After Monday morning classroom video training they drove our training class to three locations before they found an empty parking lot for our only day of closed-course training. Then we started out on one of several obstacles. My first was the serpentine course. I zipped through it forward and backward like they had a stopwatch on me. Nobody clapped? WTF, it's not a competition!
I watched the others clamor through and then decided to lay down on the State Fair parking lot and catch some rays. My self-awareness kicked in and I realized that I was getting paid to get some sun. "I could get used to this," I decided. From that point forward it wasn't me vs. the others, it was me vs. the roads.
Actually, I had just gone cold turkey off the Trazodone in order to be able to drive so it was me vs. the road and insomnia.
You know you're in trouble when you start to Google something like "quitting trazodone cold turkey" and it finishes the query for you.
You know me and my kinship with my fellow bloggers. Why would they lie? What did they have to say about going cold turkey?
Here's one:
I went cold turkey from Trazodone (150 mg/pm). I experienced edginess and what felt like low blood pressure. I would be standing and all of the sudden I would feel faint (it would pass) and I never did faint.I went back on the trazodone and the symptoms disappeared. I then weened myself off like my doctor told me and everything was fine...Fainting didn't bode well with the thought of driving, but how was my mood? Let's go back to the blogosphere, shall we?
Major problems are extreme aggression and rage.
If it isn't already evident, try to keep a buddy nearby. If he expresses thoughts of violent behavior, YOU OR AN ER DOC on the phone might be able to coax him into to a FRIENDLY visit to the ER for a quiet counter-measure of "gentle meds".
Now they're just being silly. Sure, I was psychotic when I went cold turkey off Clonopin, Trazodone, Effexor, and Concerta, but blaming Trazodone for that?
Stay tuned...
I'm kidding!
The next phase was open course driving. I guess that's what you'd call it when you're on the road with traffic, right? I slept four hours Sunday night and about the same Monday. Eight hours, in two hour increments, and I was not ready to rage against the world even just once.On the other hand, we have to come to a complete stop when we come to any railroad crossing. You miss one of those babies and they take you back to base. I never heard what happens once you got back to base but still, "back to base" is not a good thing.
Once you get past the RXR in the road you should have your emergency flashers on. Then the steps happen quickly.
Trivia question: Why do the bus drivers have to open the bi-fold doors at the railroad crossing?
Answer: To hear if a train is coming from that direction.
I thought it was to let the hobos who had been hopping rails catch a ride? Who knows, maybe it was a thing implemented during the Great Depression or something.
It's not an easy process and these instructions don't make it sound any easier. CLICK HERE for steps to take at all railroad crossings.
Now, doing the calculations, add little sleep, one of the worst intersections in the Twin Cities, and a railroad crossing that's parallel to County Road C, which is where base is located. It's not something to embrace in any condition.
We have trainers planning alternate routes miles away to avoid this turn.
I passed my BTW road driving, signed the official papers, and was ready to take on real clients. I was good. It was shorter hours, during the day, and my trainer was a nice guy. Well, there was the added variable that my full day of driving saw 3" to 5" of rain during my driving. I'm not exaggerating, it was a deluge and set daily rain amount records in many suburbs.
I came in the next morning to finish up, which was a bit odd because I was scheduled to come in from noon to 5:00 that first day and was called to come in at 9:00 instead. So, I came in three hours early but he let me out two hours early Wednesday and we finished up Thursday morning. Now, the real people that afternoon. I was ready.
Our riders go anywhere from dialysis to work to shop at Target. Many can walk, and some seem totally normal. They pay $3 in off peak and $4 for peak hours. We even have a fleet of Crown Vic's for those who are geed ambulatory. I hope to drive one of those someday.
At lunch I took one of those barometric readings of what I was doing less than two weeks after failing at car sales. I had gone through easy classroom training but had to reveal my mental illness, my drugs, stop one of them, and drive on very little sleep, all for $10.50/hour. That was $3.25/hour more than most of the last month of paychecks selling cars but still, look how far I'd come.
It started to filter in that this was not some philanthropic job where I'm going to get into some sort of deep conversations with people who have the full spectrum of challenges, both physical and mental, and are handling it with a full spectrum of courage and fortitude. I was beginning to doubt it was going to be Stephen the bus-driving therapist having brief interludes with these people and touching their heart in such a way that they'd ask, "what happened to that nice man?" if I changed routes or quit this career after six months. I was beginning to think I was a bus driver who was not on a fixed route, I was a door-to-door delivery man of people.
