I need advice, I'm not sure if I am in the right area for this. I just started my second year in nursing for my RN
I made it to second year, and I'm proud of myself for it. But there's been a huge issue going on with me and it's starting to show. I'm bipolar, legitimately. Diagnosed, been in the psych unit more than once. Ironically I'm in mental health in school (our clinical rotation) . The depressive part is starting to come back and get out of control. It makes it hard to study and function... so I'm not doing as well as I'd like to in school. I've been on medication for a long time on antipsychotics that knock me the heck out - I'm on a dose of Seroquel at 600mg -I'm a small almost underweight girl on 600. Without this med I'll stay awake until I take it...
Well- I ran out of another medication I need to take, but couldn't get it re-filled because I need to see an MD, and ours left so I had to wait until the next available opening to see someone else and my other Dr. didn't leave me a back up prescription before she left so I had to wait until Monday (yesterday) to get it filled. Without that one, the withdrawal is terrible and I can't focus on anything. I had a clinical Friday and my instructor gave us an enormous mean ENORMOUS amount of homework to the point I feel like saying to her "I'm just a person not a super human". My family is out of town and so I had to take up my moms job and watch this old lady my mom helps take care of, I had an all day Microbiology class Saturday at another school, then had to work my other job. There was no way I was going to get all that stuff done, if you all could see how much it was you'd understand, believe me (I'm sure a lot of you understand) , plus the beginning of withdrawal on my other medication so I was working WAY slower than usual, felt like crap
HOW is this about to get me kicked out of school? Well, I need to get at least 7 hours of sleep on the antipsychotic medication. So, in order to get all my stuff done, I decided to try and not take it... and stay up for 24 hours...to do my work... It backfired. I felt horrible, and I had a seizure (also on lamictal for bipolar I). Again on Seroquel I need at least 7 hours of sleep to wake up in the morning, I've had conversations with people when they wake me up in the AM and talk to me and I have NO memory of our conversation. Earlier this year when they upped my dose to 600, I woke up and turned my alarm clock off among other things and slept through class and clinical with hardly any memory of what I did, and got in trouble, I was put on progress alert... This semester I've missed 2 clinical days (not class days), and that is the max you can miss before getting kicked out. The first time I was sick (which was true), the second time I was late because I got lost on the way to my new clinical site so they sent me home... Today, especially because I stayed up so long the night before (and missed class Monday) I woke up with my alarm clock in my bed with me... I know what happened, I turned it off... no memory of that at all, none. I missed a QUIZ today - a QUIZ! I don't know what to tell my instructor. I'm afraid they'll think badly of me. My question is- do I tell them straight up I'm bipolar and have been having a really hard time? That I was off one of my medications? Can they discriminate even though it's illegal? Some things are beyond my control, though not taking the Seroquel wasn't. I really truly feel like what they gave me during the weekend (and it varied student to student) was unrealistic.... but at the same time I was really messed up. How do they handle things like these?
