Mental health check-in

Just came back from London on Friday. Found the place where of course not everyone is friendly, but the chance that someone will reciprocate your kindness and go out of the way to wish you a lovely day is much higher than my current area.

It did my soul much better than I ever expected. Hanging out with my all time best buddy helped a lot as well. And cribbage, cribbage helped.
 
So inspection week is almost done.

I've now written at least 5 ranty posts about the process/ quango then deleted because it wouldn't be professional or appropriate.

We're good. Fuck the system.
 
Pardon the language on my previous post but I've just come across a very timely and pertinent article given there's been not a huge amount of classroom observations (aka the nuts and bolts, "what we do", how we improve outcomes for our young people) but tonnes of audits, discussions and comments about how we track wider, some would argue meaningless, data. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cm2xr243eryo

We had an 18 year old kid whose been with us for 3 years speak for the first time yesterday - "pizza" pretty good word to start with imo, staff literally cried, management team around called away to get the shit kicked out of us and then 10 minutes later you go into a meeting and some person with a clipboard who's not been in a classroom for over a decade wants to know what data you've got to prove x, y and z about stuff that is a million miles from teaching and learning and is for their benefit / report, not ours or our kids.

I'm still quite new to senior management so maybe a bit more naive or full of piss and vinegar but I went all in on this process and, even if our report ends up better then I think it will be, I've been really unimpressed with the experience which I suppose talks to the article - the majority of what's being scrutinized, unpicked and likely added to post report revolves around bureaucracy and not how we can tangibly improve what we do day to day for the kids, of which there are definitely stuff we're aware of but they've not, to my mind anyway, picked up


Anyways I've absolutely nailed my curry for today's staff pot luck, the entire process will be over in about 26 hours time and I'm going to see one of my favourite bands tomorrow night with the wife and stay over down the coast so all is good, life is beautiful.
 
baimun said:
This is why I'm the "Roy Kent" of my fuckin' family. :helper:
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I can be.

But more to the mental health thing, sometimes it feels very good to let my anger and frustration out in a Roy Kent style vent, whether or not my language has quite as many F bombs. BUT, then frequently, I end up feeling bad because some family member or friend might be offended, or then be upset because I dumped on them. So, in my counseling, I am still figuring out the balance as between properly experiencing anger and/or what is underneath, and processing it in a way that is ultimately productive, rather than a sudden pressure release that somehow keeps the bad energy flowing. I don't have my answer for that yet.
 
So I take back nothing of my previous posts but our inspection went well it turns out. Better than we were expecting given things the inspectors were picking up and drilling down on.

I dont generally stress, sometimes I feel I actually need to stress more but last week was tough the culmination of 3-4 months of absolutely bursting my pan.

Myself and the other 2 colleagues within my team got a special mention for our influence and impact across the board and the boss is considering appealing the quality indicator I was responsible for as she feels the grading should potentially be even better than it already is based on the evidence I gathered.

Pressure released. Much booze was drunk at my gig last night. :thu:
 
Lerxst said:
Work has been pretty darn stressful with a big series of layoffs announced prior to the holidays last year. Finally got word today that my job is secure but damn, 3 and a half months of speculation and watching friends get laid off takes a toll. (I've got well over a decade in with publicly held fortune 500 companies so this wasn't my first rodeo. Shit gets old)
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And a little over a year later, I've survived another round of RIF and just got word I'm safe.
Lost a lot of friends and good folks that I interact w/ on the regular this time. This one is going to really put the squeeze on our groups in my area. It's hard to be glad about much other than a paycheck today.
 
I didn't say anything before, but back in March I got the results from a pelvic biopsy that showed two prostate lesions with a score of five (A PI-RADS 5 score indicates a very high suspicion of clinically significant prostate cancer on an MRI). I basically had to sit on this for two months while waiting for a biopsy. I was pretty convinced I had it because three of five members of my nuclear family died of cancer and my only remaining member had cancer back in 2020, so I figured it was my turn.

