It's been a bit of an interesting week. When my son's case worker stopped by on Monday to drop off his medications for the week and check in, I told her that what I have been seeing is different. I didn't know how to explain different... Just that I wasn't sure that I liked what I was seeing. The Latuda seemed to be helping however in some ways it wasn't.
He went from Friday to Tuesday barely eating. Even though he was going to bed he wasn't sleeping good and he wasn't napping during the day either.
Monday evening he randomly hugged me... Good sign right?
Tuesday he asked for the internet back. I asked him if he remembered the things that he had said to me and he replied that he remembered all of it. I asked if he still felt justified in saying what he did. Yes err no... He was upset. Ok I can understand that. I let him know that threatening me was illegal and reminded him that he had threatened to hurt me. He told me that he would never hurt me. Didn't I know that? That's the crutch isn't it? My son, Michael, would never hurt me. Psychosis and alcohol on the other hand is a different story. I gave him back the internet, not that he has used it, and told him that we really need to work on his anger issues.
We talked about his tobacco use. He told me that I had agreed that if he bought one tube of tobacco that I would buy him two. Ok we need to get to the bottom of where these misconceptions are coming from. When did I say that? I didn't but another time I told him that if he bought one carton of cigarettes then I would buy him two cartons. Yes I did do this once because he had spent his money on furniture for his room. Grrr... It does get irritating that whenever I do something nice that it gets turned into something like this. So I made it clear that I would get him some tobacco like I said I would but not two tubes and next month I don't plan on helping with this again.
I talked to his worker at disability and let her know that they are still deducting $40 from his payments due to the supposed over payment of him collecting disability from two provinces at once. This should be fixed for next payment so that they are only deducting $10. The drug cards finally got faxed over to the pharmacy that is supplying his medications and starting next month they should be mailing them to me.
I also tried to address the alcohol... It's not helping him. It's depressing him and triggering anger. He is not a happy drunk when he drinks now. It's seriously impairing him and his functionality. Off he went to the liquor store anyways...
I know he thinks I'm being hard on him however I can't continue to support his drinking and we are not spending more money on his tobacco then we do our own. We shouldn't have to. Hubby has been talking about quitting again. Maybe we should. It's harder to tell my son no when we are smoking.
Wednesday morning he started drinking at 9 AM. I didn't say anything... thought I guess I should be happy that he didn't drink it all the day before. Sad isn't it when that is what I'm left with... Back to the different that I noted at the beginning of this post. I haven't had much experience in seeing my son actively hallucinate. Things don't usually get that far here. I asked my son if he was hallucinating and he said no. Now my bad here because really I'm asking someone who is seeing what they see as being just as real as everything I see and expecting him to know the different ;) I notice by Wednesday afternoon that he was acting odd even for him. It was like he was pushing stuff away from him and it almost looked like bouncing a ball or something... Things I couldn't see.
Yesterday was a bit of a roller coaster for him. Early afternoon he was making noises that I couldn't at first tell if it was crying or laughing. However the look on his face was one of pain. At the same time he was having issues with his privates. I'm guessing tactile hallucinations. Several times I asked him if he was ok and if he was crying. He said no however at one point he told me to leave him alone and stop looking at him while he was crying. He didn't want me touching him and he couldn't tell me why he was crying just that he was. I asked if it was ok if I called PACT and talked to his nurse about the Latuda that his dose is too high. He said yes.
I called and of course his nurse wasn't in, his case worker wasn't available and the other nurses were all in a meeting but I could leave a message. I did. They haven't called me back yet.
The off and on crying and issues with his privates continued for about an hour. I was on the verge of putting us in a cab and going to emergency. I asked him if he was having thoughts of hurting himself and he said that he wasn't. I asked that if he did that he let me know right away. Finally it stopped and he said that he was feeling better. I was coloring and he joined me. Then it started again however not as bad as before and was shorter. Then he was very happy. I think perhaps a bit manic based on the continual smile. I could see that he was hallucinating again. That had me concerned for a bit as he was doing air punches or interacting with his hallucinations, I'm not sure, but too close to me so I asked him not to do that around me. Thankfully this didn't last long.
Since PACT didn't call me back, I looked it up and his Latuda pills can be cut in half. Latuda is supposed to be taken with food. Not snacks but an actual meal. Given that he hasn't been eating that has been a tough one and he wanted to take it at night with his Invega. I think between the too high dose and not taking it with food that it has been hitting him too hard. Latuda can cause mania as far as I know. I know it's not supposed to be sedating which means it can be activating. Since he has been taking it before bed I think it's been interfering with his sleep as Wednesday night he did take two Melatonin and still didn't sleep good.
So I have cut his dose from 80 mg to 40 mg and gave it to him with dinner last night. The up side to the mini manic phase seems to be that he ate dinner fairly good. He didn't eat all of it but he did eat his chicken and salad so an ok base for the Latuda.
He still hasn't showered however he has been in the bath the last two nights. While it may sound like a good thing... When he is experiencing symptoms or tactile hallucinations he seems to like the sensation of being in the tube so it's not really a good sign when he wants to have a bath every day. Last night I went into the bathroom and took out his dirty socks, underwear and shirt and put out clean ones so that he had no choice but to but on clean ones.
Around 9:30 last night I went into his room and had him take his Invega and two Melatonin. He slept although not as deep as I would like. He got up today at 8:30 AM. Not bad actually as he has been getting up with me and hubby around 5 for the past week. I had debating not giving him any Latuda last night however if I did that I ran the risk of him not taking it again as he has done this with several medications in the past. Just because 80 mg is too much I don't want to not give this medication a chance. He needs the antipsychotic right now.
I called PACT and left another message letting them know I cut the dose. Hopefully today I will see a reduction in what I was seeing yesterday. Probably not though as he appeared to be hallucinating a little while ago and is now off to the liquor store again...
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Showing posts with label Melatonin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Melatonin. Show all posts
Friday, May 8, 2015
Monday, May 4, 2015
Aspirin for arthritis and fruit-flies.
I don't recall what day I found a bunch of these aspirin in my son's coat. I had no idea what they were until I showed them to my hubby and he grabbed his bottle of aspirin from the top of the fridge. They are over the counter but they are long acting that our doctor recommended he take daily to ward off the headaches he gets. Feeling relief that that was all they were I didn't think anything else of it. Friday I was cleaning the floor in my son's room and while moving around his make-shift coffee table I heard what I immediately figured was a bottle of vodka that he managed to get in the house and hide under the table. It was a bowl with crushed up white stuff and a rolled up piece of paper for snorting it.
My son received his disability money on Thursday. That day he got his vodka... I didn't say anything except to remind him that it doesn't come onto our property. He sat outside our gate and drank it. When hubby got off work we went to our chiropractor, to the bank and to a store for my son to buy tobacco since he has decided to roll cigarettes. He wasn't happy that it cost him $40 for his tub of tobacco. That night I gave him an Olanzapine with his Invega and he took it.
Friday had the makings of a bad day. He was outside drinking another bottle of vodka and hmmm, I'm really going to have to write down the name of the other bottle he gets, when I found the bowl in his room. I went out to ask him what it was. He told me aspirin.
I was somewhat impressed with myself as I didn't get mad or even upset. I was kind of amused as honestly what could you possible get out of snorting aspirin? I'm not even sure when the conversation took the negative turn that it did but it did. He told me that he was better then me. I replied that he wasn't better then me. Next thing I'm being called a bitch and a fat whore numerous times along with other swear words. I did my best to keep it light. Told him that no matter what he called me I was still going to love him and seriously look at me... Do I look like a fat whore? Apparently yes...
I was just thinking to meet this hate with love... I told him again that I loved him. He said prove it. I replied that I was still here and I knelt down. I was 3 feet away from him and I didn't get any closer. At this point I got told to get out of his face or he was going to smack me and knock me out. He said he wasn't threatening me... I again told him I loved him and walked away. Left him sitting out there, in the dirt, surrounded by 3 bottles (one from the day before) and cigarette butts. We were also back to the "I pay the rent around here and this is 35% my property."
I came inside and called PACT and talked to his new nurse. I think I was looking for some sort of assurance, not that I got any... If I felt unsafe... A year ago I didn't know what he was capable of. Although he is not in active psychosis right now. He is experiencing symptoms yes however he is aware of what he is saying. He is relatively stable. I was seeing an angry drunk... Really nothing new there as I have been seeing that all my life and sadly he does have it in his genes.
Perhaps not the best choice however one boundary I refuse to budge on is the consequences to swearing at me. I disconnected the internet. Went back to the cleaning I was doing. He comes downstairs and asks when he is going to get the internet back. Some how he has morphed what was said into me telling him that he wasn't better. Period. So therefor he was justified in talking to me the way that he did. I told him I wasn't going to discuss it right now. Another flood of name calling and swearing that ended with "Cook my dinner bitch."
I ignored him and went about my cleaning. I think he passed out for a bit...
Since then his defiance has been in high gear. About pretty much anything and everything. Friday his case worker dropped off his Latuda. He has been prescribed 80 mg. Apparently he was prescribed 60 mg however disability doesn't cover this dosage. Ridiculous isn't it? I think disability only recently started covering this medication. So his psychiatrist changed it to 80 as I think that may be the dose he was looking at eventually anyways. Average dosages seems to be between 40 and 160.
His nurse called on Saturday to check in and see if he took his Latuda. As far as I can tell he has been taking it. Since his defiance is in high gear he won't take his medications if he's alert and I'm watching him.
Hubby and I went grocery shopping without him on Saturday. He wasn't up when we left and honestly I'm not rewarding his behavior or attitude. We did bring him back a coffee since we had gotten ourselves one. He asked why I didn't get him up to go? Do you remember what you said to me yesterday? Yes... Well I'm not rewarding that. You got me a coffee. Yes, just because I'm not rewarding you doesn't mean I'm going to be rude either. Do you want the coffee? Give it to me... I started to walk in the house with it and told him he isn't going to get it by talking to me like that. He asked for it nicely so I gave it to him.
