Consumer Reports on Abilify Ad

I had read about some side effects associated with this drug--which, brace yourself, medical community, THIS potential consumer already KNEW was classified as an antipsychotic drug. But today I thought I'd take a look at some of the videos and found this one by Consumer Reports AdWatch. Thought it was worth sharing. 

Follow-up testing

I'll admit to being a little anxious about the endoscopy today, but figured that in the grand scheme of things, it had to be less traumatic than my time in this hospital last month. For one thing, this time,  I only had to fast from midnight until the time of the procedure. Although, it seemed a little insensitive for the waiting room to have a sign on the refrigerator telling family member to help themselves to complimentary refreshments, but reminding patients: NO FOOD FOR YOU!

And right after I notice that, I heard a voice from the hallway inviting family member to come and get some coffee, tea, or hot chocolate--but of course patients awaiting an endoscopy could not have any. Really, couldn't you have found some way to discreetly make the family members aware of this, without reminding me of how hungry I was. In the grand scheme of things hot a huge thing, but I did have a bit of a rumbly in my tumbly and could have done without any additional reminders of how much I really would like to eat something.


The procedure today wasn't all that bad, and it's nice to know that my stomach and esophagus have healed.

The evil monitoring device

My nemesis. I freaking HATED this machine. It was always beeping at me, and I had a headache most of the time. There was a squiggly line representing my oxygen levels, one for my respiration, and one for my heart rate. People kept coming in and bothering me every time the machine beeped and didn't stop until someone came to do something.

At some point my blood pressure was high, causing nurses to come in MORE often to check my blood pressure. (I never have high blood pressure--if anything, it is typically on the low side.) But basically, I got my arm squeezed really tight on a regular basis. Not so comfy.

Once I was allowed to sit up in a chair, I could watch the monitor and work to bring my heart rate down. Or I could make sure the little tubes were securely inside my nose, and take several breaths through those tubes, and bring my O2 levels up to a level that made the machine stop making noise. I'm still not sure why I needed to be on oxygen, but even my very last night in the hospital, I still had these stupid tubes in my nose. so even if I finally fell asleep, if I moved at all, and my oxygen levels reflected that, someone had to come in and fuss about something.

Anyway, that's why I wrote that I said on Facebook that I was working on my biofeedback skills. I just wanted the bad noise to stop, because it was making my headache worse, and I had no way of making a headache go away. Tylenol was useless, and I couldn't have Excedrin, the only thing that had EVER worked for my headaches, and Excedrin is what caused my ulcers in the first place.

Excedrin is the devil

I was released on Friday, but didn’t get any sleep at all that night. I may have gotten about four hours last night. In the whole time I was in the hospital, I got no more than 5 hours of sleep.

The night before my release, having been told that could POSSIBLY be released on Friday, I was still wearing a band on my wrist indicating that I was not allowed to get up without calling someone for help. I acquired that band AFTER being moved from ICU to a regular room.