First Night on New Meds

Look the first dose of lithium last night. So far no side effects that I can tell. With the way my life is and the way 2020 is going, I just kind of expected something catastrophic to happen because everything sucks. But so far, things are just like they always are. My alarm went off at 7am, and I didn't want to get up. Then I had to clean up the kitchen, take the trash out to the curb and make coffee to wake me up.

Now I'm trying to write this journal entry while dealing with keyboard issues and just feeling blah. I have to take one pill each of the next two nights then two pills every night for a week AND THEN I'll actually get to the starter dose I'm supposed to be on. She said once I get to that, most people see results within a few days. Hopefully, the little step ups the next week will also give me a little boost.

Meanwhile, I'll be waiting for the results of the home sleep study. I got today at noon to pick up the machine. Then I have to go grocery shopping. Ugh. I'm never going to get any actual writing done for NaNo. I didn't write yesterday, and only got a few words on the 3rd because I was so anxious about the election.

If NaNo had been a couple weeks ago when I was manic, I could have blown through half of it while I felt good. Now I'm back to feeling depressed and unfocused and just so freaking tired. I know if I push through the awfulness of the stuff I wrote already (which is partly holding me back), I can move on with the story and get some chapters written.

The other issue that's plagued my attempt at NaNo has been the keyboard problems. This morning, it's been working okay. I've been able to get the keys working by banging on them a few times. But the other mornings, it took a half hour of banging and just typing with them to get them working. By then I've run out of energy and motivation to write. Hopefully, the new meds will be enough to somewhat counteract the fatigue from the apnea enough to find some energy to write in the middle of the month. If I could get a spurt of creativity or something, I could still get ahead. I don't expect to start treatment for the sleep apnea until the end of the month or sometime in December so it won't be a factor. I'm going to have to do NaNo around this horrible chronic fatigue. Ugh.

I also have a bunch of blog posts I need to catch up on that I haven't written because of the keyboard issues. But whenever I would get the keys working, I would get caught up in confusion on what to work on because I have this illness journal to do, the blog posts and NaNo which is a priority. And then I'd end up getting nothing done.

So I think the goal today, since my keyboard is working well enough right now, is to get the blog posts done before I have to leave for my appointment in a few hours. I'll probably end up needing a nap after the appointment and shopping which I probably won't take since I need to do the sleep study tonight and don't want to mess up my sleep cycle which means I won't have the energy to focus on my NaNo story. Sigh. But at least I'll have the blog posts done, I guess.