Inordinate amounts of pain. Ovarian cyst acting up again is my guess, and I just shot up with the Torodol since I can't take normal over the counter drugs. The pain is unbelievable. Took a shower and a bath. Nails peeling, dog whining, but it's pain and pain and pain above all. Trying to think of other things. Just spelled "of" "ove" and had to correct it. Feels like I've been ripped open or I want to rip myself open, not quite sure which. Both.
Corvus. He's in Charleston. His grandmother's funeral was today. Want to say more about it but now is clearly not the time. Too lost in the immediate negative corporeal. Come on, Torodol. Fix it.
This is after I spent a few days fighting the jitters, only to realize they were me adjusting to medication change. Add Lorazepam and all is forgiven. And forgotten. Sleep away the changes. Now after sleeping most of today I am awake and I eat and it stabs the cyst. What the fuck. Body is not very cooperative. Want to clip my toenails. Something positive and body and pretty. Corvus thinks I'm hot. Is broken the price of hot? Could perfect toenails negate the pain?
O! True apothecary! Thy drugs are quick! 20 minutes from wishing for death to re-evaluating my tolerance for aliveness. Not bad.
Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label drugs. Show all posts
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Monday, December 27, 2010
Belated
Why write now when I haven't blogged in almost two months? A Boy, of course. I'll get there in a moment...
I never wrote about Thanksgiving, how much we had to be thankful this year. My cousin adopted a child. My other cousins are pregnant. Amber stopped by and she's all kinds of pregnant, too. I've created an actual business that's started to make actual money that I enjoy and works extremely well with the chronic migraines and depression that I need to accept as part of myself that's not going anywhere any time soon. And my mom had the fastest, easiest experience with breast cancer humanly possible. I don't think we've ever cried so much as we went around the table and did our "I'm thankful for..."s.
My babycousin (the adoptee) is almost one and friggin adorable. My parents still have this plastic horse on wheels that was my favorite 1st birthday present. I found it in their basement, Lysoled the hell out of it, and brought it up to see if Babycousin wanted to try it out. She loved it and I love that she loved it. Maternal instincts creeping in, biology and all that...raising the next generation with my own experience...someone please start singing "Circle of Life."
I never wrote about my business taking off over the holiday season, money coming in for the first time in a substantial way, paying down the credit card I pretend doesn't exist from a few years back, seeing 800 shop views in an hour, front page, treasury after treasury, hard work paying off.
I never wrote about The Ritalin Experiment. As happens every year, fall showed up and so did a general feeling of gloom and constant exhaustion. My psychiatrist thought I'd do well on a "stimulant" meaning Ritalin. It was a good thought. Unfortunately, I had a paradoxical reaction and it took me two weeks to realize my total lack of desire to do anything and deep dark depression were a result of the drugs and not just a part of me I deserved (isn't depression fun?)
I never wrote about my mom's surgery. Breast cancer reconstruction stuff. The last of it. She was getting back to her negative fussy ways, but then about 24 hours before going under, she saw her therapist and POOF! back to positive thinking. Amazing.
I never wrote about the ovarian cyst I got the day before my mom's surgery. I ended up driving myself to the ER in agony, getting probed by nice people with creepy machines and dumb people with nice drugs and then missing the entire time my mom was in the hospital. Not ok. Ok with my mom (who was wonderful about it) but not with me. I felt guilty, like somehow I'd made myself sick so this would be about me instead of her. They got a nice clear view of the cyst in the sonogram, so if I did somehow give myself the damn thing, I've gotten good at materializing my psychosomatic symptoms.
But I never wrote about the boy, either.
At first I thought he was gay. I misinterpreted something as him flirting with another guy, and I must have thought he said something else early on, too, because I filed him away as "gay" very quickly in a way I don't normally do. So he was my fun new friend I didn't see that much. He was there for Halloween, we hung out for a good chunk of the night as I got consistently more and more wasted. He was gone by the time I was almost ready to follow home the snarky stranger.
I think Halloween was when I first thought, "Wait, why exactly did I think he was gay?" Went from "Too bad he's gay" to "I don't think he's gay..."
Apparently I'm extremely dense. Aural Girl is amazed at my obliviousness, and Possible Boy knew exactly who I was talking about because "it's just that obvious that he likes you."
Still, I wasn't sure until he was talking about Neighbor Guy basically trying to rape him no matter how many times he said "I'm. Not. Gay." (Glad to hear Neighbor Guy is sticking to his M.O., falling for straight boys and then not taking "no" for an answer.)
I had to reevaluate The Boy. Because now he could actually be a Boy. What? Further investigation was in order, but I saw him at most once a week at the bar. We didn't actually hang out until right before he left for the east coast for a month-long winter break vacation.
But.
The day we hung out, we were together from 11 AM to 11 PM and had a really fantastic time. Driving around in freezing rain and an estate sale and making music and cooking and more music and being awkward and then just a little bit of smooch on my way out the door. He followed me out to my car in his t-shirt, oblivious to the cold in our mutual dazed bewilderment. The freezing rain slush had turned to snow. After our final bits of giddy and apprehensive, I managed a cool "See you in a month," and drove home.
And then he flew away. To a Carolina. For a month. He won't be back until mid-January.
I wished for an excuse to write love letters, but at this point it would be for the storyline and the love of myself.
But it turns out, he tends to be awake at stupid hours of the night creating things. Whether it's a bad habit or just my natural clock, I've been indulging my nocturnal tendencies and spending hours and hours (like, a good 5 hours a night) "talking" to him on Facebook chat.
I'm not quite sure he's real. I suppose there's enough about him that is just completely his that he can't be purely a narcissistic projection of myself, and there's so much I still don't know. But so much of what I'm finding out seems to fit very well. I'm not getting completely lost and stupid because, via instant messages, he seems more like a concept than a real person. We'll see when he gets back. As long as he keeps making me feel better about myself instead of worse, he's an improvement on most of my past emotionally-involved Boys and I"ll gladly live in fluttery-but-cautiously-optimistic limbo for a few more weeks.
[No code name yet because I haven't decided on one.]
I never wrote about Thanksgiving, how much we had to be thankful this year. My cousin adopted a child. My other cousins are pregnant. Amber stopped by and she's all kinds of pregnant, too. I've created an actual business that's started to make actual money that I enjoy and works extremely well with the chronic migraines and depression that I need to accept as part of myself that's not going anywhere any time soon. And my mom had the fastest, easiest experience with breast cancer humanly possible. I don't think we've ever cried so much as we went around the table and did our "I'm thankful for..."s.
My babycousin (the adoptee) is almost one and friggin adorable. My parents still have this plastic horse on wheels that was my favorite 1st birthday present. I found it in their basement, Lysoled the hell out of it, and brought it up to see if Babycousin wanted to try it out. She loved it and I love that she loved it. Maternal instincts creeping in, biology and all that...raising the next generation with my own experience...someone please start singing "Circle of Life."
I never wrote about my business taking off over the holiday season, money coming in for the first time in a substantial way, paying down the credit card I pretend doesn't exist from a few years back, seeing 800 shop views in an hour, front page, treasury after treasury, hard work paying off.
