Tonight
The good news is that I did it. I gathered up the courage to go to the emergency med clinic.
The bad news is that it was a total waste of time.
I left a couple of hours ago, at 1:15 am. I went so late/early because I was hoping there would be less people there this time of night. That would help both my anxiety and the wait, since the therapist who suggested I go there said the wait can be upward of 5 hours.
Well, I walked in and there wasn't another patient to be seen. Within a couple of minutes there were two more people, but I was the first, so would be treated first, so thought I'd really nailed the timing.
Wrong.
After the lady did the evaluation (a process I'm getting used to after having done both an in-patient evaluation and a public health evaluation in the last couple months), she told me there was no doctor on site and that I'd probably have to wait to between late morning or early afternoon to see one.
This was at 2am, mind you. That's pushing a 12-hour wait.
I told her I couldn't do that since I needed to get the van back to my mom so she could leave for work tomorrow. I said I could drop her off at work though and then come back if the doctor could see me then. She said they couldn't schedule me a time or anything, so if I did come back at say 10 to 11am (when the doctor(s) get in), that I probably wouldn't be seen till after the time I would need to leave anyway to pick my mom up from work.
So that left the only option as coming back at 4 to 5pm, after my mom got home from work and I was able to get the van. Unfortunately, that's their absolutely worst, most hectic time. God knows how long it would take then to be seen. Plus, it would completely eat into my time for going to buy a suit for the job fair.
So basically I'm screwed. No anti-anxiety medicine for me till February 6th, the date of my original public health appointment. Which means no medication for the job fair. Which means potentially no job fair at all.
Which sucks for many reasons, not the least of which is letting down my mom. She's supported me all this time, and I'd like to be able to show her I'm making some external progress to landing a job, even if internally I'm still in no state to maintain one.
Speaking of my mom, I did something that could have made her very very sad. The verdict's not in on whether it would have, I'll have to wait till she wakes up in an hour and a half and ask her.
Here's how it went down. Before I left for the emergency med clinic, just by chance I happened to see an envelope on my desk that I hadn't opened and which was from my public health care provider. So I opened it and read the letter, which said that starting in December, they're going to start charging $5 for "non-emergency emergency room visits". Well, I was already worried that my situation would already be deemed non-emergency, despite the fact that I can barely leave the house anymore, and therefore they wouldn't give me meds. Now, on top of that, I had to worry that they would be charging me $5 or else I couldn't even see a doctor. Well, that wouldn't be too big a deal for most people, but I don't have $5. I don't have $1. I don't have a penny. Haven't for a couple years now since I came home to live.
So I rifled through my mom's purse to grab some money just in case. All she had in there was a $20, so I grabbed it and headed down to the clinic.
Well, you know that story. And the mention of any kind of payment never came up.
So I left there and on the way home I decided to help out my mom and use $10 of the $20 to put gas in her van since she was low. I also decided to spend a dollar on myself and get this kick-ass french-vanilla shake they have there, as a little reward to myself for having mustered the courage to go to the clinic.
So anyway, I grab the shake and head to the cash register. I hand the guy the $20 and tell him the shake and $10 on pump 5. He takes the $20 and starts to put it in the cash register when he pauses. "Wow," he says, examining the bill. "This is old school."
"Oh," I say.
"Yeah, this is a 1963 $20."
Right then I probably should have put down the french-vanilla, told him to forget the gas, and taken the $20 back. Right away the thought struck me that my mom was saving this $20. She works with a lot of money per year, around a million dollars, and it immediately hit me that this was a bill she was saving.
But I didn't.
Instead I get the change and head out to the van to pump gas in it. And it seemed the more full the tank became the more empty my stomach was feeling. It was becoming more and more real to me that there was a very good chance I'd just done something incredibly stupid. But what could I do now? I'd been drinking the french vanilla and the gas was already in the van. And if I don't have a penny, I sure as shit don't have another $20 to swap the '63 out with.
So I drove home. But on the way there, an idea struck me. I'd go through my mom's purse and find her debit card. I know her pin number so would drive quickly up to the ATM, withdrawal a $20, and then go back to the gas station and switch it out.
Well, that's all fine and dandy, but when I start going through her purse, I can't find her debit card anywhere. I find all her other cards. I find cards I didn't even know she had. I find damn everything but the debit. I look. I re-look. I re-look again.
Finally after 10 minutes of looking through a small purse, I find it hidden under some papers in her checkbook. I grab it and head a mile west to the closest bank, withdrawal $20, and then head two miles east, back to the gas station.
I go in and say to the guy, "Remember me?" When I explained the situation, and asked if I could switch it out, he said, seriously, "Oh man. I was planning on keeping it." But he was cool, and gave it back to me and I drove back home with it in my pocket singing "Hail the conquering hero."
Busy night.
And as if all that wasn't productive enough, I also got ready 3 letters which my mom will be mailing off for me today. One is a donation to brad/stripcreator, another is an explanation of my views on religion to that fear factor friend who sent me that christian book for christmas, and the last is a 3-1/2 floppy of my book to Casey, my engineering friend in Pasadena.
