Category: Bipolar Disorder

It’s My Favorite Artist’s Birthday

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

It’s My Favorite Artist’s Birthday

It’s Taylor Swift’s birthday! She is 26. I wished her Happy Birthday on two different social media platforms today. She is one of my favorite artists. I can listen to her song, Love Story all day and not get tired of it. The same with her album 1989, which I am currently listening to.

It’s funny because when I was that age, I could have sworn I was 25 again. My 25th year was not very kind to me. I got the dreaded condition known as CES (cauda equina syndrome), and I didn’t know if I would ever walk again, unassisted. I felt like I lost a year because of this syndrome. And now, almost 15 years later, I might be facing it again.

My pain levels have dropped and my right leg is no longer hurting me. But I am not destined to have a pain free day because my left thigh has decided it is going to hurt today as well. I just cannot win. The pain isn’t too bad, it just hurts. I kind of wish I did something so I can say that I did such and such to make it hurt but I did nothing. I just was sitting on my bed, playing on my laptop when the twitching started and then it was sore the next day. Now this soreness continues. I am going to try and call my PCP’s office tomorrow and see if the neurosurgeon got back to my PCP. If not, I will call my neurosurgeon and see if I can make an appointment. I really like this guy. He is nice and very caring, which is rare in the surgeon world. My surgeon before him had the bedside manner of a peapod. I didn’t like him at all. But it was an emergency situation so I didn’t choose this moron. I didn’t choose the second one either (nice surgeon). My PCP got him because he was on call. I lucked out because he was rated top pediatric neurosurgeon in the country. I know I am no longer a pediatric patient but I still want him as my doc. We’ll see tomorrow. I just hope the guy isn’t on vacation.

I will never buy Stop and Shop protein bars again. They definitely were not what I was expecting. It was a granola bar with chocolate packed with nuts. I was looking for something like PowerBar Protein bars where you have chocolate and the inside is peanut butter (or some other protein packed filling). I felt like I was eating a candy bar. A Yodel would have been better and more filling. I am so disappointed.

I have to read my Lincoln book at some point today. I feel like if I don’t read a book every day, I am just wasting my time during the day. Even if I just read a few pages, that is all that I want to do. But I have a pile of books to read, especially on Kindle. I really want to finish American Gods so I can get back to Dostoevsky. I want to read Brothers Karamazov. I got a collection of Dostoevsky’s works for like 2.99 months ago and I haven’t touched the collection since then. Every one on Twitter was talking about American Gods so I got that book. The book is creepy and has a lot of sex scenes. It’s definitely not children’s material like I thought it was. I also have a two John Grisham books (one on Kindle, the other a hard cover) that I haven’t read. I was a very avid Grisham reader until I lost interest in books for a while. I thought he stopped writing but when I was at work, a friend of mine was reading a book that I didn’t read and I found a LOT of new books by him. The last book I remember reading from him was Skipping Christmas. That was a fun book. It was the first non-lawyer book that he wrote. I really enjoy his writing.

I haven’t done anything to do with hygiene today. I haven’t showered in days and I didn’t brush my teeth today. I was going to this morning but told myself I would do it “later”. “Later” still hasn’t come yet. My mother is taking a shower so I think she is going out tonight. I think it’s my cousin’s birthday. I never get invited and even if I did, I usually don’t go so it’s okay. I might take a shower later tonight before I go to bed.

Twitching-Good or Bad?

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Twitching-Good or Bad?

Last night before settling down for bed, my right (good) leg started to twitch. It was having spasms and then my left leg joined in. I just decided to go to sleep rather than to read or write because it was so annoying me and laying down usually settles it down. I woke up about an hour ago because I was hot. After I took off my fuzzy socks and long sleeve t-shirt, my leg started doing its dance again. I am not like it because it is painful twitching, more so now than it was last night. I don’t know why this is happening. I usually never have symptoms in my right leg so something is definitely wrong. I took a nerve pain med, an Ativan, and some pain meds. I hope to be back to sleep soon.

Yesterday afternoon, I was talking with my sisters and we finally settled on where and what time we were going out for my birthday dinner. It will be next Saturday, the weekend before my birthday. I picked Chinese because I want Lo Mein. It’s been at least two years since I’ve had good Lo Mein. The restaurant that I usually order out from just has one good thing, General Gao. And I haven’t been able to find another restaurant in my area that delivers good food. The one good restaurant that did closed down about a year and a half ago.

As I have taken sleeping meds because of pain, I don’t expect to be doing much today. I really wanted to start the next chapter in my book last night but my niece wanted to watch one of her movies. She is so funny. Half way through, she asked me if I wanted a beard. I said yes but I was left with this goatee. I haven’t shaved in a month so it was prominent. Then she snuggled up next to me as we watched the movie. I didn’t tell her I wanted to be a boy and she didn’t make any gender references at all. She is too young to have that kind of conversation.

I guess it is good that I am resting today. Just hope it will give me energy to face this week. I so want the week to be over, like if tomorrow was the end of the week, so be it. I just really don’t want to deal with it. Two doctors appointments, one for me and the other for my father. Yuck. Then I have to go to my father’s for his pills. Three days in a row I will be out and about. So I need my rest now. Hopefully whatever if going on with my right leg will be gone by Tuesday.