I never wrote about The Ritalin Experiment. As happens every year, fall showed up and so did a general feeling of gloom and constant exhaustion. My psychiatrist thought I'd do well on a "stimulant" meaning Ritalin. It was a good thought. Unfortunately, I had a paradoxical reaction and it took me two weeks to realize my total lack of desire to do anything and deep dark depression were a result of the drugs and not just a part of me I deserved (isn't depression fun?)
I never wrote about my mom's surgery. Breast cancer reconstruction stuff. The last of it. She was getting back to her negative fussy ways, but then about 24 hours before going under, she saw her therapist and POOF! back to positive thinking. Amazing.
I never wrote about the ovarian cyst I got the day before my mom's surgery. I ended up driving myself to the ER in agony, getting probed by nice people with creepy machines and dumb people with nice drugs and then missing the entire time my mom was in the hospital. Not ok. Ok with my mom (who was wonderful about it) but not with me. I felt guilty, like somehow I'd made myself sick so this would be about me instead of her. They got a nice clear view of the cyst in the sonogram, so if I did somehow give myself the damn thing, I've gotten good at materializing my psychosomatic symptoms.
But I never wrote about the boy, either.
At first I thought he was gay. I misinterpreted something as him flirting with another guy, and I must have thought he said something else early on, too, because I filed him away as "gay" very quickly in a way I don't normally do. So he was my fun new friend I didn't see that much. He was there for Halloween, we hung out for a good chunk of the night as I got consistently more and more wasted. He was gone by the time I was almost ready to follow home the snarky stranger.
I think Halloween was when I first thought, "Wait, why exactly did I think he was gay?" Went from "Too bad he's gay" to "I don't think he's gay..."
Apparently I'm extremely dense. Aural Girl is amazed at my obliviousness, and Possible Boy knew exactly who I was talking about because "it's just that obvious that he likes you."
Still, I wasn't sure until he was talking about Neighbor Guy basically trying to rape him no matter how many times he said "I'm. Not. Gay." (Glad to hear Neighbor Guy is sticking to his M.O., falling for straight boys and then not taking "no" for an answer.)
I had to reevaluate The Boy. Because now he could actually be a Boy. What? Further investigation was in order, but I saw him at most once a week at the bar. We didn't actually hang out until right before he left for the east coast for a month-long winter break vacation.
But.
The day we hung out, we were together from 11 AM to 11 PM and had a really fantastic time. Driving around in freezing rain and an estate sale and making music and cooking and more music and being awkward and then just a little bit of smooch on my way out the door. He followed me out to my car in his t-shirt, oblivious to the cold in our mutual dazed bewilderment. The freezing rain slush had turned to snow. After our final bits of giddy and apprehensive, I managed a cool "See you in a month," and drove home.
And then he flew away. To a Carolina. For a month. He won't be back until mid-January.
I wished for an excuse to write love letters, but at this point it would be for the storyline and the love of myself.
But it turns out, he tends to be awake at stupid hours of the night creating things. Whether it's a bad habit or just my natural clock, I've been indulging my nocturnal tendencies and spending hours and hours (like, a good 5 hours a night) "talking" to him on Facebook chat.
I'm not quite sure he's real. I suppose there's enough about him that is just completely his that he can't be purely a narcissistic projection of myself, and there's so much I still don't know. But so much of what I'm finding out seems to fit very well. I'm not getting completely lost and stupid because, via instant messages, he seems more like a concept than a real person. We'll see when he gets back. As long as he keeps making me feel better about myself instead of worse, he's an improvement on most of my past emotionally-involved Boys and I"ll gladly live in fluttery-but-cautiously-optimistic limbo for a few more weeks.
[No code name yet because I haven't decided on one.]
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Who Knows Best
FDA: Do not take these drugs together.
Doctor: It's ok, you can take these drugs together.
My body: Why the fuck did you take those drugs together?
At least, as of today, I'm finally recognizing the symptoms of the serotonin reaction shit. Also very weird, the increased dose of my MAOI started taking very obvious effect about a week ago, a week and a half after the increase. Now I feel everything else louder and louder, but at least I'm not in pain. I just hate the want-to-throw-up-the-inside-of-my-toes feeling. I'm making an executive decision and taking a half-dose of the offending drug tonight until I can talk to my doctor in the morning. I JUST WANT TO WORK RIGHT AND FEEL RIGHT AND NOT FUCKING THINK ABOUT IT ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
Doctor: It's ok, you can take these drugs together.
My body: Why the fuck did you take those drugs together?
At least, as of today, I'm finally recognizing the symptoms of the serotonin reaction shit. Also very weird, the increased dose of my MAOI started taking very obvious effect about a week ago, a week and a half after the increase. Now I feel everything else louder and louder, but at least I'm not in pain. I just hate the want-to-throw-up-the-inside-of-my-toes feeling. I'm making an executive decision and taking a half-dose of the offending drug tonight until I can talk to my doctor in the morning. I JUST WANT TO WORK RIGHT AND FEEL RIGHT AND NOT FUCKING THINK ABOUT IT ALL THE FUCKING TIME.
Thursday, May 06, 2010
One Pille, Two Pill, Orange Pill, Blue Pill
I messed up my pills this morning. Really weird. I have dreams where I just keep putting pills in my mouth without realizing it until I notice my mouthful of pills and spit everything out and worry about what I've already swallowed and what I still need to swallow. This morning, reality felt closer to that than it ever has before.
I went to take my pills as always. I start on the big capsules and then take the little ones, so I grabbed my norotriptyline and downed my most recent dose: two. I went for the next vial and realized I'd just taken my norotriptyline. That's a night-time only drug. Fuck. Not worth making myself puke (I've never done this in a finger-down-the-throat way, only by mentally allowing my body to let go when it was already nauseous, and I wasn't nauseous, and I didn't want to change that). Fine. It's not going to kill me, I'm just taking it 12 hours early. Now where's the Prozac I was reaching for in the first place?
And having just taken two norotriptyline, I took two Prozac. Not on purpose. I wasn't consciously aware of my mistake for a solid minute, then, boom. I'd taken two because I was compensating for the two wrong pills with two right pills. Prozac fucks me up. I wondered if I was asleep, dreaming this. When my teeth fall out I know I'm asleep. Elementary school reunion is a dream, too. No, this time I was awake, but not for long. I was extremely careful with the rest of my drugs and then took a whole as-needed lorazepam to hold back the double-Prozac jumpy crazy weird shit and anything else unpleasant.
I fell asleep for real and for hours. So much for Thursday. I hear Fridays are nice.
I went to take my pills as always. I start on the big capsules and then take the little ones, so I grabbed my norotriptyline and downed my most recent dose: two. I went for the next vial and realized I'd just taken my norotriptyline. That's a night-time only drug. Fuck. Not worth making myself puke (I've never done this in a finger-down-the-throat way, only by mentally allowing my body to let go when it was already nauseous, and I wasn't nauseous, and I didn't want to change that). Fine. It's not going to kill me, I'm just taking it 12 hours early. Now where's the Prozac I was reaching for in the first place?
