Tag: chronic illness

Brazil Coffee, Cauda Equina Syndrome, and Other Things

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

Brazil Coffee, Cauda Equina Syndrome, and Other Things

I had a rotten night of sleep. I really wanted to go out today but I hadn’t shower in days. There was no way I could shower when I couldn’t stand for more than ten minutes, much less walking to the bus stop and then stand waiting for it. So I nixed the idea and made coffee at home. I am glad I did. I am loving my Brazil coffee. Sadly, I have just one bag left of this nectar of the Gods. Starbucks doesn’t sell it anymore. But I am glad to have it either way as it tastes so damn good.

The reason for my back being a bitch is because the temp shot up 20 degrees. It’s nearly 56 degrees. Yesterday, it was in the thirties. The temp is supposed to be stable over the next day or so. I am hoping that I can sneak a shower in and not have my back go crazy on me. Just making coffee I was hurting. I kept having to sit down soon as I got up. This is no way to live.

I posted on Facebook that no one understands and two of my closest friends responded. They know what it is like living in chronic pain as they live with it themselves. It really takes someone to know and understand what you go through if they go through it themselves. One of my CES members of my group is having a hard time with this. He is having backlash from family members about his taking medication and not being himself anymore. It’s hard being the person you were when your life gets torn upside down with Cauda Equina Syndrome. It doesn’t help when you have no support other than members of the same condition. I went on a rant on Twitter. If he had diabetes, I bet they wouldn’t tell him he needed to be off his insulin or what ever he was taking to control his sugar. I don’t get why some people just don’t get that a medical condition is just that no matter what the cause of it is. It drives me up the wall. And if there is the stigma with CES, you can only imagine the stigma attached if you are depressed because you are no longer the person you once was.

It makes me sad because I have a good friend that will be getting a divorce soon because her husband said that she isn’t the person he married anymore. WTF. It pisses me off because what happened to the vow, for better or worse, and in sickness and health? People just don’t take their marriage vows seriously anymore. Not all people are like that. I have known some people who keep their vows and are still together despite the disability CES brings. I am glad I am single and I don’t have to deal with relationship stuff. It would be such a strain because I wouldn’t be able to be there financially to my partner nor physically. I have become such a loner that I hate being away from my room more than a couple of hours. It’s fine if I am have a doctor’s appointment or something. But for the most part, I rather just stay home and in my room.

Since my back pain has been really bad, my ankle has been behaving. Last night I thought there was going to be competition between the two but I headed it off by taking my pain meds. Seems I have been taking them around the clock to avoid being in pain. The downside of this is that I am tired all the time. Even with drinking coffee, I feel sleepy. I must have woken up three times last night between 0100 and 0600. I really can’t wait for the temps to level off because I really don’t want to move with pain. It’s one thing for my ankle to hurt. Sure it drives me up a wall, too. But not being able to move my trunk, to not being able to bend down, or to just put on a pair of slippers is difficult.

I didn’t make pancakes today. I just couldn’t stand long enough to make them. I keep trying. Maybe I will mix all the dry ingredients together and then tomorrow add the wet ingredients so there will be less work for me. There really isn’t that many ingredients to making pancakes from scratch. With oatmeal, there are seven, regular six. I have been making pancakes from scratch since I was young and I have a good memory (for now). While I was up early this morning, I had breakfast of pop tarts. It’s my last one so I will need to make a grocery order next week. I was hoping to avoid it but it seems I need one. I need my cereal and other items. I was going to go to the store but why do that when I can go online? Much faster and easier. And no lines, no waiting.

Free Books, Pain and Other Things

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

Free Books, Pain, and other things

I went to bed late last night because I wasn’t really sleepy until my pain meds kicked in. I had received an email from my favorite mystery writer, Lawrence Block. He had written a blog about five of his books being free over the next five days. I love him. He is such a brilliant writer that I even bought his how to book on writing. The books are available only after midnight Pacific Time. I wanted to get the first book as I have not read it but it was too early. I am on Eastern Time. So when I woke up in pain at 0430 and became aware of my surroundings, I downloaded the first book via Kindle. It’s called “After the First Death”.

