Category: cauda equina syndrome

Idiot PT guy

by Midnight Demon, posted in blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression

Idiot PT guy

I went to physical therapy (PT) today. Guy did some strengthening exercises and they hurt like hell. I am icing my ankle as we speak to try and bring down the swelling and pain. We were talking after the torture and he thinks that he can strengthen my ankle. I just nodded in agreement knowing full well he was wasting his time. If I haven’t regained strength in my ankle after 13 years, I don’t think it’s going to come back. I did a whole lot of PT over the years and I just don’t see how this is going to help me. My foot becomes fatigued which leads to the weakness getting worse. I don’t know what he is feeling but even after all the exercises he did today, I was feeling fatigue and I could tell I couldn’t hold my foot up for very long. He kept telling me to lift my foot so I had to use other muscles to lift it. How is that helping?? I really think that he just doesn’t get what I am telling him. I am not hopeful that my strength is going to come back. We can continue to do the exercises but it’s only going to hurt me in the end.

I also had talk therapy today. I don’t know why I asked for another session tomorrow. I must be out of my head. She totally annoyed me today and I bet anything she is going to annoy me tomorrow. She gave me “homework”, which is to write a blog about how I value myself or something to that effect. She is wasting her time on me if she thinks that I am going to write some bullshit thing about me. I don’t know what she hopes I will gain from this exercise. I have no purpose or worth in my life. I am just a sack of chemicals. And I hurt physically more than I ever have in my life. I have no reason for living. Yet I still continue this existence. Why I don’t know. I am a coward. I would kill myself but I don’t have the energy to do it or plan it. I am just stuck and it sucks.

We talked about my book for a little while. I was telling her a high school friend of mine just bought a copy of it and thought my style was “nice”. I didn’t even know I had a style of writing. I also told her that my second book is troublesome. I don’t know what to write and I am such a condensed writer that for me to expand on something is painful. Just like the band that is around my foot right now. The PT suggested that I wear compression stockings and today I found the pair and am wearing it. It is hurting me so they are not going to last much longer. I am supposed to wear this knee to toe stocking to help decrease the swelling in my leg and ankle. I don’t know how this is supposed to help if the damn thing hurts me. Just doesn’t make any sense.

I have been trying to write about my experience over the past year that lead to my decrease in being suicidal. There are days I don’t think about it like I used to and then there are times I think about it all the time, but only for short periods of time. Not days on end like I used to think. And it is all because I became accountable to a person. She basically guilt tripped me into living. But now I have nothing to live for. My work is done. And I am supposed to write a book about it when I have no motivation. I am such a loser. I don’t know why I feel this way but I do. I guess the depression is overwhelming me and I can’t see nothing but gray skies. I feel so utterly useless.

Today as I was listening to Pearl Jam, I thought of writing a blog called “Don’t call me daughter”. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any writing pads with me so the thoughts kind of left me. They are there but I think I will have to listen to the song to write it out. I am too tired now to listen to music just to write. I just want to listen to my old country music on Pandora and relax. Going to PT really wore me out. And I hope that I don’t have mega pain tonight because of it.

I felt like this blog was too short so decided to add to it. I am feeling perplexed because I want to “please” my therapist but what she is asking of me is total bullshit and I don’t write bullshit. I have no value as a human being. I deserve to die. But things seem to keep me here. I have no responsibilities anymore, other than financial. But I am broke most of the time so who cares that I can’t pay a bill. I have 0.89 cents in my checking account right now. I am rich! NOT. And this is stressing me out. I hate November because there are a shit load of birthdays. My sisters, my godparents, my cousins. You name the person and they probably were born in November. I don’t even have money to buy these people a card let alone a gift. Every year is the same. I get gifts from these people on my birthday but I never give in return because I don’t have the money. It is a huge stressor on me.

Tonight, I was going through my blogs and found the post “when jupiter aligns with the crescent moon”. That was one of my psychotic phases. For weeks the voices were out of control and telling me what to do and kept repeating this phrase 24/7. It was driving me nuts. I don’t know if I eventually went in the hospital or not but I have never been that psychotic before. It got me thinking about how I am taking my abilify every other day because of side effects. I hope I don’t become delusional again. I don’t feel it coming on but the depression is driving me crazy. I am more irritable. My sister just told me my nephew wants to take his mother out for her birthday. I really don’t want to go. It’s like I want to stay trapped in my room all the time now. I haven’t left the house except for doctor’s appointments or PT. I don’t remember the last time I went to Starbucks. I think it was last week or the week before when I bought coffee. I hate being irritable and quick to anger.

