Holiday Season

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I want to write about the holiday season.

At my Left of the Dial blog you can read about my experience with the United States Postal Service.

In here I want to talk about how the holidays are often hell-idays for a lot of us living with a diagnosis.

I lost my father in January 2016. I lost a beloved aunt in March of this year.

You are not alone if you are actually depressed at this time of year and not in a good mood during the festivities.

What can help us feel better when we’ve lost our loved ones or otherwise don’t feel like celebrating?

A modest amount of retail therapy could help. Doing a bout of spring cleaning now might seem counter-intuitive yet it might help too. Helping others by volunteering at a soup kitchen could help you.

My friend who is a soul mate to me I really think he is told me:

“Just be a good person and do good.”

That was his advice for helping yourself overcome having a hard time.

Just be a good person and do good is what I urge my loyal blog readers to adopt as a life ethic.

When all else fails, strive to get at least 7 hours of sleep straight through every night as often as you can.

I will end this blog entry by thanking you for reading this blog.

I’ve reached 5,000 visitors so far which is a great thing.

Gracias. Merci. Grazie.

A million thanks.

Ongoing Psychiatrist Questions

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Questions to Ask Your Psychiatrist (Ongoing)

  1. What is my diagnosis and how did you come to that conclusion?
  2. What medication do you propose to use? (Ask for the name and dosage level.)
  3. What is the biological effect of this medication, and what do you expect it to accomplish?
  4. What are the risks associated with this medication?
  5. How soon will we be able to tell if the medication is effective, and how will we know?
  6. Are there other medications that might be appropriate? If so, why do you prefer the one you have chosen?
  7. What are the side effects of the medication? How long should I “wait out” any side effects before calling you?
  8. Are there other medications or food that I should avoid while taking this medication?
  9. How long do you expect me to be on this medication?
  10. How often will I be seeing you until the medication takes effect?
  11. If I’m taking more than one drug, when and how often should I take each one?
  12. How do you monitor medications, and what symptoms indicate that the dosage should be raised, lowered or changed?
  13. Are you currently treating other patients with this illness?
  14. What are the best times and what are the most dependable ways for getting in touch with you?
  15. What do you consider an emergency if I have to call you after hours?

Feel free to add your own questions.

New Psychiatrist Questions

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New Doctor Questions

  1. If I need to call you, how long do you usually take to respond?  Do you have another doctor on-call if you’re on vacation?
  2. If I ask you questions, will you give me detailed information about why you think I need a certain treatment? I need to know the rationale behind your suggestions.
  3. What drugs do you frequently prescribe to your patients? Have you had success with these drugs?
  4. How much experience have you had with atypicals?
  5. Will you prescribe drugs “off-label” if you think it will benefit me?
  6. Will you discuss any side effects of the medication you’re treating me with, and do you have a plan in case I develop a side effect?
  7. Is your focus on mental illness treatment and recovery, or do you have a general clientele? Are you willing to be creative in custom-tailoring solutions to my treatment needs?
  8. If my parents or a third-party person needed to speak on my behalf or talk to you about my treatment, how would you handle that?
  9. What would a typical session with you be like?
  10. Do you have an area of expertise with certain illnesses?
  11. Where did you get your degree? Are you Board Certified?  How long have you been in practice?
  12. What do you feel challenges and inspires you as a doctor? [This could tell you a lot about their personal work ethic.]
  13. What hospitals do you have admitting privileges with?
  14. Are you willing to coordinate my treatment with my primary care doctor or get the results of blood work or tests from this doctor to integrate my whole health care outlook?
  15. Do you have evening or morning or weekend hours?
  16. Do you test for tardive dyskinesia? Have you ever had a patient who developed this, and what has been your experience with treating TD?
  17. Do you take my insurance? Will you bill my insurance company or do you expect me to pay up front and then submit my own claim form for reimbursement?
  18. Do you believe someone can recover from a mental illness? [This question is the gold standard. If at all you get the idea that this doctor doesn’t believe recovery is possible it will benefit you to keep looking until you find a professional who is interested in seeing his or her patients succeed in life.]

