Leaving the Free Clinic with tears streaming...

The week before Christmas we were rear-ended. No one was physically hurt. The other driver was well dressed, though I think she was driving a Tempo, (for those of you younger than us) which Ford replaced with the Taurus, which has also since been replaced. It was a beater, and had 30 day tags. I felt terrible for her.

The driver said she was looking for an address for an interview she was late for when she hit us, and I believe her.

Unfortunately she didn't have car insurance, or a driver's license (I'm not sure which is worse in the eyes of Johnny Law), but it didn't really matter as she split the scene just before the cops arrived. She did give me a social security card, though it now seems as if it was stolen, the officer who made the report stopped by our house to see if a picture of the true owner of the card was the woman who hit us, it wasn't.

There is a bit of damage that we'll have to eat the cost of repairs for.

I've been fragile lately.

Before I tic, I get a sensation not unlike a charlie-horse in the back of my head. For the better part of this year, when I'm particularly down I've frequently had a feeling as if my skull is quickly expanding inwards in the same place, choking my brain. I can't shake it anyway other than by going to sleep, sometimes a couple hours of napping does the trick, and sometimes it takes a couple naps of that length.

After the accident we didn't have much time before an appointment with my psychiatrist. He may be my favorite doctor ever, and I've had some great ones (Danielle doesn't care much for my story about a young resident telling me I had a runner's body as she put a catheter in, but I'm going to keep telling it until my dying day, and it will only get better as I need a cane, followed by a walker, and finally a wheel chair). I used to see this doctor at the Cleveland Clinic, but I now see him at the free clinic.

The free clinic is really great, pretty much exactly what you imagine socialized medicine to be - far less paperwork than a normal appointment, and you walk out with a pile of medicine having paid nothing. I didn't feel the least bit rushed, which isn't ever the case when a 40 minute appointment costs $480 with the same doctor, just blocks to the west on the same street.

I was at my worst for the appointment, too far gone to talk for most of it. In some ways I'm very thankful the doctor got to see me in that state. He started me on another medication, my third anti-psychotic to go along with a pair of anti-depressants (I'm not taking them all at once). I'm not wild about being on all of these drugs, but the worst side effect of the newest one so far is that it dries me out. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth, sure that when I free it, a piece of tongue-skin will still remain there like a scrap of tissue paper accidentally glued to an elementary school art project.