Another thing the stupid PT guy said was that it has been a long while since I had foot drop. Well, damn, tell me something I don’t know. I still have scar tissue on my nerve root. He says that goes away in time. Really? Why does it still show up on my MRI? AFTER 8 years??? I also have bone spurs in my back. That is fun. Luckily they don’t cause me any discomfort. I really think that if I had another back issue right now, I will kill myself. There is no way I will be able to handle the pain.

Ankle Chronicles 8

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, suicidality

Ankle Chronicles 8

I was in mega pain last night and still am today. My ankle is swollen and despite being off it most of the day, it has not gone down. I wish I could say that it was because I walked too much or stood too much, but that isn’t the case. It just hurts and I don’t know why.

I really, really, wanted to vote today but never got the chance. I woke up in the early morning and felt like shit the rest of the day. So I laid low and slept. I still am tired and feel like I could just doze right off. I just had dinner, nothing fancy, just scrambled eggs and toast with juice. I didn’t have lunch, unless you counted the handful of chips I had washed down with coffee. Not even the coffee woke me up enough to let me shower. And I really want to take a shower but I guess it will have to wait till tomorrow. I have physical therapy tomorrow afternoon. It should be fun when I tell him that I didn’t do the exercises because they just became more painful as I did them. I tried, I really did but I just couldn’t handle the pain.

I don’t know why I am so sleepy today, other than not really sleeping last night. I feel hung over, like took too many drugs or something but I didn’t. I didn’t even have any gabapentin. That usually gives me a big hangover. But I didn’t take any. I guess I am just dehydrated. Other than coffee and juice that I drank, I didn’t drink any other fluids today other than a few sips of water to wash down some pills. If I am not thirsty, I just don’t drink. I know I should drink more but I just don’t think about it. Especially when I feel like crap.

I feel bad that I didn’t vote today. I had every intention to but it just didn’t work out. Oh well, there is always next year. I really don’t care that much about politics anyway.

My foot is throbbing big time. I suppose I should take something for it. That will make me really sleepy. I had to take a strong pain pill last night to get relief. Now my bowels have stopped working. I am going to have to take something to get them going again. I hate that and with me not being hydrated, that is no fun. But I can’t hydrate myself now or I will be peeing all night and that will not be fun either.

Needless to say, I didn’t work on my writing today. I really wanted to go to Starbucks and write but I was too sleepy after my therapy session. I woke up just in time for it too. Luckily she doesn’t call exactly when she is supposed to so I had a few minutes to get myself together. She read my blog that I sent her about how I had to leave the SPSM chat the other night. I hardly remember what I wrote, I never do. Once the thoughts are out of my head, I usually don’t remember them. But she reminded me and we talked a little about it. Mostly we talked about my ankle pain and how it is driving me berserk. I don’t get any respite from it anymore. Every day I am in some level of pain. And it sucks. I still don’t think she gets it. I honestly don’t think she understands just how much my pain is controlling my life and that there is no more having a life. My life now just revolves around taking pain meds around the clock and sleeping them off at times. I don’t even think she gets the bowel issues that I get from my nerve injury. She says she does but I don’t really think she does. And I know she doesn’t get the level of shame it brings me every time I lose my bowel control. It just sucks and it got me wicked depressed. I don’t think any medication can help me this time. My mood was doing fine until my bowel accidents. Now it’s headed south and I think it is going to stay there for some time. I just hope I don’t become suicidal again. I really don’t want to be in the hospital again this year. I spent 3.5 weeks there in August and I don’t want to go back. They wouldn’t understand my disability anyways. All they cared about was if I was going to kill myself that day and if I wasn’t then so be it. Who cared about anything else going on in my life that was making me suicidal. But that is a subject for another blog post. I really don’t want to write about how crummy that hospitalization was.