Feel free to ask any other questions that come to you that aren’t listed above and when you begin treatment also develop your own questions in addition to the ones listed below.

How to Find a New Doctor

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This upsets me: I made a promise I couldn’t keep, and I regret this.

As the Health Guide at the HealthCentral SZ website I was sometimes asked to recommend a shrink, from people in India and Saudi Arabia of all places.

When I talked to a colleague recently, he suggested it’s not as simple as handing a person the name and number of an M.D.

In the interest of providing a better answer, in this blog entry I’ll detail my experience with choosing a doctor.

Then in the next entry I’ll list Psychiatrist Questions you can ask any prospective shrink.

The M.D. has to know the patients history: their unique constellation of symptoms; track record with taking meds–and numerous other details.

In 2003 I researched the names of three doctors and called them on the telephone to screen them.

One shrink required that I sign a waiver of liability releasing him from any responsibility.

I thought: if he doesn’t trust me, how can I trust him? Further: it revealed that he wasn’t confident enough in his own judgment and expertise in treating patients. If he was confident, no waiver would’ve been needed.

Shrink #1: ruled out.

Doctor #2 operated out of a low-income clinic. The person who answered the phone told me point blank that I wasn’t a candidate for a low-income clinic. (I kid you not.)

M.D. #3 had decided to retire and no longer had a practice.

Dr. A was the final choice that a former friend recommended.

As soon as I entered his office and he shook my hand, I thought: “This is the guy I want treating me.”

He hadn’t even opened his mouth. He hadn’t even started the intake.

You should always go with your intuition. The first time I met Dr. A I grilled him in detail. I had walked into his office with a list of 20 questions.

I recommend grilling 3 doctors and using your intuition to choose the shrink you think is the best one to treat you or your loved one.

(I’ve also had success using my intuition to choose a therapist and an apartment I wanted to buy.)

Now I’ll sing off and post another blog entry with a list of Psychiatrist Questions.

Meal Plan #2

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gran padano

I’ve become committed to eating more healthful food options and cutting out the junk.

I think that as a person gets older cutting out the junk food is imperative.

Our older bodies aren’t always as spry as we were in our twenties and thirties.

So it makes sense to cut out the junk. We can replace the junk with food that gives us energy and stamina throughout the day.

Here was yesterday’s meal plan:

Breakfast:

Purely Elizabeth Ancient Grains granola with skim milk

8 oz organic orange juice

A.M. Snack:

Plain yogurt (Greenmarket fare)

Lunch:

Caprese Salad

(Heirloom tomato slices layered with fresh mozzarella slices.)

P.M. Snack:

Plain yogurt

Dinner in photo above:
Organic zucchini stuffed with gran padano shredded cheese

Scoop out inside of zucchini. Sprinkle with parmesan or goat cheese.

Heat at 350 in oven for 25 to 30 minutes.

(I used gran padano because I didn’t have parmesan cheese.)

Night Snack:

1 organic Anjou pear

Meal Plan #1

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salad october 2017

Sunday, October 8 2017

Breakfast:

Cheerio’s with organic skim milk.

Lunch:

Amy’s Organic Minestrone soup.

Afternoon snack:

7 mini sweet peppers from CSA box.

1 container Horizon organic chocolate milk.

Dinner:

CSA salad with green leaf lettuce, hot pepper slices, shredded red cabbage, tomatoes, and carrots. Newman’s Own balsamic salad dressing.

Night snack:

Fage 0 percent fat plain yogurt.

4 squares organic chocolate 74 percent cacao.

I’m not keen to buy cans of soup that have natural flavor as an ingredient.

Natural flavor is a euphemism for chemicals whose actual names don’t have to be listed on the nutrition label.

Yet make no mistake you’re consuming chemicals.

I’ll report back here with a recipe I’m making for some kind of squash that arrived in the CSA too.  It’s a Gold Nugget personal-size Hubbard. Perfect for lunch.

More recipes to come here in the coming weeks along with some belated fitness inspiration or what’s call fitspo.

