Made it home from the hospital today. Was a stressful but useful stay as they overhauled all of my meds. I have lots to blog about, and am supposed to journal as part of my recovery. Good news! Blogs count as a journal. Will get on my feet and  be back soon. Thanks for all the good wishes. They meant a lot.

Talk to you guys soon.

lily

When we are in one of our phases, we people with bipolar d/o, we do lose control of our minds. The degree to which we lose control is dependent upon the severity of the phase as well as the type of phase (manic or depressive.) Losing control is something I intensely fear. Losing control of my mind, losing control of my life (having to be hospitalized) losing control of my thoughts, my actions… I am a robot controlled by my illness when I’m in a severe mood phase. The real me disappears from hours to days. I can say things (F words, hateful, angry things) and do things (throw something at someone, go on a trip out of the blue) and I can definitely think things that may or may not have any basis in reality. Quite frightening. It may be a result of this that I need to be in control of things in my life. If something is out of my control, it causes me untold anxiety. However, I am also realizing that I cannot control everything. I cannot control situations. I cannot control people. They, like myself, come with their own specific set of issues and their own specific ways of reacting to things. I am also realizing that I need to respect that and not constantly demand that others be at my beck and call all the time (well I really don’t, but you know what I mean.) I have to let go of the strong urge to be in control and let things be. I have to let go of the fear of not being in control. And that fear is huge, the anxiety, sometimes, overwhelming! The more the fear and anxiety get ahold of me, the more controlling I become, and the more fearful and anxious my mind gets. It’s a vicious, vicious circle… I have to realize that the only thing I can be in control of is myself (most of the times) and the one thing that is of paramount importance is to stay on the optimal dose of my meds so that I can be in control of my self.

I always hated picture day at school.  From sixth grade to junior year I was an awkward, ugly teenager.  It instilled in me a hatred of having my picture taken that lasts to this day.

I suffer through it–I get my picture taken at parties for the kids, on vacations, etc.  So the kids will be able to point me out to their kids as their mother.  But I don’t like it.

I’m going to do it voluntarily today though–I’m having my article on bipolar disorder published in Mississippi Christian Living and they want photos.  I’m assuming just a head shot to go next to the article, but I could be wrong.  So I will dress up and fix up as much as I can and do that later this morning.  The article comes out in May, so I don’t have long to wait for it.  I’m just hoping it reaches people that need to read it and need some hope, same as my mission with the blog.

Other than that I have a pretty slow day.  Laundry and my ladies coming to help me clean up.  So I’m taking my time waking up and doing everything I need to do to get ready.  We will see how it goes.  Hope everyone has a great day!

When I was diagnosed with bipolar d/o in 1986 in New Orleans, my doctor at the time was an exceptional one. He was there for me whenever I needed him, in fact he even opened his clinic on weekends if one of his patients needed him. He listened to me, he prescribed state of the art medicines, he adjusted the doses when my side effects got too severe. When I went into hypomanic phases, he kept in very close touch with me, talking to me daily and adjusting my meds daily. I even had him as my psychiatrist when I moved out of town, even out of the United States to Turkey! We had phone sessions and it worked well. I still think he was one of the best doctors I had, empathetic, always there, listened to everything I told him. Finally, he took a job as the head of the Psychiatry department at a state hospital after hurricane Katrina wiped out not only New Orleans but his private practice as well. After that, he couldn’t be my doctor because he didn’t have insurance to see private patients anymore. I was pretty devastated. He had been with me since this awful, hellish roller coaster ride began, from 1985 to 2005, 20 years! All through the ups and downs and smooth patches. Of course, it had been hardest in the beginning and he had walked me through it. Through my first full blown manic phase, when I called him at 3 am screaming and yelling about people trying to prove I was schizophrenic, ugh … He was there when my husband proposed to me and we got married, there when I moved to Istanbul and the stresses that brought on, he was there when my son was born, a very joyous occasion. He was there (on the phone) when I bought my first house. In short, he was there through many major milestones in my life. I, haha, of course, tried to talk him into seeing me any way. But he didn’t concur… I was very upset, it is always a very traumatic time when you change psychiatrists. Of course, I was afraid I wouldn’t find anyone as good as him, who would understand me and listen to me and be such a good psychopharmacologist and psychotherapist. And I lived through this stress and went to a few psychiatrists who didn’t mesh with me (and one who sexually harasses me) and I suffered. Then in 2008 I found my next amazing psychiatrist. He listened, treated me extremely well, was trained in the psychoanalytic fashion and knew about drugs as well. However, to my dismay, he retired in 2011. Then again, a couple of years of limbo and one awful psychiatrist later, we moved to Louisville. I came to Louisville in very bad shape. Too many stresses, selling our house, leaving my son behind in Buffalo, leaving all my friends behind, one very, very sick beloved cat, and MOST importantly of all, I constantly took sub therapeutic levels of Lithium. I came to Louisville in an almost full blown manic phase and here I found the best doctor I’ve ever had. I was so lucky! He is extremely intelligent, works for the University, he has his own lab, he teaches, he is up on ALL the latest research and he treats patients and is an expert in mood disorders. I hit the jackpot with him, haha. I am so glad he is my doctor. He knew to increase my Synthroid dosage when my endocrinologist didn’t know. He knew that because Lithium blocks the action of thyroid hormone, I should be on higher levels of Synthroid. He has me on safe and therapeutic levels of Lithium and Seroquel. I am hoping, for my sake and my family’s, that he doesn’t retire any time soon. Fingers crossed.