So we picked up our first rider. Her name is changed here to keep in compliance with HIPAA regulations. I'm being sarcastic, but they told me we were bound by HIPPA privacy regulations. I don't think a mobility bus driver is considered a business associate but I don't want to lose my job. So, let's call her Marilyn. She was in a wheelchair so I had to use the lift. We'd practiced that with our trainers so I had that down.
We get a manifest and it said she was going to 280 Smith in St. Paul. I recognized that address, we'd been on Smith Street the day before. It's a doctor's building across from United Hospital, the largest hospital in St. Paul.
There was some small talk but this was my first client so I was hesitant about what I could say, staying within compliance and all. After I was on my own I'd risk stepping over the line, and was working on my opening lines:
Or, if in a good mood:
So, realizing that my exhaustion was not allowing my mind to wander like that or I'd miss one of those railroad crossings and back to base I'd go, I kept it professional, i.e. hardly any talking at all.
Self-awareness time:
"Here I am, delivering disabled people to doctors' offices I used to get paid up to $75/hour (in my best year) to sell pharmaceuticals to before I hit the skids. But I'm not able to do that work anymore. Why not? Because my memory loss won't let me. Will I be able to do this job? Not if I run those railroad tracks I won't. What about my memory problems? Well, it doesn't help not getting sleep, that's for sure. What if I get in an accident? What if I hurt somebody? What if I hurt myself? Fuck! I don't have medical insurance anymore, am I covered on the job if I get in an accident?"
"So, where are you going, Marilyn?" I asked. "I used to know a doctor in this building."
"To see Dr. Tanabe," she said.
"She was our ophthalmologist too," I said. "She did my wife's cataract."
"What's your name?" Marilyn asked.
"Stephen Wigg," I said. "Like fake, hair? Wig. Tell her I said hi."
"I sure will," Marilyn said. Then as I got her off the lift and delivered her to the door she asked again. "What is your name again?" she asked. "I'll tell her you said hi."
I told her. "Tell her hi," I said. "I used to call on her when I was a pharmaceutical rep, she'll remember me."
What are the odds that my first client went to see this person?
It was Dr. Tanabe who witnessed my first manic attack on the job. She was the last person to see me before I hallucinated all the way home from her office during rush hour. She said she felt horrible about not intervening, knowing I was not acting right when I saw her. I was asking her and the doctor before her how many zeros in a trillion. I wasn't just asking, I had it as a trivia question on my own personal iPaq, to make it look all official and everything. I mean, how manic is that? I was acting weird!
After I got home and had a miserable night, not stopping the meds, because why would I do that? (sarcasm) my wife called Dr. Tanabe the next morning. She said she had a connection at United Hospital and that I should come in to the ER the next day and she'd let him know and get me right in.
I went to the ER, didn't get to see anybody after sitting there for eight hours, and finally got an appointment to see my first psychiatrist the next day, getting nowhere in the ER. This would be the first of four failed attempts at ER head case visits. I learn slowly.
During that 15 minute office visit the next day (my second day since the hallucinations), that shrink said he was upset with the general practitioners for prescribing anti-depressives incorrectly. I don't think he prescribed anything differently for me, he just sent me back to my general practitioner because of insurance limitations, or something else out of my control. If I recall correctly, the Rx I was on was Remeron. (including hallucination side effect). Then my general practitioner prescribed either Wellbutrin, or Prozac, or whatever else, too many to remember.
And that was the beginning of my problem with meds and the first time my mental illness affected me at my work.
What are the chances I'd come full circle and the very first client was one of Dr. Tanabe's patients? I mean really, what are the odds? Why do things like this happen?
.
At lunch I took one of those barometric readings of what I was doing less than two weeks after failing at car sales. I had gone through easy classroom training but had to reveal my mental illness, my drugs, stop one of them, and drive on very little sleep, all for $10.50/hour. That was $3.25/hour more than most of the last month of paychecks selling cars but still, look how far I'd come.