Because I have Myasthenia Gravis the antibiotics normally given prior to a prostate biopsy are contraindicated so I got to be the guinea pig for a newer procedure - a "transperineal" biopsy. You don't want to know... At any rate, I had that procedure at the end of May and then waited a couple days for the results. I was really relieved that of twelve samples taken, 11 were benign and one was something they call ASAP which is not an indication of cancer.

I'm still recovering a bit from the procedure but am pretty much all back to normal and very relieved...
 
bsman said:
I didn't say anything before, but back in March I got the results from a pelvic biopsy that showed two prostate lesions with a score of five (A PI-RADS 5 score indicates a very high suspicion of clinically significant prostate cancer on an MRI). I basically had to sit on this for two months while waiting for a biopsy. I was pretty convinced I had it because three of five members of my nuclear family died of cancer and my only remaining member had cancer back in 2020, so I figured it was my turn.

Because I have Myasthenia Gravis the antibiotics normally given prior to a prostate biopsy are contraindicated so I got to be the guinea pig for a newer procedure - a "transperineal" biopsy. You don't want to know... At any rate, I had that procedure at the end of May and then waited a couple days for the results. I was really relieved that of twelve samples taken, 11 were benign and one was something they call ASAP which is not an indication of cancer.

I'm still recovering a bit from the procedure but am pretty much all back to normal and very relieved...
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That sounds like some good news after a lot of anxiety.
 
bsman said:
I didn't say anything before, but back in March I got the results from a pelvic biopsy that showed two prostate lesions with a score of five (A PI-RADS 5 score indicates a very high suspicion of clinically significant prostate cancer on an MRI). I basically had to sit on this for two months while waiting for a biopsy. I was pretty convinced I had it because three of five members of my nuclear family died of cancer and my only remaining member had cancer back in 2020, so I figured it was my turn.

Because I have Myasthenia Gravis the antibiotics normally given prior to a prostate biopsy are contraindicated so I got to be the guinea pig for a newer procedure - a "transperineal" biopsy. You don't want to know... At any rate, I had that procedure at the end of May and then waited a couple days for the results. I was really relieved that of twelve samples taken, 11 were benign and one was something they call ASAP which is not an indication of cancer.

I'm still recovering a bit from the procedure but am pretty much all back to normal and very relieved...
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That is awesome news considering what it could’ve been.

One of my closest friends just had that procedure Friday. He still hasn’t had any word.. He’s climbing the fucking walls waiting for news. They promised to call him Monday morning. Like you, he’s been mulling his fate for months now.

Godspeed on the recovery from that procedure.
 
bsman said:
I didn't say anything before, but back in March I got the results from a pelvic biopsy that showed two prostate lesions with a score of five (A PI-RADS 5 score indicates a very high suspicion of clinically significant prostate cancer on an MRI). I basically had to sit on this for two months while waiting for a biopsy. I was pretty convinced I had it because three of five members of my nuclear family died of cancer and my only remaining member had cancer back in 2020, so I figured it was my turn.

Because I have Myasthenia Gravis the antibiotics normally given prior to a prostate biopsy are contraindicated so I got to be the guinea pig for a newer procedure - a "transperineal" biopsy. You don't want to know... At any rate, I had that procedure at the end of May and then waited a couple days for the results. I was really relieved that of twelve samples taken, 11 were benign and one was something they call ASAP which is not an indication of cancer.

I'm still recovering a bit from the procedure but am pretty much all back to normal and very relieved...
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This all sounds very familiar. Although I ended up not having a transperineal biopsy, I well know what it entails. No pun intended. Also ASAP, which I'm sure they'll continue to watch via PSA tests. Glad to hear your results are clear!
 
Dudeman1967 said:
That is awesome news considering what it could’ve been.

One of my closest friends just had that procedure Friday. He still hasn’t had any word.. He’s climbing the fucking walls waiting for news. They promised to call him Monday morning. Like you, he’s been mulling his fate for months now.

Godspeed on the recovery from that procedure.
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Just found out my friends tumor was benign. Amazingly good news.
 
