So here’s an email I had to send on Friday morning:

Hello (Principal),

Thank you for your email. I was looking forward to returning to school on Monday, however I will be unable to do so until at least Friday.
After visiting my mother in the hospital on Thursday, my sister noticed that something wasn’t quite right with me. She brought me in to outpatients where I was seen by a psychologist and doctor. I suffer from clinical depression and although I have had the symptoms under control for quite some time with the help of medication, stresses of the past few weeks seem to have caused my condition to worsen considerably. The doctors prescribed additional meds and recommended that I not return to school for a week in order to take the time to get used to the new medications which can cause many side-effects at first .

I realize that the timing of this absence is quite unfortunate, especially with me being new to (workplace). I feel terrible for having to take this time off and know that the students will have a lot of questions. However I know that it would be irresponsible of me to try and mask the symptoms and try to teach without taking the time to get better.

I am not sure where my substitute(s) for Thursday and Friday left off and don’t have many of my materials here at home; I would be able to cobble together a lesson plan for Monday but I’m not sure about the rest of the week without my materials.. If possible, could you have them sent to me with (person I carpool with) on Monday, so I am able to complete the lesson plans for the rest of the week.

I will be at home for the most part this week with the exception of a few medical appointments, if you have any questions or concerns please contact me.

Thank you and again I apologize for the horrible timing in all of this.

Louise

So that was that. I have an intake appointment tomorrow morning at 11 am, whatever that is (I was a little out of it when I was talking to all these doctor people so I don’t exactly have perfect recall of what went down, but my sister assured me that no, it wasn’t an appointment to have me locked up or they’d have done that by now). I also have a week’s supply of my regular meds (they gave me a week’s prescription instead of a month’s worth, which came to $50 instead of $200… I realize I’ll have to pay just as much in the long run but at that moment it was good, what with not having a frickin drug plan til the beginning of March) along with a new one which is having some great side effects including constant tiredness, dry mouth, and a little something called ‘urinary hesitancy’. Yes, I said urinary. UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURINAAAAAAAAAARY!

So basically, I’m thirsty all the time, with the dry mouth, but my body is unwilling to pee. I find it hilarious. I keep imagining myself blowing up like Violet Beauregarde, except I won’t be turning violet, Violet. Don’t worry, I do manage to go, and hey, at least it’s not incontinence.