Bipolar is expensive and time consuming

I broke with routine this morning and got up early to get to work early so I could leave work early to make my appointment with my psychiatrist. After my $220 appointment I went and spent $66 on medication and it looks like I'll be doing it all over again next week! Oh yeah, because that $66 is for only 2 of my 5 medications and I'm running low on others now. One of them costs $50 a month! 

Yesterday I had an appointment with one of the counsellors from the Outreach program at The Melbourne Clinic. Those are fortunately covered by my private health insurance but she wanted to know when I had another hour free next week. The simple answer is I don't. 
I have work and appointments with my psychologist and my psychiatrist plus I'm trying to minimise running around so that I actually get some time to rest. The counsellor seemed highly unimpressed, like I wasn't prioritising my mental health but I really don't know what to do. 

 I feel like my life is overrun by the logistics of bipolar disorder. I have to carefully plan my time so that I have at least 2 hours plus travel time per week to see various health professionals. I constantly draft up budgets to make sure I have the funds available at the right times when I need to see one of my health professionals or refill prescriptions. It's a job in itself. 

 And now, I have something wonderful and big to look forward to and it's feeling like this trip is going to be really positive but I find myself fretting about how many hours I'm going to need to take off work and how much money that is that I'm losing out on so I can go and spend more money on dealing with bipolar disorder. 

 I'm tempted to put a stop to the Outreach visits. My experience has been that they're not there to build a long-term therapeutic relationship, they're heavily based on CBT and mindfulness which I know enough about and find to be of limited value and quite frankly they're taking up time which I would rather be spending at work or taking a walk or reading my book or just not thinking or talking about bipolar disorder. 

 I think the easiest way for me to become a lifelong victim of bipolar disorder, like some of the people I met in hospital, would be to let it overrun my life and at the moment I feel a bit like that is happening. I might even ease up on blogging about bipolar related shit and instead treat you to lyrical prose about other things, like my memories of and cravings for American hamburgers or my sudden desire to get a dog. I want to be more than just bipolar Katie. Perhaps I should have thought of that before I named my blog.