letter to a doctor

Today, I was just so desperate.

Got a message from my G.P, that my shrink said he wanted to take my meds down by a huge chunk. I can feel the difference between 10-20mg, but 150 made me so nervous i cracked.

All the ooze just came spilling out.

It had to come out. I was rotting inside.

make of it what he will, but you know, this month being "mental health awareness month", it might be a good thing that this gets out.

Dear Dr. C

just got an email from my g.p who informed me that you advised I decrease my Welbutrin to 150mg from 300mg (i kept on forgetting to take the extra 50 mg because i had to manually split the pill, and by the time i did remember, i had started to get manic) and no Starnoc or Xanax.

I can honestly tell you that is going to be a big problem...

Since you are not at the office right now, i have reluctantly resorted to email because i think this needs to be sorted out very quickly. and apologize profusely for bothering you, but since we can't speak on the phone tonight in detail about this matter, i don't know what to do or who to turn to because I am so completely desperate, and if my mood gets worse, might have to make a trip to the emergency tonight.

I'm a) worried about going down to 150mg of Welbutrin. From 300 that is a HUGE jump for my system. And if the current 300mg is keeping me barely afloat on good days (in terms of depression), I don't even want to think what 150 will do to me. Those lows terrify me. I have tried to commit suicide in the past, and with those thoughts lurking close to the surface these past two months, would a huge decrease like that be a wise thing to do during this time?

and b) without Starnoc (with was the only thing that helped me sleep in the past, and i believe had been taking it while on Welbutrin approximately 3 years ago, and had taken it 6 months ago, and again on the night before my wedding because i had "an emergency stash) i don't see why it would be a problem now since i am still on Welbutrin, unless there is some policy about doctors giving prescriptions for getting medications over the border, or via the internet that nobody wants to tell me about directly, because up to now, i have not had any solid comprehensive answers as to why i can't take it now.

I find it beyond frustrating and infuriating that I should have to be penalized for not being able to get a medication that is readily available in the U.S but not here in Canada because somebody didn't do their job marketing it properly at the corporate level. I will call Servier Canada again this week, as well as the people at Wyeth (who are holding on to the patents but not giving information to if or when they will put Starnoc back on the market), but this time i will get all the names of people i speak to as well as everything i was told in writing (which was) "Starnoc was taken off the market - purely for marketing reasons", because when i explain my story, it seems to me that every doctor i tell thinks I'm full of it. I'm not a liar, just desperate to be able to get the drugs that help me get the sleep that i so desperately need.

as you know, Ativan and i do not have a good history. I skipped a dose one night and thought i was honestly going to die. And nobody bothered to tell me that going off "cold turkey" was equal to somebody detoxing cold turkey from alcohol or harder drugs. I had to find out the hard way.

It was beyond any word that terrifying can describe, and i never want to feel that way again. I don't want to have to take it (Ativan) on a regular basis because i don't want to be dependent on a sleeping pill, but the catch 22 is, if i need it, i will take it, but if i do take it for more than one night in a row I will have to keep on taking it because cold turkey or skipping a dose one night is not an option - so the only way to do so is to taper off. I want to take something only when i need it, and not worry about going "cold turkey" when i don't.

I hope that you understand my predicament.

And i'm not sure if I shared this with you, but, when i was on Ativan in the past, I had gone up to 2.5 mg (about 6-8 months ago ?) because the 0.5 mg initially prescribed stopped being effective. Right now, i'm up to almost 1mg. The pattern is sure to repeat itself, which once again, as stated above, the eventual outcome is not an option.

Immovane makes me physically ill, because the nausea from the metallic taste in my mouth last for 24 hours. And unless i take large doses of Trazadone (which recently, I have taken up to 2 pills a night), I feel as if i am completely stoned, clumsy, disoriented BUT not sleepy.

