Tag: blog

I am beat

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

I am beat

I left the house a couple hours before my psychiatrist’s appointment to have some blood work done. I thought a lipid panel was ordered so I fasted. It wasn’t ordered and I was starving by the time I got to the hospital. Figures. There was a wait for the blood vampires and I got one of my friends that I have known for years. Unfortunately, he has never drawn me before and had to stick me twice to get blood. After the poking and sticking, I left for Starbucks. I had about and hour to kill before my appointment. I got something to eat and my espresso. I then went back to the hospital and waited 45 minutes for my appointment. I wrote in my journal while I waited.

I wasn’t nervous until my doc was ready to see me. We talked more about pain control than about my psych issues. She wants me to take more of my strong pain pill than my regular ones because she said I was tolerant to the regular stuff. I didn’t think about that at all as being the reason why I needed so much more meds to calm my pain episodes down. She also is going to email the NP about my issues and see if they can do something for me, rather than just printing off my scripts and saying have a nice day. A monkey can do that.

She didn’t ask what my date was and I didn’t infer I had one. I am going to skip the date, for now and see if anything changes when I have my next pain management appointment with the NP. I see both my psych and the NP the same date, one before the other. Lovely. I should have had my psych appointment after the NP to let her know how it goes. I guess she will just have to get an email from me afterwards.

I missed the bus when I got back to the Square. I had to wait 45 minutes for the next one. I was not happy. My ankle was killing me and then my calf starting cramping up on me from the brace I was wearing. I forgot to put pain meds in my pill box so I went without. An idiotic move, I know. I wanted to get home quickly because my mother was cleaning and huffing and puffing while doing so. I wanted to make sure she was okay. I hated waiting and for some reason my damn Twitter app wouldn’t load new messages, even after I restarted my phone. I hated being twitterless. It helps pass the time. When I did restart, I got a flood of messages so my network must have been down on my phone, even though I had the bars. Weird.

My ankle is throbbing up a storm right now. I might have to take another pain pill. I don’t want to take the strong pain pill just for pain that is manageable. It’s like a 6 right now. I usually take the stronger pill when it’s above an 8. Course, the pain scale can be meaningless for those with chronic pain. My mother just called me saying she was making dinner, but I am not hungry. I really want a damn nap. I am tired after all the walking I did between the buildings of the hospital and going to Starbucks around the hospital, which was a few blocks away.

Mail had come as I was walking out the door this morning. I got my Star Trek shirt finally. I have been invited to a costume party for Halloween and so I will wear it for that. It’s not a real uniform, just a T-shirt with the logos of the Next Gen uni. I love it. I got to wash it though and hope it survives the first wash or I am going to be pissed. It’s got some kind of glittery things on the decals so that is why I am worried. I wish I knew where my real comm badge was. I did have the real uniform at one time but it ripped because I gained weight. I was really sad to throw it away. I kept the pins and the comm badge though but I haven’t seen it in years. Oh well. The place I bought the T-shirt is going to sell a real comm badge that is Bluetooth enabled so it works with your phone. If I live, that will be my reward. It comes out some time next month.

It was surprisingly humid today, which didn’t help my pain levels. Rain was in the forecast so I wore jeans instead of shorts as well as a button down shirt. I was sweating to death by the time I got to the train station. I was also cursing myself because I knew it was going to be near 70 today but thought with the rain it would be cool. I just wasn’t expecting humidity. Damn New England weather. Can never trust it. I have the AC cranking now to cool off. I am very glad I didn’t take it out when we had the low temps two weeks ago. Seems like Indian Summer is still around.

Feeling Nervous

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

Feeling Nervous

I am supposed to meet my psychiatrist tomorrow. Our last appointment was close to a month ago. I have been keeping in touch via email, sending her blunt feelings about my suicidality as well as blogs relevant to my suicidality and in general how I am doing. I am feeling nervous because there was an email I sent to her last week that basically told her that should I not show up for a future appointment, it is because I am dead. I think in that email, I told her I have a date but I don’t remember. I generally write cathartically so after I finish, it’s out of my mind so to speak. I never got a response from that email so I have no clue if she read it or not, so I could be worrying for nothing. Still, if she has read it, it’s going to be one interesting session.

Rain has started to fall and my ankle is kindly hurting me. I can’t sleep, though I took a nice two hour nap after dinner. My mother made escarole soup. There was no more chicken soup thank god. I wouldn’t have eaten it. I took a shower after the nap so I think that is why my ankle is cranky. I just took some pain meds so I hope it knocks me out soon.

Aside from feeling nervous, I am feeling depressed because I am in pain. It’s that same old thing every single night. I so want a break from it. I just have windows where I don’t have pain instead of more than a few hours. Then the pain meds wear off or I move my ankle and it starts all over again. How I miss the days when I didn’t have to take so many pain pills to get relief. There was a think on Twitter that said that tramadol is being abused in some countries because it’s “as potent as morphine”. I had to laugh. I was on tramadol and it was as effective as Tylenol in relieving my pain. It didn’t do shit. I know for some people it works but for me it didn’t help at all.

