Now, I don't know that I was always this way, but I will freely admit now and later in this post that the reduction is such that it was a lot, and it was nearly all the time.
As I was saying, for those few moments without the thinking, the worrying, its me and the world- just pure existence. Where I once had every single sound in the restaurant sounding individually but at the same time, I now have each sight, each sound, but they are pretty, sweet entities, maybe even dull, and I can take one, then the other, drop them, and never think of them again. Ever.
As a matter of fact, my youngest son was supposed to meet a friend after school for a play date and ride home with him and his grandmother yesterday. The friend never came to school because he was sick, but the grandmother didn't tell us this until Noah was already wandering around for at least 15 minutes trying to find his friend after school. I couldn't find Noah, but he usually walks home; this made him late home (after finally figuring he wasn't going to visit with his friend). Still, I was concerned. But, considering that I had no idea where my youngest child was on my internal gps, I was relatively calm. Yes, I still went and looked for him, and worried, but it wasn't disabling. Is the thought of never seeing my son again scary? Yes! A million times, "YES!" But, I didn't even think that far. I allowed some time for him to find his way home. And he did.
I'm enjoying the calm, as I put it. I previously wrote of Dolby Noise Reduction. I talked about Zyprexa doing this to my brain in terms of sedation. Topomax doesn't sedate my body. It just shuts off the noise. The noise that is intrusive. In the hospital, they commented on my having intrusive thoughts and I think that could be a lot of it. I also have classic bipolar 1, of course, but I'm now seeing that with these thoughts removed, the void is soothing. Moreover, as I've said, I didn't realize how much my brain did this until they just weren't there. I have read that Topomax helps with both bipolar 1 and intrusive thoughts. As I said previously, I am enjoying the Topomax for these reasons. It also seems to be augmenting my mood stabilizers in that my mood is very evened-out now. I don't know if its just the Topomax, or if its the Zyprexa, Lithium and Topomax working together, but as I said before, I had no idea that that is what normal feels like. (If indeed I am there. I realize I'm still early into a new drug.) As far as side other side effects go, I've noticed some nausea and diarrhea. Both are minor.
In other medical news, I've been getting my blood drawn quite a bit lately. My blood thinner (Coumadin, for blood clots in my lungs a few months ago) was not given properly in the psych hospital thus I had to get the blood level drawn again. My Coumadin dose, which was stable finally, has been adjusted a few extra times because if this. My Thyroid medication was also given incorrectly- they missed doses so that, being that I have low thyroid from Lithium, I got extremely tired- and I had to go for a blood draw today to see what my levels are of TSH (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone). The psych. meds I'm on right now are Lithium ER, Zyprexa, and Topomax. As a side note, I've previously been on many others, including Risperdal, Geodon, Depakote, Saphris, and Seroquel. I had side effects to all, with Depakote being "only" weight gain. (I switched to Lithium and have been very happy with it.) The others were things that my doctor felt I should be taken off the medication even so- with the history of Saphris outlined here and here.
Sometimes, I don't worry about things, don't have anxiety, am not manic, am not depressed and I don't forget what I was just doing or supposed to do. These are the times I'm beginning to cherish.
The rabbit is at the top of the hole but has found a pharmacy to get her Skittles. Yum. She will continue to take them, purple, red, orange, green and yellow. She is happy. And wondering what tomorrow brings.
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