I had picked up some coloring books, crayons, pencil crayons and markers while shopping. A Thor book for him and two other ones for me. For a bit he colored in the Thor one. One of the ones I got is Care Bears. I used to love them when I was a kid :)
Remember the camping... He brings it up wanting to go... I told him not this weekend and we don't have money for it right now anyways. He says that I promised this month. No I didn't. I said I would look into it for this month. Well isn't saying it the same as promising? My son knows the difference in that very well as he usually won't promise anything. I just replied that no it wasn't the same and asked if he wanted to make everything into an argument? I think that he does...
I'm not sure why not however he hasn't been to the liquor store since Friday. He does still have enough money left for probably two trips of his usual. The next thing was asking me to take him to the grocery store for treats. I agreed to take him however he was paying for it. Well it's my job to feed him three meals a day and I'm not doing it so he is going to call his Nana and tell her I'm not buying him groceries... Our kitchen is quit full of food since we spend over $1200 a month on groceries. He made his phone call... We took him to the grocery store. He didn't get anything. I offered to take him to the dollar store as he can load up on treats there for cheap. He said no that he had better things to spend his money on like alcohol.
Again I will have to say how impressed I have been with hubby. I know he has a hard time dealing with seeing my son act like this however he is slowly seeing most of it for what it is. My son is having temper tantrums like a child except he is doing it with a 21 year old vocabulary and in a man's body which can be concerning when alcohol is added to the mix. Even my hubby has started getting stuff for my son when we are grocery shopping and he is not with us. Michael likes these...
In between all this my son is giving me a hard time about doing anything that I ask him to do. I have jars for the beef jerky that I make. Friday night I had one of them out and my son brought out the other two along with other snacks. Asking him to put this stuff away the next day... Yah that was fun. Well one of them was mine so therefore he shouldn't have to pick it up. I put mine away. He refused to put the other two away. Finally a day later I did...
Yesterday it was grapes that he took out. I asked if he was done with them could he put them away. He wasn't done with them yet... He did finally put them away and of course as is usual for my son he has to do these things when I'm in the kitchen in the middle of doing something. No excuse me's or anything... He pays the rent ;) You can see it in the way that he is walking around here and how he is looking at us. Pure defiance. We have been trying our best to ignore it and not give it any attention.
We have fruit-flies. I have been noticing them for a couple of days now. I have been trying to disinfect the kitchen and figure out where they are coming from. Yesterday I went around emptying all the garbages just in case. At least 30 of them came out of my son's garbage in his room when I grabbed it. Great! It's all the sweats and treats that he doesn't have ;) He has a big bag full of assorted treats in his room and his garbage was full of ice cream wrappers etc. I sprayed stuff down with Febreze but I'm going to have to get some Lysol I guess...
The last time he had a bath was on April 23. Before that it was awhile as I had asked him to make sure he cleans the tub afterwards because he does private stuff while in the tub and I didn't want to be bathing in it myself. Yesterday I tried to motivate him into a shower. Hubby and I had to go get cigarettes and I said he could come with us for the car ride however I wanted him to have a shower first as it's been awhile. He didn't have the energy and would have one later. This never happens when he says this. I said we would wait for him to get up the energy to have one so that he could go with us. I had an errand to run so we went to do that to give my son time and we brought him back a coffee. He decided not to come...
Hubby and I had a nice drive. We need that one on one time to just be a couple.
We came back and I spent time in the backyard with my son. Not saying much because right now it doesn't seem to matter what I say to him he will respond in the negative. So I colored. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm a mom and I have experience with kids having temper tantrums and using negative tactics to get attention. My son has never done this... I could feel him watching/looking at me. He put both his legs on the table and started rocking them. The whole table was rocking along with everything on it. He is just looking at me... I ignored him and kept coloring. Eventually he stopped ;)
He stopped taking Melatonin, again, when he started the Latuda. So even though we have the new antipsychotic on board he is still not sleeping good because he isn't taking anything to help him sleep. Latuda is not sedating. Last night when I checked on him around 1:30, he had taken the Melatonin and not his Invega or Latuda. Just breathe right... I woke him up to take them. Of course asking very nicely so that I don't trigger his ODD defiance any further. This morning he was up before 5...
What woke me up was my son asking my hubby for a pack of cigarettes. Now I haven't rolled cigarettes since my kids were small... So I Googled it ;) On Thursday he bought 100 grams of tobacco which should roll around a carton or 200 cigarettes. It's been 3 days and he has gone through 3/4 of it. He is now out of tubes. He said he had around 180 tubes when he got the tobacco so it seems to fit. He also has partial packs of two other kinds of cigarettes and yesterday was smoking my hubby's. I got attitude for asking him not to just take my hubby's cigarettes as he was without asking.
I know this post is getting long winded. So many thoughts in my head... I put hubby's cigarettes away because I know my son will just take them when he wants and we can't afford this. My son probably has more money in his bank account right now then hubby and I do put together. I'm trying really hard not to go further into dept. Because of my son snorting the aspirin I have now put away anything that can be crushed up and snorted... It makes me think of all the times in the past that I have fallen for the mindset of how hard-done-by my son was however I also know how hard it can be to keep things for other people when my son thinks that he is entitled to anything that he wants.
Wouldn't it be nice if someone I trusted could walk in and tell me what to do? Notice I added the trusted part. ;) I'm sure I could get lots of advise however depending on who gave it to me I wouldn't trust it... We need more money coming in to cover our expenses and our dept. The thought of leaving my home unattended and open to whatever my son sees fit to do with or in it while I'm at work... Seriously nothing would be safe from addiction or schizophrenia.
Oh well...
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
My son received his disability money on Thursday. That day he got his vodka... I didn't say anything except to remind him that it doesn't come onto our property. He sat outside our gate and drank it. When hubby got off work we went to our chiropractor, to the bank and to a store for my son to buy tobacco since he has decided to roll cigarettes. He wasn't happy that it cost him $40 for his tub of tobacco. That night I gave him an Olanzapine with his Invega and he took it.
Friday had the makings of a bad day. He was outside drinking another bottle of vodka and hmmm, I'm really going to have to write down the name of the other bottle he gets, when I found the bowl in his room. I went out to ask him what it was. He told me aspirin.
I was somewhat impressed with myself as I didn't get mad or even upset. I was kind of amused as honestly what could you possible get out of snorting aspirin? I'm not even sure when the conversation took the negative turn that it did but it did. He told me that he was better then me. I replied that he wasn't better then me. Next thing I'm being called a bitch and a fat whore numerous times along with other swear words. I did my best to keep it light. Told him that no matter what he called me I was still going to love him and seriously look at me... Do I look like a fat whore? Apparently yes...
I was just thinking to meet this hate with love... I told him again that I loved him. He said prove it. I replied that I was still here and I knelt down. I was 3 feet away from him and I didn't get any closer. At this point I got told to get out of his face or he was going to smack me and knock me out. He said he wasn't threatening me... I again told him I loved him and walked away. Left him sitting out there, in the dirt, surrounded by 3 bottles (one from the day before) and cigarette butts. We were also back to the "I pay the rent around here and this is 35% my property."
I came inside and called PACT and talked to his new nurse. I think I was looking for some sort of assurance, not that I got any... If I felt unsafe... A year ago I didn't know what he was capable of. Although he is not in active psychosis right now. He is experiencing symptoms yes however he is aware of what he is saying. He is relatively stable. I was seeing an angry drunk... Really nothing new there as I have been seeing that all my life and sadly he does have it in his genes.
Perhaps not the best choice however one boundary I refuse to budge on is the consequences to swearing at me. I disconnected the internet. Went back to the cleaning I was doing. He comes downstairs and asks when he is going to get the internet back. Some how he has morphed what was said into me telling him that he wasn't better. Period. So therefor he was justified in talking to me the way that he did. I told him I wasn't going to discuss it right now. Another flood of name calling and swearing that ended with "Cook my dinner bitch."
I ignored him and went about my cleaning. I think he passed out for a bit...
Since then his defiance has been in high gear. About pretty much anything and everything. Friday his case worker dropped off his Latuda. He has been prescribed 80 mg. Apparently he was prescribed 60 mg however disability doesn't cover this dosage. Ridiculous isn't it? I think disability only recently started covering this medication. So his psychiatrist changed it to 80 as I think that may be the dose he was looking at eventually anyways. Average dosages seems to be between 40 and 160.
His nurse called on Saturday to check in and see if he took his Latuda. As far as I can tell he has been taking it. Since his defiance is in high gear he won't take his medications if he's alert and I'm watching him.
Hubby and I went grocery shopping without him on Saturday. He wasn't up when we left and honestly I'm not rewarding his behavior or attitude. We did bring him back a coffee since we had gotten ourselves one. He asked why I didn't get him up to go? Do you remember what you said to me yesterday? Yes... Well I'm not rewarding that. You got me a coffee. Yes, just because I'm not rewarding you doesn't mean I'm going to be rude either. Do you want the coffee? Give it to me... I started to walk in the house with it and told him he isn't going to get it by talking to me like that. He asked for it nicely so I gave it to him.
I had picked up some coloring books, crayons, pencil crayons and markers while shopping. A Thor book for him and two other ones for me. For a bit he colored in the Thor one. One of the ones I got is Care Bears. I used to love them when I was a kid :)
Remember the camping... He brings it up wanting to go... I told him not this weekend and we don't have money for it right now anyways. He says that I promised this month. No I didn't. I said I would look into it for this month. Well isn't saying it the same as promising? My son knows the difference in that very well as he usually won't promise anything. I just replied that no it wasn't the same and asked if he wanted to make everything into an argument? I think that he does...
I'm not sure why not however he hasn't been to the liquor store since Friday. He does still have enough money left for probably two trips of his usual. The next thing was asking me to take him to the grocery store for treats. I agreed to take him however he was paying for it. Well it's my job to feed him three meals a day and I'm not doing it so he is going to call his Nana and tell her I'm not buying him groceries... Our kitchen is quit full of food since we spend over $1200 a month on groceries. He made his phone call... We took him to the grocery store. He didn't get anything. I offered to take him to the dollar store as he can load up on treats there for cheap. He said no that he had better things to spend his money on like alcohol.