When I see my MD in December, I am going to ask for two more pills a day for my pain. The NP that I see really doesn’t give a shit about my pain. She just prints out the prescription and basically tells me to have a nice day. This is all in theory because I plan on ending things soon. The only person that can really stop me is my psychiatrist. That is why I am so nervous about my appointment tomorrow. If she feels I need to be in the hospital, I am going to be so screwed.

Being suicidal is a very ambivalent state. You want to die yet you yearn for hope to keep you here. Guilt also keeps you here, when it gets a hold of you. The guilt of those you leave behind who will be in pain from your loss. I wish I never knew about survivor loss and guilt surrounding it. Not knowing about it made having suicidal plans easier.

a midnight ramble about pain

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

A midnight ramble about pain

Guess what? I can’t fucking sleep. I am tired as all hell but my damn foot/ankle is giving me weird pains. I don’t know what to call them as it’s indescribable. I just know it hurts and it’s like it’s pinging because it will start and stop. Then my right ankle is curling up, by itself. That is painful. I had to take an Ativan to calm that shit down. I need to talk to my psychiatrist about this because I am not sure it is a side effect of the trilafon or if it is just a fucking nerve thing because of the nerve damage I have suffered. Either way, it’s not pleasant.

I am so glad my city has early voting starting Monday. I am going to get there, though I haven’t quite figured out how yet. I know where City Hall is but as I can’t walk there, getting there by public transportation involves buses. What fun that is going to be. And tomorrow I need to renew my disability pass for the T or I am going to be screwed come Monday as my pass expires on Sunday. I should have gone today but I didn’t feel like it. I will go tomorrow morning. I just pray they transfer the money that I have on the card to the new card. I don’t want to lose the money I have on it.

I joined a Spoonie chat this evening. It was good but very fast paced. It’s about dealing with life with disability or chronic illnesses. I met some interesting people. Some are able to work, others aren’t. It was a fun chat. Then I tried participating in the PTSD chat but it was weird. No one was commenting or asking questions so I left. I think they were watching a video of the chat and then commenting. I find it hard to tweet and watch so it was better that I left. I won’t go to that chat again.

I had to take some more Neurontin for my pain because of the weirdness in my foot/ankle. I think it’s some kind of nerve pain I am experiencing. I had taken 600 mg earlier tonight but I guess it wasn’t enough so I took another dose of 600 mg along with a pain pill. It was gross. The pain pill was bitter and the capsules of Neurontin have a weird taste to them. I should have taken them separately. Oh well, what is done is done. I know better for next time.

I have decided to grow my hair out or try to. I just need a trim right now. I hope the barber shop can give me one. Otherwise, I will have to see my cousin. I don’t mind seeing him but he smokes and then I stink of smoke afterwards. I hate smelling of smoke.

Therapy, Editing, and other things

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

I had therapy today, like I do every Wednesday. We talked about what went on last night in greater detail. I told her I basically snapped and she said she was glad I went through the crisis response plan. She think there should be a Pain response plan. I told her they would be the same, except I would be taking medications to ease my pain before calling for help, if need be. She read the blog I sent her and she didn’t think it was stupid. I still think it was stupid. I asked her if she thought I should increase my Zoloft and she said that I had grief mixed in with the frustration of being in pain. I figured she was right. The grief of my father needs to come out somehow though it’s tricky because I really have cried in six months other than the last two days where my pain has been outrageous.

I don’t know how, but we started talking about animals and the funny videos that are on the internet. At one point I couldn’t breathe because I was laughing so hard. There was one video and I will see if I can post it, about this dog that sees a bear statue and gets scared shitless. Then she was telling me about cats that are afraid of pickles. I need to look those up. It was funnier as my therapist was describing this cats because she was worried about the cats getting scared as they jumped so high.

I woke up around 0930 and then made the mistake of going back to sleep. When I woke up two hours later, I felt like shit hit me over the head. I was so exhausted. I needed to go out and get my espresso and something to eat. I went to Starbucks, of course, and after I had my drink and something to eat, I edited my book some. I think the first chapter of the book is pretty good. It captures the essence of what it’s like to live in darkness all the time. It’s by far the longest story of the book so needed the most work. I have 120 pages left to edit. That should be easier because the other stories are shorter.

After I did that, I wrote in my journal for a bit then took the bus home. A smelly smoking guy sat next to me and kept on giving me dirty looks. I was glad when he changed seats. Then he kept on giving me dirty looks like I did something wrong. WTF. I just shook my head. I’m surprised my paranoia didn’t creep up but it didn’t. I kept listening to my music until I got to my stop.

The pain in my foot increased a little when I got home. Nothing like yesterday afternoon/early evening but I took a pain pill before it got worse. My sugar pill experiment didn’t work out, much to my surprise (insert sarcasm). It did absolutely nothing for my pain, can you believe that? I guess it’s not in my head. What a relief. Granted it was just one pill but still…

Don’t know if I mentioned it or not, but I purchased a Harry Potter coloring book and some crayons. The reward to use them is to clear off my bed so I can change my sheets. I have slowly been taking stuff off my bed, as long as my pain levels allow. Last night my mother came to my room and basically told me to do something with my clothes rather than leave them where they are. OK mom, um, I have no place to put them (no bureaus or closet space) so where else should I dump them? It’s bad enough I don’t have a place for my books. I just have them in piles. But my bedding is my priority. I just hope I can do it by the end of the month, or before the bedding decides to make a run for it.