Sleep plays a big part in the regulation of my bipolar, and perhaps because i have not been able to sleep, has made me in turn, more manic. At this point, i am so completely desperate, I don't know what to do, and I'm sure it's not easy for all the physicians treating me, but I am so very terribly distraught right now, and with my mom's scan at the end of November, it's imperative that I remain calm, focused and be able to sleep, which will in turn, will allow me to be able to be calm, focused etc. If and when the cancer comes back, i can't afford for my sake, but mostly for hers, to be the one who needs an incredible amount of emotional support and/or physical care because i have had another meltdown.

And yes, I have tried yoga, acupuncture, meditation, hypnosis, Valerian root, Nytol, Tynenol PM, Benadryl , holistic/natural sleep medication, warm milk, bananas, turkey, Melatonin (which my pharmacist advised me against because of my thyroid problem), and have also asked her about SAM-E, but she also advised against it because i am on the Welbutrin and Lamictal, but aside from knocking myself unconscious, I don't know what else to do.

I will as of tomorrow, try to scramble to find somebody who will see me through the system for free because after consulting with my husband tonight about our finances, we simply can't afford to pay anybody through private practice. I had maxed out this year's limit with other "therapy/councelling/life coaching sessions" (at 175$ hour, and my yearly limit being $500) and since i am not working, or in any real shape to do so, unemployment has run out and welfare not really an option since we are "supposed to be making enough income" to survive, life seems at best, bleak. Over the years, I have been through the system many times. I know that after my first nervous breakdown some 21 years ago, the average waiting time back then was 3-6 months at best to see a doctor through the hospital. Honesty, I don't think that i will be able to last that long, (if not longer now) and that scares me, well, to death.

Once again, I apologize profusely for sending you this email, but i want you to know what is happening since you are following my case and do know me and my sorted history, but also because in my current state, am manic so can type quickly, and i can still type and weep at the same time, unlike talking on the phone - this needed to be told and don't know if i will be as coherent or in any shape to talk about this tomorrow.

If you would like, you can call me at home tonight.

I will take another ativan to try to stay calm, but 1mg will be tonight's limit, and i really hope that will be enough. If anything, my husband is at the ready to take me to the hospital if need be.

And tomorrow, I will be on a photo assignment from 10 to 1pm, and then away from 5-11pm, and Friday morning might be the best time to call me at home, but because i am (trying to) working with an organization that needs photos quickly, my computer is always on.

I'm attaching my mood charts so you can see what has been going on. In all actuality, October has been quite an uneventful month, and normally, that would have in turn, stabilized my mood. When things around me in my life get out of control, i tend to swing, but with a calm environment, my swings came out of the blue and have taken me completely by surprise and have terrified me.

Dr. C, thank you once again for your compassion and understanding of my difficult and complex situation, and once again, sincerely and deeply apologize for troubling you.

Sincerely,

HpK

5am and my letter to a friend in a gallery in New york city

September 21st, 2009

From the desk of hellophotokitty...

20

Hey Bob,

it's been a long long while.

How have you been?

well, so much has happened here, i wouldn't know where to begin, so I'll give you the condensed reader's Digest version (or at least i will try...)

mom's cancer has come and gone, and come back again. Her ordeal has been nothing short of unbelievable. When I tell people about this story, they often shake their heads and say: "ooh, she must have had some bad karma". Fuck Karma, blame it on genetics. Bad genetics.

As i think i may have told you, it started off with her skin cancer, followed by a year of interferon. Then it came back - spreading to her lungs. A serious operation which left the experience of being in one of the city's apparently foremost cancer care research center/care facility equal or greater than having your fingernails slowly pulled out one by one, while having them dipped in a vat of iodine for hours on end. An anthropologist friend of ours visited her during her stay. "I've been to Ethiopia and and some of the other poorest parts of Africa. This hospital is about as close to a third world country on this continent as you can get". So much for our shining healthcare system...

So we had hoped she was in the clear, and for a while she was, until a few months later, the cancer came back onto another spot in her lung. Her options? Let the disease run it's course or try the new immunotherapy treatment called IL2 - Interlucan 2. Simply put, the last ditch effort at cancer, and as brutal as they come. Many patients have to be put into intensive care during the rounds and some even die. Mom made two complete rounds (1 week on, one week off, x 2 - and then times another two a few months later). And a miracle of miracles - the tumors had not only shrunk, but disappeared. A medical miracle. But it took its toll.