Again I will have to say how impressed I have been with hubby. I know he has a hard time dealing with seeing my son act like this however he is slowly seeing most of it for what it is. My son is having temper tantrums like a child except he is doing it with a 21 year old vocabulary and in a man's body which can be concerning when alcohol is added to the mix. Even my hubby has started getting stuff for my son when we are grocery shopping and he is not with us. Michael likes these...
In between all this my son is giving me a hard time about doing anything that I ask him to do. I have jars for the beef jerky that I make. Friday night I had one of them out and my son brought out the other two along with other snacks. Asking him to put this stuff away the next day... Yah that was fun. Well one of them was mine so therefore he shouldn't have to pick it up. I put mine away. He refused to put the other two away. Finally a day later I did...
Yesterday it was grapes that he took out. I asked if he was done with them could he put them away. He wasn't done with them yet... He did finally put them away and of course as is usual for my son he has to do these things when I'm in the kitchen in the middle of doing something. No excuse me's or anything... He pays the rent ;) You can see it in the way that he is walking around here and how he is looking at us. Pure defiance. We have been trying our best to ignore it and not give it any attention.
We have fruit-flies. I have been noticing them for a couple of days now. I have been trying to disinfect the kitchen and figure out where they are coming from. Yesterday I went around emptying all the garbages just in case. At least 30 of them came out of my son's garbage in his room when I grabbed it. Great! It's all the sweats and treats that he doesn't have ;) He has a big bag full of assorted treats in his room and his garbage was full of ice cream wrappers etc. I sprayed stuff down with Febreze but I'm going to have to get some Lysol I guess...
The last time he had a bath was on April 23. Before that it was awhile as I had asked him to make sure he cleans the tub afterwards because he does private stuff while in the tub and I didn't want to be bathing in it myself. Yesterday I tried to motivate him into a shower. Hubby and I had to go get cigarettes and I said he could come with us for the car ride however I wanted him to have a shower first as it's been awhile. He didn't have the energy and would have one later. This never happens when he says this. I said we would wait for him to get up the energy to have one so that he could go with us. I had an errand to run so we went to do that to give my son time and we brought him back a coffee. He decided not to come...
Hubby and I had a nice drive. We need that one on one time to just be a couple.
We came back and I spent time in the backyard with my son. Not saying much because right now it doesn't seem to matter what I say to him he will respond in the negative. So I colored. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I'm a mom and I have experience with kids having temper tantrums and using negative tactics to get attention. My son has never done this... I could feel him watching/looking at me. He put both his legs on the table and started rocking them. The whole table was rocking along with everything on it. He is just looking at me... I ignored him and kept coloring. Eventually he stopped ;)
He stopped taking Melatonin, again, when he started the Latuda. So even though we have the new antipsychotic on board he is still not sleeping good because he isn't taking anything to help him sleep. Latuda is not sedating. Last night when I checked on him around 1:30, he had taken the Melatonin and not his Invega or Latuda. Just breathe right... I woke him up to take them. Of course asking very nicely so that I don't trigger his ODD defiance any further. This morning he was up before 5...
What woke me up was my son asking my hubby for a pack of cigarettes. Now I haven't rolled cigarettes since my kids were small... So I Googled it ;) On Thursday he bought 100 grams of tobacco which should roll around a carton or 200 cigarettes. It's been 3 days and he has gone through 3/4 of it. He is now out of tubes. He said he had around 180 tubes when he got the tobacco so it seems to fit. He also has partial packs of two other kinds of cigarettes and yesterday was smoking my hubby's. I got attitude for asking him not to just take my hubby's cigarettes as he was without asking.
I know this post is getting long winded. So many thoughts in my head... I put hubby's cigarettes away because I know my son will just take them when he wants and we can't afford this. My son probably has more money in his bank account right now then hubby and I do put together. I'm trying really hard not to go further into dept. Because of my son snorting the aspirin I have now put away anything that can be crushed up and snorted... It makes me think of all the times in the past that I have fallen for the mindset of how hard-done-by my son was however I also know how hard it can be to keep things for other people when my son thinks that he is entitled to anything that he wants.
Wouldn't it be nice if someone I trusted could walk in and tell me what to do? Notice I added the trusted part. ;) I'm sure I could get lots of advise however depending on who gave it to me I wouldn't trust it... We need more money coming in to cover our expenses and our dept. The thought of leaving my home unattended and open to whatever my son sees fit to do with or in it while I'm at work... Seriously nothing would be safe from addiction or schizophrenia.
Oh well...
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Wednesday, April 29, 2015
What a conundrum he is.
Conundrum, riddle or puzzle... Yes that is my son at the moment.
He didn't sleep much the night before last so I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to get up when his psychiatrist showed up yesterday morning. We spoke for a bit before I got my son up. I gave him a quick overview, advised him how to get a more accurate response regarding voices/entities and discussed my concerns about upping the Invega and what our options were.
Then I got my son up. He seemed to respond better with the psychiatrist then with the new nurse and was more alert. My son has known this psychiatrist for awhile now and seems to like him so that probably helped. As I advised his psychiatrist asked him about the entities (rather then do you have voices?) and my son's response was more honest and he replied that yes they are there and that he has voices.
It was agreed that we would try adding Latuda instead of upping his Invega because upping his Invega could have the opposite affect to what we are looking for and it could actually drag him down. We didn't mention losing his libido but I'm guessing the psychiatrist was also taking this into account and that's what he meant my dragging him down. I told the psychiatrist that my son seems to do best on lower doses of two medications and since this is what we are going to try then we seem to be on the same page. We discussed weight gain and I let him know that the only time I have seen this due to medications is on 450 mg of Clozapine. Other then that my son's weight doesn't fluctuate that much. For me this is another reason to keep him on lower doses, if possible, as weight gain could become a reason to be non-compliant and we don't need to give him reasons for that. ;)
The only question my son seemed to have is if the Latuda would help with stress. Yes it will. Some information on Latuda here: Lurasidone/Latuda. I know that I have heard of good results with it and that it can also act like an antidepressant while it is still an antipsychotic which is a good match for my son. I have never seen antidepressants help him. As with his Invega it is an atypical or next generation medication and is what they call cleaner so has less side affects. I'm very hopeful of this combination as being on two medications that are considered cleaner and keeping to lower doses should work out well.
I was expecting that my son would go back to bed after the psychiatrist left. He didn't and in fact seemed to have an ok day. The voices are there but they didn't seem as bad. Yesterday was my hubby's birthday so I thought I would 'try' to bake him a chocolate cake which of course I didn't have. I asked my son to walk to the corner store with me. He asked if he could get two things. It ended up being five things... They didn't have a chocolate cake mix.
When we got back he went up to his room with his treats and got on his computer! Happily listening to the sounds of his computer gaming, I looked through my cupboards and came up with the idea of a vanilla, strawberry and whipped cream cake to make for my hubby along with some double chocolate chip cookies. The cake was a hit! Surprisingly since my baking skills are not so great and as is usual for me I wasn't following a recipe.
While I was in the kitchen I noticed that my son was snacking on things like he usually does when stable. And he was cleaning up after himself! I know! I didn't say anything. Randomly talked to him, joined him outside for cigarettes and gave him a cookie when they were done. Once when he walked by me I commented that he really needed a shower or at least a change of cloths and off he went and put on clean cloths! Minus socks ;)
Hubby came home and was pleasantly happy about dinner. He was really hungry and expecting that it would be something like fish and rice as he knows this type of diet can help my son. However it was his birthday dinner so it was steak, corn on the cob and baked potatoes. My son really enjoys steak and corn on the cob as well so he ate good too. Win win!
After dinner I asked my son if he wanted tea. First he said no then he said yes. I made us all tea, put out all of our vitamins as I usually do and put on our TV shows. Reminded my son that the vitamins were there once then left them alone. A little while later I went to pick them up and put them away and just commented: I guess you don't want these? First he said no then said wait I will take these (picked up the multivitamins), I will take this too (picked up the B50), I guess I will take the fish ones too... So he took them all! It was after 8 so I went and got his Invega which he took then and there.
We all went out for a cigarette and when we came back in I asked him if he felt like taking his Melatonin tonight. He said sure... So I got him two and put them in his room. He was on his computer when hubby and I went to bed. He was eating a candy... I know that may sound like something small however after a week of seeing him in such a negative symptom swing it was a welcome sight and I went up to him and hugged him tight, telling him I loved him. Stumbled over my words as I said something like: It's good to see looking better... or acting better.. or... I paused and finished with: It's good to have you back. He just smiled at me, hugged me back and told me he loved me too.
I think it was around 11:30 that I woke up and checked on him. He was in bed but awake. I asked him if he had taken his Melatonin and he had forgotten so he took them! As far as I know he slept through the night until 9:30 this morning.
PACT called around 9 to see if he wanted to go on there outing today which is I think a trail walk. I woke him up to ask him and he said no. Thirty minutes later when he got up, I brought it up again asking if he was sure. He said he woke up in a bad mood so no. I said ok but it's a trail walk so in nature which you like. He replied with yah I might like that. Call them back and tell them I want to go. I called and left a message stating that if they still had a spot left that he wanted to go so hopefully they will call back. It's supposed to be a pretty nice day out.
So ya... I'm slightly bemused at the change since we haven't added the Latuda yet. He's adjusting to no Olanzapine? I have no idea. I'm just glad to see him functioning a bit better. I know that some would recommend interacting with him more, to pull him out of his head when he isn't doing well but I tend to give him his space to a certain degree. When the voices are bad then I'm just another voice talking to him and I think that can stress him even further. I know I wouldn't appreciate it if I had a room full of people talking at me and someone else decided to chime in ;) I know that doing even minor physical or 'real life' things takes a lot of energy and I don't need to be an extra stimulant for him if I can help it. Just like yesterday... When he is ready and able then I'm there.
I should get going. He asked again about camping last night so I should look into booking something in the relatively near future. I also need to follow up again with disability as the pharmacy supplying his medications still hasn't received his drug cards for March and April.
