I really DID try to give up smoking; alas on day 28 last Wednesday I stumbled and picked up a pack of cigarettes; hooked back on them now.
My 91 year old stepfather passed away last Sunday from pneumonia. I have been supporting my upset Mum the best I can, along with my practical sister. My stepdad had been moved into a nursing home last November due to increasing dementia; unfortunately over the months of this year he gradually stopped eating, went down to 49 kilos and caught a cold which grew into pneumonia and within 10 days he was gone. Not hardly any nice ways to die, and this was one such case.
I feel mostly sad for his passing, also a bit of relief for my Mum's sake. She visited him most days; I didn't visit much. We'd had a mixed relationship; a fair bit of animosity which petered out as I grew beyond my twenties. Anyway that's in the past now. There were some good times too. Stepfamilies aren't always happy and ours wasn't harmonious at all. Enough said.
So it's a week later and my stepdad's funeral was on Thursday; now begins the process of rebuilding and allowing the head to stop spinning.
I've had a lot of anxiety the past month; quitting cigarettes made me quite uptight; needing to take PRN medication more than usual. Then there was the death of my stepdad. Also my psychiatrist is on annual leave. To top it off I had a bad dose of PMS. I was a pressure cooker, so I picked the smokes up again.
It made me realise I need to plan my next quit date more carefully; my psychiatrist has asked me in the past to give him notice on when I intend to quit so that he can adjust my meds. He said for people with a mood disorder like schizoaffective that anxiety can play a big part, also that changes in metabolism (apparently nicotine speeds up metabolism) would necessitate changes to dosages, as my body would absorb them at a different rate.
Unfortunately I am not seeing my Psychiatrist until early October when he gets back from leave. There is a proxy Psychiatrist I can see (a colleague of his) but I'd prefer to leave it until the man who has managed me since 2008 gets back, not someone who doesn't know me from a bar of soap. So continue to smoke I will.....temporarily.
I'm still having symptoms of anxiety despite it being a few days after the funeral, despite now smoking again and despite my period popping up (FINALLY..the drugs mess up my cycle....if reading that makes you squeamish then I make no apology; I bet if men had a menstrual cycle it would be more openly discussed AND you'd probably get special sick days from work too...wussies). So more PRN medication to deal with ongoing busy, frantic head. I can't concentrate on TV at the moment which is a sign the anxiety is reasonably high. If I have to I'll see the Proxy Psychiatrist about it but not about any other issue like quitting the smokes.
So yeah...this is a bit of a downer of a post. Not much whimsy or wit (attempts at least). Sometimes things are like that for a person, like me today.
My 91 year old stepfather passed away last Sunday from pneumonia. I have been supporting my upset Mum the best I can, along with my practical sister. My stepdad had been moved into a nursing home last November due to increasing dementia; unfortunately over the months of this year he gradually stopped eating, went down to 49 kilos and caught a cold which grew into pneumonia and within 10 days he was gone. Not hardly any nice ways to die, and this was one such case.
I feel mostly sad for his passing, also a bit of relief for my Mum's sake. She visited him most days; I didn't visit much. We'd had a mixed relationship; a fair bit of animosity which petered out as I grew beyond my twenties. Anyway that's in the past now. There were some good times too. Stepfamilies aren't always happy and ours wasn't harmonious at all. Enough said.
So it's a week later and my stepdad's funeral was on Thursday; now begins the process of rebuilding and allowing the head to stop spinning.
I've had a lot of anxiety the past month; quitting cigarettes made me quite uptight; needing to take PRN medication more than usual. Then there was the death of my stepdad. Also my psychiatrist is on annual leave. To top it off I had a bad dose of PMS. I was a pressure cooker, so I picked the smokes up again.
It made me realise I need to plan my next quit date more carefully; my psychiatrist has asked me in the past to give him notice on when I intend to quit so that he can adjust my meds. He said for people with a mood disorder like schizoaffective that anxiety can play a big part, also that changes in metabolism (apparently nicotine speeds up metabolism) would necessitate changes to dosages, as my body would absorb them at a different rate.
Unfortunately I am not seeing my Psychiatrist until early October when he gets back from leave. There is a proxy Psychiatrist I can see (a colleague of his) but I'd prefer to leave it until the man who has managed me since 2008 gets back, not someone who doesn't know me from a bar of soap. So continue to smoke I will.....temporarily.
I'm still having symptoms of anxiety despite it being a few days after the funeral, despite now smoking again and despite my period popping up (FINALLY..the drugs mess up my cycle....if reading that makes you squeamish then I make no apology; I bet if men had a menstrual cycle it would be more openly discussed AND you'd probably get special sick days from work too...wussies). So more PRN medication to deal with ongoing busy, frantic head. I can't concentrate on TV at the moment which is a sign the anxiety is reasonably high. If I have to I'll see the Proxy Psychiatrist about it but not about any other issue like quitting the smokes.
So yeah...this is a bit of a downer of a post. Not much whimsy or wit (attempts at least). Sometimes things are like that for a person, like me today.
