Tag: chronic pain

Random 999

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

Random 999

I did a lot today and my ankle is thanking me for it. I did a lot of errands and went to lunch with my niece, who I was babysitting today. She came along for the ride to the various places I went to. I showed her the Boston skyline along the Charles River. She was in awe. We took the train in town as I needed to pick up my prescription at my PCP’s office.

I went to Walgreens twice, once to drop off and the other for pick up. I didn’t want to wait as I was hungry and wanted my burrito. I am pretty tired now. Last night I used lidocaine gel because my ankle was angry. I think I might use it again soon as it provided some relief. Not 100% but enough for me to notice. I am glad because I was running out of options with my meds and my PCP still hasn’t called in the prescription form of the xylocaine gel. I don’t know if he is going to.

The temp dropped. I came home to my room being ice cold as I had the window open and the ceiling fan running. Everything in my room was cold, including my bed. It’s getting warmed up a little now but my foot didn’t like it when it went under the covers. I should have shut the fan off but I wasn’t thinking. I shut the window as the temp is going to be the same for most of the week. Our spring days are over, least for now. It’s still a nice sunny day out though.

I was planning on making bacon this morning but my niece didn’t want it. I had already showered and felt tired so I didn’t make breakfast. I thought I would eat at Starbucks but when I got there, I wasn’t hungry. I just got my espresso and went on my way. My niece had a sip and she liked it. I will turn her into a Starbucks junkie yet!

Baseball is tonight. They are up in Toronto, playing the stupid Blue Jays. I wonder how many fans are going to be rude or disrupt play tonight. There is always something going up at the stadium. I don’t understand why people have to be stupid. I’m going to try and listen to the game. I haven’t listened all season, just been getting updates via Twitter or watching the game. I don’t know if I will be up for most of it as I am pretty tired right now.

I told my mother I wanted grilled cheese for supper. I haven’t had one in a long time. I can make it but I always end up burning one side. I can never time it right. It’s better that my mother make it. She does it really good.

I have fallen in love with April the giraffe’s baby. There was a picture of him and his father today and it was so damn cute. He got a complete check up by the vet and he is 5 feet 9 inches and 129 pounds. He is taller than I am! I have always loved giraffes. They are just so majestic to me with their long necks. When my nieces went to the zoo when they were younger and I couldn’t go because I was working, they got me a stuffed giraffe that I have by my desk in my room. I thought that was so sweet of them to get me this animal. I remember when my youngest niece was a toddler, we took her to the Rhode Island zoo, Roger Williams. Man, I was chasing her every where that day. She wanted to go her own way and didn’t want to leave for certain animals. It was a crazy day. I spent more than $80 in the gift shop that day. Nuts. Roger Williams is my favorite zoo. I love going there.

Up and at ’em 2

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

Up and at em?

I woke up at 0145, from a sound sleep, because of pain. Now I can’t get back to sleep so I thought I would write for a bit and see if that works. I took my pain meds, both of them. I am thinking of taking an Ativan but will see if I am sleepy in an hour once the pain meds have a chance to work.

My pain has settled down some but my brain has not. I decided to charge my Bluetooth headphones because it’s been a while since they were last charged. I have to watch my niece on Tuesday so I am thinking of taking her to the museum of fine arts. It all depends of how today goes for me. I want to make bacon for breakfast. Usually, that takes a lot out of me. I took two of my “extra strong” pain pills (Dove dark chocolate). It was yummy and hit the spot.

The damn birds are chirping. I don’t fucking believe it and it’s not even daylight out!! It’s 0300! Not even close to dawn. So damn annoying!! They even chirp in the evening too, usually at dusk. If I had a bazooka, I’d shoot them. Damn birds!

I have decided I am going to come up with a list of things to work on in therapy when my therapist is back from vacation. I think it will be a good idea so that there is a plan in place. We don’t have to stick with it but it’s something to do other than me talk the whole session about my past PTSD experiences and such. I know that he is collecting information about me as he doesn’t know me and I just expect him to. I know that is kind of stupid as he is new and doesn’t know a thing about me. Just wishful thinking I guess.