I'm really kind of messed up. In addition to the political situation and the rest of the crap going on in my life, one of members of the support group I lead is having a manic episode and needed to be hospitalized. I ended up working with a group of people from the group to get him into a hospital. He's homeless because his brother kicked him out last week. He was suicidal and homicidal. A now he's having psychotic episodes. He's been calling me and a few other people from the group several times a day. Between that and the financial issues I had for the last several months, I'm just not doing well. It doesn't help that two guitar projects that I'm working on aren't going well. All of this BS is cutting into my guitar practice time, not that I'm motivated to practice. I'm just feeling wiped out from all of this.
 
I just realized I hadn't updated really, since my long post about the cancer surgery and some other suspected health issues.

A lot of good news on the health front. First blood test shows that the surgery got all the cancer, as my PSA level dropped through floor to undetectable, which comports with no more cancer. Will have another PSA test in a couple months to monitor/confirm, and then 6 months thereafter. Also both the other suspected non-cancer things I had going on (cholesteotoma in ear and "silent sinus syndrome") have been ruled out, so I'm 3 for 3 on the biggies.

That said, not all is sunshine and daffodils either. I still have all sorts of surgical side effects that I'd just as soon not catalog. As to one, it was determined at the last second (I literally went in to the doc's office to have the procedure done, only to be told once there that they wouldn't do it) that a scheduled cystoscopy was not necessary, because the symptom I was experiencing was likely due to a naturally occurring diverticulum rather than caused by the surgery. So that's another good thing, because I was really dreading that procedure; if you are squeamish (especially if you are male) I highly recommend not googling that term. Anyhow, despite all the aforementioned good results I'm still far from my more "normal" happy and well-adjusted self, because I fucking hate the ongoing side effects of the surgery, and those are still leaving me enraged, depressed, and dealing with a lot of self-loathing. Which I know particularly the last bit makes no logical sense. So then I hate myself for hating myself, haha. And for not being able to focus on the good health news, and feeling guilty for being a whiney bitch when I'm not six feet under like I could be.

I got talked into being in another band, by a bandmate in my recently revived side band, so now I find myself in 3 bands: Crash Pad (obviously my main band, next year will be 30 years, after having had almost that many members, haha), plus the weirdmusik performance art collective (Bill Perry Orchestra), and now a cover band (which I haven't done since the "party bands" of the '80s) with a female frontperson, called Amber & the Antidotes. I've played 4 gigs in like five and a half weeks (2 with Crash Pad, and one apiece with the others) which for me is a ton, so that helps distract me. A little at least. There's a thread in the On Stage forum about those shows.

And work has kept me busy as well, I know a lot of people my age (67) who would like to be working cannot find employment, so there's that. And I went ahead and went on Social Security, so there's that extra dosh coming in now. But I'm still kinda struggling, to be perfectly honest.
 
bsman said:
Fuck @Brian, I feel like you took that Prostate ca bullet for me! I owe you...
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Hopefully you'll just stay at the "ASAP" phase and be able to control with drugs to ward it off. I did for many years. Prostate cancer killed my Dad (it metastasized to his spine), so I was not under any illusion that it might not get worse. I know that I am lucky to be alive and that it appears that I'm now cancer-free (a second time, haha). But ngl, the surgical side effects are (pardon the pun) fucking with me mentally pretty seriously. I'm not an angry person at all (politics aside, but we're at an unprecedented existential threat to our republic, so my take on that is that everyone should be angry as fecking hell), but not so with this.

Both drugs and counseling have been floated by my Occupational/Physical Therapist, but as to the former, fuck that because I'm not about to risk tardive dyskinesia and not being able to play again (besides the fact that I'm already on waaaaaay too many meds for my liking anyhow). As to counseling, normally I'd be all for it, but right now I'm so fucking angry that even having to discuss any of this shite with (yet another) third party would just make me angrier still, and poison any possible positive outcome. Maybe sometime later, but I ain't holding my breath on that. At all.

xo
 
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