And having just taken two norotriptyline, I took two Prozac. Not on purpose. I wasn't consciously aware of my mistake for a solid minute, then, boom. I'd taken two because I was compensating for the two wrong pills with two right pills. Prozac fucks me up. I wondered if I was asleep, dreaming this. When my teeth fall out I know I'm asleep. Elementary school reunion is a dream, too. No, this time I was awake, but not for long. I was extremely careful with the rest of my drugs and then took a whole as-needed lorazepam to hold back the double-Prozac jumpy crazy weird shit and anything else unpleasant.
I fell asleep for real and for hours. So much for Thursday. I hear Fridays are nice.
Friday, April 30, 2010
Spiky
Sooooooooooooooo...
I've been up since 6:30 AM and I've been doing stuff the entire time. Cleaning and laundry and shopping for May gift-getters and at around 10 AM I was going to take a nap so I could get back to a normalish sleep schedule but then I wanted to sweep every possible surface before I took a nap so I could mop after my nap and then it was noon and the pain showed up and I hadn't taken my pills yet and I needed to eat and while I was eating I started doing stuff on Etsy and putting together pretty collections of possible gifts and then it was the afternoon and I had to do the one project I absolutely had to do today and then my psychiatrist called to say he actually had gotten the lab results fax and my nortriptyline levels were high (duh shit, this is why I'm crashing most days when the sun sets and in a content but shaky stupor during my awake times). At some point I blinked and it was 6 PM. I made dinner. Now it's approaching 9 and I'm still quite alert, unshowered, and need to go to Walgreens to get my new lower-dose prescription nortriptyline before it closes or I go to bed, whichever comes first. Before I can go to Walgreens (3 blocks away) I have to drive to put air in my tire (1.5 blocks away) which has been soft since before the last time I drove, two weeks ago. Tomorrow morning at 9 AM I intend to be at a demolition sale in Park Ridge. I may be a little bonkers, but it's an easy drive.
Oh, good, it's raining. I'm being 50% sarcastic. Good for my head, bad for walking to get the car and then finding the car a new parking space. And that whole putting air in the tires thing. Maybe I'll get up tomorrow at 6:30 again.
The rest of my week has been a blur; everything feels blurry. I haven't seen Aural Girl in some ridiculous amount of time.
>>Insert note: thunder and lightning outside, so my dog has to be touching me: my legs are crossed and he's resting his head on my elevated foot.<<
I only saw Possible Boy last Sunday for grocery shopping. And I feel like I haven't seen anybody, including myself, in ages. I've seen My Twin (new official code name for friend from junior high and high school with whom I'd lost touch and now we just started meeting up weekly downtown) but in my dreams I frequently see people from my past so something about it feels surreal. It's wonderful, but surreal. We used to say we were twins back in high school because we'd say the same thing or think the same thing all the time. People used to say we looked alike, and we had similar builds, but I'm blonde and pasty white while My Twin is deep mocha African-American and uses her hair an art medium. Still, we held ourselves the same (despite her dance background) and had the same speech patterns and we fed off eachother like Hall and Oates or something. Then we went our separate ways, I thought I'd failed her by being too young and self-involved...Ten years later, we've both changed and grown up and gone through a lot, and the same stuff that made us "twins" as kids seems to have ripened into an older but just as twinny version. I go around collecting people I like and identify with; My Twin was a cornerstone of my collection.
And then I got snippy over the use of the word "meta."
On most tv shows, characters go through some trial or tribulation and learn some life lesson, but things have to be set back pretty much to zero by the end of the episode so that you don't have to worry about the continuity and congruence of the episodes. I think I'm a little like this, too. I was reading through posts from last summer to see if I'd already given My Twin a code name, and it's the exact same thing day after day. Posts individually may seem like they mean something or are going somewhere or like perhaps I've really learned my lesson this time, but the accumulation is no more than pencil shavings, and I'm not using a pencil.
Life is so weird. Place your bets now on whether or not I'll make it to the demolition sale tomorrow, if I'll make it to any other sales, and who will go with me. I'm giving 5-to-1 odds I'll have a male or no companion. Who knows a bookie?
I've been up since 6:30 AM and I've been doing stuff the entire time. Cleaning and laundry and shopping for May gift-getters and at around 10 AM I was going to take a nap so I could get back to a normalish sleep schedule but then I wanted to sweep every possible surface before I took a nap so I could mop after my nap and then it was noon and the pain showed up and I hadn't taken my pills yet and I needed to eat and while I was eating I started doing stuff on Etsy and putting together pretty collections of possible gifts and then it was the afternoon and I had to do the one project I absolutely had to do today and then my psychiatrist called to say he actually had gotten the lab results fax and my nortriptyline levels were high (duh shit, this is why I'm crashing most days when the sun sets and in a content but shaky stupor during my awake times). At some point I blinked and it was 6 PM. I made dinner. Now it's approaching 9 and I'm still quite alert, unshowered, and need to go to Walgreens to get my new lower-dose prescription nortriptyline before it closes or I go to bed, whichever comes first. Before I can go to Walgreens (3 blocks away) I have to drive to put air in my tire (1.5 blocks away) which has been soft since before the last time I drove, two weeks ago. Tomorrow morning at 9 AM I intend to be at a demolition sale in Park Ridge. I may be a little bonkers, but it's an easy drive.
Oh, good, it's raining. I'm being 50% sarcastic. Good for my head, bad for walking to get the car and then finding the car a new parking space. And that whole putting air in the tires thing. Maybe I'll get up tomorrow at 6:30 again.
The rest of my week has been a blur; everything feels blurry. I haven't seen Aural Girl in some ridiculous amount of time.
>>Insert note: thunder and lightning outside, so my dog has to be touching me: my legs are crossed and he's resting his head on my elevated foot.<<
I only saw Possible Boy last Sunday for grocery shopping. And I feel like I haven't seen anybody, including myself, in ages. I've seen My Twin (new official code name for friend from junior high and high school with whom I'd lost touch and now we just started meeting up weekly downtown) but in my dreams I frequently see people from my past so something about it feels surreal. It's wonderful, but surreal. We used to say we were twins back in high school because we'd say the same thing or think the same thing all the time. People used to say we looked alike, and we had similar builds, but I'm blonde and pasty white while My Twin is deep mocha African-American and uses her hair an art medium. Still, we held ourselves the same (despite her dance background) and had the same speech patterns and we fed off eachother like Hall and Oates or something. Then we went our separate ways, I thought I'd failed her by being too young and self-involved...Ten years later, we've both changed and grown up and gone through a lot, and the same stuff that made us "twins" as kids seems to have ripened into an older but just as twinny version. I go around collecting people I like and identify with; My Twin was a cornerstone of my collection.
And then I got snippy over the use of the word "meta."
