Tag: chronic illness

Pain Rant 2

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, depression

Pain Rant 2

Last night around this time, I got a searing pain in my ankle. Tonight I am having the same pain. Yesterday I didn’t do anything. I didn’t leave the house or go up and down the stairs a million times. Nada. So this pain is weird. I don’t know if it is nerve pain or not. It’s so hard to tell because I am in pain all the time and this is the second night feeling the same pain at around the same time. I can’t stand when pain occurs, without warning. But today I walked a bit so I am expecting pain but not like this. It feels like I have been standing on my ankle too long.

The pain is sharp, like that of a knife cutting into me. It is most unsettling. I can’t move my ankle without severe pain and I already took my pain meds a couple of hours ago. I should not be having any pain at all, which is why I am thinking this is nerve pain. I suppose I should probably take my nerve pain meds to see if that calms this down. I hate taking them because I get the hungry horrors afterwards.

I also have been a bawling mess since I heard about the Sox manager having lymphoma and will not be managing the team for the rest of the year. It broke my heart to hear this news. I feel bad for him but I know he is in good hands. It was fortunate that his hernia surgery happened when it did because they discovered the mass during it. If he didn’t have the surgery, his chances for surviving would not be so great as it would still be undetected.

Sure the Sox have sucked all season and have been plagued with injuries and so forth but hearing this news just made me sadder than anything. And now I got to deal with this pain in my ankle and I don’t know what it is from. It’s swollen, but that is always the case. It’s in the same spot as it was last night and the same intensity of pain. I just want to cut off my ankle or just make some cuts into the ankle to relieve the pressure or at least give it a reason to fucking hurt. But I am too scared of causing more damage. I am afraid that if I do cut deep enough, I might nick a tendon and that would not be good. I hate being in so much pain. This pain is different than the pain I normally deal with. And it’s not like I can consult a doctor right now to deal with the pain. It’s way after business hours. I doubt they would be able to help me anyways other than saying to go to the ER or something. I doubt the pain will last that long. It’s already starting to fade, just as it did last night. I hate it when pain comes in spurts like this. It’s like when I get zaps on my feet, there’s nothing I can do but wait it out. Now my foot is starting to throb just like last night. I fucking hate this shit. I am so tired of being in pain every night. And now I got this new pain to deal with? Why the hell am I living? I was supposed to kill myself a month ago. I never got the chance because my fricken therapist and psychiatrist didn’t want me to go through with it. Fuckers. I really dislike them right now. I am glad my therapist is on vacation so I don’t have to deal with her. But I see my shrink on Monday. I don’t know why I bother seeing her. Meds aren’t helping my mood that much anymore. Sure, it is keeping the mood swings in check but that is all its doing. I wish the meds would help this pain that I am in. But the pain doesn’t last long and just causes bad throbbing in my foot when it leaves. How do you explain that to a doctor? Sometimes I think I am losing it, like it’s all in my head or something. Seriously question my sanity because the pain is so painful that it takes my breath away for fifteen minutes and then it dissipates and I am just left with throbbing. What the hell. I can’t deal with pain like this. I can take another pain pill in about an hour from now. What am I going to do until then? I am can’t stand the throbbing/vibrating that my foot is doing right now. I wish ibuprofen could help me. I would be taking handfuls of the stuff. But it doesn’t do shit.

The thing that is aggravating the most is that I haven’t moved in the last two hours. I have been in my bed, reading Harry Potter when the pain started. I could see if I was doing something like standing or walking or going down stairs, but I wasn’t. I was an inactive peapod. And all I did was flex my ankle and BOOM, pain! I fucking hate this shit. It’s a good thing I don’t know how to use a chainsaw or other power tools. My ankle would be seriously in trouble of being amputated.

I’m going to take some Ativan and hope that brings me some sleep without the bad dreams I had last night.

random 694

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

From 1100 to 1600, I voted for Xander Bogearts via Twitter. The only time I was not voting was when I was meeting my psychiatrist. I have a lot of tweets today as I broke the 16,000 mark. I was at 15.8 before voting. I don’t know when the results are going to come out, maybe later tonight. I do hope he wins. He so deserve to play.

Met with my psychiatrist today. We mostly talked about the depression and how it seems to have lifted a little with the addition of vitamin D. I won’t say that I am “cured”, because I still have my down moments, but the heaviness that I was feeling seems to have lifted a little bit. She asked me about my date and if it was still on. I told her I don’t know. She still wants me to see her, regardless on how I am feeling, that day. I think if I don’t see her, I might be hospitalized. We also talked about pain and how it is shooting up my anxiety. I told her I don’t like it because it sometimes lead to agitation and that doesn’t mix well when you are suicidal. She said that it is a physiological fight or flight response. I guess the only thing I can really do IS take an Ativan. She didn’t say it, but implied it. She asked the reasoning of why I picked the date. I told her it was just out of a hat, but it had to be on a Friday so I could mess with statistics. She then told me that she doesn’t want me to be one. I could have argued that I already am one but I didn’t. She didn’t know about the whole suicides occurring more on Mondays than on any other days of the week. And I won’t be dying on a Monday.

