The Trip ( A Mashley Fan-Fiction )

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty One
Mitch's POV

Stepping into the doctor’s office I sighed, I had already known the outcome of this. I wasn't in the mood to listen to any sob stories either, I just wanted to get the medicine and get out.

"Alright, Mr. Hughes." The doctor sighed looking at me.

"Your MRI's came back very abnormal, which is not good in any case."

"I figured they wouldn't come back ok." I said watching him lift through some papers.

"As far as I can see you do have a form of schizophrenia, it's called schizoaffective disorder. Have you ever heard of that?" I shook my head.

"I didn't think there was different types of schizophrenia."

"Oh yea there's many different types, but the one we are diagnosing you with is Schizoaffective. It's a serious mental illness that features two different conditions, schizophrenia and an affective (mood) disorder that may be diagnosed as either major depression or bipolar, in your case major depression."

"How can you be so sure I have this?" I sighed.

"Well some of the known symptoms for depression are poor appetite, weight loss or gain, changes in sleeping patterns like sleeping very little or a lot, agitation which is just excessive restlessness, lack of energy, loss of interest in usual activities, feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness, guilt or self-blame, inability to think or concentrate, thoughts of death or suicide and Mania. We've diagnosed you will this because of your weight and how your physical and mental and physical appearance looks."

"Okay, so I've had depression for a while I'm not here to get pills for that."

"Some of the more common symptoms of Schizophrenia however are delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking,
odd or unusual behavior, slow movements or total immobility, lack of emotion in facial expression and speech, poor motivation, problems with speech and communication. It's very rarely when a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder is made. It requires a person to have periods of uninterrupted illness and has, at some point, an episode of mania, major depression or a mix of both, while also having symptoms of schizophrenia. In addition, to diagnose the illness, the person must display a period of at least two weeks of psychotic symptoms without the mood symptoms. All these signs including your brain scan point to this, I'm sorry."

"Its fine, I knew I had something wrong with me. What about pills is there something I can take?" The doctor looked down at his clipboard flipping a few papers.

"Yes Clozaril which is known as a neuroleptic would work perfectly for this, but it will take two to four weeks to take effect fully. There's only one downside to it, you'll need to make sure you have enough white blood cells and you will need to have a blood test before you begin taking it and then have your blood tested regularly while on this. One of the major problems with Clozapine is it can cause a big drop in blood pressure, which can make you dizzy or cause you to faint when you stand up. It is also proven to decrease hallucinations and prevent suicide in people who are likely to try to harm themselves. Blood tests would have to be performed weekly for the first six months of treatment and then after that they should be performed at least every 2 weeks."

"I mean it sounds great, does it cost a lot?"

"No it's only around thirty dollars for a box of ten pills."

"What dose should I start off on?"

"Let's start you off on one hundred and if you need a higher dose just come back in." My doctor looked up at me as I nodded.