On most tv shows, characters go through some trial or tribulation and learn some life lesson, but things have to be set back pretty much to zero by the end of the episode so that you don't have to worry about the continuity and congruence of the episodes. I think I'm a little like this, too. I was reading through posts from last summer to see if I'd already given My Twin a code name, and it's the exact same thing day after day. Posts individually may seem like they mean something or are going somewhere or like perhaps I've really learned my lesson this time, but the accumulation is no more than pencil shavings, and I'm not using a pencil.
Life is so weird. Place your bets now on whether or not I'll make it to the demolition sale tomorrow, if I'll make it to any other sales, and who will go with me. I'm giving 5-to-1 odds I'll have a male or no companion. Who knows a bookie?
Monday, February 01, 2010
Evening Ramblings
Sometimes my dog is so cute I can't stand it. According to a former light of my life/scourge of my soul, my dog is actually thinking "I am going to eat your face" every time he stares at you with those adorable, wide gaping eyes. Well, maybe my dog should eat the faces of the boys I bring home; I tend to let those boys treat me like crap, so somebody needs to be looking out for us...
That's not fair. I'm looking out a bit better. If I wasn't, I'd totally have gone for one of the not-particularly-nice-but-still-interesting boys. I may be subconsciously trying to train Possible Boy to treat me like crap, but he's one of the most frighteningly kind people I've met in my entire life. But there are more fish! Billions of fish! I have some pretty spectacular friendfish, and now I even have spectacular friendfish down the block, so when the next Boyfish comes swimming along I can freak out and cry and all those other things with people who can physically hand me the bag of marshmallows.
I fought the Topamax Withdrawal Monster today and won. Two phone calls and an email to my doctor's office, two phone calls and finally just showing up at Walgreens, and TADA! Topamax. The shakes are going down and I can almost walk straight again. Hooray!
I just want to watch pseudo-edgy TV dramas all the time. And say "pseudo-edgy" because I'm too cool to actually think anything on television is edgy. I'm sooo edgy. I live in Rogers Park. Sometimes, there's crime. There's even black people. Sometimes, I even talk to them. Oooh, edgy.
Oh shit. I put my chicken back on the George because it was still raw-ish. That was a good 20 minutes ago...
Chicken didn't really burn, but my dog may get a serious treat tonight...
That's not fair. I'm looking out a bit better. If I wasn't, I'd totally have gone for one of the not-particularly-nice-but-still-interesting boys. I may be subconsciously trying to train Possible Boy to treat me like crap, but he's one of the most frighteningly kind people I've met in my entire life. But there are more fish! Billions of fish! I have some pretty spectacular friendfish, and now I even have spectacular friendfish down the block, so when the next Boyfish comes swimming along I can freak out and cry and all those other things with people who can physically hand me the bag of marshmallows.
I fought the Topamax Withdrawal Monster today and won. Two phone calls and an email to my doctor's office, two phone calls and finally just showing up at Walgreens, and TADA! Topamax. The shakes are going down and I can almost walk straight again. Hooray!
I just want to watch pseudo-edgy TV dramas all the time. And say "pseudo-edgy" because I'm too cool to actually think anything on television is edgy. I'm sooo edgy. I live in Rogers Park. Sometimes, there's crime. There's even black people. Sometimes, I even talk to them. Oooh, edgy.
Oh shit. I put my chicken back on the George because it was still raw-ish. That was a good 20 minutes ago...
Chicken didn't really burn, but my dog may get a serious treat tonight...
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Couch Party
Earlier today I gave myself my ketorolac tromethamine shot, walked the dog, and fell asleep on the couch before I took off my coat. When I woke up from the nap, I still had the headache. I went to the Walgreens drive-thru and forced myself through a quick shopping trip at my little local grocery store. I needed rice milk but there was no way I could deal with Dominicks (now owned by Safeway), so I still have no rice milk. It is amazing what I can do, when necessary, with migraine. It's also amazing how hard some things can be. The mess builds and builds, and at this point I'm still assuming I'll feel better in another day or so, and then I can clear away the rubble. Now, the logic and organization receptors are frustratingly haywire and as long as I'm not back in permanent status migraine mode, it's not worth trying to think in the way that hurts most.When I came home from my errands, my dog was in my nap spot on the couch. I've since reclaimed the space, forcing him to build himself a little fort out of the cushions. First he had to "dig" the cushions, then my sofa's slip cover provided him a more fruitful excavation. We stayed through sunset, watching Hulu. I ate half a papaya, three bananas, and a generously buttered sweet potato. I knit. I finished the entire season of Lie to Me and a good bit of the scarf I'm knitting. My dog farted a lot.
At least I don't feel bitter or ashamed of my day. Maybe the pain is too wide to fit my standard self-doubt, but I feel like I got today "right." I pushed on the things that required pushing and let go everywhere else. Aural Girl and Possible Boy are wonderful and amazing when I'm migrainey. They say nice things and mean them and care and are concerned in a way that isn't more about themselves (cough, my mother, cough cough). They went to see the NBA game in Milwaukee, and I just got a text from Possible Boy that says "having a blast, wish you were here with us!" and at this particular moment I am very glad I am not with them because they are somewhere with noise and motion and people and things that would make me curl up into a little ball and cry. People confined to wheelchairs don't generally get to climb through ancient ruins or Escher lithographs; I may not be able to plan attendance at indoor sporting events, concerts, or the entire city of Las Vegas. I'm so used to having it all, it's not a bad life to have it most.
Saturday, January 30, 2010
In a perfect world...
Dear doctors,
When Walgreens calls you to refill a prescription, call them back. Due to insurance, I can only refill my prescriptions a week in advance. That should be plenty of time to authorize additional refills. It's a huge part of what you do.
Dear Walgreens,
If the doctor doesn't call back, please try calling again. Please. I am at home not knowing if or how much you have hounded them. I don't know if they've already called it back in and you just haven't completed the prescription. You claim to do all of this so I don't have to. Great. Then please do.
There is a reason I am on so many medications, and when that reason coincides with those medications not getting refilled, it sucks a lot. I'm having enough trouble walking the dog and feeding myself at semi-regular intervals. It would be great if I didn't need to chase down doctors on the weekend when I've run out of my emergency supply because only one of my five refills are ready for pick-up and I submitted it all on Monday.
In large amounts of pain and this is not helping,
Annabell
When Walgreens calls you to refill a prescription, call them back. Due to insurance, I can only refill my prescriptions a week in advance. That should be plenty of time to authorize additional refills. It's a huge part of what you do.
Dear Walgreens,
If the doctor doesn't call back, please try calling again. Please. I am at home not knowing if or how much you have hounded them. I don't know if they've already called it back in and you just haven't completed the prescription. You claim to do all of this so I don't have to. Great. Then please do.
There is a reason I am on so many medications, and when that reason coincides with those medications not getting refilled, it sucks a lot. I'm having enough trouble walking the dog and feeding myself at semi-regular intervals. It would be great if I didn't need to chase down doctors on the weekend when I've run out of my emergency supply because only one of my five refills are ready for pick-up and I submitted it all on Monday.
