Tag: cauda equina syndrome

Been reading my blogs from a year ago and found that I was very depressed. I didn’t want to be in treatment. I didn’t want to take my medication anymore. I just wanted to be left alone. I felt like I was a bother to my psychiatrist and my therapist. Then things got more serious. I was in pain and that just sent me over the edge. I became suicidal. Now there was no way I couldn’t see my pdoc or therapist. They wanted to see me despite me telling me them it was a waste of their time. I must have read at least three blogs that said this.

It was after my book was published and I sunk into a deep depression. I don’t remember it now. I just have the blogs to monitor these things. I am glad I have this record because I don’t remember half of what I write. Some blogs were written in the evening. Some were after midnight. The ones written after midnight were more depressing than those written at an earlier time. But then, my moods always get worse after midnight, especially if I can’t sleep. I talk about Hyde in a few of the blogs but not all the time. Hyde is my suicidal alter that comes out when there is a perfect storm: I am in severe pain, deeply depressed, and want to end my life. He likes to write the most morose things. He will write suicide notes. He hasn’t been around much since July. I hope that he stays away.

There was another blog that I read that was “private” I had to throw it away because it was a description of me trying to end my life. I couldn’t justify keeping it so I “threw” it away.

I am in a lot of pain right now and I just realized I forgot to refill my bottle of pain meds that I keep by the bed side. I will have to get up and do so. My ankle is not going to like it but it needs to be done. Because if the pain gets worse and I have to walk the three feet to the bureau, that will be worse. I hate being in pain at night. It is awful. But hopefully my meds will kick in soon and I will fall asleep. I doubt that it will be soon. Foot is also acting up along with my ankle. It’s the trouble twos. I usually can’t rest when both my foot and ankle are flared up. I didn’t do anything. I think it is nerve pain because my toes are throbbing big time.

I read a lot of my blogs tonight. I didn’t notice any patterns or anything in my mood for the months I was depressed. And when I was depressed, the world stopped spinning. It was horrible to read the pain I was in and I don’t mean the physical pain. The mental pain of depression was awful. I don’t know how I got through those episodes without trying to kill myself. According to the blogs, I had extra sessions with my therapist. That must have been what got me through. I wrote that I fired her a few times in addition to cancelling my sessions that she refused to do. In one blog, I wrote that I had pain and she un-cancelled the session. I had to see her. All because my ankle was hurting me. She is a weirdo, but she is my weirdo.

I feel depressed right now because of my pain and that I can’t sleep. It’s after midnight. I feel like I should write. Writing tends to make me sleepy so I can actually sleep, even if it’s for a few hours. I am sure to wake up anywhere between 0400 and 0700 today.

As I have been writing about my second diagnosis of Cauda Equina Syndrome, I have another story to regale. One night the nurse practitioner decided to give me a high dose of Neurontin with my other meds that I was taking. Mind you, I was still recovering from surgery so I still had some anesthesia in my system and I was on some powerful pain meds at the time. She gave me the Neurontin to try and ease the “nerve” pain I was having in my thigh that was weak. I have been on Neurontin before so didn’t think nothing of it. Until I started having delusions. I imagined I was in my bed at home and when the tubes fell into the nursing stations, I thought my mother had fallen out of bed. I couldn’t get up to see her but when I woke up from the noise, I realized I was in the hospital and went back to sleep. Soon after the nurse came in to wake me up as I had to go for an MRI to find out what was causing the weakness in my leg. She was to give me valium so I could be relaxed during the MRI and a pain med so I would be comfortable on my back for the hour. She didn’t know my mental status was impaired until I told her I had to call my mother and find out if she was okay. At 0230 in the morning, I called home to see if my mother was indeed ok. She was and told me to worry about myself. I realized I was dreaming and the nurses went on their way but I still wasn’t myself. The orderly wheeled me to the emergency department imaging center and I had a flashback of when I was first diagnosed with CES. I was stuck in this time. I had no idea what was going on. But I was too drugged to do anything about it. By the time they had me on the table for the MRI, I passed out. When I came to, two nurses were trying to catheterize me because I hadn’t gone to the bathroom in hours and my bladder was very full. They asked me if I knew where I was and I told them I was in the ER (I was actually back up in my room but it was still the middle of the night) and that I had CES again. I then passed out but not before hearing them say something like “he’s gone”. When I finally came to the next day, the nurse practitioner came into my room to talk to me. She said that I had a bad reaction to the Neurontin. I just looked at her and said, that wasn’t a dream? She told me no. I was floored. She was going to put me on another medication and that is when I stopped her. I told her to run it by my psychiatrist first before putting me on any more meds. My psychiatrist must have scolded her because she came back and said she wasn’t going to put me on anything else but to make me comfortable. Results of the MRI showed that I had a fragment on my L3 nerve root and would need surgery again. Oh fun! It would be my second in three days time.