The "New Reality" is Cuts to Mental Health Care

Sad but true

Yesterday, an article in the Dayton Daily News discussed the closing of the inpatient psychiatric care facilities, as well as cutting back on some outpatient psychiatric services, at Greene Memorial Hospital, a member of the Kettering Health Network.  Patients formerly taken in by Greene Memorial will now be directed to Kettering Behavioral Health Center (the same facility that told me, when I was pregnant and walked in for an evaluation, they could "not ethically" let me leave because I was a threat to myself and my baby...and less than 20 minutes later dismissed me out of hand, because they could not admit me because I was pregnant and pregnancy was considered a medical condition they could not accommodate.  But that's a different story).

A spokesperson for the Kettering Health Network said that "'the new reality is that hospitals will be required to care for more patients with less reimbursement.'"  To get a general idea of how many mental health patients Greene Memorial usually services, the article mentions that they discharged 508 psychiatric patients in the "first 11 months of 2011."  According to US News and World Report, Greene Memorial Hospital has a total of 185 beds across all services, so it's a safe assumption that only a small percentage of these beds are in the psychiatric inpatient unit.  So the bottom line is that the area may be losing only a few total psychiatric inpatient spaces -- but when you've only got a few to start with, every space matters.

What's especially telling is that the amount of bad debt that Greene Memorial faced increased in the past few years, to a whopping 30% -- this while its patient volume actually decreased by 13% (these stats from the same article as I mentioned before).

Here's the naked truth:  mental health care is messy.  As I talked about when I discussed the closing of the Twin Valley Behavioral Health Center and replacement with the new Access Dayton mental health facility, many of the people in the mental health care system are also in some way involved in the courts/legal system -- meaning they have Medicare or Medicaid.  Thus we are right back around to the crux of the problem:  hospitals don't want to treat patients with Medicare, Medicaid, or other similar health insurance.  And it's no mystery why -- it's because the hospital very often doesn't get the reimbursement it needs to keep its services running, which then puts them at a deficit for other services, which messes with their financial solvency, etc. etc.   

I don't usually get real political on here, mainly because if I was pressed to profess an allegiance to any party, I'd say I'm in the Voter Apathy Party and I really just can't be bothered to sift through all the parties' crap to see what I really believe in.  But when I start talking about mental health care, it's a no-brainer.  Our health care system is broken.  It needs to be fixed.  I'm not exactly sure how to do that -- it's like moving a mountain with a teaspoon -- but just because it's a hard job isn't a good enough excuse to not do it.

Almost exactly a year ago, a state trooper  was responding to a disturbance at a trailer park near here (up towards Springfield), and was shot to death in a standoff-then-shootout.  There was much public outcry when it came to light that the shooter been in a shootout almost ten years before, then served two years in a mental institution after being found not guilty by reason of insanity.  Law enforcement called for a more accessible database of offenders found not guilty by reason of insanity, so the officers knew better what kind of situations they were walking in to.  Gee, I have an idea -- let's try to help these ill people so they aren't in another shootout.  I know, crazy -- but just crazy enough to work, maybe?

On a more national scale, one can point to the shooting of Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (and others) almost exactly a year ago, and all the discussion around the fact that the shooter, Jared Loughner, should have been receiving mental health care but wasn't, according to this NPR article, because of the stigma attached to mental illness.

Advocating for mental health care is not just about "taking care of our brothers and sisters," which clearly isn't a good enough reason for many people to take it seriously as a cause (though for those people who consider themselves Christians, it should be).  Mental illness, perhaps more than many other kinds of illness, has far-reaching tentacles that does not stop at the sufferer.  Failure to attain treatment for mental illness can reach far, affecting completely anonymous, innocent bystanders in the most horrific of ways. 

Unfortunately, with the constant closing of mental health facilities like Greene Memorial, Twin Valley Behavioral Health Center, and others all across the nation, I suspect it's going to get worse before it gets better.

The Required "New Year's Resolution" Post

I thought I'd join the rest of the world in dedicating my first post of 2012 to my "resolution" for the year.

I need to say, first, though, that I don't believe in New Year's Resolutions.  Or, at least, I don't believe in them for me -- I'm not good at saying "I must do this!", and then sticking to it.  As soon as I break my resolution, I pretty much give up and there go my good intentions.  Some people in my life would tell you that I lack resolve; I prefer to think that I like to stay flexible.

