Will work for neurotransmitters

Brain, please work better.

I want to apologize for being gone for the last couple of weeks. My current depression cycle has gone from annoyingly frustrating to utterly debilitating to somewhat tolerable in the space of just a few weeks. Exacerbating this was the intense stress of finding out last week that my medically fragile father and his partner were sick with Covid. Mercifully he had a fairly mild case. Poor Terri was not so lucky, she became very ill, but thankfully she was not sick enough to require hospitalization. Fortunately, both of them seem to be on the way to full recoveries. On the same day that I learned that they were positive for Coronavirus, I found out that someone I am very close to is also seriously ill. Not with Covid, but I cannot speak with any more detail for the sake of their privacy. Their prognosis remains unknown for now, and that has had me very much on edge.

For several weeks, I was unable to take the medication that I have for alleviating the depressive aspects of bipolar disorder. For about a month-and-a-half I had been taking samples provided by my psychiatrist, to see if the drug was effective for me. It seemed to be working better than the previous prescription, so my doctor put in a script for this drug, Vraylar. Vraylar is a very new drug and it is extremely expensive. At first my insurance company would not pay for it at all. Then they agreed to cover it. Unfortunately it would be a fifteen-hundred dollar co-pay for a thirty day supply. This is obviously not an ideal solution for a mostly-unemployed blogger and very occasional freelancer like myself. My psychiatrist, the drug company rep, and my pharmacist finally got me a month’s supply for free. My pharmacist said that it may be a total clusterfuck (not her words) again next month when I try to refill. I may soon be on the side of the road with a sign saying:

Will work for neurotransmitters

Last Saturday I was able to start back on Vraylar, and I think that it is. . .working? Either that or I am blasting past “normal” into hypomanic. I doubt that I am hypomanic as I don’t have any of the usual symptoms save one. I started to worry about nascent hypomania because of the insomnia I am experiencing—insomnia and sleep disturbances are usually my bellwether for hypomania. I just found out that Vraylar’s number one side effect is insomnia, so it is likely the source of my trouble falling and staying asleep. I will be keeping a close watch on the sleeplessness, obviously, and contact my psychiatrist if it persists or worsens.

Another thing not helping my sleep is my undertreated/temporarily untreated sleep apnea. I have been in need of a new cpap mask for quite some time, but mine became completely useless in October. I have been very tired, irritable, sleeping fitfully, and my blood pressure has been too high since I stopped regularly sleeping with my cpap. Knowing that I have to have a prescription to buy a new mask, I set out to find a sleep specialist, e.n.t, or pulmonologist that is both in-network and treating new patients to get a prescription.

The good news: I found a really well-regarded sleep specialist back in October.

The bad news: The earliest appointment I could get was last Friday.

The good news: The appointment went well.

The bad news: I did not get a prescription last week because my new doctor needed either my old sleep study, which I did not have at the time, or she would need to schedule a new one.

The good news: I was able to find a record of the sleep study last week, and my new doctor was able to get the sleep study and I should be able to get new cpap gear in the next week.

I thought that after the shitshow that November was, maybe December would take it easy on us, but that was illusory. Maybe the second half of December will give us a break.

Maybe.

I just found out that Charley Pride has died of Covid. Fuck 2020. For real. Further proof that 2020 is not finished with us—Jon Bon Jovi’s cover of “Fairytale of New York”. Jennifer recorded my first reaction to it:

Macabre.

I will see y’all very soon with a (hopefully) more upbeat post. Until then, be sweet.

Thank you, as always, for reading.

Drop me a line: jeremydnichols@toolatesmart.org

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