She was well for the Wedding (yea, E and i finally tied the knot after 10 years. I had to wait a decade. He's a little slow sometimes, but has a good heart...;-) which was the most important thing. She got to walk me down the isle and do the whole mother daughter thing every mother wants to experience. It was simply the most wonderful and delicate moments of my life. And everything was perfect - the day, the weather, the food, my dress, my hair, except my shoes. E trampled all over those during our first dance - a Foxtrot, which we had spent months practicing. Well, at least they weren't more than the dress and we did manage to look good on the floor.

So honeymoon to Cuba which was another dream come true. God bless Castro - he managed to keep this pristine gem of an island unspoiled and overrun by tourists and MacDonalds corporations, but now it's anybody's guess how long before you can smoke a "Cubano" cigar with your Big Mac...

We get back and two weeks later, find out mom's cancer has come back. Again. In her small bowel and intestine. Invasive surgery pronto. She is healing well now, but once again, through the jungle belly of The General Hospital which we have come to know and love (and the food, paper pulp and glass shards have more taste than the shit over there...) she managed to overcome great obstacles, but at what cost?

All of this cancer battling has done a number on all of us. It's true that cancer touches everyone, not only the people who suffer from it. Personally, i have literally gone underground. Hiding in dark subway stations, people's basements and if i go any lower, I'll be sitting in 5 feet of dirt. But there is a strange thing going on. I have shut off my "art valve". My creative spark which once propelled me to fearlessly bare everything (literally), and march into New York City with an attitude and some hot pix into your gallery, has now all but died out.

I play your wise words over and over again in my head: "you gotta pick one thing and stick with it, be it photography, writing or cinema." Well, i have tried all three separately to varying degrees, but it has been tantamount to shitting out the North tower of the world trade center. I have never felt so constipated creatively in my life. I have put down the camera, taken up the pen, put that down to fiddle with a video camera, but nothing. And it's freaking me the fuck out.

Hmmph. This what is now looking like to be a long letter, but i will try to refrain from babbling...

How do you do it Bob? How do you keep fresh in the midst of life's setbacks and crap that gets thrown to us on a daily basis? How do you weather the creative barren dusty death valleys when you are lead into them by blind faith or perhaps a sadistic form of deliberate bad judgment in map reading of rugged territory? Do you think that we "need this" to define us or our art or both at the same time?

I have spoken to my other "artist friends" and they say something along the lines of: "oh it will pass" or the sappy: "you'll find your muse/spark/purpose soon". But what happens when you don't? Bob, I have seen your art. It's intense, vibrant, chaotic, fearless and fearful at the same time. I have a funny feeling that you must have gone through some serious shit in your time. Some serious shit that must have also brought you to the brink of a creative meltdown. What made you turn around? Or have you even turned around at all?

Sometimes I get sentimental about New York and look at the post card from your gallery, the show I was (and still amazed at having being) a part of. There is a side of me who mourns for the loss of this ballsy in-your face "i am woman hear me roar" person. And part of me wonders where the hell she has taken off to cause i know she's around somewhere. Or is she?

I guess I'm writing all this to you because i know you understand me, and the complexity of my artistic process as you have been witness to the genesis of many of my pieces. I don't want you to think I'm asking you for a psych evaluation here, (if i were doing this in person, then i would at least take you out for dinner first), but i just wanted to touch base in my own quirky outrageous vulnerable way.

Perhaps it's a rusty pipe dream, but i hope that one day, after all is said and done, and i manage to shit out an earth shattering piece of work that will give everybody who sees it a boner that will last them a lifetime, that it will hang in your gallery (not the boner, but the piece of art, although a hanging boner framed and put under glass is an interesting conceptual piece that i might just run with...). Well, stranger things have happened.