All of this is probably a normal day from most people, but for me that's like 3 months of work in one night.
The bad news is that it was a total waste of time.
I left a couple of hours ago, at 1:15 am. I went so late/early because I was hoping there would be less people there this time of night. That would help both my anxiety and the wait, since the therapist who suggested I go there said the wait can be upward of 5 hours.
Well, I walked in and there wasn't another patient to be seen. Within a couple of minutes there were two more people, but I was the first, so would be treated first, so thought I'd really nailed the timing.
Wrong.
After the lady did the evaluation (a process I'm getting used to after having done both an in-patient evaluation and a public health evaluation in the last couple months), she told me there was no doctor on site and that I'd probably have to wait to between late morning or early afternoon to see one.
This was at 2am, mind you. That's pushing a 12-hour wait.
I told her I couldn't do that since I needed to get the van back to my mom so she could leave for work tomorrow. I said I could drop her off at work though and then come back if the doctor could see me then. She said they couldn't schedule me a time or anything, so if I did come back at say 10 to 11am (when the doctor(s) get in), that I probably wouldn't be seen till after the time I would need to leave anyway to pick my mom up from work.
So that left the only option as coming back at 4 to 5pm, after my mom got home from work and I was able to get the van. Unfortunately, that's their absolutely worst, most hectic time. God knows how long it would take then to be seen. Plus, it would completely eat into my time for going to buy a suit for the job fair.
So basically I'm screwed. No anti-anxiety medicine for me till February 6th, the date of my original public health appointment. Which means no medication for the job fair. Which means potentially no job fair at all.
Which sucks for many reasons, not the least of which is letting down my mom. She's supported me all this time, and I'd like to be able to show her I'm making some external progress to landing a job, even if internally I'm still in no state to maintain one.
Speaking of my mom, I did something that could have made her very very sad. The verdict's not in on whether it would have, I'll have to wait till she wakes up in an hour and a half and ask her.
Here's how it went down. Before I left for the emergency med clinic, just by chance I happened to see an envelope on my desk that I hadn't opened and which was from my public health care provider. So I opened it and read the letter, which said that starting in December, they're going to start charging $5 for "non-emergency emergency room visits". Well, I was already worried that my situation would already be deemed non-emergency, despite the fact that I can barely leave the house anymore, and therefore they wouldn't give me meds. Now, on top of that, I had to worry that they would be charging me $5 or else I couldn't even see a doctor. Well, that wouldn't be too big a deal for most people, but I don't have $5. I don't have $1. I don't have a penny. Haven't for a couple years now since I came home to live.
So I rifled through my mom's purse to grab some money just in case. All she had in there was a $20, so I grabbed it and headed down to the clinic.
Well, you know that story. And the mention of any kind of payment never came up.
So I left there and on the way home I decided to help out my mom and use $10 of the $20 to put gas in her van since she was low. I also decided to spend a dollar on myself and get this kick-ass french-vanilla shake they have there, as a little reward to myself for having mustered the courage to go to the clinic.
So anyway, I grab the shake and head to the cash register. I hand the guy the $20 and tell him the shake and $10 on pump 5. He takes the $20 and starts to put it in the cash register when he pauses. "Wow," he says, examining the bill. "This is old school."
"Oh," I say.
"Yeah, this is a 1963 $20."
Right then I probably should have put down the french-vanilla, told him to forget the gas, and taken the $20 back. Right away the thought struck me that my mom was saving this $20. She works with a lot of money per year, around a million dollars, and it immediately hit me that this was a bill she was saving.
But I didn't.
Instead I get the change and head out to the van to pump gas in it. And it seemed the more full the tank became the more empty my stomach was feeling. It was becoming more and more real to me that there was a very good chance I'd just done something incredibly stupid. But what could I do now? I'd been drinking the french vanilla and the gas was already in the van. And if I don't have a penny, I sure as shit don't have another $20 to swap the '63 out with.
So I drove home. But on the way there, an idea struck me. I'd go through my mom's purse and find her debit card. I know her pin number so would drive quickly up to the ATM, withdrawal a $20, and then go back to the gas station and switch it out.
Well, that's all fine and dandy, but when I start going through her purse, I can't find her debit card anywhere. I find all her other cards. I find cards I didn't even know she had. I find damn everything but the debit. I look. I re-look. I re-look again.
Finally after 10 minutes of looking through a small purse, I find it hidden under some papers in her checkbook. I grab it and head a mile west to the closest bank, withdrawal $20, and then head two miles east, back to the gas station.
I go in and say to the guy, "Remember me?" When I explained the situation, and asked if I could switch it out, he said, seriously, "Oh man. I was planning on keeping it." But he was cool, and gave it back to me and I drove back home with it in my pocket singing "Hail the conquering hero."
Busy night.
And as if all that wasn't productive enough, I also got ready 3 letters which my mom will be mailing off for me today. One is a donation to brad/stripcreator, another is an explanation of my views on religion to that fear factor friend who sent me that christian book for christmas, and the last is a 3-1/2 floppy of my book to Casey, my engineering friend in Pasadena.
All of this is probably a normal day from most people, but for me that's like 3 months of work in one night.