But if there is one thing that my relationships with all my psychiatrists have taught me, it is that no matter what, I will survive. I will miss the good ones, and I will not look back on the bad ones, but I will survive. And so will you, my fellow readers, writers, moms, dads, brothers and sisters, my fellow people. Both you and I, we will. We have coping skills, we have communication skills, we have resilience. We will survive and we will thrive.

This article hits me right in my heart. They might as well have written this article about my mother. Everything that is in this article was true about her. She had a massive heart attack. She did not recognize it as such. She thought she was having a panic attack. She did call 911 or go to the hospital. She experienced panic, shortness of breath, non specific pain in her torso. She was a doctor, an OB/GYN. But she had these symptoms for possibly days before she told me she wasn’t feeling well and certainly before she called her friends, the husband was the head of the Cardiothoracic department of a big hospital in Buffalo NY. She called them and when they got to her home, she was on the verge of crashing. Of course they immediately called an ambulance and she was taken to the CCU. She never recovered. She stayed in the CCU for six weeks, underwent awful procedures, withstood terrible pain, as did we, her three children, who were by her side every minute, and she finally passed away. She was 66 years of age. We were devastated. It was a life changing event for all three of us. So I’m posting this, even though it is not a mental illness. But if women read this and know the symptoms and the risks, then perhaps what happened to my mother, the doctor, won’t happen to them.

Women’s risks and symptoms of an impending heart attack are very different than men’s. Until recently, we all knew the crushing chest pain and the pain traveling down the left arm as symptoms of heart attack. But those men’s symptoms, women experience heart attack as a pain in the neck,  jaw, shoulder or abdomen, they experience right arm pain, and shortness of breath or nausea.

My mom also suffered from depression and anxiety and had Lupus, some of the risk factors mentioned in this article. She didn’t go to the hospital. If she’s gone to the hospital earlier, there is no reason she wouldn’t have survived. Her heart recovered, but all her other organs failed, probably due to the anoxia they experienced while her heart was weakened during and after her heart attack. I miss her so much. She was a remarkable woman, getting her MD in India in 1960. She was brilliant, a gourmet cook, an amazing gardener, a singer, a brilliant OB/GYN and surgeon, she loved poetry, she designed her own house. She loved us, her three children and three grandchildren to the moon and back. I miss her, we all miss her. Her obituary, which my brother wrote is below: https://www.facebook.com/notes/samina-zaineb-raza/my-mother-sabahat-ahsan/10152753718111892

Time is of the essence! Recognition of symptoms is of the essence. Understanding of risks is of the essence. Please read this article, and learn and understand.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/young-womens-hearts-at-risk/?_r=2

Young Women’s Hearts at Risk

Attention, American women, especially young women: Have you got the heart to save yours?

Although long thought of as a man’s disease, heart disease afflicts as many women, though women tend to develop and die from it about 10 years later. And while coronary mortality rates have declined over all, there are signs that the disease, its precursors and its potentially fatal consequences are increasing among young women.

A 2007 study in The Journal of the American College of Cardiology referred to the rise in cardiovascular risk factors among young women as “the leading edge of a brewing storm.”

While so many women worry about cancer, only slightly more than half realize that heart disease is their No. 1 killer, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More women in the United States die from cardiovascular causes — heart disease and stroke — than from all forms of cancer combined.

Numerous campaigns by the American Heart Association and other organizations have raised awareness among women of their mostly self-inflicted risks and of symptoms that are typically far more subtle in women than in men.

