Sunday 15 December 2013

Finally out of quarantine!

It's been an interesting week. In the early hours of Monday I woke to the sound of Father Badger coating the bathroom in vomit, Exorcist style. Cue Badger Cub waking up, so I ended up standing outside the door nursing, while passing towels and disinfectant spray through the door to a very sorrowful husband. We went into full preventative mode - once Badger Cub was back asleep in his cot, I did a second clean of the bathroom then replaced all the towels, colour coded so no one shared. Antiseptic hand gel went out. Father Badger was put under strict instructions not to touch the children or any of their things unless absolute emergency.

We figured Baby Badger had had the bug as on Friday evening she'd been a bit sick with a high temperature, so off to nursery she went. Unfortunately, that turned out not to be the case and on Tuesday afternoon she decorated my parents' sofa in similar style. We went into lock down until Friday - no visitors, no trips out, no contact with anyone else.

Have you ever tried entertaining a stroppy three year old and a ten month old that chews everything without allowing them to touch any of the same objects? Challenging to say the least, but I must have managed it as neither myself nor Badger Cub suffered. I'm hoping we're clear now.

I've also been on the Sertraline for just over a week now. I'm not sure much has changed but apparently it can take a few weeks to have any effect. I have noticed that I no longer have the anxious knot in my stomach when driving in the dark, which is nice, but I was definitely on a low last night. I know why: I played at my band's Christmas concert last night, something that always signals festive spirit, but I'm just not feeling it this year at all, and it felt odd not to feel even a little bit Christmassy.

I had my first therapy session on Thursday. I don't think it's going to come naturally to me - it's all about opening up and me talking, something I'm not very good at. We did work out that I'm pretty angry at a lot of things but internalise far too much, so my homework is to spend half an hour per day writing whatever I want in my "angry book". Six more sessions booked.

Image courtesy of nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Thursday 5 December 2013

I read too much

I spent part of today chasing a prescription for Sertraline, and at five o'clock I finally obtained the small plainly labelled box containing 14 pills. I chased it because I wanted to make sure I could start taking them tomorrow. Father Badger has taken the day off and then he's at home as normal for the weekend, and I'd rather not be alone when I start to take these pills. I also need to start on them before I chicken out.

I made a tactical error, you see...

I read the NHS website page on the side effects of Sertraline. It made for uncomfortable reading, not because the list was long but because many of the side effects were listed as likely to affect as many as one in ten people! I see that as rather a high hit rate.

I then made a much more idiotic mistake...

I read the leaflet in the pill packet. Oh. My. Word. The NHS appear to have been sugar coating it. Here are the edited highlights (because the full details would take far too long to type):

Very common side effects (more than 1 in 10 patients): Insomnia, dizziness, sleepiness, headache, diarrhoea, feeling sick, dry mouth, fatigue

Common (1-10 out of 100 patients):

  • Sore throat, anorexia, increased appetite
  • depression, feeling strange, nightmare, anxiety, etc.
  • visual disturbance, ringing in ears
  • palpitations, hot flush
  • etc.
Uncommon (1-10 out of 1,000 patients):
  • hallucination, [insert variety of mental states]
  • convulsion, amnesia, etc.
  • osteoarthritis
  • etc.
All in, there must be upward of several hundred possible side effects listed, both physical and mental, and of varying degrees of impact to life as we know it. I particularly like "terrifying abnormal dreams".

They may as well have just put in large red type: this will probably screw you up in some way.

I need to find a way of blanking this out of my mind before tomorrow morning.

Image courtesy of vorakorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Wednesday 4 December 2013

Reasons To Be Cheerful: first steps, confessions and knitting

Truth be told, I'm a day early for Reasons To Be Cheerful, but I need to say this tonight.

Reason 1: The first real steps have been taken towards dealing with my depression.

Last Friday I had my initial telephone assessment with Talking Space, the local NHS mental health service. They decided I have "mild-to-moderate" depression, and offered me some group CBT sessions starting on 22nd January. That worried me - I can't imagine returning to work from a year's maternity leave to immediately ask for time off for medical treatment for a condition I don't want to share with my boss, regardless of whether I'm entitled to do so. I also really need to know I've made progress with this condition before returning to work - the idea of still feeling like this as well as working full time really panics me. I explained this as calmly as I could and was told they'd see what they could do.

I had a feeling that NHS treatment was not going to be immediate so I had already got a referral from my GP to BUPA - I'm lucky enough to be covered by my employer. I saw a counsellor today, where we talked through how I was feeling, what I thought might be the cause, and some more general questions. She came to the same conclusion as I had: the last trimester of my pregnancy was very stressful and I have had a high dependency baby (a "velcro baby" that needed to be in close contact with me 24/7 for almost nine months).

I also talked to my La Leche League leader yesterday about the Sertraline the GP wanted to prescribe me. I knew it was considered to be the safest antidepressant I could take whilst breastfeeding but I lost faith in the GP's knowledge of medications in milk when she talked about pumping and dumping after taking the medication - I knew that was rubbish! I feel much more reassured that Badger Cub will not be affected so I'm going to give it a go.

The next steps are also in place: I've been referred to another therapist through BUPA to talk more about the cause of my stress, and today's therapist has booked to see me in January to update on progress. Talking Space also called back and have booked me a one on one CBT session over the phone on 23rd December. I'm up for throwing everything I can get at this.

Reason 2: I told my parents.

As I mentioned before, my family don't really talk about this sort of stuff and that has really affected my ability to talk about it. They were looking after Badger Cub while I attended today's counselling session and I realised that they were worried that there was something wrong that I wasn't telling them about. It wasn't fair to let them assume something far worse than reality so I 'fessed up, and I managed to do it without crying - go me... They were great. Relief on my part.

Reason 3: knitting.

Baby Badger requested a pink and purple scarf. Everything has to be pink and/or purple at the moment. She spotted the work in progress and got very excited that I was making a blanket for Bunny. I laughed and said that it wasn't a blanket, but I could do that next. I told her to imagine it longer and around her neck - first guess was a necklace, but then her eyes widened in wonder and pure delight and she squealed "scarf!". All through dinner she sneaked peeks at the knitting and grinned. Moments like that make everything worthwhile.

This month R2BC is being hosted by Ojo's World while Michelle takes a break.


Reasons to be Cheerful at Mummy with a Heart
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