This being said, though, I am making one goal for myself for 2012. It's a little thing, really, and to most people, it doesn't seem like it would be particularly difficult, but judging by my 2011, it may be harder than it sounds for me.  My goal: stay out of the hospital.

With the year drawing to a close, I counted up all my overnight hospital stays I had in 2011, and it was a whopping ten.  Ten!  And it's not like I have cancer or some other terminal or chronic sickness.  Ten is unacceptable for an otherwise healthy 35 year old.  Here's the breakdown:

• Three overnight stays of varying lengths for preterm labor problems when I was pregnant in the first part of the year;
• One two-night stay when I had my sweet little 8-month-old in April;
• One one-night stay when I had my gall bladder removed in October;
• And a staggering five stays of varying lengths for psychiatric reasons -- three at the Lindner Center and two at the hospital.

I did a very cursory search for statistics on bipolar disorder and hospitalization, and according to the Stanley Bipolar Foundation Network, 85.1% of patients diagnosed with bipolar disorder had been hospitalized at some point, with patients being hospitalized on average 3 times.  Admittedly, this data is probably culled from the sickest bipolar patients (that's what the Stanley Bipolar Foundation works with), but it's still a pretty disturbing statistic.

So I've decided that I've used up my average number of hospitalizations -- and then some -- and I'm done.  In 2012, I'm going to be hospital-free.  All those "resolutionists" can keep their marathons, their 60 lbs, their TV-watching-reductions, their writing goals, and their volunteer resolve.

I just wanna stay home.

Psychiatric Synergy

I've been thinking a lot lately about psychiatric synergy (for lack of a better term).  In other words, when are you merely a collection of symptoms, and when are you something greater (or worse, as the case may be)?

For example, when I was hospitalized last month, I went through the admission assessments, as always, to figure out what to put on the admissions forms for diagnosis/reason for admission.  One symptom I had been displaying at the time that was a little bit odd for me was excessive irritation and anger.  My "breaking point" was very low, and it didn't take much provocation for me to lose it and have a full-on temper tantrum.  At one point I got angry at one of my kids, and I inexplicably took it out on the freezer; before I knew what I had done, I had emptied the freezer in one manic tantrum, its contents strewn all over my living room.  There were peas everywhere, and my husband found a package of butter two weeks later behind a chair.  On a positive note, my five year old painstakingly picked up all the peas without being asked, and it kept her busy for quite a while.

In general, I'm not prone to tantrums, especially since I started taking antidepressant and antipsychotic meds.  So when I was being admitted to the hospital, I felt the need to mention this incident and a few other similar incidents to the admitting nurses.

I'm sure that psychiatric nurses and psychiatrists are trained to be facially neutral when talking to patients, but it seems like there are a few "key words" that make them light up like a Christmas tree when they hear a patient mention them.  "Tantrum," "rage," and "anger" seem to be some of those words.  They hear that I have a problem controlling my anger and it's like a big checkmark on a mental list, and you can almost feel them tuning out anything you have to say after that.

Now, I agree that trashing my kitchen is a little bit of a red flag that something is wrong.  What bothers me, though, is the fact that nobody bothered to ask what else was going on in my life.  I was trying to potty-train a three-year-old; trying to deal with two kids' birthdays in three weeks, still recovering from gall bladder surgery, gearing up for Christmas, etc.  In other words, I had a lot of other stress-inducing incidents going on in my life, so maybe it was premature to chalk everything up to mania/hypomania/mixed-mania-depression.   But the nurses seemed to seize on those incidents like dogs with bones.

This isn't the first time something like this has happened, when I dropped a "keyword."  Just mention either of the words "adopted" or "divorce" to a psychiatrist, and you can see the mental gears clicking into place.  Add in any--even minor --issues with alcohol, and you'll be lucky if you ever get out of that office.

I don't deny that our experiences make us who we are; but why are some of us "mentally ill" and others are just "stressed out parents"?  I know a lot of people who would have temper trantrums after telling a three-year-old to sit on the toilet, then five minutes later having to clean poop out of her underwear for the umpteenth time.  Why do I get stuck in a mental health facility for a week and get my brain zapped with electricity, and other people get taken out for sympathy margaritas?  I admit, I was the one who brought up the incidents, who told the nurses about getting angry.  Perhaps what is most telling was that the incidents bothered me -- I didn't like trashing my kitchen, I don't like yelling at my kids.  But, for better or for worse, I have three little kids, and they can be irritating.  What level of irritation is "normal" and what is cause for concern?  Some days I wonder how any mother of little kids can get through a day without a serious dose of Xanax.