It started to filter in that this was not some philanthropic job where I'm going to get into some sort of deep conversations with people who have the full spectrum of challenges, both physical and mental, and are handling it with a full spectrum of courage and fortitude. I was beginning to doubt it was going to be Stephen the bus-driving therapist having brief interludes with these people and touching their heart in such a way that they'd ask, "what happened to that nice man?" if I changed routes or quit this career after six months. I was beginning to think I was a bus driver who was not on a fixed route, I was a door-to-door delivery man of people.
So we picked up our first rider. Her name is changed here to keep in compliance with HIPAA regulations. I'm being sarcastic, but they told me we were bound by HIPPA privacy regulations. I don't think a mobility bus driver is considered a business associate but I don't want to lose my job. So, let's call her Marilyn. She was in a wheelchair so I had to use the lift. We'd practiced that with our trainers so I had that down.We get a manifest and it said she was going to 280 Smith in St. Paul. I recognized that address, we'd been on Smith Street the day before. It's a doctor's building across from United Hospital, the largest hospital in St. Paul.
There was some small talk but this was my first client so I was hesitant about what I could say, staying within compliance and all. After I was on my own I'd risk stepping over the line, and was working on my opening lines:
- "What puts you in a wheelchair?"
- "How long you been in a wheelchair?"
- "Nice wheelchair!"
Or, if in a good mood:
- "Nice wheels!"
- "Can you pop a wheelie with that one?"
- "Do you give rides?"
So, realizing that my exhaustion was not allowing my mind to wander like that or I'd miss one of those railroad crossings and back to base I'd go, I kept it professional, i.e. hardly any talking at all.
Self-awareness time:
"Here I am, delivering disabled people to doctors' offices I used to get paid up to $75/hour (in my best year) to sell pharmaceuticals to before I hit the skids. But I'm not able to do that work anymore. Why not? Because my memory loss won't let me. Will I be able to do this job? Not if I run those railroad tracks I won't. What about my memory problems? Well, it doesn't help not getting sleep, that's for sure. What if I get in an accident? What if I hurt somebody? What if I hurt myself? Fuck! I don't have medical insurance anymore, am I covered on the job if I get in an accident?"
"So, where are you going, Marilyn?" I asked. "I used to know a doctor in this building."
"To see Dr. Tanabe," she said.
"She was our ophthalmologist too," I said. "She did my wife's cataract."
"What's your name?" Marilyn asked.
"Stephen Wigg," I said. "Like fake, hair? Wig. Tell her I said hi."
"I sure will," Marilyn said. Then as I got her off the lift and delivered her to the door she asked again. "What is your name again?" she asked. "I'll tell her you said hi."
I told her. "Tell her hi," I said. "I used to call on her when I was a pharmaceutical rep, she'll remember me."
What are the odds that my first client went to see this person?
It was Dr. Tanabe who witnessed my first manic attack on the job. She was the last person to see me before I hallucinated all the way home from her office during rush hour. She said she felt horrible about not intervening, knowing I was not acting right when I saw her. I was asking her and the doctor before her how many zeros in a trillion. I wasn't just asking, I had it as a trivia question on my own personal iPaq, to make it look all official and everything. I mean, how manic is that? I was acting weird!
After I got home and had a miserable night, not stopping the meds, because why would I do that? (sarcasm) my wife called Dr. Tanabe the next morning. She said she had a connection at United Hospital and that I should come in to the ER the next day and she'd let him know and get me right in.
I went to the ER, didn't get to see anybody after sitting there for eight hours, and finally got an appointment to see my first psychiatrist the next day, getting nowhere in the ER. This would be the first of four failed attempts at ER head case visits. I learn slowly.
During that 15 minute office visit the next day (my second day since the hallucinations), that shrink said he was upset with the general practitioners for prescribing anti-depressives incorrectly. I don't think he prescribed anything differently for me, he just sent me back to my general practitioner because of insurance limitations, or something else out of my control. If I recall correctly, the Rx I was on was Remeron. (including hallucination side effect). Then my general practitioner prescribed either Wellbutrin, or Prozac, or whatever else, too many to remember.
And that was the beginning of my problem with meds and the first time my mental illness affected me at my work.
What are the chances I'd come full circle and the very first client was one of Dr. Tanabe's patients? I mean really, what are the odds? Why do things like this happen?
.
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