In large amounts of pain and this is not helping,
Annabell
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Floating Head, Frozen Heart
Today I am woozy. All day. At one point I was sitting in bed on the computer and a piece of paper in my peripheral vision moved and floated of its own volition. I turned to look at the paper and it was still kind of floating in a halo. Then everything looked floaty.
Not. Fucking. Cool.
Cool if you're dropping acid or smoking pot or doing some other purposeful thing to alter your perception of reality. Cool if you get to brag about it later to your friends. Significantly less cool when you immediately start to wonder if you somehow messed up your very legal doctor prescribed medications, if there was something you had eaten or hadn't eaten (the latter of the two being my most common culprit, though probably not today). Finally, Cool curls up into a little ball and whimpers in anguish when you start figuring out where you are in your completely fucked up menstrual cycle. Ah yes, sorry Cool, but I think it doesn't matter how many pills I shove down my throat, my body goes crazy every time it remembers it's female.
Last night was more general evidence of my biologic sex.
I've been in general targetless boy-craving mode all week. For the first time since, well, "band camp," I have this collection of boys who want me. I'm trying to convince myself to want some of them back without them feeling like consolation prizes.
One came home with me last night.
He ate cornflakes
We talked, and the whole conversation was just a huge reminder of why I'm so averse to really dating him. His answer for everything is "Well, just do it." Everything is black and white, and most of it is black. He truly is what hipsters aspire to be. It's not necessarily a bad thing and there's a lot more to him than just that, but I am a writer. Equivocation is a lifestyle for me. He thinks I should just stop. He thinks that's an answer. Well, it's an answer, but once again, there are an infinite number of answers and who's to say what's right? Does it make me happy? I don't know. Is it supposed to? It's where I am right now and may not be forever but it is how I make sense of the world. I'm not satisfied with "yes" and "no."
"Yes" and "no" may never enter the playing field with this boy since the closest thing he did to making a move was pull me into an awkward hug. I wasn't helping or encouraging. I'd eaten a huge late dinner and my stomach was not happy and then he was declaring the world a shallow awful place. Maybe next time I'll put post-it notes up to remind myself to use boys for general life experience. I'm already being not nice by being vague and waffly, if I start actively using boys then they at least get something out of it.
Not. Fucking. Cool.
Cool if you're dropping acid or smoking pot or doing some other purposeful thing to alter your perception of reality. Cool if you get to brag about it later to your friends. Significantly less cool when you immediately start to wonder if you somehow messed up your very legal doctor prescribed medications, if there was something you had eaten or hadn't eaten (the latter of the two being my most common culprit, though probably not today). Finally, Cool curls up into a little ball and whimpers in anguish when you start figuring out where you are in your completely fucked up menstrual cycle. Ah yes, sorry Cool, but I think it doesn't matter how many pills I shove down my throat, my body goes crazy every time it remembers it's female.
Last night was more general evidence of my biologic sex.
I've been in general targetless boy-craving mode all week. For the first time since, well, "band camp," I have this collection of boys who want me. I'm trying to convince myself to want some of them back without them feeling like consolation prizes.
One came home with me last night.
He ate cornflakes
We talked, and the whole conversation was just a huge reminder of why I'm so averse to really dating him. His answer for everything is "Well, just do it." Everything is black and white, and most of it is black. He truly is what hipsters aspire to be. It's not necessarily a bad thing and there's a lot more to him than just that, but I am a writer. Equivocation is a lifestyle for me. He thinks I should just stop. He thinks that's an answer. Well, it's an answer, but once again, there are an infinite number of answers and who's to say what's right? Does it make me happy? I don't know. Is it supposed to? It's where I am right now and may not be forever but it is how I make sense of the world. I'm not satisfied with "yes" and "no."
"Yes" and "no" may never enter the playing field with this boy since the closest thing he did to making a move was pull me into an awkward hug. I wasn't helping or encouraging. I'd eaten a huge late dinner and my stomach was not happy and then he was declaring the world a shallow awful place. Maybe next time I'll put post-it notes up to remind myself to use boys for general life experience. I'm already being not nice by being vague and waffly, if I start actively using boys then they at least get something out of it.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Effexor withdrawal is the worst thing in the universe, genocide be damned.
Prozac withdrawal seems to be not so much terrible as floaty fluffy weird.
Why am I going through Prozac withdrawal? Because after my pharmacy spent 6 days calling my psychiatrist for an authorization on the refill and I blew through my three day emergency supply, and then called my dear darling shrink myself on a Friday evening, hoping to inspire some sense of urgency, it wasn't until 10 PM that he finally sent me a text message saying no more or less than "Prozac called in." The pharmacy at my Walgreens closes at 10. It opens tomorrow morning at 9. I went online to check me account, and they still have the thing "pending physician approval," but if I'm the first thing they see when they open, maybe I can be drugged and not insane early enough for some quality estate saleage.
The end.
Dammit dog, walk yourself.
Ok, fine. It's a damn good thing you're cute.
Prozac withdrawal seems to be not so much terrible as floaty fluffy weird.
Why am I going through Prozac withdrawal? Because after my pharmacy spent 6 days calling my psychiatrist for an authorization on the refill and I blew through my three day emergency supply, and then called my dear darling shrink myself on a Friday evening, hoping to inspire some sense of urgency, it wasn't until 10 PM that he finally sent me a text message saying no more or less than "Prozac called in." The pharmacy at my Walgreens closes at 10. It opens tomorrow morning at 9. I went online to check me account, and they still have the thing "pending physician approval," but if I'm the first thing they see when they open, maybe I can be drugged and not insane early enough for some quality estate saleage.
The end.
Dammit dog, walk yourself.
Ok, fine. It's a damn good thing you're cute.
Friday, December 04, 2009
Worm
Very long day with too much driving in Friday traffic and getting mad at myself for things and not eating for many hours at a stretch. Tequila and Aural Girl heal all wounds. My psychiatrist official prescribed a sun lamp for seasonal depression. Why can't it just be ok to hybernate? Juggling my four main doctors and eight regular prescriptions makes me want to hybernate, too. Where's that One Magical Thing or Person that can make everything improve in a constant and noticable way?
Thursday, November 19, 2009
It Makes the World Go Around
Credit card statement. Contained my dog's health insurance for the year (almost $400) and two auctions. I need to cram my finances into their nice separate accounts where they belong so I don't get double-punched in the stomach after the cash I got for what I managed to sell never makes it into my checking account. Granted, right now I have cash that should go into my checking account, but it's been lounging about my house and purse for almost two weeks now, slowly dwindling as I go for a night out here and an estate sale there. If I actually get my butt out to sell the lamps I bought with some of the cash I made on a purchase sitting on my credit card, and then get more cash for those lamps, I will put it in the bank. I have to. Otherwise, the antiques I sell will have to be made out of drugs.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Remember the Goal
My memory is getting worse. I've been back on name brand Topamax for a full month and I'm still finding fragments of conversations and events straggling about in my skull and that creepy uncertainty where and when and if they occurred. Am I going certifiably nuts? They've taken many nice pictures of my brain, but when looking for tumors, I wonder if the doctors would be able to spot a leak instead. Flowers for Algernon. Maybe I need to be using my brain more on a day-to-day basis; do calculus problem sets, half an hour on the tredmill, learn 50 words in Sanskrit, then crunches and push-ups, all by 10:30 AM. I'll be a picture of health and energy, both mental and physical. I'll be President of the Universe by next Friday.