Dammit! I just moved my ankle and it exploded. My ankle down to my toes are hurting really bad. Damn pain syndrome! I never know what is going to cause a flare up and now I am again thinking of ending my life. It’s such a trigger for me to be in intense pain and then thinking of wanting to end my life. It doesn’t happen all the time but it’s happening more and more because I do have a plan to end it. Might not be the best plan but I hope it will work.

I am going to tell the therapist about this because this is the second time in about a week that I have had intense suicidal thoughts when I have intense pain. Maybe he and I can work on some kind of strategy to combat the thoughts so that I don’t resort to wanting to end my life. Dealing with chronic pain is so damn difficult. I never know what brings it on and it can be the slightest movement or thing that I have done a thousand times before but it sets off pain. It’s a real stress situation because you are always wondering if this time it will set it off or not. Like putting on or taking off socks. Or getting more comfortable on my bed while lying down and boom, the movement of my leg sets off ankle pain or toe pain. It’s so frustrating. It makes you not want to do anything but these movements don’t always cause pain so you are just confused and pissed off. Not that you want to be in pain every time you put on socks or take them off, but that the possibility is there.

UGH, I am getting annoyed and it’s not helping to go back to sleep. I guess I am angry that the pain woke me up from a good dream. I don’t remember it but it was something to do with being cared for. I felt really good in the dream, like there was a relief in it.

I have been thinking of starting my diet again of drinking protein shakes for two weeks. I don’t think I will start today because I want bacon. But I think I will substitute a meal for a shake. I heard that is a good way to lose weight. I would do a cereal diet but all I have are cocoa pebble and I don’t think that will help me lose weight because of the sugar in it. If I could just lose ten pounds I would be happy. It’s so damn hard to lose yet it’s so easy to gain. I know the Neurontin doesn’t help me. I can easily gain five pounds without even changing my diet too much. I think it’s mostly water weight because soon as I stop taking it, I lose the extra weight. It is frustrating because I need this medication yet I don’t want to gain weight from it. There isn’t another medication that I can take that works as well as this one. I have tried Lyrica and Lamotagrine. It didn’t really help the nerve pain at all and just made me sick.

I am glad my therapy appointments are in the afternoon because it gives me a chance to wake up and relax a bit if my night was shitty. It doesn’t always work out that way but at least I can go to Starbucks and write a little in my journal before the appointment. I can either go to the Square or Central because there is a Starbucks right at the corner when you exit the station.

I hope I go to sleep soon. It’s really hot in my room but with the damn birds chirping I know it will be louder if I open my window. That will annoy me and it will be hard to get to sleep. Maybe I will take a shower to cool off some. I am kind of sweaty, even though I took a shower yesterday. It might exhaust me some and let me go to sleep afterwards. We’ll see.

in a cranky mood

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

In a cranky mood

I am in a lot of fucking pain right now and it’s causing me to think about suicide. This is the third consecutive day I have been in pain above an 8 on a scale of 1-10, 10 being the worst. I am going out of my mind. I have thought about paging my psych but I know she will just want me in the hospital and I don’t want to go. I am just feeling really bad.

I never worked on my blog project. I keep looking at the notebook and nothing comes. I look at the book but I don’t want to read. I am in the middle of a case vignette on how to use cognitive therapy. So far it’s good learning but I just can’t get back into the book. I don’t know what my problem is. It’s bugging me and making me feel like a loser. I set out to do things and I don’t follow through. Just like the suicidology book that I started reading that was a piece of shit. I was supposed to review that book but I never even read more than maybe three chapters? I know I started writing about what I read but I have no idea what happened to the notebook I was keeping my notes in so now I have to start all over. Pisser.

I’m trying to distract from my suicidal feeling by writing. My throbbing foot is not helping. I just took some more of my regular pain meds. I need a refill soon for those. I just emailed it in. It probably won’t get done until Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. Maybe I can take my niece to the hospital and have her see the Ether dome. I will be watching her on Tuesday.