I told her that I am going to feel defeated and lost because I didn’t go through with my plans. I already am feel dejected, and it’s still a week away. My life only lives to next week. I can’t see past it. My cousin invited us to his house for a lobster party in August and the first thought I had was that I couldn’t go because I would be dead. I don’t know what I am going to do. I feel so lost and disappointed in myself. I shouldn’t have told my therapist what I was planning. And I SHOULDN’T have told my psychiatrist either. I am such an idiot.

Last night, I was going through my Twitter feed and came across on of my BPD friends who tweeted that she took 26 pills of Tylenol 3. She said she should go to the hospital but she doesn’t want to because she has something planned for Saturday. I reported the tweet and she hasn’t tweeted since that message. I am kind of worried. I don’t know where she lives. I think she is in the UK, but I am not sure. There was no tweet before the one where she said she took the pills so it was obviously an overdose/suicide attempt. When I tried talking to her about the Tylenol damaging her liver, she seemed oblivious to the seriousness of what she did. She just blew it off as “it would take a long time”. I just hope the Twitter folks gets to her and she is in good care.

I got my Kati Kati coffee today. It was so good. I love it! I really got to get a bag. I just hope that by the time my next check comes, it is still around. I have never had this coffee hot before. I only make coffee at home hot because I don’t know how to make it iced. I know I got to double the amount of coffee and such but since I don’t have an ice mug, I kind of just been drinking hot coffee.

I am feeling low. My therapist wants me to write her a letter everyday. I haven’t done one today. I was too busy voting. I brought my tablet to today, thinking I would read while I waited for my doc but I voted then, too. It was too important not to vote. Now the voting has ended and I am blue. I hate when I don’t know what to do with myself. Game is on tonight, but I really don’t feel like watching it. A friend of mine called wanted to know if I was up to watching the game together. He would bring the snacks. But I am not up for company. I am in pain and I am kind of sleepy from the pain meds. I don’t think I will make it past the 4th inning.

Pain and Anxiety

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

Pain and Anxiety

Last night, I took my normal pain pills around 2200. At midnight, the pain got worse. My heart rate shot up and I became nervous, again. I had already taken my night meds at the same time I took my pain meds. It was too early for me to take my normal pills so I had to take a stronger pill. It took another hour for the pain to fade enough for me to sleep. I also took an Ativan to calm down. I spoke to my doc about this and she said the anxiety is the body’s response to not liking pain. Great. Now I have to deal with anxiety on top of my other problems. I don’t like being anxious or nervous. It really irritates me and makes me feel unsafe, like something terrible is going to happen. I have to mentally play with ideas of it just being a physiological reaction, that I am okay, even though I don’t feel that way. It’s very hard to mentalize when your heart is pounding like you ran several blocks. I don’t become out of breath but my breathing speeds up. I have to take deep breaths to calm down, or try to. It’s very difficult to do. And it also makes me feel helpless because other than taking drugs to stop the pain and anxiety, there is nothing I can do. I am not hyperventilating so breathing into a paper bag won’t help me. Music helps to a degree but not all the time. After a while, it just becomes background noise.

I have not been trained in any capacity to deal with anxiety. I don’t know how to deal with it other than take medication. But even then, I have to wait a half hour or more for it to work. In the meantime, I am very nervous, in terrible pain, and keep wondering what to do. I can’t walk because the pain is too intense in my foot, so pacing is out of the question. I usually just have grin and bear it. I don’t like doing this. It just messes with my head. And then I become agitated, which does me no favors. Last night, I tried to read. It didn’t work so I tried writing in my journal. If I could have done something physical, I would have but writing is the only thing that usually works when I am anxious. It is my go to whenever things are going wrong, or are perceived to be.

All this bullshit could be avoided if I didn’t have this pain syndrome. I didn’t do too much yesterday so I don’t know why my foot decided to explode at midnight. I had been resting for hours, but I got hungry and went downstairs to have something to eat. When I came back up stairs and propped my foot up, I got hit with the pain wave. Other than amputation, I don’t think there is anything I could have done to avoid it. I just don’t understand why because I had taken my normal pain meds two hours before hand and that should have avoided a 10+ pain flare. But that is the thing with pain syndromes. You never know when they are going to spike.

I need to pick up my niece later. I plan on ordering pizza before I pick her up. This way, the pizza is a little cooled off before gobbling it up. The last time I had pizza with my niece, she ate half a box! It was crazy but she was hungry. She ate all of it too, crust and all. She is too funny but is still growing like a weed. I just hope that walking to her school doesn’t aggravate my foot more than it already is. I really don’t want a repeat of last night. I have my appointment with my psych tomorrow so I really don’t want to be really drugged up or sleep deprived when I see her. It’s in the afternoon so I should be awake enough when I see her, but sometimes after a bad night of pain, I am not in a good mood the next day. Only day that I don’t have something planned is Saturday. I can rest all day then. I still need to finish my editing, which includes proofing what I have written and then putting those edits in the word doc. I have stuff to take out too, as one of my stories is listed twice, but under a different name. Don’t know how that happened.