“Even if they believe they’re having a heart attack, 36 percent don’t call 911,” said Dr. Holly S. Andersen, director of education and outreach at the Perelman Heart Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College, citing the latest heart association national survey. “Women are more likely to wait when they have symptoms and, when they get to the hospital, say that they have indigestion, not chest pain — a big mistake.”

Rather than crushing chest pain, women in the throes of a heart attack more often experience discomfort in the neck, jaw, shoulder, upper back or abdomen, dizziness, nausea, right arm pain, shortness of breath, and sweating or unusual fatigue. Almost two-thirds of women who die suddenly of a heart attack had no prior symptoms.

Doctors too often fail to take a woman’s risk seriously and treat it aggressively, or to provide adequate recommendations for prevention, Dr. Andersen and other experts say. “This is especially true for young women,” she said. Yet, she added, “among women between the ages of 29 and 45, it looks like the incidence of heart disease is rising.”

There are ample reasons. Stress, for example, is a known, though not often cited, risk factor, “and the youngest women in this country are more stressed than ever,” she said. “They’re always ‘on’ and self-comparing.”

Smoking — marijuana as well as cigarettes — is a coronary risk. And while smoking has declined among older women, “young women are the ones still smoking,” Dr. Andersen said. Women on birth control pills who smoke are especially at risk.

Two other major risk factors, obesity and diabetes, are more rampant than ever, especially among Hispanic women born in the United States, half of whom develop diabetes by age 70.

“We’re good at treating heart disease, but we’re failing at prevention,” Dr. Andersen said. As Dr. Nanette K. Wenger, a professor emeritus at the Emory University School of Medicine,noted in 2010, the steady annual decline in heart disease deaths among women since 2000 resulted more from better care than from prevention.

“A particular unmet need is prevention at younger age, the subset of women less likely to undertake preventive behaviors,” she wrote. Yet decades ago, heart disease was found to originate in the teenage years or early 20s and gradually worsen unless preventive measures were undertaken.

When women with high levels of artery-damaging LDL cholesterol are prescribed statins, the treatment often provides “false reassurance” that the drugs “can compensate for poor dietary choices and a sedentary life,” Dr. Rita F. Redberg, a cardiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, and editor of JAMA Internal Medicine, wrote last year. In one study she cited, “statin users significantly increased their fat intake and calorie consumption, along with their B.M.I. (body mass index), in the last decade. Focusing on cholesterol levels can be distracting from the more beneficial focus on healthy lifestyle to reduce heart disease risk.”

A diet rich in fruits and vegetables, which contain natural antioxidants that statins don’t provide, is more important, Dr. Andersen said. “So is getting regular aerobic exercise, spending time with friends and getting a good night’s sleep — six to eight hours,” she said. “Chronic lack of sleep doubles the risk of heart disease.”

Coronary risk is also greater among women who carry extra weight around the abdomen — the so-called apple shape. Abdominal fat is metabolically active and can result in high blood pressure and diabetes, even if a woman is otherwise slender.

“One’s waistline is more important than B.M.I.,” Dr. Andersen said. “Skinny people with big waists are less likely to live long.”

Depression and lack of social support, more common among older women, are also often underappreciated risk factors. “Social isolation is detrimental,” she said. “Women who regularly spend time with close friends live longer and have less heart disease.”

A positive outlook on life — laughing a lot, having a sense of humor, being optimistic and seeing the glass as half full — is also protective, Dr. Andersen said, adding that “15 minutes of laughter is equivalent in preventive value to 30 minutes of aerobic exercise.”

Although “marital stress increases a woman’s risk of coronary heart disease,” having a compatible partner or a pet is beneficial, she said.

Several factors that women may experience early in life, especially two pregnancy-related conditions — pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes — have been linked to a greater coronary risk years later. Additional risk factors now emerging for women include migraines with aura and inflammatory diseases like lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Two other conditions more prevalent among women cause symptoms that are often overlooked by them and their doctors as likely due to heart attack. Women are more prone to develop blockages in the small vessels that feed the heart, which can cause pressure or tightness in the chest rather than crushing pain, according to the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.

They are also far more susceptible to “broken heart syndrome”brought on by events like the sudden loss of a loved one, the loss of a job or money, divorce, a bad accident, a natural disaster, or even a surprise party. The resulting intense stress reaction of chest pain and shortness of breath, although usually temporary, can mimic a heart attack, though it rarely causes one.