I want to go to the museum of fine arts next week. I don’t want my membership to be a loss. I only went once so far. It’s hard to find the motivation to go. I want to see the Egyptian exhibit. It’s my favorite. The first time I went, I went to the gift shop and bought an Egyptian pen. It was a ceramic rollerball. It wrote really fine. I liked it but I kind of like my Jetstream better. It is smoother writing.

My cousin that has bipolar disorder called me tonight. He is going to give me some money so that I can order his a foam topper for his bed, the same kind that I bought. I don’t mind doing this for him. I have been meaning to add my new therapist to my bill pay, but I have been lazy about it. It’s a pain to do it because I have to do it through the web. I can’t do it on my phone. Logging in through the web is so much more difficult than the damn phone. It’s ridiculous. Every single time I log on, I have to have a “security” code sent to my phone to prove it’s me. Meanwhile anyone can log onto my phone and that is okay? I don’t get it. Then to add a new payee you have to go through this rigmarole. I think I will add him when I get my first bill. I just hope it’s reasonable. I can’t afford more than $20/session a week.

I’m feeling really cranky about being in pain. People always say to me they don’t know how I deal with it day in and day out. Frankly, I don’t know how either. It’s like it just became a part of my life and as much as I want it gone, it isn’t going anywhere. Which makes me feel so distressed at times that I want to end my life. It’s funny that the new therapist asked me what I would like to change and I told him I wanted to finish my degree and be a therapist. But that is only going to happen if I win the lottery. I feel so hopeless about everything else in my life. Pain just takes so much from me that it’s really ruining the quality of my life. I am just existing from day to day. I eat, sleep, take my meds, repeat the next day. I have nothing I look forward to except this blog and my readers. Some days it’s a struggle to write. I just don’t have the same thought process I once had. I think the meds are messing that up for me. But my suicidality hasn’t changed at all. My PTSD symptoms have gotten worse with each flare up. I stay up most nights wondering when I will sleep and if I will sleep through the night. It’s hard.

I think the only reason I didn’t grab a bottle of pills tonight is because tomorrow is Easter. It’s always the little things that keep me here. Maybe next flare up, I won’t be so lucky.

Friday Morning blog

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

Friday morning blog

I am watching my niece today because it’s Good Friday, a religious Catholic holiday. She has the day off from school, something that I never got when I was in school. Apparently, rules changes concerning religion so any time there is a religious holiday due to whatever domination, the kids have the day off from school.

Next week is April vacation week. I will be watching my niece on Tuesday as well. Today I will be ordering pizza. I don’t know what I will be doing Tuesday. Maybe I will take her to Starbucks with me, if she is willing to go. I was thinking of going today but my ankle is hurting kind of severely. I really don’t want to leave the house.

I woke up to a weird dream. I dreamed that I was in therapy with an older woman. It was our second session and I could barely hear her as she had laryngitis. My former therapist was in the room while we were talking. Then my teddy bear became a male toddler. He had just a diaper on him and was getting cranky because it was wet. I didn’t have another diaper but the therapist did. As I was changing him, he started crapping and it was diarrhea. I cleaned him up and he crapped green shit again. I got it all over myself. There was a shower in the office so I washed him and myself up. I didn’t have another diaper to change him. I felt like a bad father. I had no idea why my teddy bear became a live human. Anyways he walks to a chair and as I am telling him not to sit down, he sits and shit gets all over the chair. I pick him up and then I wake up, shaking my head. Weirdest dream ever.

I just ordered pizza and fries. Should be here in about a half hour or less. I can’t wait. I have been craving pizza all week long. I ordered a large so that my mother can have some, too. I usually order half because no one but me eats cold pizza. I don’t like it reheated. It tastes funny.

I am going to try finishing the CBT book that I started earlier this week after lunch. I should type up what I have written for the blog I am writing. I wrote it in a notebook on Monday. It’s an interesting book and I find it exciting to read because it stimulates my thought process. It’s a short book, only about 8 or 9 chapters and I am in chapter 5 right now. Reading it is not technical, least for me because I have a clinician brain. I am learning as I go as I am more psychodynamically oriented than Cognitive behaviorally. I can’t wait to write up this blog!