my alarm went off at 10 because I didn’t want to sleep in too long and not be able to fall asleep tonight. I had decided I would skip showering this morning and shower tonight so I wouldn’t have to shower tomorrow morning, but upon waking up I found I really wanted to shower, so I did, and now it’s night and I really want to shower again lol but I won’t and I’ll do it after I get back tomorrow. So, woke up, showered, made oatmeal which only resulted in one kitchen disaster (I was trying to get the brown sugar to go into the pot a little at a time but then it shifted and all of my brown sugar was now liquified in my pot, so that was fun) and was looking on my computer for stuff when I saw an email from the health insurance company that does our prescriptions, upon which I remembered oh fuck, I need to call my doctors office like today and get this figured out. Basically, I was at the doctor like two weeks ago, and they gave me the prescriptions, which I mailed onto the health insurance company I referenced above, but they haven’t sent me the meds yet, and I’m running out of one of them, and I was set to run out Wednesday afternoon, and I wouldn’t be able to do anything about that until like, Wednesday evening, so I needed to call my doctor’s office and ask them to call in an emergency supply for like two days, and like, I love my psychiatrist so much he’s great and I wouldn’t trade him for the world, but god I have his receptionist staff so much. Whenever I call for anything it turns into such a production, at least this time they didn’t tell me he can’t call in prescriptions to Illinois like he does every time I call, but they had me call the insurance company to find out when the meds would get to me so they could then give me enough of the meds, and the insurance company people said it’s set to come on Wednesday in the mail but like if that didn’t happen I would’ve been screwed so they called in like 2 days emergency supply of it but I don’t actually take it at the dosage he prescribes so I have more than 2 days worth lol but I don’t expect to need to use them, I’m just glad I’m covered. but yeah, I did other things around the house and started getting ready for a bit, then took an uber to target that was somehow like $2 because of some promotion they were running, and grabbed the prescription plus some candy because I needed candy to bring with me here. I have pretzels and potato chips, various candies, granola bars, and these microwave muffin things that has the dry mix in a little cup and you add water and microwave it and it’s like this awesome chocolate muffin, which are super good except you have to be really careful to get all of the mix wet or at the bottom it gets grainy and really gross but otherwise it’s good lol. I also have some of the Starbucks via refresher packs that I’m gonna add to a water bottle tonight and stick it in the fridge so it’ll be good to go in the morning because that’s my method of getting caffeine, which will obviously be much needed. I ubered back from target but it took forever to get to me which was obnoxious, but oh well. I continued getting ready and eventually didn’t have much else to do, so I just kinda hung out for a bit. The school bar people told us not to study today because we wouldn’t remember anything anyway, but like, I know that’s not true for me lol so I did a little. The hotel didn’t have check in till 4 so I was basically just killing time at this point. When we eventually got there I got yet another uber, but I put it on pool and nobody ended up joining so I only paid $10 for the same ride I would’ve had to pay $24 for (#winning). The hotel is kinda small, but it’s nice, the bigger hotel that’s actually at one of the test sites (not the one I got assigned to regardless) but all their rooms were booked because I had to book late since we didn’t know which bar I was taking for like, fucking ever. But yeah, I checked in, easy enough, came upstairs and settled in a bit, figured out how to get the wifi to work and turned on the tv then subsequently broke the tv and had to figure out how to make it work again. I ordered pizza from the same chain place I normally get it from except this was different and I didn’t really like it very much, idk what the difference was but it just wasn’t doing it for me, plus my tongue was being really obnoxiously sensitive so I really couldn’t eat anything other than like, the crust, so that was also irritating. But I sat here on my computer and looked over the mini-outline book (and by mini I mean some of them are like 70 pages). It’s funny to look over the secured transactions material, because at the end of the semester I already had the bar books and used them to study because they had a comprehensive summary of everything I needed to learn, I actually