Part of me thinks that the fact that I am concerned about the incidents means that I've got at least a marginal grip on reality.  Isn't that was Lucy says to Charlie Brown in A Charlie Brown Christmas?  Something about "as they say on TV, the fact that you think you need help means that you're not too far gone" (I'm paraphrasing).  But it annoys me when every little personality quirk or flaw takes on heavy meaning, when maybe it is just what it is -- a bad day, a bad minute, an overstressed instant.  It's like I can't lose my temper without it taking on some huge meaning.

In other news, I have my last "acute" ECT treatment tomorrow (which means 3X a week).  After that I'll probably start on "continuation" treatments, which  means once a week for a month, then "maintenance" treatments, which is once a month for a while.  I'm really, really looking forward to being done with these things.  I do think they've helped, but they're a monumental pain in my ass (and head). 

And I finished another Kuku doll, and am currently blocking my headwarmer.  I had been meaning to make myself some fingerless gloves for a while, but I was at the Gap last night and found a cute pair or cable-knit gauntlets for $8 -- I couldn't buy yarn for that amount of money.  So, Merry Christmas to me.

It's Shocking, but there's Even Something I'm Reluctant to Talk About: ECT

When I was in the hospital last week, I went in with three goals.  The first was to stay safe; the second was to get my meds regulated; the third was to have a consultation about Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT).  The last time I was in an outpatient appointment with my psychiatrist, we talked about the possibility of ECT, and she scheduled a consultation with the doctor at the Lindner Center (where I was hospitalized) who does the ECT therapy.  She couldn't get me in to see him until the 27th of December, but if I was an inpatient, I knew I could see him much quicker.

In case you're wondering, yes, ECT is that treatment -- formerly known as Electroshock Therapy.   When people think of ECT, the first thing that usually comes to mind is that famous (and disturbing) scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest where Jack Nicholson's character undergoes ECT as a form of punishment (link goes to YouTube clip).  In fact, that although ECT's popularity as a form of therapy was already on the wane by the time the movie was released in 1975, public opinion plummeted so because of the depiction that ECT became a therapy of last resort, indicated only for chronic, treatment-resistant depression and catatonic depression (from electroboy.com).

In the last 30+ years, however, ECT has gained more popularity as a safe, effective treatment for severe depression, bipolar depression and mania, and other forms of mental illness.  So here we are, and here I am.

Today I had my second ECT treatment; the first was on Monday.  Over the next week and a half, I'll have four more.  They're not particularly fun, and I'm left sore, a little groggy, and with a major headache, but the doctor says those side effects should get better the more I'll do. 

In the next week or two, I'm going to write more about the history of ECT, how it works, and personal testimonies.  Today, though, I just wanted to "break the ice," so to speak, and come out and say that I'm actually now undergoing ECT treatments.

And I feel weird, and a little embarrassed, saying it.

I guess because most people still think of ECT as a barbaric, radical treatment, something that only really "far-gone" people do, something that most people would never even consider, I feel like it's something I should hide -- or at least keep to myself as much as possible.  That I should only tell a certain few people who know me, whose opinions wouldn't be affected by my decision.

But what's the point of keeping a blog, of putting everything else out there, if I'm not going to talk about this, too?  I've spoken about being hospitalized, and I know people have certain stigmas about that.  I know that people I've known for a long time look at me a little differently since the first time I was hospitalized, so I may as well add one more log to the fire.

I decided to go ahead and go with ECT therapy because I'm so tired of feeling like crap, and of taking medication after medication and having none of them work, while their side effects diminish my quality of life even further.  I want my old self back, and from talking to the doctors and from my own research, I think ECT is at least worth a try. 

And, as always, I'll be keeping you in the loop.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

That's right, I'm out of the clink -- er, hospital -- and back home.  I just took a really long, hot shower and thoroughly enjoyed not having to hit the little button every two minutes for the water to stay on.