It was not too long ago that i came to New York city for the first time and was almost literally laughed out of the Art gallery, and then I blinked again and there i was, naked and under glass in your gallery, hung in a primo spot (and with a couch no less. Did I ever thank you for that prime real estate spot you bestowed on me? Well if not, so many belated thank yous.)

I find it odd how I have held off sending you this letter for a long while. Perhaps I felt strange not sending you something "new" from the hpk photographic factory of debauchery and insanity, but keep hope that somehow, somewhere i will pick up my pretty picture machine again. And when I do, you can be sure that you will be the first fucken person in the whole wide world to know about it.

so on that note, I will close this letter.

I have chosen to turn this into a letter letter rather than email. Guess getting back to my creative roots, back in the days when a pen, typewriter and a piece of paper was a civilized way of communicating to the outside world , makes me feel a little more connected in an often disconnected world.

And oh yea, I'm giving you a copy of the "gift cd" I made for our wedding guests. From a to z - did everything on it. But as much as I would like to take credit for composing "fly me to the moon" for Old Blue Eyes and other great swinging tunes as well, I'm happy to say that I'm still a retro queen at heart and pretty creative with the graphic design ideas.

Take good care of yourself Bob. Give my love to Seb and Mari and then save a little for yourself :-)

And thank you for everything, including looking at/listening/reading my stuff, but most of all, believing in me and my art.

Hpk

and so the saga continues...

I don't know what to say...

I was beyond "floored" when I got this.

E and I had just come back from an AMAZING vacation in Cuba (God, I love that place) - sun, sand and good times. We were both well rested (it took E a big longer - he actually had two conference calls, or attempts at conference calls - not to mention that my cell bill is going to be over 500$ for sure, and only really began to relax mid week) and came back refreshed and tanned. We had never been on vacation together before - never a "real" vacation that didn't involve camping or "rolling work into a vacation" tip, so this message was such a ice cold welcome back home.

On shitbook, unless somebody creates a "subject line" for a message, only the first few lines appear in the "from" line. So there I was, all excited about this nice note from dad, which quickly turned into sobs of anger and frustration.

Seriously - what the fuck?!

I suggest that you read the following entries to really get the gist of what is going on. After you read part 1 and part 2 you will have a new appreciation of how confused I am as how to reply.

HPK,

Your wedding was a dream. Your beauty and E's personality were the tops. The location and setting were "A" class and once again I congratulate the both of you.


Something was out of line and hit me hard. As I was not any part of your wedding, I wondered why..... was I invited.


I have to express my deep hurt feelings as I felt so much like an outcast.


No pictures of you and I were taken. Not even one.

I was not even part of "The Family Reception Line " to meet all of your guests. At that moment...... I felt like leaving......, but decided to say as I had to much respect for your wedding day.


Your comment to me on the reception line "THANKS FOR COMING" as if me ...DAD, was considered as a GUEST. That hurt ..the most.


Not once did you come personally to see your Dad and talk for a bit.


I refer to my email of the of March and your reply in which both our us had suffered enough over the past 30 years and the mending time as GROWN ADULTS were in process and turn the pages of the past and begin a new loving one as Father and Daughter.


I was hoping for this change to be and you had a chance to mend things together at your wedding...... obliviously it was far from your process and now I realize the true picture.


30 years is a long time to carry a grudge , and life must go on through many more tough hurdles and ever so passes by so quickly.


You made your choice and I accept your decision to keep your "Father of the Bride", regardless of the past, out of the pictures on this truly special daughters marriage occasion.


So...... as I now will turn another page in my life with you, I wish the both of you Happiness.

hello mr. president?

I found something that caught my eye in some bridal magazine, so I thought I'd investigate.

"Send your invitation to the President and get a signed reply" *

What the hell? I said to myself.

So during the past two weeks, in-between mania, depression, hallucinations, excitations, good and bad vibrations, I sent this off.

I'm not hoping for much, but was pleased as punch when the UPS tracking number said that my little package (invite, rsvp card, letter, and Lounge Cd extraordinaire!) made it into the Big House.

very cool

So here it is - my letter.

Pass the box of kleenex!!