printed one and brought it with me to the test (which was open book, obviously) and it was very helpful and I somehow got an A- in that class that I had no idea what was going on in for a solid 5/6ths of the semester, and when I listened to that lecture yesterday I retained a good amount of it, so I was happy about that. But I went through the ancillary subject outlines that were generally more like 20 pages, so much more manageable, and made sure I had all my mnemonics down, including the one for the hearsay exceptions which is like, 20 letters long lol. I then did go over the Illinois distinction section for the main subjects, because if I get an essay on one of those in the Illinois part I obviously have to answer under Illinois law. I watched the office on comedy central while doing all of this because I couldn’t find the channel guide and the office is always a solid choice. It’s funny to see Ellie Kemper as Erin because she looks so little there as compared to how she is on Kimmy Schmidt now. but those were very entertaining. So I got to the end of the outlines, turned off the tv, took my pills so there would be a little time for the more sleep causing ones to kick in, then started writing this, and now here we are. I have a lot of mixed feelings about everything going on tomorrow. I know I’m smart, that’s never been in question, I’m just worried I didn’t spend enough time preparing and I feel ill-equipped, because it’s just so much information....like you could get a question on the lesson from one day of class, for all of your classes, for three years. it’s a massive amount of information. I’ve also been acutely aware of just how alone I am. My brother never moved out, so he was with my parents every step of the way through this, but I chose to stay out here and do it myself because that’s always been who I am, the independent one who can’t wait to get out into the world. And I’m here, but it gets lonely some times, especially being that I’m super-extroverted so not being around people for this whole studying period was not doing well for me (one of many reasons I was all to eager to get ice cream whenever Jess wanted to). Even now, it’s just me here. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a hotel room completely by myself before, except for that awful night when I got stranded overnight in Philadelphia and had to go to that awful creepy hotel where I didn’t sleep a wink, just stayed up reading, because I did not feel safe at all (and I was only 19) but obviously this is a very different situation. And I mean, I am more or less a proper adult now, I’m 26, which feels like ages older than 25, because now I’m in my late 20s, and I don’t know how I feel about all of that. I mean, these are all choices I made, and they’re not ones I regret, not at this point at least. It would’ve been nice to have someone here with me, but I made the decision to leave those people in New York and come out here and do it myself, and I am doing it. I want my legal career to be about the things I did, the prestige I brought to my name, not following in the shadows of my dad and brother, I want that name to be known for me and what I’ve done, what I will do. And I know I can do it. Got all the way through law school, this is just one more hurdle I gotta jump over before I can actually be a full blown lawyer. I don’t know if my parents are gonna come for the swearing in, it hasn’t come up yet, I mean it would be nice to have them there just because I would feel very, very lonely if I was all by myself surrounded by people who had their families there with them.....because they didn’t move halfway across the country from their families. Sigh, I know I’m rambling at this point. Just a lot on my mind. But tomorrow I’m going to wake up confident and ready to crush this test, because I know I can do it, I KNOW I can, and I will, and I’m going to be a total kickass lawyer who is instrumental in instituting reforms in the child welfare system that will increase adoptions, decrease foster kids getting bounced between homes, better prevent kids from being brought into foster care when it is preventable by providing parents with the right resources, better support to keep foster teens in high school and bridge them into college (the college rate for foster care kids is something dismal like 2%, not even exaggerating), decrease the number of children in residential facilities who do not really need to be there, increase the number of foster homes nationwide, provide resources for the teenage mothers in the system so they don’t end up having their child taken from them and continue perpetuating the cycle, and so many more, I could go on all day about all the things I’m going to change. And I’m going to do it. I know I can, so I will. 

Just you wait. 