I have not forgotten my give-away; there's just a little snafu.  Nobody wrote in the comments when you liked BPK on Facebook!  My Facebook "Likes" went up, but since I'm technologically stupid at the moment, I can't figure out who actually hit "Like" in the last week or so.  So I'll figure something else out...maybe give it based on who has commented in the last week?  That may work.

In addition to leaving the hospital today, I actually had my first of six scheduled ECT (Electroconvulsive Therapy) treatments this morning.  Let me tell you, it was trippy.  I will write more about that soon, but I have to be truthful -- even I feel like ECT is a sort of taboo topic.  In the meantime, I'll figure out this giveaway issue.  If you really think you'd like to read the book (again, it's Start Something that Matters by Blake Mycoskie, the TOMS guy -- it is pretty inspiring), send me an email or leave a comment and maybe I'll just send it to the first person who asks!

Oh, and p.s. -- my dad is out of the hospital and is doing well.  Obviously, I decided not to go if, instead, I went to the hospital myself for the week, but he's out of the woods and is going to be fine.  I hope to plan a trip to Florida in the not-to-distant future.

Great Expectations, Deflated

Here I am, still in Shawshank. No, no, I kid.

Mostly.

Today I'm mostly upset with the fact that I was supposed to go home, as per my doctor. But the weekend psychiatrist on duty never got around to seeing me and finalizing my paperwork today, even though I have been bugging the nursing staff about it since 9 this morning.

I thought I'd think positively and have my husband and daughters come down around 3, and maybe by the time they got here I'd be ready to go. No such dice. Looks like I'll probably be here till Monday, with my contraband iPod to keep me company.

The most frustrating part is that I actually feel pretty okay; I don't feel the need to be put away for safety reasons. And the staff here does next to nothing on weekends, as far as group therapy and entertainment go, so it's not like I'm getting lots of benefit there.

So, in a nutshell, I feel safe enough to leave, am bored out of my mind, and had to peel a shrieking five-year-old off my leg when she left.

Oh, holy hell...someone just started playing "Kumbaya" on an acoustic guitar and singing. I think I should have kept my mouth about the entertainment. Is 6:30 too early to go to bed?

No Place Like (Not) Home for the Holidays...

No, I didn't really fall off the face of the earth after my last post. Unfortunately, I fell back into to Lindner Center instead.

After some thought, I finally came back down here to Mason and checked back in to the mental health facility. I guess it was the right decision; the jury's still out. At this point, I think I have more complaints than kudos for the joint, but that must just be my frame of mind.

Complaints:
--They took my bras, and I have to fight to get one at a time to wear. I've been here three times and never has that been a problem. And not wearing a bra is not an option.

-- When I came in late Monday night, I had to answer a long batch of questions for the intake nurse. This isn't odd. What is odd is that I did have to answer all these questions again for the admitting nurse. When I asked why I had to answer the same questions all over again, she said it was because she "was too lazy to read the answers off the chart to input them," and it was just "easier" to ask me again. This is after 2-plus hours in admissions and at about 11:30 at night. I was not pleased.

-- Nobody seems to be able to coordinate my meds. It seems like I take something different every day, and nobody can explain why or if that's the new norm. Plus, I brought in some of my own meds from home, prescribed by a different doc, and they seemed to have disappeared, even after repeated inquiries.

--I've heard Karen Carpenter's "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" at least three times. Today. Wanna make a depressed person more depressed at Christmas? Play this song.

Kudos:
--I spoke at length to the doctor in charge of the Electroconvulsive Therapy program, and am very excited about it. I've been doing research with the resources I have and have uncovered a lot of interesting things about the treatment.

--The contraband security is relatively lax, as evidenced by the fact I am updating this blog from an "unapproved electronic device." I feel so Andy Dufresne.

--The Oreo pie is excellent, there is no lack of group meetings you can attend, and if you want to be left alone, they pretty much leave you be.

All in all, I think I am accomplishing the tasks that brought me back down here. I don't know when I'll get to go home, but at least I now have my contraband iPod.

And don't forget to "Like" Bipolar Knitter on Facebook for a chance to win Blake Mycoskie's book! Assuming I still have my iPod or I'm home by then, I plan to announce the winner Monday.

My apologies for any odd formatting things going on here. I'm still trying to work out this Blogger app.

Hello, Mania, my old Friend....

...and since it's 3:30 a.m. and I'm writing a blog post, it's obvious I've come to talk with you again.