I can easily read Block’s book in a sitting. My favorite series of his is Matthew Scudder. I fell in love with this character back when I first became suicidal. I was looking for books to kill myself and came across his book “Eight Million Ways to Die”. Seemed like a good book to read. However, it wasn’t what I was looking for. It was about Scudder and a prostitute killer and about how Scudder came to terms with his alcoholism. Throughout the book, people die in weird ways, hence the title. Unfortunately, I can’t give an example from the book but I can give you one that I learned yesterday. A manhole cover became dislodged on the highway and killed the driver of a car. She was a young art teacher. I don’t know why there are manhole covers on the damn highway, but apparently, they are killers. It was a sad story.

Block also has other books with different themed characters. My other favorite of his is Keller the hit man. When I first read “Hit Me”, I laughed because the assassin was in therapy. He would go around the country, killing people he was hired to kill, and then see a therapist. Toward the end of the book, he feels the therapist is getting to close to him so he kills her. There are five books in this series. When I get paid in a couple of weeks, I plan on getting these books. Unfortunately, none of them will be free during his special days.

My ankle is really hurting and I don’t know why. But then, I never really know why it hurts. That is the million dollar question. I am so sick of being in pain. I wonder if other chronic pain people feel like I do and just want to end their lives because they can’t stand being pain. My pain is controlled by medication, so I should be grateful for this but the chronicity I feel about it drives me to suicide. I am suicidal without pain, too but I am wondering if being rational about ending my life is a good or bad thing. I really want to end my life and plan to in a couple of weeks. I have just had enough. I don’t know if you would say that I “snapped”, but I really hate the routine of pain increasing, taking medication, then being forced to sleep because the meds make you sleepy and if you don’t, you feel sick. I am also tired of having to take medication for my other chronic illnesses, including my bipolar disorder. I take more than 10 pills a night. I am sick of it. I don’t want to take these pills but I have to. Otherwise, I just get sick.

One of the pills I take is for my GERD, better known as reflux disease, a stomach condition. I have been taking it or some version of it for a long time. But lately, I don’t think it’s working anymore as my stomach has been hurting and I keep on feeling bloated. I have never been scoped to see what my stomach looks like because I will be damned if someone is going to shove a tube down my throat to figure it out. I know you are pretty sedated but the idea of it, I am not fond of. So I just keep taking the pill, hoping my stomach feels better by limiting what I eat.

Need to Escape

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

Need to escape

I had another difficult therapy session today. It will be in another blog as it’s percolating right now and I am not sure if I should continue to type or handwrite it. She asked me today what number my need to escape was and I said a 9 on a scale of 1-10. So she said that I should make today all about me, whatever that means. I still feel the need to runaway and not return. Trouble is I have no means, other than killing myself, to get away. We talked a lot about me killing myself today. To my surprise, she was tolerating it despite me knowing how much anxiety it gives her. I threw a question out to her about if she would go to my funeral. That stopped her in her tracks. I actually don’t know if I will have a funeral. I haven’t made my will out yet and that is one thing I have been contemplating. Her grief sometimes stops me from going through with my plans, but sometimes I just say fuck it because I want to do what *I* want to do, and that is end this miserable fucking life.

We talked a lot, more than I wanted to, about my bastard father. He is the only person that I know that has at least three 8×10 pictures of himself in his house. He is the very definition of narcissism. Yet he calls me selfish and a liar.

I wanted to go out today but my ankle is being a bitch. I have been up since 0500. I am tired and might take a nap before dinner, if I can write out the therapy session that is bugging me. I really wanted to go to Starbucks to get some more coffee for the house. I had the last of the Pike this morning. I don’t know which kind I want to get. My choices are Pike, House Blend, or Breakfast Blend. I usually rotate between the three. I think I might get Breakfast Blend as I haven’t had that in a long while. I am still good with my Kati Kati and Brazil coffees.

The 22nd can’t come soon enough. I really need to talk about my damn nasal congestion. I know I am almost always congested but it’s been worse the last few months. It clears up on it’s own but then gets clogged up again and now my sinuses are starting to feel affected. They really hurt and I have a constant slight headache from the pressure. My discharge is still clear so I know there isn’t an infection but damn, I am just miserable. And I hate breathing through my mouth most of the time. It’s wearing me out.