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
He didn't sleep much the night before last so I wasn't sure if he was going to be able to get up when his psychiatrist showed up yesterday morning. We spoke for a bit before I got my son up. I gave him a quick overview, advised him how to get a more accurate response regarding voices/entities and discussed my concerns about upping the Invega and what our options were.
Then I got my son up. He seemed to respond better with the psychiatrist then with the new nurse and was more alert. My son has known this psychiatrist for awhile now and seems to like him so that probably helped. As I advised his psychiatrist asked him about the entities (rather then do you have voices?) and my son's response was more honest and he replied that yes they are there and that he has voices.
It was agreed that we would try adding Latuda instead of upping his Invega because upping his Invega could have the opposite affect to what we are looking for and it could actually drag him down. We didn't mention losing his libido but I'm guessing the psychiatrist was also taking this into account and that's what he meant my dragging him down. I told the psychiatrist that my son seems to do best on lower doses of two medications and since this is what we are going to try then we seem to be on the same page. We discussed weight gain and I let him know that the only time I have seen this due to medications is on 450 mg of Clozapine. Other then that my son's weight doesn't fluctuate that much. For me this is another reason to keep him on lower doses, if possible, as weight gain could become a reason to be non-compliant and we don't need to give him reasons for that. ;)
The only question my son seemed to have is if the Latuda would help with stress. Yes it will. Some information on Latuda here: Lurasidone/Latuda. I know that I have heard of good results with it and that it can also act like an antidepressant while it is still an antipsychotic which is a good match for my son. I have never seen antidepressants help him. As with his Invega it is an atypical or next generation medication and is what they call cleaner so has less side affects. I'm very hopeful of this combination as being on two medications that are considered cleaner and keeping to lower doses should work out well.
I was expecting that my son would go back to bed after the psychiatrist left. He didn't and in fact seemed to have an ok day. The voices are there but they didn't seem as bad. Yesterday was my hubby's birthday so I thought I would 'try' to bake him a chocolate cake which of course I didn't have. I asked my son to walk to the corner store with me. He asked if he could get two things. It ended up being five things... They didn't have a chocolate cake mix.
When we got back he went up to his room with his treats and got on his computer! Happily listening to the sounds of his computer gaming, I looked through my cupboards and came up with the idea of a vanilla, strawberry and whipped cream cake to make for my hubby along with some double chocolate chip cookies. The cake was a hit! Surprisingly since my baking skills are not so great and as is usual for me I wasn't following a recipe.
While I was in the kitchen I noticed that my son was snacking on things like he usually does when stable. And he was cleaning up after himself! I know! I didn't say anything. Randomly talked to him, joined him outside for cigarettes and gave him a cookie when they were done. Once when he walked by me I commented that he really needed a shower or at least a change of cloths and off he went and put on clean cloths! Minus socks ;)
Hubby came home and was pleasantly happy about dinner. He was really hungry and expecting that it would be something like fish and rice as he knows this type of diet can help my son. However it was his birthday dinner so it was steak, corn on the cob and baked potatoes. My son really enjoys steak and corn on the cob as well so he ate good too. Win win!
After dinner I asked my son if he wanted tea. First he said no then he said yes. I made us all tea, put out all of our vitamins as I usually do and put on our TV shows. Reminded my son that the vitamins were there once then left them alone. A little while later I went to pick them up and put them away and just commented: I guess you don't want these? First he said no then said wait I will take these (picked up the multivitamins), I will take this too (picked up the B50), I guess I will take the fish ones too... So he took them all! It was after 8 so I went and got his Invega which he took then and there.
We all went out for a cigarette and when we came back in I asked him if he felt like taking his Melatonin tonight. He said sure... So I got him two and put them in his room. He was on his computer when hubby and I went to bed. He was eating a candy... I know that may sound like something small however after a week of seeing him in such a negative symptom swing it was a welcome sight and I went up to him and hugged him tight, telling him I loved him. Stumbled over my words as I said something like: It's good to see looking better... or acting better.. or... I paused and finished with: It's good to have you back. He just smiled at me, hugged me back and told me he loved me too.
I think it was around 11:30 that I woke up and checked on him. He was in bed but awake. I asked him if he had taken his Melatonin and he had forgotten so he took them! As far as I know he slept through the night until 9:30 this morning.
PACT called around 9 to see if he wanted to go on there outing today which is I think a trail walk. I woke him up to ask him and he said no. Thirty minutes later when he got up, I brought it up again asking if he was sure. He said he woke up in a bad mood so no. I said ok but it's a trail walk so in nature which you like. He replied with yah I might like that. Call them back and tell them I want to go. I called and left a message stating that if they still had a spot left that he wanted to go so hopefully they will call back. It's supposed to be a pretty nice day out.
So ya... I'm slightly bemused at the change since we haven't added the Latuda yet. He's adjusting to no Olanzapine? I have no idea. I'm just glad to see him functioning a bit better. I know that some would recommend interacting with him more, to pull him out of his head when he isn't doing well but I tend to give him his space to a certain degree. When the voices are bad then I'm just another voice talking to him and I think that can stress him even further. I know I wouldn't appreciate it if I had a room full of people talking at me and someone else decided to chime in ;) I know that doing even minor physical or 'real life' things takes a lot of energy and I don't need to be an extra stimulant for him if I can help it. Just like yesterday... When he is ready and able then I'm there.
I should get going. He asked again about camping last night so I should look into booking something in the relatively near future. I also need to follow up again with disability as the pharmacy supplying his medications still hasn't received his drug cards for March and April.
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Monday, April 27, 2015
Jinxed! A new nurse.
Logically I know that my last blog post highlighting the good didn't actually jinx things. Still it feels like schizophrenia is somewhere saying: na-na, na-na, boo-boo... I'm better then you. I got your son... (again)
By Tuesday morning the negative symptoms were obvious. His case worker dropped by with something for my son to sign so she could help straighten out the disability thing. She commented on how 'flat' he was. One word answers. No expression.
I guess it took a week for the Olanzapine to come completely out of his system.
For a couple of days I was managing to get some vitamins in him although it was hit or miss on which ones. One day he took his multi-vitamins. The next day the B50. Another day the omega-3 because he thinks the multi-vitamin is giving him energy. Now he is not taking any of them.
He has been eating dinners as I have been trying to make things that I know he likes and is healthy to keep him eating. He is not eating outside of that.
His sleeping is all over the place, when he does sleep. He won't take his Melatonin for some reason. This kind-of sucks because the Melatonin we take has 5-HTP and L-Theanin which can help him.
Friday I actually left him home alone for the most of the day. After being up all night and the previous two days he had finally gone to sleep. It was a busy day for hubby and I. Hubby had two doctors appointments and each of them were over an hour. We had car parts to get. Also Friday was the last day of my hubby's interlock condition on his license! If you don't know what this is then it's a device that is put in your car to make sure there is no drinking and driving. He is finally free of it! So we had to go to the license place and we had to go have the device removed from the car which was another hour long appointment. I must say that although a long and tiring day, it was good to be out of the house doing 'normal' stuff. My son's case worker stopped by to check on him since I wasn't home.
Hubby walked away from the doctor's appointments with a ton of medications ;) He has been coughing up some green/black stuff and green is usually a sign of infection so he got antibiotics for that. He also got something for his back. While I'm all for chiropractor first... He was still not getting much relief and these seem to be helping his back to relax. Which should help his next adjustment go even better.
My son was up when we returned, playing online. This was the last time he played online that I'm aware of. I was worried that he might not be ok if he woke up and I wasn't here but he seemed ok. Said he didn't call because his phone was dead but that he was charging it. He did answer the door to his case worker.
Saturday we took him with us to help out my hubby's son with an errand.
Yesterday he decided not to go grocery shopping with us. This doesn't happen very often. He really likes to go but I'm guessing even doing that is becoming too much for him at this point. Yesterday was also his Dad's birthday. I brought it up once but I didn't bring it up again because I know he can't process it right now.
Tuesday his case worker told me that he has a new nurse coming on board. His case worker has been seeing him almost every week however I do believe this is supposed to be a nurse making the weekly house calls. His from awhile ago is on maternity leave. So his new nurse dropped by today. He seemed nice and my son seemed to be ok with him.
I actually took myself to the basement for a cigarette while he was here to give them a chance to talk as I know I have a tendency to interrupt... I think I did pretty good and only interrupted a couple of times ;) It was easy to tell that participating in the conversation was a struggle for my son. I'm surprised he managed to ignore the voices as well as he did. His nurse commented that his answers where pretty short and one worded... Yes that's all he is capable of right now. Actually this was the most he has spoken in days. It can take several times asking just to get an answer on what type of tea he wants after dinner. Not that he drinks it but I keep hoping that he will and take the supplements I keep putting out.
I walked out with the nurse and filled in some of the blanks and corrected some things. Like I told him, I don't know if it's my son being delusional or if he just knows what to say. He doesn't give accurate information on questions about sleeping, eating or activities. He told his nurse that he went to bed at 11 last night. I think this is because he has been told that it's a good bed time. He went to bed at 2 when I got up and had him go. He was wide awake at 5 when I got up. He didn't sleep. Same with eating. He says he has been eating good. Dinner only for most of the week now. He says he has been playing his games. He hasn't since Friday. He says that he has no voices. I told his nurse we call them entities. They started becoming obvious last Monday.
His smoking is up and down. His fingers are brown, I noticed last night. He may go awhile without but then will smoke sometimes three in a row. That seems to be lessening today. So while smoking a lot is not a good sign, smoking less is an even worse sign. When he is smoking a lot he is stressed. When he isn't smoking much than he has gone further into his head. He has actually been smoking the cigarettes that he didn't want (we couldn't return them, we tried) and not even complaining about them which isn't like him.
After several days of me nicely hinting, my hubby actually managed to suggest and get him into a bath on Thursday. I think he has been in the same clothes ever since. Will have to try and get him in clean clothes today after he wakes up. I'm pretty sure he is sleeping now. He had a short snooze yesterday but other then that has been awake since possibly Friday around noon. It's hard to tell sometimes. He will go to bed when I prompt him but that doesn't mean he is sleeping.