I hate being in pain. It just isn’t fun. It takes a lot out of you and you don’t have to do much. I made breakfast and I am completely wiped out. All I had was a bowl of cereal. When I wake up later, I will make my breakfast burrito. But all I did was have cereal and then I washed the bowl and spoon. I am wiped out. It’s ridiculous. I know part of it is because I am hurting, but damn. I never in a million years have felt so wiped out after having a small meal. It just really sucks that I can’t do anything. It’s also very frustrating.

Just got the “Daily Post” from WordPress. I get it sometimes several times a day. Today’s topic is Hate to Love. I might write about it later today. For those bloggers that read my blog, it is good idea starter. A fellow blogger friend recommended it and I have been getting these emails every day. Today was the first time that I could write something that fits my blog.

Saturday Blog 38

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Saturday Blog 38

I got babysitting duties today. It will be this evening so I am trying to write earlier than I usually write. I am in pain. I somehow fell asleep while lying on my back and that is never a good thing. I can only sleep on back if I have my legs on the trapezoid foam leg rest that helps relieve the pressure on my lower back. So I made my back pain worse.

I woke up early so after breakfast, I read some more of my Lincoln book. I finished the chapter and tonight I will read some more. There will be nothing else that I do while babysitting. My niece usually does her thing and I do mine. She usually watches some YouTube shows.

I set up a lunch date with my sisters for us to go out to eat for my birthday. It will be the weekend before as I know during the week it will be impossible. My sister wanted to do it on my birthday but she doesn’t get home till around 6 so by the time we get there will be at least 7 and I really don’t want to be eating that late. Plus my mother would have a fit as she likes to have the cake on the birthday rather than on another day.

My hair is growing out and I will need another cut. I plan on getting it after Christmas. Just hope my barbers are working. They do a good job. I was going to go out today but I made my coffee so I am in the house most of the weekend. I am not planning on going out tomorrow as the buses don’t run to the Square and it’s a pain to get there with other routes. I will be going out Tuesday as I need to take my father to the doctors. That is going to be fun because his anxiety always gets me going and the more ornery he gets, the more annoyed I get. I then have therapy after his appointment so I plan on just staying at the hospital to talk to her. It’s going to be a long morning/afternoon.

I feel like having cherry Garcia ice cream so I may go to Walgreens and spend a fortune for a pint. I know I shouldn’t have ice cream as I am trying to watch my weight but the damn Neurontin has my appetite crazy today. All I want to do is eat. If I gain a few pounds this week, I really don’t care. I am technically doing what the doctor told me to do, take the medication as prescribed. I take it at night because there is no way I am going to sleep all day if I take it in the morning. Why bother waking up if I take a sleeping pill to go back to sleep. Stupid. These doctors don’t really think of these things when they prescribe medicine.

I am trying to get out of my Eric Church addiction. I added Luke Bryan’s Kill the Lights album to his playlist. I still have to add playlists that I had on my phone before I wiped the MP3 player. It still is acting the same so resetting it didn’t help. I made a few playlists that I wrote down before wiping it but one playlist was like 300 songs so I didn’t write down that. That would have taken me a long time to do. But my just Taylor and MCC (Mary Chapin Carpenter) lists have been made. Those were the easy ones to make because I just added the albums to the playlists and I was done.

Random 234

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, suicide

Random 234

I haven’t been able to nap all day. It’s probably going to be a long day if I don’t get some sleep. My back has been bothering me most of the day more than my thigh or foot/ankle. I guess it didn’t like it when I emptied my trash can in my room. So my plans for going out today got smashed to smithereens. I think I am getting a cold anyways so resting is probably the best thing I can do for now. I also increased my vitamin D. I really don’t want to get a chest thing. I hate having a cold. It’s evil. And there is nothing you can do about it until it passes. But my sleep being off and not really drinking enough has really brought my defenses down. Maybe I will make some chamomile tea in a little bit.

I was reading Twitter and the Menninger Clinic published some data that proved some data decreased depression. I read the article and the inpatient length of stay was 45 days. I had to fricken laugh because you are lucky to be inpatient for at least 48 hours around here. If I was hospitalized for 45 days or so, I think my depression might decrease as well. Even if you have the best insurance, you are not going to be hospitalized or receive “treatment” on an inpatient unit for 45 days and you are definitely not going to get any follow up care. There just aren’t enough psych units or beds to hold someone for 45 days. There are enough backups in the psych ED and other hospital ERs that are looking for beds. There is a real crisis and I don’t think these outcomes this particular clinic has is representative of the system. And if they think they are, they are just fooling themselves.

I didn’t receive a call from my doctor’s office like I was supposed to. I didn’t call either. I will wait till I see my PCP on Wednesday. It’s going to be a lot to cram in as it’s my last visit with him. I might call on Monday and see what the hold up is. I knew getting seen within a week was a fallacy, especially when I didn’t see my doctor to begin with. I’m too depressed to care.

I’m tired of fighting pain all the time. I don’t know when my back pain is going to get resolved. I will have a conniption if I am sent back to physical therapy for it. I can do the exercises at home, I know them by heart. It won’t help at all and might even harm me. I think I just need a good massage, especially in the back of my hip.

I still want to go ahead with my plan to end my life. I just don’t see the point of going on when I am either facing increased pain and misery or going under the knife again and facing permanent disability again. I just can’t face it.