Where's my orange juice?
Where's my orange juice?
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
worry, boy
I'm feeling weird and panicky. I've been this way since Saturdayish. At first I thought it was Boy-related, but now I think it's just me. Medication? Hormones? Something I'm not doing that I know I need to do but have crammed below my consciousness? I used to get this way over that last category, but I'm not finding it right now. I've been eliminating those dark clouds, not creating more of them. So the Panic may be chemical. Blech.
It started with The Boy. But I'm thinking Possible Boy may not be so much anymore. I'm slipping into a status member of his fanclub, and our interactions are reminding me more and more of the bad parts of some of my Boys past. I caught myself starting to revel in the yearning that had nothing to do with Possible Boy himself, meanwhile back in reality he's so completely unsure about anything that I had to ask myself if the struggle was worth it. I'd gotten my hopes up for plans yesterday that never happened, and I'm ignoring an entire world's worth of Possibility prematurely for a Boy who isn't even doing me the same favor. Fuck it. He can keep a glimmer of possibility, but I'm taking my hopes and dreams back. He never asked for them in the first place.
NBF finally booked his ticket. He shows up Saturday.
I'm worried about my dog. That's a real worry. He's been chewing on himself a lot and we never went to the cardiologist. I wanted to get reimbursed from his doggy health insurance for his last round of ailments before having to dole out hundreds for new things, but there may not be a choice.
Seriously, stomach, shut up. I have to go spend 8 hours in a hot auction room as soon as I convince myself to put on clothes and make a final phone call or two. Do I dare pop my lorazepam? I'm already so overmedicated, but this is exactly what it's meant to "fix."
It started with The Boy. But I'm thinking Possible Boy may not be so much anymore. I'm slipping into a status member of his fanclub, and our interactions are reminding me more and more of the bad parts of some of my Boys past. I caught myself starting to revel in the yearning that had nothing to do with Possible Boy himself, meanwhile back in reality he's so completely unsure about anything that I had to ask myself if the struggle was worth it. I'd gotten my hopes up for plans yesterday that never happened, and I'm ignoring an entire world's worth of Possibility prematurely for a Boy who isn't even doing me the same favor. Fuck it. He can keep a glimmer of possibility, but I'm taking my hopes and dreams back. He never asked for them in the first place.
NBF finally booked his ticket. He shows up Saturday.
I'm worried about my dog. That's a real worry. He's been chewing on himself a lot and we never went to the cardiologist. I wanted to get reimbursed from his doggy health insurance for his last round of ailments before having to dole out hundreds for new things, but there may not be a choice.
Seriously, stomach, shut up. I have to go spend 8 hours in a hot auction room as soon as I convince myself to put on clothes and make a final phone call or two. Do I dare pop my lorazepam? I'm already so overmedicated, but this is exactly what it's meant to "fix."
Thursday, July 16, 2009
As Needed With Headache
I'm good at pretending I'm ok on this very nice shiny superficial level. And I am ok on a very nice shiny superficial level, so I guess it's not a tough act. I can run around and carry on bits of conversation and smile and make myself pretty. Aaaaaand that's about it. I guess this is what it's like to be stupid. I can do things when I can do things, but as soon as a task starts requiring effort, my brain starts misfiring all over the place and I break things and lose things and forget things to a point whereI'm actually better off not doing them. Not just perfectionistic "better off not doing it at all if it can't be perfect," but I get into this state where I think I still should be able to do errands or pay bills or work on something around the house, and then even when I think I've accomplished my task at the time, my next moment of clarity proves I've made things worse for myself than before I started.
I have a very similar but importantly different migraine pseudo-stoned state that tends to put me on the path of serendipity. I can't always tell the two feelings apart when I'm having them, which may be part of the problem. Maybe it's all one thing and my brainwaves get tuned to Fate so whatever way the wind blows, there I fly.
morning:
40 mg fluoxetine hcl (Prozac)
50 mg topiramate (Topamax)
400 mg gabapentin (Neurontin)
.5 mg levothyroxine sodium (Synthroid)
afternoon:
400 mg gabapentin
night:
50 mg topiramate
400 mg gabapentin
25 mg amitriptyline hcl (Elavil)
as needed with headache:
25 mg hydroxyzine pamoate (Vistaril)
100 mg orphenadrine (Norflex)
1 ml self-injection ketorolac trometamine (Torodol)
I have a very similar but importantly different migraine pseudo-stoned state that tends to put me on the path of serendipity. I can't always tell the two feelings apart when I'm having them, which may be part of the problem. Maybe it's all one thing and my brainwaves get tuned to Fate so whatever way the wind blows, there I fly.
morning:
40 mg fluoxetine hcl (Prozac)
50 mg topiramate (Topamax)
400 mg gabapentin (Neurontin)
.5 mg levothyroxine sodium (Synthroid)
afternoon:
400 mg gabapentin
night:
50 mg topiramate
400 mg gabapentin
25 mg amitriptyline hcl (Elavil)
as needed with headache:
25 mg hydroxyzine pamoate (Vistaril)
100 mg orphenadrine (Norflex)
1 ml self-injection ketorolac trometamine (Torodol)
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Better Days
I felt a lot better all weekend. All day starting Friday and even through Monday. Clearer and I could concentrate again and the pain was manageable, especially once I added in some combination of Norflex, Vistaril, and my Toradol shot. Last night, I even started looking through the Craigslist help wanted ads.
Today I'm still not terrible, so I am hoping this is not just a quick break in the misery but a continued positive direction. I'm trying very hard to avoid dissappointment or negative feelings that today's setback (super light sensitive, strangely sore muscles, and Pain that isn't calming down when I give it the extra non-injected drugs) is a trend. I'm still feeling emotionally better. I'm still able to write things, it seems. Pretty good indication the Neurontin was what had me quite so stoned, not the "abortive" meds.
I slept all day.
I can't decide now if I should give myself the Toradol to keep myself in the lesser-pain mode, or not do the Toradol so I don't overuse it and render it useless like I did to the DHE.
But I kind of want to go out...
Because there's a possible Boy...
Possible Boy is Neighbor Guy's best friend, even though Neighbor Guy doesn't call him his best friend. Neighbor Guy "had" a huge crush on Possible Boy. For a long time. Possible Boy knows this. They've talked about it. Possible Boy is straight; he likes girls. Neighbor Guy is not a girl. So Neighbor Guy decides I should meet Possible Boy. "Oh, you would really like him."
Neighbor Guy drags me to a barbecue. Possible Boy also comes to barbecue.
Turns out Possible Boy is sharp and snarky with depth, and he's cute.
Neighbor Guy claimed he had his crush in check and was "totally over" Possible Boy, but we all know that's bullshit. Still, so long as Neighbor Guy is a guy, Possible Boy can't see him as anything more than a friend.
