Tuna Chowder

I love tuna chowder. It's something that my mom found in a cookbook years ago. We still have that cookbook and the tuna chowder page is all marked up and easily found because we've used that book for that recipe so many times. A few years ago, 2008, I asked my mom for the recipe and made it today. It is one of the most used recipe papers I have. It is also one of my favorite recipes. It is usually really good in the winter, but it's good to me anytime! So I made it today, I had some extra onions and had gotten green peppers. I don't think you guys want to hear about my love for tuna chowder, although I could go on, I will talk about some recent developments.

In terms of bipolar, I have seen my pdoc a few times, I usually see him on Thursdays. I enjoy going to visit him because he is usually able to calm me down or explain certain things to me. Today, he told me that most likely the Lithium is not going to help me on it's own, so I will probably have to take an additional medication, Depakote. I'm familiar with this medication, because it's one of those antiseizure medications that helps to work with bipolar. It's not too surprising for me that I would need to take some additional medication. I can tell that the Lithium, Seroquel, Lamictal combination is not really working, although the Lithium keeps me contained, going neither too high, or too low, but I know that taking one of the medications off will mess everything up. But, for some reason, and I can't remember why, I have to get to a particular dosage of the Lithium before he can add in the Depakote. He's trying to get away from the Seroquel as soon as possible, since it's not such a great drug to be on long term.

He also said that I need to reduce my stress. One of those stress factors would be to find a job. I'm sending my resume out and making phone calls about the online portals that I need to use to upload my information so that schools can talk to me, but the online portals are not helping me. I have one page that will not load and so I am not able to submit my application, but I am working on it.

I have also applied for unemployment. This was a difficult decision, but one that needed to be made. It's not like I'm not looking, I'm having a difficult time with the looking and when you're not the only one looking, with thousands of other people looking, it is daunting, but I still keep looking. I think tomorrow I will also contact the superior of the project that was my job for 4 years. She may have some options.

Another issue that I had was the payment for my doctor. I pay him out of pocket and then insurance pays me and I've got a FSA that pays for the rest of the cost, so for the most part he is free, but it's after I've put up the money. Today, I addressed this issue with him, because I'm obviously still in a precarious position in terms of bipolar, so I was nervous about what my options were. He said that he would work something out with me until I could get a job or at least stabilized with a job. He assured me of that, which helped reduce my anxiety.

Another thing I'm working on is exercise. I haven't been able to go out, because of the heat. But I did run for 25 minutes, which for me is about 2.5 miles. I'm looking forward to getting to the 10K. I also signed up for the Hot Chocolate 15K in November. Which will give me time to work on these goals.

I tried to upload something last week, really deep and thought provoking, the computer didn't allow me to publish it.