(and if you don't get the above cultural reference, you're too freaking young.  Go get Simon & Garfunkel's Concert in Central Park and report back later).

So while I was in the Lindner Center, the doctor there put me on a new, fun drug called Geodon (generic name:  ziprazidone).  It's an atypical anti-psychotic (AAP), much like Seroquel or Zyprexa, but it's a little bit newer and the side effects don't seem to be as bad.  For example, Seroquel and Zyprexa both cause insane weight gain, Zyprexa worse than Seroquel, and I've gained like, 50 lbs on Seroquel over the past five years.  Yeah, okay, I also had four pregnancies and three kids in those five years, but I'm gonna blame it on the Seroquel anyway.

Geodon is actually not a new drug, but apparently it seems to be used more often when other AAPs haven't worked.  I'd never heard of it when the doctor put me on it, and I feel like I'm pretty well-versed in this stuff. The nurse had me sign a release for it with the rest of my meds when I first got there, and she told me that it was a drug that they usually inject you with when you get really psychotic and they can't control you, and they almost certainly wouldn't have to give it to me.  Two days later, the doctor calmly informed me it was goinng to be part of my regular routine (in a capsule form, not an injection).

Apparently, it's marketed by Pfizer, and they were involved in a federal case a few years back that included being fined by the FDA  for marketing Geodon and three other meds for "off-brand uses."  To the tune of $2.3 billion.  That's with a "b," not an "m."  Here's an article from a medical fraud advocacy group that says that Pfizer got what they deserved, and here's another article from Forbes saying the whole thing was ridiculous.  I'll let you decide.  But the point it, maybe the drug is sort of unpopular due to public opinion reasons, I don't know.

Essentially, though, the doctor at the clinic took me off my virtual pharmacopeia of drugs I was on when I went in (lithium, Zoloft, Seroquel, Lamictal, Buspar, and an occasional Ambien and Ativan) and wanted me just on lithium and Geodon.  In fact, she said that a sort of "perfect storm" of occurrences led up to me being hospitalized, with the icing on the cake being the Zoloft, causing an agitated mixed-mania state, that was causing hallucinations, delusions, and suicidal thinking.  I'd been on Zoloft for six years, so Zoloft and mania or Zoloft and mixed-states was never on my radar.  I was taking all of my normal drugs in relatively low dosages, except the Zoloft.  I mean, I'm depressed -- give me an antidepressant, right?   Seems logical.  But it turns out that none of the meds were really helping, and some of them were actually hurting. Antidepressants can actually be pretty bad for bipolar people, but I've never had any obvious problems with them before, so I've stayed on one after another after another (you name it, I've been on it) for years.  This is actually a pretty major problem for some people, but I'll talk about that another time.

So when the pdoc sent me home on Wednesday, I was on Geodon, lithium, and Xanax as needed (with the idea that eventually I'd get off of everything except the Geodon).   Three drugs seem like nothing, compared to my previous med cocktail.

The only trouble is...well, it's 3:30, and I'm writing this blog post.  Yep, seems like something is sending me into some sort of (at least hypo-)manic state.  I'm pretty sure it's not the Xanax, since Xanax usually knocks me on my ass.  But I've had three of them since 7:00 p.m. tonight, and other than the fact I can't see straight and I feel like my brain is rattling around in my head, I'm not at all tired.

I did do some web searching, and that shining bastion of research, Wikipedia, mentions that "Ziprasidone is known to cause activation into mania in some bipolar patients."  Thanks, Wikipedia, for that thorough explanation.  At least they list references; here's a link to one of the studies that supports this claim (there are a couple). I also found a couple of discussions online about "Geodon mania" that were asking the same questions.  Here's one; here's another.  God, I seriously love the internet.  You could do a search for just about anything and find a discussion about it.  Anyway, irrelevant.

Maybe it's the Geodon, maybe it's something else causing the mania, I don't know.  I've actually cut way back on my caffeine, so it can't be that, and the Zoloft is gone, so it can't be that, and I've been on the lithium for about six months...so I'm kind of at a loss.  I will mention, though, that the sleeplessness isn't the only manic symptom I'm experiencing, so this isn't just a case of insomnia. I won't elaborate, in case my husband reads this, but he'll know what I'm talking about when he gets my next credit card bill (sorry, sweetie). 