I am almost done with the writing book that I am reading. I should be done with it today. I read this morning about keeping a day journal to store ideas and other thoughts about writing. So now that I got some stuff percolating about my book and my therapist’s session, I pulled out a composition book and placed it on my bed for easy access. The book also suggested making a box of ideas, but I am not that advanced as a writer. I told my therapist that I was going to look for my psychology book to do some research for my book. It’s been a while since I learned about the different psych disorders. It might be a little outdated as far as the DSM goes but most of the criteria for the major disorders have stayed the same. I really want to write a chapter about narcissism but other than being vain and an asshole, I don’t know what other types of characteristics there are.
Another nice thing about this book was that it has short chapters, which is what I want my book to be. I really don’t want the chapters to be drawn out, about 2000 words or less. The only big story is the Darkness piece, but that can be trimmed down. I don’t want to edit right now while I am still trying to work on writing. It will just be confusing. The author of the book actually wrote another book based on about 850 words per chapter. That is when I got excited because my writing is about that length and is doable. If something really needs to be longer, than so be it but 850 seems like a good goal.

Talking about Anger

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

Talking about Anger

I had therapy today and all we did was talk about my father and the stress of dealing with him. She read my blog I wrote about him the other day. She thought it was good that I was able to write about the anger of dealing with him because if I didn’t feel a sense of responsibility, I would just leave him. I could care less about what he going on. I don’t feel a connection to him. That connection has been severed a long time ago and never got reestablished.

We talked about how my ankle got messed up while walking with the wheelchair and how using my cane helps take the pressure off. She was annoyed that he needed a wheelchair instead of walking. It annoys me too but he wants the attention. She said that I should be in the chair instead of him. The guy only cares about himself.

We also talked briefly about my mother’s health issues and how it’s stressing my sisters and I out. My mother just has her own way of doing things in regard to her health. I know she thinks she is a burden to us but that isn’t the truth. She is just sick of being sick and in pain all the time. But she doesn’t do anything to help herself either. It’s just annoying and it’s only going to get worse as she gets older.

My therapist just wants me basically to stay in bed to rest my ankle. She encouraged me to write about my anger but I fear that it will be taken the wrong way so you may see more password protected posts. She also wants me to read and do stuff that doesn’t involve me walking around. I haven’t had lunch yet. I haven’t decided what I want. I have a few choices and that is the problem.

My therapist was vocal throughout the session, though she did listen when I was telling the story of how Thursday night went. I told her I was so aggravated with him that I didn’t get something to eat like I wanted to. She wasn’t happy about this. I don’t even remember if I bitched to my mother about him that night.

What really got me really pissed off and still does is the “concern” my aunt has for my father. She would rather piss on his grave than think more of him. Now that he is sick, she is “concerned”. It’s bullshit. She just wants to be in the loop to she can talk about him behind his back. I hate this aunt because she is just two faced. I don’t see her often and rarely see her at her house. The only time I will be at her house is if my mother is there and she needs something or I need something from her. It just pisses me off.

My therapist did talk about the safety planning thing that I wrote about. And she said that we didn’t have one in a long time. I told her I would bring the sheet the next time I saw her, which probably won’t be until the end of the month. She asked me when I was seeing my psychiatrist and I said I don’t have a time. This is the problem I have when I cancel a time with her. Trying to get another appointment takes several emails. I emailed her last night but haven’t heard back from her, yet. I said in the email that by the time the 15th rolled around I would need refills so I would like to see her by then. After the 15th is when things go back to normal for me. I am not spending all my time with my bastard father.

I need to see my father earlier than usual tomorrow before his appointment as my sister is taking us to the appointment. I figure I do his meds before we leave so that I didn’t have to do it after. I can just go home after the appointment.

I will have another rest day on Thursday. I also have therapy because I can’t have it tomorrow. I told my therapist about my panic attack that I had yesterday. I told her I took my pain pill soon as I got home and she asked if I took some Ativan as well. I told her I did because my chest was hurting and I was still having palpitations. I just get nervous when I am on the bus and the entrance or exit is crowded. More so if the entrance is blocked because I usually exit the bus that way. But it was the last straw for me having to deal with. My foot swelled up twice the size of my other foot last night and it was hurting like a SOB. CRPS in action. This is why my doctors don’t think I have CRPS because they don’t see me at night when these things happen. It took a while for me to get comfy and to get to sleep last night because of pain. I still woke up around 0400. I stayed up for a little bit went back to sleep and then woke up two hours later. I had breakfast at 0800 and then went back to sleep. I woke up around 1130 and made coffee. Now I am just going to make lunch and then read some Harry Potter so I can dissociate.