His nurse set up an appointment with his psychiatrist for tomorrow morning. That's an appointment that has been long overdue. We certainly need to do discuss his medications and how to proceed. I know I have been hesitant about upping his Invega due to possible lose of his libido however that doesn't seem to be happening right now anyways and honestly it's not something we need happening right now as when he is like this he can have no sense of keeping it private.
ADAPT called me this morning. She apologized for taking so long to get back to me. I let her know that my son seems to relapses so we set up a tentative follow up appointment in two weeks. She also gave me some information on the next family event that deals with concurrent disorders, mental illness and addiction, and who to contact to register. I have actually met the lady that I am to contact. We meet through the early intervention program my son was in before PACT. I have also talked to her at an event I attended through the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario.
I'm off. Gucci is demanding some petting time and the homemade beef jerky I made is calling my name...
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
By Tuesday morning the negative symptoms were obvious. His case worker dropped by with something for my son to sign so she could help straighten out the disability thing. She commented on how 'flat' he was. One word answers. No expression.
I guess it took a week for the Olanzapine to come completely out of his system.
For a couple of days I was managing to get some vitamins in him although it was hit or miss on which ones. One day he took his multi-vitamins. The next day the B50. Another day the omega-3 because he thinks the multi-vitamin is giving him energy. Now he is not taking any of them.
He has been eating dinners as I have been trying to make things that I know he likes and is healthy to keep him eating. He is not eating outside of that.
His sleeping is all over the place, when he does sleep. He won't take his Melatonin for some reason. This kind-of sucks because the Melatonin we take has 5-HTP and L-Theanin which can help him.
Friday I actually left him home alone for the most of the day. After being up all night and the previous two days he had finally gone to sleep. It was a busy day for hubby and I. Hubby had two doctors appointments and each of them were over an hour. We had car parts to get. Also Friday was the last day of my hubby's interlock condition on his license! If you don't know what this is then it's a device that is put in your car to make sure there is no drinking and driving. He is finally free of it! So we had to go to the license place and we had to go have the device removed from the car which was another hour long appointment. I must say that although a long and tiring day, it was good to be out of the house doing 'normal' stuff. My son's case worker stopped by to check on him since I wasn't home.
Hubby walked away from the doctor's appointments with a ton of medications ;) He has been coughing up some green/black stuff and green is usually a sign of infection so he got antibiotics for that. He also got something for his back. While I'm all for chiropractor first... He was still not getting much relief and these seem to be helping his back to relax. Which should help his next adjustment go even better.
My son was up when we returned, playing online. This was the last time he played online that I'm aware of. I was worried that he might not be ok if he woke up and I wasn't here but he seemed ok. Said he didn't call because his phone was dead but that he was charging it. He did answer the door to his case worker.
Saturday we took him with us to help out my hubby's son with an errand.
Yesterday he decided not to go grocery shopping with us. This doesn't happen very often. He really likes to go but I'm guessing even doing that is becoming too much for him at this point. Yesterday was also his Dad's birthday. I brought it up once but I didn't bring it up again because I know he can't process it right now.
Tuesday his case worker told me that he has a new nurse coming on board. His case worker has been seeing him almost every week however I do believe this is supposed to be a nurse making the weekly house calls. His from awhile ago is on maternity leave. So his new nurse dropped by today. He seemed nice and my son seemed to be ok with him.
I actually took myself to the basement for a cigarette while he was here to give them a chance to talk as I know I have a tendency to interrupt... I think I did pretty good and only interrupted a couple of times ;) It was easy to tell that participating in the conversation was a struggle for my son. I'm surprised he managed to ignore the voices as well as he did. His nurse commented that his answers where pretty short and one worded... Yes that's all he is capable of right now. Actually this was the most he has spoken in days. It can take several times asking just to get an answer on what type of tea he wants after dinner. Not that he drinks it but I keep hoping that he will and take the supplements I keep putting out.
I walked out with the nurse and filled in some of the blanks and corrected some things. Like I told him, I don't know if it's my son being delusional or if he just knows what to say. He doesn't give accurate information on questions about sleeping, eating or activities. He told his nurse that he went to bed at 11 last night. I think this is because he has been told that it's a good bed time. He went to bed at 2 when I got up and had him go. He was wide awake at 5 when I got up. He didn't sleep. Same with eating. He says he has been eating good. Dinner only for most of the week now. He says he has been playing his games. He hasn't since Friday. He says that he has no voices. I told his nurse we call them entities. They started becoming obvious last Monday.
His smoking is up and down. His fingers are brown, I noticed last night. He may go awhile without but then will smoke sometimes three in a row. That seems to be lessening today. So while smoking a lot is not a good sign, smoking less is an even worse sign. When he is smoking a lot he is stressed. When he isn't smoking much than he has gone further into his head. He has actually been smoking the cigarettes that he didn't want (we couldn't return them, we tried) and not even complaining about them which isn't like him.
After several days of me nicely hinting, my hubby actually managed to suggest and get him into a bath on Thursday. I think he has been in the same clothes ever since. Will have to try and get him in clean clothes today after he wakes up. I'm pretty sure he is sleeping now. He had a short snooze yesterday but other then that has been awake since possibly Friday around noon. It's hard to tell sometimes. He will go to bed when I prompt him but that doesn't mean he is sleeping.
His nurse set up an appointment with his psychiatrist for tomorrow morning. That's an appointment that has been long overdue. We certainly need to do discuss his medications and how to proceed. I know I have been hesitant about upping his Invega due to possible lose of his libido however that doesn't seem to be happening right now anyways and honestly it's not something we need happening right now as when he is like this he can have no sense of keeping it private.
ADAPT called me this morning. She apologized for taking so long to get back to me. I let her know that my son seems to relapses so we set up a tentative follow up appointment in two weeks. She also gave me some information on the next family event that deals with concurrent disorders, mental illness and addiction, and who to contact to register. I have actually met the lady that I am to contact. We meet through the early intervention program my son was in before PACT. I have also talked to her at an event I attended through the Schizophrenia Society of Ontario.
I'm off. Gucci is demanding some petting time and the homemade beef jerky I made is calling my name...
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Monday, March 2, 2015
Breakfast with voices
Sunday we decided to go out for breakfast. It was me, my hubby, my son and his voices. They were entertaining my son and moderately irritating me. Not in an upsetting way however I did at one point ask my son if he could do me a favor and tell them to go away for a minute as they were pissing off mom ;) I think the waitress had come by our table 3 times and we couldn't order because my son wouldn't stop listening to them long enough to read the menu. Perhaps my request did the trick as he finally paid attention to the menu and made a choice. Saturday when we took him to buy a TV he could barely pay attention to the cashier.
This morning or last night I asked him if he ever tried to ignore them as he will need to learn to do that so that he can interact with people while out in public. He stated that ignoring them would make them worse. I replied that the opposite is usually true. The more attention you give to them the worse they can be and he needs to learn to tell them to leave him alone sometimes. Thankfully they seem to be humorous at the moment although what my son tends to find humorous would probably freak me out ;)
Saturday night and last night he got about 12 hours sleep each night. He took his medications when hubby and I were going to bed. Both nights he took his Invega, Olanzapine and a Melatonin.
This morning I talked to him about his medications. Letting him know that I'm thinking we may need to look at Clozapine again, what did he think about that? He asked if that was a good idea. Well it's either that or we try Olanzapine twice a day as he really shouldn't be dealing with voices like this. He agreed to Olanzapine twice a day. Today he seems a lot more clear eyed and his face doesn't have that combination high/overtired look that I see as psychosis.
I think he finally has his room set up. Mom I need something else for my TV as the dresser is too high. Mom I want a table to put my stuff on. He wanted to use cardboard boxes that I explained wouldn't hold the weight. I had a night stand that won't fit in our room so we put that in his room for the TV. Then I took the draws out of and the legs off of the dresser and laid it flat for a table, putting a table cloth on it. So now he has Netflix and an hdmi cord and can watch TV in his room. He still wants me to get him cable for his room... hmm not likely. Hubby and I don't even have cable in our room as we are trying to keep the bills lower not higher. Besides between Netflix and downloading what could he possibly watch on basic cable?
After breakfast yesterday we brought him back home as he was to tired to go grocery shopping. I did get him a new hoodie and 2 pairs of track pants since his last 2 pairs shrunk. I kept them for around the house since my legs are shorter. Oh... I can say house now instead of apartment ;)
I talked to his case worker from PACT today and let her know what happened. She will follow up and try to get a hold of ADAPT to set something up. Of course my son hesitated this morning when I brought this up. He is so easy to agree to things when he is getting what he wants then.... I reminded him that he agreed and that it is expected.
Next thing is contacting disability. I guess getting my son to call is the best option since his worker hasn't returned my last 6? phone calls. Hopefully I will tackle that tomorrow. Today I actually spend most of the day cleaning and organizing some stuff. Now hubby is on his way home from work so I should start dinner. Steak, baked potatoes and salad. Yum!
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
This morning or last night I asked him if he ever tried to ignore them as he will need to learn to do that so that he can interact with people while out in public. He stated that ignoring them would make them worse. I replied that the opposite is usually true. The more attention you give to them the worse they can be and he needs to learn to tell them to leave him alone sometimes. Thankfully they seem to be humorous at the moment although what my son tends to find humorous would probably freak me out ;)
Saturday night and last night he got about 12 hours sleep each night. He took his medications when hubby and I were going to bed. Both nights he took his Invega, Olanzapine and a Melatonin.
This morning I talked to him about his medications. Letting him know that I'm thinking we may need to look at Clozapine again, what did he think about that? He asked if that was a good idea. Well it's either that or we try Olanzapine twice a day as he really shouldn't be dealing with voices like this. He agreed to Olanzapine twice a day. Today he seems a lot more clear eyed and his face doesn't have that combination high/overtired look that I see as psychosis.