For now, I think some of the Xanax has kicked in and, while I'm not tired, I definitely can't see straight.  So I think my rant is at an end for the moment.  I hope you're sleeping, cozy in your bed, and not doing random research on anti-psychotic meds that you feel like a crazy person for needing to take. 

Oh, wait, I AM a crazy person. Oh well. Least I'm a crazy person with a credit card.  For now.

Check Me Out -- I'm Home, and Away From the Horrors....

of 24-hour-a-day Christmas music.

That's right.  I had to go stay in a "mental health facility" (but I usually think of it as a "looney bin," even though I know that's totally un-PC), and just in case us patients didn't feel shitty enough, the place was pumping Christmas music through the stereo in all the common areas 24/7.  And it wasn't even Thanksgiving, for God's sake! 

Plus, it was bad Christmas music -- I heard Mariah Carey more than once.  Thankfully I didn't hear that damn hippopotamus song, because I probably would have ended up restrained, or taken to the "tub room" (I actually don't know what the "tub room" is, but there was a door by my room marked as such and I've seen enough bad movies and House reruns to conjure up images of a big basin floating with ice cubes they dunk you in to calm you down).

As a result of the holiday cheer onslaught, I've put a moratorium on Christmas music at my house for at least another week, unless it's instrumental/ambient or classical (like, no lyrics classical -- not Bing Crosby classical) Christmas music.  Frankly, as I get older, I like that kind of Christmas music better anyway.

I'm not trying to make light of my stay at the Lindner Center (which is really the absolute opposite of a "looney bin" -- it's beautiful, bright, and modern with a very caring staff and doctors, Christmas music aside).  But I actually have so much I want to say about my stay there, what I learned, what medications I'm now on -- and how I got to be in such a crisis state that I had to go stay there -- that I'm still trying to organize it all in my mind.  

I will say that I almost kissed the psychiatrist, though, when she informed my husband that no amount of exercise, "good eating," or other coping mechanisms would have helped me get out of the funk that brought me there. I had to stop myself from jumping up, doing a little dance, and screaming, "I F*CKING TOLD YOU SO!"

But I'm classy, and very magnanimous, so I didn't.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Maintained Radio Silence....

Just thought I'd update that I won't be posting for a few days, maybe a week.  I've won a fabulous vacation to the Lindner Center, a psychiatric facility in Mason, Ohio.  I met with my new psychiatrist today and she thought it was best for me to check in and get a "tune up."  I don't want to go, but I guess it's for the best.

In the meantime, join Pinterest.com and follow me.  Or check out this totally obnoxious, yet adorable, Hello Kitty crocheted scarf that I'm working on (well, I won't be working on it while I'm gone, cuz crochet needles are a no-no).

The "Pregnant" in" Pregnant Bipolar Knitter"

I haven't talked too much about the "pregnant" in my blog title, mainly because other than the rampant depression/psychological problems I've had, the pregnancy has been healthy and uneventful.

Today, though, it's hard to ignore. I've been in the "PicU" (which I think stands for perinatal intensive care unit) since yesterday. My due date isn't until April 17, but I started getting pretty regular contractions last week. I've been having Braxton-Hicks contractions for about two months, but these were different. I came down to Labor & Delivery on Friday night, and they ran a few tests and checked me for dilation; despite the fact that I was 1 cm dilated (admittedly, not much) and 50% effaced, the doc on call opted not to do the fetal fibronectin test which can give an idea if you are going to go into labor soon or at least not for the next two weeks.

(Note that the doc on call was the doc that delivered my first daughter...which is a whole other story, but I told the nurse that I would drive home and have my baby there rather than have him ever touch me again. But I digress.)

Anyway, yesterday the contractions started getting stronger and more painful. My ob told me to come down to get checked, and lo and behold I was now 2 cm dilated AND the fetal fibronectin test was positive. So my doctor admitted me and started me on a course of muscle relaxers to halt the contractions and steroids to help the baby's development. They'd like to delay at least a few weeks. Seems like things are going according to plan, as the contractions are getting better. Hopefully I get to go home tomorrow.

That's my current story. I will say that the maternity ward is far preferrable to the psych ward; they don't care if I have ballpoint pens or drawstrings, AND I have internet access. Life is good (well, other than the fact I'm in the hospital).

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