Day 3, Changes & Skittles

I just had morning exercises. They are just stretches, but boy do they feel good. On a full belly, even better! I leave there feeling like an early sunrise. Of course, part of that may be the coffee I had with breakfast.

In a few minutes, I am going to what amounts to arts and crafts again. I really enjoyed that the other day. I am looking forward to it.

I woke up to three doctors calling my name. (The sleeping pill did what I thought it would. Oh well.) They asked me how I was feeling and what the date is. I never remember that. I still don't know! They pointed to my dry erase board. D'oh. At least I know what city I'm in and what month it is. I'm getting used to the people here, but since the unit is always full, I know there will be a slow trickle of changes in personel. Now I'm hearing that my roomie is getting discharged. That means a new roomie and a locked bathroom again. When I first got here it was locked. So I have to ask to use the bathroom until they are allowed to have it unlocked, too. Deja vu. I will miss my roommate. She is nice. She said she went through several room mates over the week and a half she was here. Makes me wonder how long they'll keep me. After last night's post, probably not today.

We just had a class on how to deal with stress, basically. What we can do, like reading or journaling, or deep breathing. These are all things I knew, but when you're "in the moment" its difficult. The occupational therapist always plays soothing music- the kind you'd have during a professional massage- during her classes. We talked about being in traffic jams and people who get upset and try to drive up the breakdown lane. We all had to come up with something we could do to help ourselves today. Some people said "read more", some said "journal more", I said, "stop drinking coffee", and one person said, "meet someone". I thought that was cool.

There is a void of time right now. There so little going on that I don't have much to write about. My room has been cleaned. Some people have left on passes. There is earily nobody here. There are hours until dinner time and that's the next thing on my schedule. Its too quiet. However, my friend is coming to visit me and I have The Hot Zone to read and a science magazine, also. I feel okay today. Clean, calm, and yet still unsure about the outside world. Yes, I remember it, but that's not the point. Its where I came from when I got admitted. How soon would I or could I be back there were I to leave the ward today?

One good thing is that if I have a question about my medication, be it a side effect or wanting a dose, I don't have to call and wait for a nurse to call me back; I just have to catch my nurse walking down the hall! How great is that?!

I'm very tired today. Achey. I'm not sure if that's the exercise class from this morning or if that's the new drug I'm on. I'd really love a nap but I'm against naps because they I might not sleep that well at night.

Its still really slow around here. I read more of my book and now got a Discover- one of my favorite science magazines.

The rabbit stayed up late talking and fell asleep at the Mad Hatters'. He was down to a few sticky Skittles and improvised with tinier pieces of his cakes in his pocket, even though his friend with the tall hat told him he didn't need any of those colorful lies- that he aught to try some of his. He politely declined and, in the morning, the rabbit took off to look for more of his colorful discs and a safer place to hang out.