Every little bit of wellness counts:

Just walking five blocks or have a salad or whatever bits and bursts and sprints of doing that we can helps us get mentally and physically better.

Every little bit counts.

Food Spending Challenge

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Years ago Gwyneth Paltrow failed in living up to a food spending challenge.

She was allotted $29 dollars per week to buy food. It’s the amount of money the average SNAP or food stamps recipient gets to buy food.

The point is not that you should have to live on twenty-nine dollars each week. The point is that people who receive food stamps should get a livable benefit that’s bumped up to the cost of living.

You don’t say? Yes, I do. Give people collecting SNAP more money.

It’s unconscionable that Americans have to go hungry and without food.

I’ve said before in here that buying food at a Greenmarket and supplanting these items from a food pantry is nothing to be ashamed of.

I want to return to talking about nutrition and how to develop a healthy eating plan.

I’ve decide to chronicle three days worth of a nutrition plan and eating routine.

$175 dollars with a $5 delivery tip as part of this total cost bought me:

Lobster salad (not cheap because it’s real lobster)

One CSA Box (community-supported agriculture)

  • Contains green leaf lettuce, mini sweet peppers, five hot peppers, mint, thyme, and sage, red potatoes, head red cabbage, one carrot, 2 non-organic Empire apples, container of cherry tomatoes, and container of heirloom tomatoes

2 beefsteak tomatoes

2 containers organic blackberries

2 organic Bartlett pears

6 containers Fage (pronounced Fa-ye) fat-free plain yogurt

1 box Barbara’s crunchy oats cereal

1/2 gallon organic skim milk

58 oz bottle Evolution organic orange juice ( my go-to when oranges aren’t available)

2 bars organic 74 percent cacao dark chocolate

1/2 pound scallops

Earthbound Farms container organic spring mix salad

4 organic bananas (they often arrive green and need to ripen)
2 Amy’s Organic Lentil Soup
2 Amy’s Organic Minestrone Soup
2 Amy’s Organic Vegetable Barley Soup

In the next blog entry I’ll record the kinds of meals you can make that I made with these groceries.

I’d love to hear the kinds of recipes readers use to make meals.

 

My Second Nonfiction Book

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I’ve been remiss in publishing blog entries here because I’ve been editing and revising the book proposal for the second nonfiction book I want to publish.

It’s a one-of-its-kind career guide. I will be able to tell you more about this in October.

October is Disability Employment Awareness Month.

Coming up in October I will return to writing about career topics.

As of tonight I’ll be returning to writing blog entries here.

What I’d like to start out writing about this week is a true story.

It goes back to my time working as an administrative assistant in an insurance office.

That was my first-ever full-time job after I stopped collecting government benefits.

Stay tuned.

 

 

Pizzoccheri

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pizzocheri

This time around I’ll use more cabbage.

The Pizzoccheri recipe is  from thekitchn.com. The link will take you to the recipe since it’s kind of long so I won’t repeat it here. The recipe might be copyrighted.

You can print the recipe up from thekitchn.com.

It calls for pasta, potatoes, and cabbage.

I used bionaturae organic 100% whole wheat chiocciole.

You shred the cabbage in strips.

I bought a mandoline–is that what it’s called–a kind of slicer in a housewares store years ago. This might help shredding the cabbage into strips.

There you have it: a tasty meal you can make year-round on weeknights.

Swiss Chard Dinner

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2017 swiss chard csa box

This was a weeknight dinner.

The Swiss chard arrived in a CSA box. I bought the chicken like that from an online grocer. The pepper jack cheese was accidentally packed in with the groceries.

The cheese slice is only 80 calories and has calcium and if I remember 9 gm of protein.

The chicken was precooked and arrived in a plastic container.

I sauteed the Swiss chard in olive oil until it was soft not totally wilted.

Perfetto: a summer dinner that takes only about 10 minutes to cook.

I will return early next week with a recipe for pizzocheri. It’s an Italian pasta dish you make with cabbage. I have a photo for that meal too.