I'm used to being in Neighbor Guy's corner of the love triangle. It's the self-defeatist's spot and I empathize completely. I don't really know what to do or how to handle the good corner. For that matter, I don't know how to handle possible boys. How do I not automatically turn him into a just friend? Or chase him away completely? This is not one of my better games. HELP!
Totally unrelated: In my dreams, I keep accidentally eating things that are big no-nos on my migraine diet. These dreams have the same feel as the ones where I do something that accidentally hurts a child or children, but now I have a new theme. It's me doing things I shouldn't without realizing it. Since they are dreams, they skip the parts where I'm making any decisions or thinking about it and go right to where I'm eating the pizza or letting go of the bar before the kid jumps up to grab it.
Obvious interpretation: I feel like I make all these mistakes in life that are my fault without having any control over them.
Obvious easier-said-than-done solution: Take control over the things I can control and let the rest go.
Reality: I'm still a long way from actualizing the AA serenity prayer.
Today I'm still not terrible, so I am hoping this is not just a quick break in the misery but a continued positive direction. I'm trying very hard to avoid dissappointment or negative feelings that today's setback (super light sensitive, strangely sore muscles, and Pain that isn't calming down when I give it the extra non-injected drugs) is a trend. I'm still feeling emotionally better. I'm still able to write things, it seems. Pretty good indication the Neurontin was what had me quite so stoned, not the "abortive" meds.
I slept all day.
I can't decide now if I should give myself the Toradol to keep myself in the lesser-pain mode, or not do the Toradol so I don't overuse it and render it useless like I did to the DHE.
But I kind of want to go out...
Because there's a possible Boy...
Possible Boy is Neighbor Guy's best friend, even though Neighbor Guy doesn't call him his best friend. Neighbor Guy "had" a huge crush on Possible Boy. For a long time. Possible Boy knows this. They've talked about it. Possible Boy is straight; he likes girls. Neighbor Guy is not a girl. So Neighbor Guy decides I should meet Possible Boy. "Oh, you would really like him."
Neighbor Guy drags me to a barbecue. Possible Boy also comes to barbecue.
Turns out Possible Boy is sharp and snarky with depth, and he's cute.
Neighbor Guy claimed he had his crush in check and was "totally over" Possible Boy, but we all know that's bullshit. Still, so long as Neighbor Guy is a guy, Possible Boy can't see him as anything more than a friend.
NG: Possible Boy was telling me to call you the other day to invite you out but I told him you were probably having your headaches and you'd call me if you wanted to do something.Neighbor Guy kept saying he'd had a horrible week but nothing about it sounded horrible. Now I knew why. He'd been fielding off-hand, pseudo-casual remarks from both me and Possible Guy about one another, having to endure the Glimmer of Interest in and about the current Love of his Life. To make matters worse, he introduced us.
Me: Blah blah blah not important to story
NG: Well can I just give him your number? I hate being the middle-man.
Me: Of course! Blah blah blah
NG: Ok good because I don't want to be an intermediary blah blah blah etc.
I'm used to being in Neighbor Guy's corner of the love triangle. It's the self-defeatist's spot and I empathize completely. I don't really know what to do or how to handle the good corner. For that matter, I don't know how to handle possible boys. How do I not automatically turn him into a just friend? Or chase him away completely? This is not one of my better games. HELP!
Totally unrelated: In my dreams, I keep accidentally eating things that are big no-nos on my migraine diet. These dreams have the same feel as the ones where I do something that accidentally hurts a child or children, but now I have a new theme. It's me doing things I shouldn't without realizing it. Since they are dreams, they skip the parts where I'm making any decisions or thinking about it and go right to where I'm eating the pizza or letting go of the bar before the kid jumps up to grab it.
Obvious interpretation: I feel like I make all these mistakes in life that are my fault without having any control over them.
Obvious easier-said-than-done solution: Take control over the things I can control and let the rest go.
Reality: I'm still a long way from actualizing the AA serenity prayer.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
My Grain is Rice or Corn
I'll get back to The Columbian later. Can't really concentrate or think about that story right now, so you get a different one.
Let me be frank with you all for a moment. Maybe Frank is having an easier time than Annabell.
The migraine stuff has been rough. I'm drugged out of my mind to the point that it takes all my concentration to accomplish simple tasks. Writing has never been difficult for me and yet this blog post is requiring all kinds of extra initiative and push and time. I have bills to pay and phone calls to make, too, and they very well may take me hours instead of minutes.
My latest major anti-migraine push has been a diet change. Since there are a bazillion little additives and weird things in our foods, any number of which could be triggering or causing the migraines, I'm taking them all out. Gluten, milk, and eggs are always big question marks for migrainey people, too. I did a version of the no gluten diet six years ago, but now that things are so bad I'm being extremely strict just so I can either find a culprit or officially rule food out as a cause.
So, the only foods I am eating are:
I've been eating a lot of rice cereal and Indian food with rice cakes. Yesterday I made it to the grocery store and got yogurt, but only plain yogurt passed my dietary test, so I took my buy one get one free organic strawberries, chopped some up in the blender, and mixed them in with said plain yogurt. I considered adding sugar but thought no! I own real vanilla! So I added in a splash of vanilla. And since I was in the spice cabinet I saw my cinnamon, and I love cinnamon, so I mixed that in, too. Let's just say Dannon can suck it.
Why do I already need to lay down again? Is new diet worse for me? Is rice actually my kryptonite? Will dog ever stop whining even though I'm not letting him lick my empty yogurt bowl?
Tune in next time.
Let me be frank with you all for a moment. Maybe Frank is having an easier time than Annabell.
The migraine stuff has been rough. I'm drugged out of my mind to the point that it takes all my concentration to accomplish simple tasks. Writing has never been difficult for me and yet this blog post is requiring all kinds of extra initiative and push and time. I have bills to pay and phone calls to make, too, and they very well may take me hours instead of minutes.
My latest major anti-migraine push has been a diet change. Since there are a bazillion little additives and weird things in our foods, any number of which could be triggering or causing the migraines, I'm taking them all out. Gluten, milk, and eggs are always big question marks for migrainey people, too. I did a version of the no gluten diet six years ago, but now that things are so bad I'm being extremely strict just so I can either find a culprit or officially rule food out as a cause.
So, the only foods I am eating are:
- fruits
- vegetables
- potatoes
- corn
- rice
- milk
- meat
- sugar in its nice pure sugar form (no corn syrup or weird fake sugar products or derivatives)
- spices that can be found in a spice cabinet (MSG is not a spice)
- butter
- olive and vegetable oil (NO soybean or peanut oil, more strictly than usual)
- beans (meaning garbanzos since they're the ones I like)
I've been eating a lot of rice cereal and Indian food with rice cakes. Yesterday I made it to the grocery store and got yogurt, but only plain yogurt passed my dietary test, so I took my buy one get one free organic strawberries, chopped some up in the blender, and mixed them in with said plain yogurt. I considered adding sugar but thought no! I own real vanilla! So I added in a splash of vanilla. And since I was in the spice cabinet I saw my cinnamon, and I love cinnamon, so I mixed that in, too. Let's just say Dannon can suck it.