Goodnight babes. If you want to send prayers/good vibes/whatever my way for tomorrow, it’d be much appreciated. Thank you. ❤️

[canaryatlaw]

okay, well today was....better. I don’t think I’m going to have any good days for a while now, but it was better than it has been, so I’ll take that. I ended up waking up at like 10 and going downstairs to eat and kind of figure things out for the day. my brother wanted us to go to a walk in clinic to try to get the antibody testing (which could apparently tell if you’ve built up immunity to the virus) and then there were a few other errands to run so we figured that out and all got in the car to go to the clinic. we ended up going to this specific one because- and this is a mouthful- my brother’s girlfriend’s twin’s boyfriend is working there, lol. so that helped us get in and out quicker. my older brother and my younger brothers girlfriend got tested for the active one as well as the antibodies because they had previously tested positive, but my younger brother and I have always tested negative so we only got the antibody test. they said they’ll email us the results in a day or two, so hopefully that happens soon. I would be a lot more comfortable having to fly back to Chicago and be around a whole bunch of people if I knew I had some immunity to it. so after the clinic we went back home to drop the boys off, then my mom, my brother’s girlfriend, and I went on our other errands, which was a quick prescription stop for my mom at duane reade, and then Target for a bunch of different things, as Target trips tend to be for lol. I’d had a prescription on auto-refill that I saw was going to refill to my pharmacy in Chicago, so I diverted that and had to filled here instead so I could just pick it up today. I wasn’t super concerned about it because I feel like I’m constantly getting refills for this med, because I’m on two separate prescriptions for it to get the proper dosage (I’m taking 250 mg, but they don’t have any 250 mg tablets, so I have one prescription for a 100 mg and another for a 150 mg) so I’m always picking them up lol but whatever. we got a few food items of course and some seltzer and such, and picked up a few other essential things like conditioner that we had been out of, lol. after that we drove over to the drive thru Starbucks which was still open, my brother’s girlfriend works at Starbucks but has been off because of everything, but she still gets a credit for like a free drink and a free food each day, which apparently you only typically get while working, but they extended it through all of this, so that was nice. returned home after that and put some stuff away, my brother’s friend who’s a doctor in the hospital my Dad was in had come over and was talking to my brother about some things. Apparently he had gotten to see the death certificate, which specifies the exact cause of death, and apparently it was something about his lungs failing as opposed to his heart, so that was different than what we’d heard before but also makes sense. Idk, my brother is on a mission to question every choice made by the doctors and is having all the medical records sent over to a law firm that my dad referred a lot of cases to that handle medical malpractice claims, and I’ve kind of been back and forth with him on this, because while if we do find something I will be 100% in favor of a lawsuit, but I really desperately hope there is nothing there that could be considered human error, because if there is I’m just going to be so unbelievably pissed and so much more angry than I am right now, and I really don’t want that to be a thing. plus there’s a whole thing with the medical malpractice suits that’s complicated because you can’t sue for malpractice based solely on the fact of there being human error, it is only when it can be proved that the doctor’s actions strayed from the “standard of care” which is expected for treatment of that illness. The issue here is that I don’t think there’s much of a standard of care here that we can claim because this is all so new, can we really expect there to be an established protocol or a standard for them to even use when nobody knew what was happening next? So yeah, I got a lot of complicated feelings on that. If there is something I do want to figure that out and for that reason am okay with him sending in the medical records, I just really hope that nothing comes back as being malpractice. plus medical malpractice cases are terribly difficult, especially with a grieving family, and I really don’t think that’s what we need right now. anyway. my brother’s friend left, and shortly afterwards we got a delivery of food that someone had sent over, unsurprisingly more italian food, but this time at least not just baked ziti but also some chicken parmesan which was delicious, a huge salad that was great, and at least 30 garlic knots all in a big container so that of course was awesome. after dinner I just kinda hung out for a bit, for some reason I had gotten in my head that it was Tuesday and Legends would be on, so I turned on the tv at like 8:45 and couldn’t find it on the schedule and was very confused until I realized it was in fact the wrong day. I kept the tv on for the last bit of the episode of 9-1-1 which I could’ve been watching I suppose, but I’ll catch up on the whole thing when I get back to Chicago, and then kept it on for the re-airing pilot of their spin off series “9-1-1: Lone Star” which I’d seen a later episode of but not the original, so I watched that and it was very interesting. after that I just let the news come on and had that play for a while, not really paying much attention. It’s annoying we have to wait so much longer for the tonight shows to come on, that it doesn’t happen right after the 10 o’clock news. but whatever, at some point I came upstairs and showered and started getting ready for bed and now I am here, it’s almost 1:30 am so it is definitely time to get to sleep. Goodnight dearies. Sleep well.