Just click the image above! :)
Hey Everybody! I’m really excited about this new show on TNT called “Perception.” http://www.tntdrama.com/series/perception/
It stars Eric McCormack (of Will & Grace fame) as a university professor, author and crime solver who is also living with schizophrenia! I’m always skeptical of depictions of people with mental illness on TV and in movies, because they usually make them out to be psychopathic killers or something. I’ve watched the first two episodes of the show so far, and I think they do an excellent job of making the character seem like a regular human being! It is so fantastic! They use the hallucinations as kind of a dramatic device and employ some other Beautiful Mind-esque devices to try to make it like the viewer can see what the character is seeing. Some commenters have argued that it doesn’t show the horrific aspects of schizophrenia enough, but I personally like that they are showing him to be a regular person, and an intelligent one at that! I like that they show him holding down a job, interacting with people socially, and using the help of other people to reality test. I’m excited to see how the character and the show develop and I hope it gets picked up for another season! Please check it out if you get a chance! Again, it is on TNT Monday nights. Here is the TNT link: http://www.tntdrama.com/series/perception/
I’m taking a Women’s Studies course at school and we are looking at the topic of Motherhood. This week we are discussing motherhood and disabilities, and I came across this wonderful video series that is made by a student about a mother who has schizophrenia and how it has impacted her life and the life of her daughter. I think he did a really good job! The video is divided into four parts and I hope you watch all four parts! :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx6j_Tyb8Uo&feature=share&list=PL81E9C419F7641FD8
I finished my pink kitties with the fat fairy pocket today! :) Yay! So glad they are going to a good home!!! :)
I just posted this on my FB page, but I had to post here. I think this is so funny. This pic comes from my Differential Equations textbook. They were talking about modeling using differential equations, and in the process talked about cats falling from high rises, so they included this pic of a cat with a parachute! Math nerds rock! :) lol
Pink kitties in the works!
Right now I’m working on these pink kitties. I’m making the eyes with felt instead of buttons, because it is for a baby. I’m hoping that babies don’t eat the other stuff on the kitty! lol I’m sewing the stuff on pretty tightly, but babies can be strangely strong! The fat fairy on the pocket is my own design! :)
I first wrote about taking my Haldol injections back in 2007 in https://kristinbell.org/2007/07/23/the-haldol-injections/.
I wanted to report that yes, I’m still getting the Haldol injections now once every three weeks. Haldol is an antipsychotic medication used to treat psychosis like that found in schizophrenia. I have schizophrenia and started getting the Haldol injections back in late 2000…I guess it was November or December of 2000. The Haldol injections combined with all the other meds I take have been a miracle for me.
So far (knock on wood) I haven’t had many side-effects from the medication. I haven’t yet developed tardive dyskinesia. I hope that I don’t.
I had to start getting the Haldol injections, because I couldn’t take my medications as prescribed. It sounds like a simple enough task, but my illness got in the way of me adhering to my medication regiment, and I’d wind up going off my meds and going crazy. I’ve had a good run with the Haldol. I haven’t been hospitalized since starting it, and if you know anything about people with mental illness, that is quite a feat! :) Without the injection form of the medication I’m pretty sure I’d still be bouncing in and out of insanity and in and out of hospitals.
Haldol is a powerful medication, and not one that people enjoy taking. It can cause a lot of sedation, but in the right dose with the right brain it is a miracle drug. It doesn’t work for everyone, and I probably wouldn’t extoll the virtues of it if I was taking the oral form of the medication. With the injection form of the medication I am able to take less of the medication while still getting the benefits of it. I believe that there are also short-acting Haldol injections for acutely psychotic patients, but I am getting the long-acting injections which metabolize over a number of weeks.
I know that a lot of people, including people with schizophrenia and other brain diseases, are afraid of getting injections of medication. If you are paranoid and psychotic, like I was when I first got the injection, it is terrifying to get the injections. I actually believed that the doctors were giving me a lethal injection to kill me when I got my first dose. It turns out that it was the best thing that ever happened to me, not the worst. Now there are other medications that come in injection forms too. Meds like Risperdal and others. If Haldol doesn’t work for someone then maybe one of the other injectables will work. At any rate, I think it is worth giving them a try. It may take awhile to get used to the meds and to get the correct dosing, but it is worth it in the end.
Pandas in Circles!
My third panda fabric, Panda in Circles, came in the mail the other day! I just love it and wish I knew how to sew better, so I could make something awesome! lol I think the fabric turned out supercute! :) I love me some pandas! Yay!
All Over Pandas Fabric
Pandas Stripe Fabric
Two of three of my panda fabrics arrived today from spoonflower! Yay! I think they look really cute! The third one (that might come tomorrow) has dots. I’ll post that when it arrives too! :) Yay for pandas! :)
Oh, and here are the links for the fabrics:
All over pandas: http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/1202926
Panda stripes: http://www.spoonflower.com/fabric/1202991
I always get really excited when I start taking new classes, and this year is no exception! This summer I’m excited to take Calc 4, basically vector calculus and Mth256 which is Differential Equations! I’m excited and nervous! I hope things work out okay. I’m also excited about Fall term when I hope to at least take Chemistry and Biology and maybe Advanced Calculus! It might be too much to add the Advanced Calc class, but I really want to keep up with the math skills so I don’t forget it all!!! I’ve actually taken the first term of Chem and Bio before, but it was a long time ago when I wasn’t really doing all that well, and I didn’t really do the homework at that time. Anyway, it was so long ago that I pretty much forgot everything, so I’m going to take them again and hopefully get more into it this time and really understand everything! The unfortunate thing about Chem and Bio at my college is that they only start the sequence in the Fall, so if I want to take the whole year I need to start Fall term. I’m signed up, so I hope it works out! I will have to get up earlier than normal, so that is going to be a challenge that I hope I can tackle. Also, textbooks are ridiculously expensive, but the good thing about Chem and Bio is that they use the same books the whole year, so I’m only out of money for Fall term! I hope I can do it and not drop the classes! :)
kristinbell.org 