Monday, May 11, 2009

(26 days and counting…)

Dear President Obama, and First Lady Michele,

It is with great pleasure, and such excitement that my fiancé and I are able to send you an invitation to our wedding!

As a Canadian, I must say, your last visit here, however brief, inspired our country on a political level, but most of all - on a personal level. A feeling of transformation, of renewed hope in these times of despair, conviction to overcome obstacles, and vision for a harmonious future can now be within reach during your upcoming terms as President.

With so many pressing issues across the globe today, it must seem that the world is resting on your shoulders as the eyes of millions look to you for solutions and guidance – but I have no doubt that your courage, compassion for humanity, belief in what is just and true will bring about many positive changes.

I must say, President Obama and Mrs. Obama, it is such a great privilege to be able to send you an invitation to our wedding; and as model married couple, your deep love for each other is so very beautiful and has become such an inspiration to my fiancé and I.  Having been together for already 10 years, E and I know how important it is to be supportive of one another. Having both parents on both sides live with cancer, we have become each-other's rock of Gibraltar.  I can't even begin to imagine how many years in politics must have caused strain on your marriage; but every TV interview together, you show such patience, kindness and support to one another which is just so refreshing to see.

I would have no doubt that a trip to Montreal at this point in time would be out of the question as the potential re-emergence of the swine flu, instability in the financial markets, and the volatility of the middle east, your need to keep abreast of these events takes precedence over an unknown Canadian couple’s wedding, but knowing that you will in some way, be connected to our special day is a great honor and blessing.

When my mother was diagnosed three years ago with an extremely rare and highly aggressive form of melanoma, having undergone countless surgeries and several rounds of chemotherapy (the last round being IL2 – the most difficult and often last resort of cancer treatments), the doctors gave her a 10-15% chance of survival after one year.  Having a loved one, especially a mother, diagnosed with cancer is an incredibly painful, lonely and sad moment.  I’m sure you must have felt much of what I had gone (and still go) through after your mother's diagnosis.  But when my mom heard about your stepping into the political spotlight, she confided in me:

“K, a few hours after Martin Luther King Jr. had been shot, you were born. The world mourned and a dream of a black president, for many, had died. But within this moment of sadness, the beginning of your little life brought me so much joy.

Many years later, the first time I hear about Barack Obama’s campaign, listened to him speak, I had renewed faith that someone like him would carry on MLK’s dream. My birthday being the same day as Dr. King, and you being born on the day of his assignation, I feel there is such serendipity and connection with this senator from Illinois, that I intend on living long enough to see him become President.” 

And when the last set of projections from CNN came in, we both wept tears of joy. That night, we celebrated her strength and courage in her battle with cancer, and the dawn of a new and transformational era in world politics. The words of MLK echoed in our minds and hearts – his dream was coming true.

I apologize if this letter is long winded (it’s not everyday that I get a chance to write to the President of the United States!) and even though I have no expectation that you would make it down to Montreal for our “big day” (and besides, this venue alone would be a logistical nightmare for your secret service, and police escorts, not to mention that feeding your entourage might difficult on our small budget) but knowing that somewhere in the White House, you your beautiful wife, might be reading this letter, enjoying our “easy listening lounge” CD, and knowing that we will be making a toast in your honor – a toast to your success, safety and health for you and your family, will be putting a smile on our faces a mile long.

And if you ever happen to stop by Montreal on your next Canadian visit, my future husband, my mom and I (can you tell we are such huge fan of the Obamas ?) would be absolutely delighted to show you the sights and savor the unique French Canadian cuisine (if you like Beaver Tails, and enjoy a good burger every once and a while – a "Poutine" which is a dish of french fries slathered in sauce and cheddar cheese curds would be well worth the gastronomical adventure).

Have a wonderful day and thank you again for taking the time to read our letter.

(and we sincerely apologize for the date on the RSVP card – we could not get to our graphic artist to change it to a later one…)

Sincerely Yours,

 K & E

* had I seen this earlier, I would have invited the Queen and the Pope as well...