I think he finally has his room set up. Mom I need something else for my TV as the dresser is too high. Mom I want a table to put my stuff on. He wanted to use cardboard boxes that I explained wouldn't hold the weight. I had a night stand that won't fit in our room so we put that in his room for the TV. Then I took the draws out of and the legs off of the dresser and laid it flat for a table, putting a table cloth on it. So now he has Netflix and an hdmi cord and can watch TV in his room. He still wants me to get him cable for his room... hmm not likely. Hubby and I don't even have cable in our room as we are trying to keep the bills lower not higher. Besides between Netflix and downloading what could he possibly watch on basic cable?
After breakfast yesterday we brought him back home as he was to tired to go grocery shopping. I did get him a new hoodie and 2 pairs of track pants since his last 2 pairs shrunk. I kept them for around the house since my legs are shorter. Oh... I can say house now instead of apartment ;)
I talked to his case worker from PACT today and let her know what happened. She will follow up and try to get a hold of ADAPT to set something up. Of course my son hesitated this morning when I brought this up. He is so easy to agree to things when he is getting what he wants then.... I reminded him that he agreed and that it is expected.
Next thing is contacting disability. I guess getting my son to call is the best option since his worker hasn't returned my last 6? phone calls. Hopefully I will tackle that tomorrow. Today I actually spend most of the day cleaning and organizing some stuff. Now hubby is on his way home from work so I should start dinner. Steak, baked potatoes and salad. Yum!
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
It's just me and you... and your voices.
I'm not usually blogging this time of night however hubby just left to go back out snow plowing for the night. I think they are calling for up to 12-25 cm depending on where you live. Where we live 25 cm but where he is plowing 12 cm. My son asked where my hubby was and I told him and then said: So it's just me and you... and your voices.
I'm not sure why they are prominent today but they are. I wasn't really paying attention as I have been wrapped up in things on the internet however after several hours of no gaming (or much else) noises I realized that my son has been quiet today. Except for the odd laughing here and there. I went and checked on him and he was just sitting there looking at his computer screen, doing nothing. It's been like that most of the day.
I don't ask him if he has voices because I know he will most likely say no. I did comment on them being there and his response was that he has been raising entities to be elders (adults) because he is an adult and knows how to teach them. I kept it light and said that I'm glad it's happening in his head because I don't think we need more people thinking they are adults when they aren't. :) Yes it is... scary isn't the right word... concerning, that he is raising entities in his mind.
I'm guessing they started last night as he went to sleep with his light on which I'm learning may be an indication of things going on in his head. I turned it off when I checked on him around 4 AM. He is taking his Invega so I'm hoping it's just a little hiccup.
I do know that a lot of nicotine seems to trigger his psychosis some however he hasn't been smoking very much which is another sign that he is in his own head space. He has been smoking his vaporizer but he has been using an E-liquid that doesn't have nicotine. We did take him yesterday to the vapor store and hubby and I relaxed while he sat and tried a lot of different ones.
He finally did a load of laundry today and even remembered when to put it in the dryer and when to go get it when it was done. I folded it and put it away.
I had a little fun yesterday putting this together: 1st Edition Barbie's Coffee Time. I got the idea from the vapor store. I have seen similar in other small restaurants etc. I tried to get one from online however they don't distribute online. So I went hunting for a template to make a version of my own minus all the advertising.
My son was lying down in bed but just got up to go for a smoke. Hopefully he will take his Invega and a Melatonin (maybe even an Olanzapine or Trazodone) soon and go to sleep. That way I can take a sleeping pill. Since hubby isn't home it would be a great night for me to try and get a solid couple of hours sleep. I guess due to the snow hubby doesn't have to work his normal job tomorrow which is good. Snow plowing all night then working all day is hard on him.
I'm off to read in bed for a bit...
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
I'm not sure why they are prominent today but they are. I wasn't really paying attention as I have been wrapped up in things on the internet however after several hours of no gaming (or much else) noises I realized that my son has been quiet today. Except for the odd laughing here and there. I went and checked on him and he was just sitting there looking at his computer screen, doing nothing. It's been like that most of the day.
I don't ask him if he has voices because I know he will most likely say no. I did comment on them being there and his response was that he has been raising entities to be elders (adults) because he is an adult and knows how to teach them. I kept it light and said that I'm glad it's happening in his head because I don't think we need more people thinking they are adults when they aren't. :) Yes it is... scary isn't the right word... concerning, that he is raising entities in his mind.
I'm guessing they started last night as he went to sleep with his light on which I'm learning may be an indication of things going on in his head. I turned it off when I checked on him around 4 AM. He is taking his Invega so I'm hoping it's just a little hiccup.
I do know that a lot of nicotine seems to trigger his psychosis some however he hasn't been smoking very much which is another sign that he is in his own head space. He has been smoking his vaporizer but he has been using an E-liquid that doesn't have nicotine. We did take him yesterday to the vapor store and hubby and I relaxed while he sat and tried a lot of different ones.
He finally did a load of laundry today and even remembered when to put it in the dryer and when to go get it when it was done. I folded it and put it away.
I had a little fun yesterday putting this together: 1st Edition Barbie's Coffee Time. I got the idea from the vapor store. I have seen similar in other small restaurants etc. I tried to get one from online however they don't distribute online. So I went hunting for a template to make a version of my own minus all the advertising.
My son was lying down in bed but just got up to go for a smoke. Hopefully he will take his Invega and a Melatonin (maybe even an Olanzapine or Trazodone) soon and go to sleep. That way I can take a sleeping pill. Since hubby isn't home it would be a great night for me to try and get a solid couple of hours sleep. I guess due to the snow hubby doesn't have to work his normal job tomorrow which is good. Snow plowing all night then working all day is hard on him.
I'm off to read in bed for a bit...
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Monday, January 26, 2015
Addiction-Go-Round
I just realized today that a lot of pictures have been removed from some of my past blog posts. My apologies. I think when I updated my profile to a blogger profile, it removed the pictures as I no longer had rights to them? I'm guessing :) I no longer have a lot of them however I did try to re-add where I could.
We did go to Red Lobster for dinner yesterday for my son's birthday. His first question: Can I have a real (alcoholic) Caesar? Even if I pay for it myself? No, not unless you want to sit at another table which would defy the point of us taking you out for your birthday.
It was a pretty quiet meal. My son due to symptoms and/or alcohol he may have already been drinking yesterday, was a little spacey. Slow to respond and had a hard time deciding and remembering his dinner choices. My husband asked him earlier in the day if he had been drinking already today as I guess he reeked of alcohol and my son replied: Yes. I don't know what to think unless he is hiding it in his room however I did a quick check yesterday and couldn't find it. Usually if he is hiding it outside the apartment then he is in and out a lot! but he hasn't been. Unless he finished it yesterday morning... Or I just didn't find it. *sigh*
Shortly after coming back from the restaurant my son was in bed, said he felt sick. I suggested he take an Olanzapine that night to counteract the alcohol and agreed that he looked sick as the alcohol and a missed dose of Invega was probably causing some psychosis. His typical response of: It appears that way and of course he later refused to take an Olanzapine.
I'm glad I got the pill case. Now I just peek in it and I can see what he didn't take. Right now he is only taking the Invega and a Melatonin at bed time. Thankfully he is sleeping as I'm pretty sure if we added no sleep to the mix right now he wouldn't be in a very good spot. He is also eating so that is a good thing.
He did get up and come out to watch a movie with us. Well set in the living room with us ;) When he is like this he doesn't watch TV even though he says he is. Twenty plus minutes into watching something and him saying something like: What are we watching? Is a pretty good sign that he has been in la-la land for the past twenty plus minutes.
A lot of lying around, doing nothing. Just lying there staring off into space or being in his own head space as I call it. He starts to play a game but it doesn't last long. Laughing out loud for no apparent reason is happening off and on. He is going to his room and closing the door... Ack! I was thinking he was doing 'private time' but perhaps I should be looking harder for the alcohol. *face palm* He is usually much longer when it's private time!
Today he asked me to call PACT for him as he wants his psychiatrist to prescribe a benzo. According to him it's been awhile since he abused them so they should be willing to try again. Hmmm. Because what we are seeing happening right now, missed meds and alcohol abuse, is an indication that things have changed? And he hasn't abused them because they haven't been prescribed. I reminded him that PACT's number is on his phone and that benzos are not allowed in the home so if he wants them then he will have to deal with PACT coming to administer them daily. Quit amazing how this little bit of information seems to stop him from trying to get them. If he really wanted them for the right reasons then PACT administering them wouldn't be the end of it.
He has been up for over five hours and I think has only gone out for two cigarettes. That's not a good sign. His smoking habits can be an indication of where he is at.
He has a telephone interview or intake session tomorrow morning with someone from either Ready4Life and/or one of the housing applications he did. It was the same number as the previous lady who worked for Ready4Life. I almost didn't answer the phone thinking it was here ;) It was another lady. I don't think he did an application for Ready4Life this time so they must be connected.
He still won't do his laundry but I did get him to cut his fingernails before going to Red Lobster. Toenails he put up resistance :(
Mark this on your calendar for January 28! Bell Let's Talk
Still no word on disability. While I'm not counting on his room and board money it would certainly come in handy! Juggling which credit payments to make priority isn't fun ;) Yet at the same time the thought of him having access to more money right now. *shudder*
I don't know if he is doing this just to push my buttons which is quit possible however he has started talking about smoking crack-cocaine, that he needs/wants to. He has no idea what a crack high is to even want it. Expensive as all get out is what it is and it only lasts for thirty seconds! Honestly if it was put in front of me today I don't think I would have any problems flushing it. So yah he is most likely trying to push my buttons. I haven't said much about the alcohol and I haven't been bugging him about taking his medications so his ODD is probably chomping at the bit to start an argument over something. Since he is cycling between addiction and symptoms then he probably has some pent up energy that needs a release. I will do my best to not be a scapegoat! Pray for me! :)
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
We did go to Red Lobster for dinner yesterday for my son's birthday. His first question: Can I have a real (alcoholic) Caesar? Even if I pay for it myself? No, not unless you want to sit at another table which would defy the point of us taking you out for your birthday.