Why do I already need to lay down again? Is new diet worse for me? Is rice actually my kryptonite? Will dog ever stop whining even though I'm not letting him lick my empty yogurt bowl?
Tune in next time.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Shooting Pain
I just gave myself my first shot of Ketorolac Tromethamine. Still woozy, but I can in fact see and was able to walk from my living room to my computer chair in my office, so the initial wave of "omigawd! bright lights! splotchy! can't stand!" already passed.Yes, Virginia, I'm back to shooting up migraine meds. Different from the DHE I used to have to squeeze into my tummy fat. "Sub-Q" aka "subcutaneous. "That was a smaller needle but way worse since the injecting part was much slower and more concentrated. This is "IM" aka "intramuscular," so I stab it into my thigh quick like a dart and barely have to look at anything. It still took me several false wrist-flicking starts where something inside stopped me before I hit the skin, but in it went and so did the medicine and maybe I'll stop feeling like shit soon.
All day today I've been in pain and asleep with migraine dreams or needing to be asleep. I took my other new drug earlier, but it clearly didn't help as I still had to give myself the shot. Please please please let the shot break the cycle. The 21 month cycle that has me in all kinds of useless self-hating demi-stupor all the time.
I went to the Diamond Headache Clinic for the first time on Tuesday. My regular neurologist referred me to a specific doctor there as the expert on hormones and migraine, since my hormones are nuts and no one ever wants to let me near The Pill with my stroke risk crap. That's why I have all these new drugs. She (Diamond Headache Doc) also suggested I do biofeedback, which I hope to start ASAP, and if that doesn't work, my parents get to dogsit for a few days while I go in as an inpatient and they hopefully IV drip the hell out of the migraines until they stop coming back on a daily basis. Modern medicine may not have caught up with the "why" or the "how" of migraine, but it likes to beat migraine with sticks until it shuts up temporarily. Diamond wants to use more aggressive sticks, I'm all for it. Get me out of this hell. I'm not counting on it and I'll still have to live my life with the big constant question marks of functionality, but I'm getting desperate to live my life. I try to accept being incapacitated for days and make the most out of when I'm not, but it's so frustrating and it makes me feel like I'm failing myself and when I am doing ok I should be doing everything and when I'm in between or if I ever take time when I'm physically capable of being productive to enjoy things that aren't productive, there's this guilt that I'm wasting my few precious moments and I may not get them again.
What's a girl to do?
Fix it fix it fix it fix it fix it
Saturday, February 28, 2009
My Kind of Town, Not My Kind of Drugs
I've always been willing/happy to move to another city if there was some other city with a solid concentration of my friends. The more I look at condos, the more I realize that everybody isn't going to just magically congregate in one place and I need to keep chugging along towards stability and pretend adulthood and as long as there's nowhere else to go, buying a condo in Chicago makes a lot of sense. Hell, this one was my idea, not my parents'. And there's a lot of great stuff out there. So condo it is!So la-dee-da, staying in Chicago for at least Obama's first term (roll your eyes at me because you always knew I'd be in Chicago forever anyway) and now a few of my favorite people may come to me.
One is applying for jobs post-masters degree graduation. He was like a less healthy (mainly because I was even less emotionally healthy) version of NBF back at Liberal Arts College. I do have a history of turning into an idiot around him, but the last few years I seem to be over the idiot thing (I'm not sure when and where he turned into a human being instead of a demigod, but as long as the glitch in my perception is fixed, it's a decided improvement) and we have much fun together in less-than-gigantic doses.
My friend who lives in Madison auditioned for Chicago Civic Orchestra, and I reeeeeally want him to get into that for next year because he'd have to come down here more often but could still stay living with his fabulous girlfriend in Madison while she finishes med school, and Civic is an excellent gateway to many other Chicago (ok, and other) orchestra opportunities and she's all Midwestern Cheesecurdy anyway and unlike some friends that I would just be trapping in a web of evil, I have a sense he could be perfectly happy as a Chicagoan. Mwahahaha.
Am I trying to justify planting my condo-buying roots here while NBF gets ready to move to his no longer certain or shiny future? And why do I cling to NBF most when he's fussy? I cling to a lot of people most when they're a certain level of fussy. Too fussy and they can go fuck themselves. But that familiar level of sad and self-hating and you are suddenly the magic little center of my existence. Case in point: my dog. Those of you who know my dog, stop laughing.
My health has been particularly frustrating. In the past 16 days I've gone from a daily dose of 225 mg of Effexor to 0 Effexor to 40 mg of Prozac to 60 mg of Prozac to now 10 mg of Prozac. Slap on top of that the 1 mg tabs of Lorazepam I get to bite in half as needed to keep me from jumping out of my skin and make sure I can still digest food and I'm a treat to be around. 900 mg a day of Neurontin, 100 of Topamax, and .05 of Synthroid feel like old friends now. The foundation. The sandy beach atop which I must build my castle. Oooh, cheesy metaphor.At any rate, all the stomach troubles and the jumpiness was due to the Prozac. My psychiatrist thought by switching directly from the Effexor to the Prozac I could avoid the Effexor withdrawal and I'd take to the Prozac right away. Instead, I went through the full withdrawal thing and then all the batshit insanity was classic serotonin side effect crap, meaning my body did not adjust nicely to the Prozac and my psychiatrist added anxiety meds just to counteract the Prozac and dropped me waaaay down on the Prozac and I'm still feeling jumpy and useless and having trouble digesting things but in theory it will go away in a few days. In theory. And my head still hurts and my left eye is still twitching. You don't notice the eye thing unless I point it out and you look very carefully, but it's there and it's weird and I'm broke and I can't get anything done towards being a productive member of society and it's making me very fussy.
How many more years until you go to the doctor, they stick you with a needle and instantly know your exact body chemistry and what's wrong and how to fix it?
Back to happy thoughts, brain. Happy happy happy thoughts. Hot Dog Sam and her hubby are likely to move to Chicago in a few years, too. They would totally live in my neighborhood. We'll totally force our dogs to play together the way our parents used to force us to play with their friends' children of various ages and personalities, regardless of compatibility. It'll be awesome.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
more drug problems?
My stomach has been pissy for days and I'm now pretty sure it's the drugs. I've got this nervous jumpy shaky feeling, particularly in my legs, like I can't hold still, but then I feel too crappy to do anything productive with it like go to the gym. And I've been doing terrible things to food, worst in the mornings. It's like the physical crap from being really anxious and worried about something, but without any of the emotions to help it all make sense. Can't I just lead a normal, healthy, productive life without the medications and crap? Please?
Biggest real worry I'm feeling right now: paying for the psychiatrist on Thursday, since he requires a check up front and then the insurance can come in and be useful. I should start doing the phone sex thing again. Make some money.
Biggest real worry I'm feeling right now: paying for the psychiatrist on Thursday, since he requires a check up front and then the insurance can come in and be useful. I should start doing the phone sex thing again. Make some money.
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