So pain and anxiety is not a good thing for me, or anyone, really. Pain causes the anxiety and I don’t like it one bit. It makes me feel helpless. My therapist is on vacation for the next two weeks. I am to write her a letter and text her while she is away. She also wants me to send them to her so when she is back, they will be in her office. We talked about the anxiety part but really didn’t talk about what to do with it. She just wants me to take an Ativan. I am just afraid that I will become addicted to it, which is why I am so hesitant to even take the pill. But I guess, I need it so my heart rate slows down and calms my nervous agitation that doesn’t do me any good. I swear the pain is like drinking five cups of coffee the way it makes me feel. I just wish I had more control over it but I don’t and that is what is so frustrating! I hate not being in control. Pain takes that away from you and then your heart rate soars up and makes you feel even worse. So you are battling the demons in your head, the pain in your foot and the nervousness of it all because it’s a physiological response. How the hell do you combat it?? I guess I am going to have to research what to do about anxiety, an unknown entity to me. I never was an anxious person until pain entered my life. It doesn’t happen ALL the time but when it does, holy hell! I am noticing it more with each pain flare up. I really wish I had better control of my pain, like if I had a warning before the pain would flare, that would be awesome. But I don’t. It’s one minute low level pain and the next high level pain. Sometimes it is because I moved my ankle, either flexed it or moved my big toe. That is all it takes to set the pain off in my foot and/or ankle. It just sucks not knowing when to expect severe pain. It’s the million dollar question that no one can answer. And I am not okay with it, not one bit!

Pain O’Clock Continues

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

Pain O’clock Continues

I woke up again in pain so my plans for going to the bank and the Square went out the window. This time, my pain meds knocked me out and when I woke up from my nap, it was too late to go. I really wanted to get a burrito today, too. But my ankle is killing me, still. It’s not as bad as it was on Friday but I am still miserable. I haven’t eaten too much today because it’s wicked hot and humid today. My mother will be making chicken cutlets for supper, which is good because I haven’t had any protein other than the egg I had this morning. And that was some time ago.

I have to leave the house by eight tomorrow morning. I hope I get up. I will have to set my alarm just in case. I can’t rely on getting up before seven because I never know when I will wake up anymore. I went to bed late last night, around 2ish so I slept till eight. Six hours is good enough. I am reading “Game of Thrones” and Harry Potter. Talk about contrast between the books. I am enjoying Harry Potter more because I know what to expect. I am a huge Potter fan and have read each book at least three times. I know JK Rowling, the author, is coming out with a new book, but it will only be available online. It’s too bad because I can’t read from a computer screen for long. I can read Twitter but eventually that bores me and there is no updates. I never read an online book before. I am sure it will be good. Maybe I can print it off.

Since I didn’t leave my house, I didn’t go to the post office like I hoped to. I have an article I am sending to a staff member at the hospital I was in last year. She is interested in CAMS and found an article related to CAMS and inpatient units. I know she won’t have much pull about implementing CAMS as the unit is DBT oriented, but this just gives fruit for thought. I also gave her an update about how things were going. I told her I am trying to stay out of the hospital as things are going so well. I didn’t go into anymore detail.

Marsha Linehan was at the NAMICon2015. I had two friends attend her talk. One was on Facebook and the other was on Twitter. The Twitter friend was more informative about it because he lived tweeted the entire session. It was a good talk. The important lesson was that you can use the skills and it doesn’t have to be a trained person to teach you, i.e., a therapist. There are some self-help DBT skills that you can find online that are useful in the management of suicide ideation and other self-harm behaviors. It was interesting that even substance abuse use was listed as disorder helped by DBT. So if you know someone with a substance abuse disorder, PLEASE tell them about DBT. It might helped them recover better than NA, AA, alone.

I tried to get an appointment with my therapist but she didn’t have an opening today. I really could have used a session. The pain is driving me nuts and I am almost ready to go to the ER because I am doing so poorly. I just don’t know if I should go to the medical ER or psych to talk with someone. Thing is, they wouldn’t understand chronic pain, so I will be stuck and feel more frustrated than I already do. Maybe I should just email my psychiatrist and ask her opinion on what I should do. I could just page her, but I don’t want to worry her. I am just in the throws of another pain flare and it’s wearing me out. I really wanted to go out today. Tomorrow I have to go out whether I like it or not. I have the appointment with the physiatrist. I hope he can help me because if not, I am done. It will be over. I am tired of struggling with pain all the time. Pain O’clock must end!