It was a pretty quiet meal. My son due to symptoms and/or alcohol he may have already been drinking yesterday, was a little spacey. Slow to respond and had a hard time deciding and remembering his dinner choices. My husband asked him earlier in the day if he had been drinking already today as I guess he reeked of alcohol and my son replied: Yes. I don't know what to think unless he is hiding it in his room however I did a quick check yesterday and couldn't find it. Usually if he is hiding it outside the apartment then he is in and out a lot! but he hasn't been. Unless he finished it yesterday morning... Or I just didn't find it. *sigh*
Shortly after coming back from the restaurant my son was in bed, said he felt sick. I suggested he take an Olanzapine that night to counteract the alcohol and agreed that he looked sick as the alcohol and a missed dose of Invega was probably causing some psychosis. His typical response of: It appears that way and of course he later refused to take an Olanzapine.
I'm glad I got the pill case. Now I just peek in it and I can see what he didn't take. Right now he is only taking the Invega and a Melatonin at bed time. Thankfully he is sleeping as I'm pretty sure if we added no sleep to the mix right now he wouldn't be in a very good spot. He is also eating so that is a good thing.
He did get up and come out to watch a movie with us. Well set in the living room with us ;) When he is like this he doesn't watch TV even though he says he is. Twenty plus minutes into watching something and him saying something like: What are we watching? Is a pretty good sign that he has been in la-la land for the past twenty plus minutes.
A lot of lying around, doing nothing. Just lying there staring off into space or being in his own head space as I call it. He starts to play a game but it doesn't last long. Laughing out loud for no apparent reason is happening off and on. He is going to his room and closing the door... Ack! I was thinking he was doing 'private time' but perhaps I should be looking harder for the alcohol. *face palm* He is usually much longer when it's private time!
Today he asked me to call PACT for him as he wants his psychiatrist to prescribe a benzo. According to him it's been awhile since he abused them so they should be willing to try again. Hmmm. Because what we are seeing happening right now, missed meds and alcohol abuse, is an indication that things have changed? And he hasn't abused them because they haven't been prescribed. I reminded him that PACT's number is on his phone and that benzos are not allowed in the home so if he wants them then he will have to deal with PACT coming to administer them daily. Quit amazing how this little bit of information seems to stop him from trying to get them. If he really wanted them for the right reasons then PACT administering them wouldn't be the end of it.
He has been up for over five hours and I think has only gone out for two cigarettes. That's not a good sign. His smoking habits can be an indication of where he is at.
He has a telephone interview or intake session tomorrow morning with someone from either Ready4Life and/or one of the housing applications he did. It was the same number as the previous lady who worked for Ready4Life. I almost didn't answer the phone thinking it was here ;) It was another lady. I don't think he did an application for Ready4Life this time so they must be connected.
He still won't do his laundry but I did get him to cut his fingernails before going to Red Lobster. Toenails he put up resistance :(
Mark this on your calendar for January 28! Bell Let's Talk
Still no word on disability. While I'm not counting on his room and board money it would certainly come in handy! Juggling which credit payments to make priority isn't fun ;) Yet at the same time the thought of him having access to more money right now. *shudder*
I don't know if he is doing this just to push my buttons which is quit possible however he has started talking about smoking crack-cocaine, that he needs/wants to. He has no idea what a crack high is to even want it. Expensive as all get out is what it is and it only lasts for thirty seconds! Honestly if it was put in front of me today I don't think I would have any problems flushing it. So yah he is most likely trying to push my buttons. I haven't said much about the alcohol and I haven't been bugging him about taking his medications so his ODD is probably chomping at the bit to start an argument over something. Since he is cycling between addiction and symptoms then he probably has some pent up energy that needs a release. I will do my best to not be a scapegoat! Pray for me! :)
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Thursday, January 22, 2015
I'm bored. Can I go to sleep now?
Things have been quiet since Tuesday. My son's Nvidia Shield Portable gaming system arrived yesterday morning. It's a birthday present his dad and I split on. He was surprised and happy that it arrived so quickly as I had been cautioning him that it would take time for it to reach us. Once he asked if we could drive to some city in MN to pick up. Not realizing that MN was not a part of Canada but is a state in the USA.
He enjoyed the tablet that my sister dropped off for him for a little while. I think he already has the memory full since he was asking about a memory card two nights ago. I noticed this on his cell phone too that the memory is almost full of downloaded games and apps that he just doesn't use or play.
When the Nvidia system arrived I remember thinking to myself: How long until he starts asking about money so that he can buy games for it even though there are lots of free ones that he could download. I was thinking it would take a couple of hours but it only took about thirty minutes. I nicely said no to giving him money, that he will have to wait and reminded him that no matter how many games he pays for he usually ends up back playing the free ones like MapleStory, RuneScape and I think Minecraft are some of them.
As of last night or this morning he said that he had downloaded about twelve games, only played two?
Today he is bored... He has a top of the line gaming laptop to use, a tablet and now the Nvidia gaming system and he is bored. I think we are finding ourselves in that in-between stage. His positive schizophrenia symptoms are not entertaining him anymore as they must be pretty much gone. I haven't seen/heard him laughing for no reason at voices or thoughts like he was. I think it's good that he is bored as in my eyes it's an indication of his mind being quieter. I asked him today if he was feeling ok as it's fairly easy to tell that he is experiencing something. He is lethargic or sluggish. Tired, slow and inactive. He just knows that he is 'bored' and doesn't want to play his games. I explained to him that this could be negative symptoms of schizophrenia. He asked if negative was like hearing voices? No. Positive and negative mean more and less not good and bad. If it's something more then someone like me would experience then it's positive, like hearing voices. Not being motivated to do things that we enjoy is a negative as it takes away. At this point he asked if he could go to sleep now?
I know that he is taking his medication however I know this because I have been reminding him to take them for the past two nights. Two days ago he asked about sleeping on the sofa as he wanted to get a good nights sleep. He is not getting good sleeps because he is not using the medications that he has available to help with quieting his mind at night. I reminded him that he has Trazodone, Olanzapine and Melatonin to help him go to sleep. If he used all of them he would be knocked out pretty good and get a really good nights sleep. That night he took Trazodone, Melatonin and perhaps an Olanzapine however did not take his Invega. I had to wake him to take it. He insisted that he had taken it however his Invega is being brought to him in blister packs as free samples right now and none of the blisters had been opened so he couldn't have taken one. I did get him to take it. I don't know if he got confused between the Olanzapine and the Invega or was just confused since I did wake him. Maybe I should go back to counting pills? When I woke him up he was covered in sweat. This may be from taking two Melatonin which can cause vivid dreams without taking the Invega. Really I don't know...
Last night I only gave him one Melatonin. It was 11:30 or 12 when I went in his room and he was in bed yet hadn't taken any of his medications. He said he was going to... Then asked me to get them for him which I did. 12:45 he was out for a smoke, banging around. I'm not sure what to do about this late night stuff as he is keeping everyone awake and it's not good for him either. He did get up by 10 this morning which is good but now he is in bed...
Due to the excessive sweating two nights ago he is in need of a shower again. He also needs to finish doing his laundry. He knows that he needs to have a shower and says that he wants too...
He is eating good so that's a plus. Speaking of food... I decided to start another blog! BarbieBF's Kitchen. Don't judge it (or shake your head at me ;)) as it's a mess and I'm still not to sure how I want it set up. My goal, I think, is to try to condense what research I have done on nutrition, diet, supplements and mental illness. To perhaps help others to try to put together meals that can hopefully minimize some of the symptoms of schizophrenia as well as keeping ourselves, the caregivers, healthy and strong. Also easy meals that don't require a lot of prepping as I know a lot of caregivers are not just working in the home but outside the home as well. I have been kicking the idea around for a bit but it's just not coming together... Yet.
Still no news on disability. His worker was returning some of my calls but hasn't returned the last two! On another note my son is now in collections for I think $400 and $600 for the two cell phone accounts that he didn't pay. Mom what can I do about it? He can't pay them. Hopefully in about seven years he will be in a place that a credit score will matter. If not then at least I may have some security in knowing that another company shouldn't let him access anymore credit. He did receive a call yesterday that his application for housing was received.
Mom
BarbieBF
He enjoyed the tablet that my sister dropped off for him for a little while. I think he already has the memory full since he was asking about a memory card two nights ago. I noticed this on his cell phone too that the memory is almost full of downloaded games and apps that he just doesn't use or play.
When the Nvidia system arrived I remember thinking to myself: How long until he starts asking about money so that he can buy games for it even though there are lots of free ones that he could download. I was thinking it would take a couple of hours but it only took about thirty minutes. I nicely said no to giving him money, that he will have to wait and reminded him that no matter how many games he pays for he usually ends up back playing the free ones like MapleStory, RuneScape and I think Minecraft are some of them.
As of last night or this morning he said that he had downloaded about twelve games, only played two?
Today he is bored... He has a top of the line gaming laptop to use, a tablet and now the Nvidia gaming system and he is bored. I think we are finding ourselves in that in-between stage. His positive schizophrenia symptoms are not entertaining him anymore as they must be pretty much gone. I haven't seen/heard him laughing for no reason at voices or thoughts like he was. I think it's good that he is bored as in my eyes it's an indication of his mind being quieter. I asked him today if he was feeling ok as it's fairly easy to tell that he is experiencing something. He is lethargic or sluggish. Tired, slow and inactive. He just knows that he is 'bored' and doesn't want to play his games. I explained to him that this could be negative symptoms of schizophrenia. He asked if negative was like hearing voices? No. Positive and negative mean more and less not good and bad. If it's something more then someone like me would experience then it's positive, like hearing voices. Not being motivated to do things that we enjoy is a negative as it takes away. At this point he asked if he could go to sleep now?
I know that he is taking his medication however I know this because I have been reminding him to take them for the past two nights. Two days ago he asked about sleeping on the sofa as he wanted to get a good nights sleep. He is not getting good sleeps because he is not using the medications that he has available to help with quieting his mind at night. I reminded him that he has Trazodone, Olanzapine and Melatonin to help him go to sleep. If he used all of them he would be knocked out pretty good and get a really good nights sleep. That night he took Trazodone, Melatonin and perhaps an Olanzapine however did not take his Invega. I had to wake him to take it. He insisted that he had taken it however his Invega is being brought to him in blister packs as free samples right now and none of the blisters had been opened so he couldn't have taken one. I did get him to take it. I don't know if he got confused between the Olanzapine and the Invega or was just confused since I did wake him. Maybe I should go back to counting pills? When I woke him up he was covered in sweat. This may be from taking two Melatonin which can cause vivid dreams without taking the Invega. Really I don't know...