Hate Feeling Like an Invalid

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

Hate feeling like an invalid

My mother needed something that required me to meet her half way down the street. I may walked not even two houses down when my ankle exploded in pain. I just had my flimsy slippers on, nothing supportive to say the least, and I paid the price. I fucking hate this. So much for wanting to go out today and work on my book. So much for wanting to move stuff around my room so that my brother in law can get my AC out of the window. I am stuck in bed with my leg up. This fucking sucks so bad. I hate when this happens. It feels like someone is stabbing me repeatedly, trying to take my malleolus bone out. It hurts very bad and now the pain has moved into my toes. I might have to put an NSAID gel on it to help decrease the pain a few notches.

I started writing in my book and then I got stumped on a word. The flow stopped. I couldn’t think of the name of the word I wanted to use for the life of me. I knew it began with an “A” but that was all my brain could produce. I had to search through emails to jog my brain of the word I wanted to use. After that, my thoughts left me. I wrote small paragraph and couldn’t go on. I planned on writing later but now that is not going to happen because I will be drugged up from my pain meds. I am so upset that this pain has ruined my life.

I am really hoping my therapist calls me today. But she hasn’t responded to any of my texts so I am not sure she will. We will be talking tomorrow so I hope I can hold on until then. I still am upset that I won’t be seeing my psychiatrist for a long time. She is out with a broken hip. I thought I might hear back from her today with the emails I sent her but I haven’t.

I feel so fucking useless. You would think that because I spend most of my time at home, I would get more writing done than I do but between the meds and the pain, I just can’t think sometimes. Most of my thoughts become clouded once I start taking my pain meds or my muscle relaxants. Even writing this blog is difficult and I am trying really hard to stay focused.

In case you are reading my blog for the first time, I have an ankle injury that was originally caused by cauda equina syndrome. I was left with foot drop because my nerves were compressed when a disc exploded in my back. Since then, I have sprained my ankle and stretched my tendons causing serious tendonitis going on. I don’t walk normally, but I compensate by using other muscles and such. I don’t walk with a limp because of this compensation. I have restarted physical therapy for the umpteenth time over the last 13 years since getting cauda equina. It has been a long road. The pain has made me disabled as I can’t walk too far and I can’t stand too long. It fucking sucks because my two feet are my made mode of transportation as I don’t own a car anymore. Which reminds me that I forgot to call the junk yard today. I have been meaning to call for months now and I have yet to do it. I keep saying tomorrow but that has been way too many tomorrows since August. I will try and call tomorrow. It’s the best that I can do. I keep telling myself that the incentive is getting at least $200 cash but that still doesn’t motivate me to call. I am such a loser.

So I left tonight’s chat…

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, blogging, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, psychache, suicidality

So I left tonight’s chat

Don’t know if anyone that reads my blog knew, but a 29 year old woman with terminal cancer ended her life today, on her own terms. She basically committed suicide. It got me thinking about Robin Williams and why his death was not treated the same way. He was battling demons we knew nothing about and a medical illness that threw him off the ledge. I don’t blame him for killing himself. It makes me sad, but also makes me happy that he is in a better place than he was in. No one understands why I have such happiness for those who kill themselves. But for this woman, I am having a hard time feeling happiness for her. I am glad she chose the method of her death and she had free will and all. But a part of me doesn’t like that she was an advocate for choosing to end your life with dignity and she took it. So we lost an advocate and that bothers me.

Then I entered the SPSM chat that was discussing this. The current president of the AAS sends out a PDF of Shneidman’s 10 commonalities of a good death. That’s when my suicidality peaked for some reason. Then talking about how depression was a terminal illness just made me snap. I had to get out of the chat room. I could have just left without saying anything but I said something, that today’s topic is too triggering for me. I got some pleasant responses. Then I got a weird one that said that I should be kept abreast of the topic. I was like “Huh”?

