She had an issue with taking blood from my dominant arm, something which the nurse had no problem with when doing the pre-screening tests, but wanted to know why she couldn’t take it out of my other arm. I told her that I currently had a wound that was healing on my non dominant arm and it was bandaged which meant it would be difficult for her to get access to a vein. It seemed to shut her up. She was good though, got blood the first time, which is quite amazing for me. Now it just has to be sent off to the lab and I await the results.

At present I am on a low dose of lithium, 400mg/day, and my levels will determine how this is altered. Luckily I have been quite lucky with the side effects. After the first morning where I was a zombie and very dazed and confused I don’t seem to have noticed much difference. I am exceptionally thirsty though, and with the excessive thirst comes the other problem of continually needing to pee. This is OK at home but was quite difficult to manage at work yesterday and as a result I know I didn’t drink as much as I should have done.

My other main worry with starting lithium was the possibility of weight gain but it seems to have had the opposite effect. My appetite has totally tailed off, this might be coincidence, or more likely down to the fact that I am drinking so much water that I am feeling perpetually full. Either way I’m not going to complain too much.

I also saw the practice nurse this afternoon about the above mentioned wound on my arm that isn’t healing and she had a bit of a go at me for having more fresh wounds and sutures in since it was last looked at on Friday afternoon. I know she cares and she was only reinforcing the fact that I heal slowly anyway and adding the fact that it is a scar healing on top of a scar into that equation isn’t beneficial but it felt like she was patronising me. She asked me if I had any support and I told her about my CPN and how when I saw her on Wednesday I ended up feeling worse than I did before I saw her and she just told me to see my GP to find out if there is anything else they can offer me.

Tomorrow brings another day at home seeing as I swapped my day off so that my job share can go to a family wedding. This has somewhat confused me as I am used to working Wednesday and having Friday off, not the other way round, but it is only for one week and it does help a colleague which is always good for the conscience. Work is a bit manic (no pun intended) at the moment and my job share doesn’t seem to be being held in high esteem by other colleagues, due to taking time off a fortnight ago and not informing anyone of the work that needed covering whilst she was away, so I feel she needs all the help she can get!

Anyway, it means that I finally get a lie in tomorrow morning. Bliss.