Last night I only gave him one Melatonin. It was 11:30 or 12 when I went in his room and he was in bed yet hadn't taken any of his medications. He said he was going to... Then asked me to get them for him which I did. 12:45 he was out for a smoke, banging around. I'm not sure what to do about this late night stuff as he is keeping everyone awake and it's not good for him either. He did get up by 10 this morning which is good but now he is in bed...
Due to the excessive sweating two nights ago he is in need of a shower again. He also needs to finish doing his laundry. He knows that he needs to have a shower and says that he wants too...
He is eating good so that's a plus. Speaking of food... I decided to start another blog! BarbieBF's Kitchen. Don't judge it (or shake your head at me ;)) as it's a mess and I'm still not to sure how I want it set up. My goal, I think, is to try to condense what research I have done on nutrition, diet, supplements and mental illness. To perhaps help others to try to put together meals that can hopefully minimize some of the symptoms of schizophrenia as well as keeping ourselves, the caregivers, healthy and strong. Also easy meals that don't require a lot of prepping as I know a lot of caregivers are not just working in the home but outside the home as well. I have been kicking the idea around for a bit but it's just not coming together... Yet.
Still no news on disability. His worker was returning some of my calls but hasn't returned the last two! On another note my son is now in collections for I think $400 and $600 for the two cell phone accounts that he didn't pay. Mom what can I do about it? He can't pay them. Hopefully in about seven years he will be in a place that a credit score will matter. If not then at least I may have some security in knowing that another company shouldn't let him access anymore credit. He did receive a call yesterday that his application for housing was received.
Mom
BarbieBF
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
It's almost Christmas!
I was going to start this post with a rant about my hubby :) but I decided to shorten it to just the below conversation...
Hubby called to ask what kind of hash-browns, the kind for breakfast? Yes. Turkey sausages for breakfast? Yes. I'm thinking: No I didn't spell it out on the 4 item list I gave him because what else could I possibly want hash-browns and sausages for?
We have made it through the weekend and now it's almost Christmas!
I have been managing to get my son to take the Olanzapine at night instead of during the day so that he doesn't have to deal with how it makes him feel ill and depressed because he is sleeping through it. It does mean that he is getting more antipsychotics into his system so that is a good thing. The 5-HTP seems to be helping a lot with his mood and he hasn't complained about being depressed since Saturday. I have also started giving him Melatonin at night which he says is helping him to go to sleep.
My son's case worker is supposed to be dropping by today. Something about the paperwork he previously signed having to be typed out and signed again... As far as I know his treatment team was supposed to have met yesterday to discuss his case and medications. Hopefully she will have some good news or at least news that I can understand and go with regarding his medications.
My son is anxiously waiting until he can open his presents! He has talked us into opening them tonight Christmas Eve which is ok with me. I know that for a lot of places it is tradition to this. He is anxious... or excited because there is one gift that I got him that he really wants. A tobacco pipe. Since I'm not agreeing to his requests for marijuana than tobacco is one addiction that I see little harm in him indulging for now. I'm not sure what the lady's at the smoke shop thought of my reasoning that a 20 year old with a tobacco pipe is better then a 20 year old with marijuana. Haha! Really it's not something that could even be explained to someone who does not deal with mental illness and addiction on a daily basis. I know that it helps him and if it brings him enjoyment then I'm ok with it. I told her that he loves tobacco and he wanted a type of tobacco that was full of flavor. No not flavored, full of flavor! I purposely left him home and left while he was sleeping when I went to get these items. My son in a smoke shop! That would have been a lengthy visit. Plus I wanted it to be a surprise for what it looks like. We got home and right away he is asking if we got it. I said yes but teased him that I had expressed posted it to Santa so he could drop it off Christmas Eve. I would have to say the look on my son's face was pretty priceless. I'm not sure what he thinks of me talking about Santa as if he really exists! What can I say... I believe in Santa! :) Out of the blue though I did get a really big hug as he was so happy that I got it. A genuine hug that I felt with my heart! He has been not so patiently waiting to open it ever since. Is it wrapped? Is it under the tree? Can I look at it?
My son is experiencing voices or auditory hallucinations of some sort. They don't appear to be visual as he doesn't seem to be looking, just listening. Some days he agrees they are there and other days like today says they are not. I think denying them today may be because he knows his case worker is coming. I'm not saying much about them other then to point out that he needs to ignore them when he is walking around so that he can pay attention to what he is doing. They don't seem to be negative in nature right now so I'm going to try not to worry about them too much.
Overall my son seems to be doing pretty good. He is playing on his computer right now. It's a bit off and on as he doesn't seem to be able to stay on for long periods. Before June he could play for hours but now it's usually for 10-45 minutes at a time. He is sleeping at night and getting up on his own during the day. Some mornings not til 10:30 but this morning was up shortly after 6. He is eating good and some days will ask for what he would like for dinner. He is back to saying thanx for dinner. In fact the other day commented that he is going to start saying thank you instead of thanx. Hubby always tells me thank you for dinner. He is picking up after himself more with little prompting from me. One day we also went to the movies so I left him with a load of his laundry to do while we were gone out and to have a shower. He did both. This morning he offered and made my hubby a coffee! Hubby toke him with him to do some last minute shopping and some car stuff. I think it tired him out a bit as he decided to stay home and not go back out with hubby.
Randomly today my son walked up to me and gave me another heartfelt hug! I hugged him tight and then we went outside for a smoke. Had a short conversation about souls etc. He asked me if I was a real soul person? He also said my head was ticking and asked if I was a robot? I teased him that he might be hallucinating if he thinks my head is ticking. He agreed he might be :)
I know for some of my readers that Christmas day may already be here so I hope that you are having a wonderful day with your family and loved ones!
Mom
BarbieBF
Hubby called to ask what kind of hash-browns, the kind for breakfast? Yes. Turkey sausages for breakfast? Yes. I'm thinking: No I didn't spell it out on the 4 item list I gave him because what else could I possibly want hash-browns and sausages for?
We have made it through the weekend and now it's almost Christmas!
I have been managing to get my son to take the Olanzapine at night instead of during the day so that he doesn't have to deal with how it makes him feel ill and depressed because he is sleeping through it. It does mean that he is getting more antipsychotics into his system so that is a good thing. The 5-HTP seems to be helping a lot with his mood and he hasn't complained about being depressed since Saturday. I have also started giving him Melatonin at night which he says is helping him to go to sleep.
My son's case worker is supposed to be dropping by today. Something about the paperwork he previously signed having to be typed out and signed again... As far as I know his treatment team was supposed to have met yesterday to discuss his case and medications. Hopefully she will have some good news or at least news that I can understand and go with regarding his medications.
My son is anxiously waiting until he can open his presents! He has talked us into opening them tonight Christmas Eve which is ok with me. I know that for a lot of places it is tradition to this. He is anxious... or excited because there is one gift that I got him that he really wants. A tobacco pipe. Since I'm not agreeing to his requests for marijuana than tobacco is one addiction that I see little harm in him indulging for now. I'm not sure what the lady's at the smoke shop thought of my reasoning that a 20 year old with a tobacco pipe is better then a 20 year old with marijuana. Haha! Really it's not something that could even be explained to someone who does not deal with mental illness and addiction on a daily basis. I know that it helps him and if it brings him enjoyment then I'm ok with it. I told her that he loves tobacco and he wanted a type of tobacco that was full of flavor. No not flavored, full of flavor! I purposely left him home and left while he was sleeping when I went to get these items. My son in a smoke shop! That would have been a lengthy visit. Plus I wanted it to be a surprise for what it looks like. We got home and right away he is asking if we got it. I said yes but teased him that I had expressed posted it to Santa so he could drop it off Christmas Eve. I would have to say the look on my son's face was pretty priceless. I'm not sure what he thinks of me talking about Santa as if he really exists! What can I say... I believe in Santa! :) Out of the blue though I did get a really big hug as he was so happy that I got it. A genuine hug that I felt with my heart! He has been not so patiently waiting to open it ever since. Is it wrapped? Is it under the tree? Can I look at it?
My son is experiencing voices or auditory hallucinations of some sort. They don't appear to be visual as he doesn't seem to be looking, just listening. Some days he agrees they are there and other days like today says they are not. I think denying them today may be because he knows his case worker is coming. I'm not saying much about them other then to point out that he needs to ignore them when he is walking around so that he can pay attention to what he is doing. They don't seem to be negative in nature right now so I'm going to try not to worry about them too much.
Overall my son seems to be doing pretty good. He is playing on his computer right now. It's a bit off and on as he doesn't seem to be able to stay on for long periods. Before June he could play for hours but now it's usually for 10-45 minutes at a time. He is sleeping at night and getting up on his own during the day. Some mornings not til 10:30 but this morning was up shortly after 6. He is eating good and some days will ask for what he would like for dinner. He is back to saying thanx for dinner. In fact the other day commented that he is going to start saying thank you instead of thanx. Hubby always tells me thank you for dinner. He is picking up after himself more with little prompting from me. One day we also went to the movies so I left him with a load of his laundry to do while we were gone out and to have a shower. He did both. This morning he offered and made my hubby a coffee! Hubby toke him with him to do some last minute shopping and some car stuff. I think it tired him out a bit as he decided to stay home and not go back out with hubby.
Randomly today my son walked up to me and gave me another heartfelt hug! I hugged him tight and then we went outside for a smoke. Had a short conversation about souls etc. He asked me if I was a real soul person? He also said my head was ticking and asked if I was a robot? I teased him that he might be hallucinating if he thinks my head is ticking. He agreed he might be :)
I know for some of my readers that Christmas day may already be here so I hope that you are having a wonderful day with your family and loved ones!
Mom
BarbieBF
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