I have no one I can talk to about this and so I just decided to write, like I always do when I am in distress or feeling intolerant of my feelings. It helps me to put perspective to my thoughts. I also have been terrified of crapping myself for the past few hours and it has taken it’s toll on me. I have decided that if I crap myself tonight, I am going to take all of my meds, every last pill that I have will be ingested. I have had enough of dealing with the indignity of crapping myself. I can’t live like this anymore. I am only 38 years old. I should be able to control myself but that control has been taken away from me. I am no longer an “anal” person, so to speak. It is draining me being this way. I could cry but why bother. Darkness envelops my soul. I feel like I should not live like this anymore. Isn’t it my right to die? I may not have “good” reasons. I just want to end my suffering, is that so bad? I have no purpose in my life. I have no responsibilities like I did before. The only responsibility I have is to clean my sheets or clean my room, which never gets done because I don’t have the motivation to clean. My mother takes care of the cooking and cleaning, though it kills her to do it. She cleaned the bathroom and it took her almost three days to do it. She did it a little at a time. And I have to do the same or my back goes out. But lately my ankle pain has been worse so I have been having a hard time standing for any length of time. I was given exercises to do to help do something but all they do is cause me pain. I stopped doing them because I hurt so much afterwards. I shouldn’t be in this much physical pain. I have tendonitis in all of my tendons on the outside part of my ankle starting from where the bone is to my feet. There is a tendon called the peroneous that wraps around the ankle and anchors into the foot. Aren’t I lucky that I have aggravated this tendon and the ones surrounding it. The docs don’t know why. But the usual course when they don’t know what to do with you is to send you to physical therapy, like that is the cure all. I am so sick of physical therapy and it hates me. My goofball swelling has returned and it is throbbing like no tomorrow. Yet despite this pain, I am not suicidal over it. I am more suicidal over the fact my bowels have taken a run for the hills and decided not to tell me when they are moving. Usually if I have gas, I know I will soon have a movement. But lately, the stools have been soft and when I fart, the stool comes with them. I have shit myself twice in the last two weeks, both times in bed. The first I was lucky that it didn’t leak onto my bed sheets as I was in bed at the laptop like I am now. The second time, I didn’t even feel myself shit. I just farted and thought that was that. Wrong. I got up and there was a yellow stain on my bed. Fuck. I was wearing black underwear so it didn’t show anything but my pajamas did. I feel like the biggest asshole on the planet. And if it happens again, I want to kill myself. I have stayed away from taking laxatives and fiber pills. Now I will have hard stools that will cause me to bleed but I don’t care. It might also flare up my nerve pain in my ass but I don’t care. That will be the least of my worries. I don’t want to shit the bed again, literally or have another accident. I am lucky I have my menses now so I am wearing a pad. But pads irritate my skin after a while. When I had my menses that lasted for more than six weeks, I thought I was going to go insane. And I was wicked irritated by my clothing (female underwear) and the pads. The elastic in the female underwear was digging into me after a while. I don’t know why. But even my boxer will irritate me after a while too, especially if I don’t shower on a regular basis. And I have been too depressed to keep up with hygiene. I just am a mess. But with my menses, I have been forced to shower nearly every day. But now they are showing signs of stopping so I might be back to my every two days routine.

I have been safe so far tonight with passing gas and not having friends with it but that could change at any moment. It scares me to think that I might shit myself again and not realize it. I bought diapers for when I go out. I refuse to wear them when I am in the house for fear of just wasting them. Thing is, I don’t trust myself anymore and that has been a hard thing to endure. I have gotten used to peeing myself more than crapping myself. No one understands this. No one really knows this, aside from my therapist. I haven’t seen my psychiatrist in more than a month because of my own mobility issues and now she is out of the office because she broke her hip. I miss her really bad. I also feel bad going through what she is going through. She said she needed surgery so that must have been a real bad break. We have been together for twenty years and this is the first time, other than her maternity leave, that we have been apart for an extended period of time. So I this weighing on me as well. I am set with my medications for at least a month. I hope she is back soon but I know that it takes at least 6-8 weeks for a bone to heal. She didn’t say how long she would be out for but my guess is that she will be back after the holidays. This so sucks. My demons are coming back and I don’t have her around to corral them back into outer space. My therapist can only do so much. And lately, we have been on the wrong page of things. I am getting frustrated with the whole talking on the phone all the time. She is ok with it, course she would love to see me in person but I don’t have transportation to go out to where her office is, which is 30 miles away. I am still trying to finagle getting my sister’s car one week and going out to see her but my sister has been so stressed lately that I don’t want to bother her with my needing her car.

Closing thoughts: I feel a little bit better since writing this out. I love having a blog that I can write my nonsensical thoughts out. I still feel ashamed about myself but I know it will go away in time. I hope it will anyways.