Tag: CRPS (formerly RSD)

Sad and Hurting

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

Sad and Hurting

I had a meeting with my father’s treatment team today. He is improving as well as a dying man can be. They think with time, he will be able to come home once his stamina and strength are back. I went to see him in the afternoon as I needed to sign some papers and give a copy of the health care proxy. When I went to his room and he was sleeping so I just let him be. I didn’t want to get him riled up. Walking to the place from Mass Ave was a doozy. It was a steeper hill than I thought it was. I was able to climb up it but it took a lot out of me. Then I stood for the hour for the bus. My ankle and calves are not happy with me. I know I am going to need extra medication tonight for pain. I already took an Ativan to calm the calf muscles down some. I know I am going to be sore tomorrow and I need to go out to see my psychiatrist. I have the rest of the week to rest. I now know a better way to get to the nursing home than the way I went. I am glad the place is T accessible or I would be screwed to get there. I would have to go with my sister every time and that is annoying.

I only had a cold cut sandwich today for breakfast. I am not hungry for anything except a pastrami sub. I have no idea why that is my comfort food right now but it is. And the thing is, I am running low on funds so I might only be able to get one more and that is it. Sucks living off a monthly check.

I had therapy today. We talked about the Zoloft. I think it’s starting to make me sick but I have Zofran to counteract the nausea. I just have to run it by my psych that it’s ok to take it. I think it’s helping me to cope with all this stress. I don’t want to increase it just yet because if it is making me sick, it will just get worse. I might have to lower the dose. The nausea is worse in the morning then gets better so we’ll just have to see how it plays out. Plus I have post nasal drip that is also worse in the morning so it could be a combination of medication and the PND making me sick.

We also talked about my father for most of the session and my mother’s latest spell. I am just sad that both are sick at the same time. But the good news is that being sad is normal and different than my depression. It’s kind of weird being sad when you are depressed. I am very stressed about my father’s illness and his cognitive decline. He was at the conference call with the treatment team but didn’t understand what was going on. That was part of the reason I didn’t want to wake him up because I knew he would want me to sign him out. And I didn’t want to be the bad guy.

My ankle is throbbing so bad right now and I can’t find my compression bandage wrap thing. You always find it when you aren’t looking for it. I know I need to get another one because the one I have is too tight due to the swelling of my ankle. I think I will need an XL. I need to go to Walgreens because trying to find it online is not as easy as it sounds. You only get a million choices and you really don’t know if it’s really what you are looking for. I already took two pain pills for the throbbing. I hope to sleep in a few hours from now. I really hope the throbbing doesn’t get worse or turn into severe pain. I know I did too much standing today and I am going to pay for it. I just hope I can walk tomorrow so I can see my psychiatrist.

My therapist asked about my writing. I told her about the difficulty of writing my blog some days. Like yesterday it took me an awful long time just to write a little more than 300 words. I had a lot to say but I just couldn’t get my brain to crank out the words with my fingers. I actually did better writing in my journal than typing. Maybe I will do that next time and then try and type what I write. She said to bring this up to my psychiatrist as it’s a symptom of the depression. I don’t know when this cognitive stuff is going to leave me. I thought being on an SSRI would help some of the physical symptoms but it hasn’t. I have low appetite, sleep is affected, energy is affected, I feel guilty most of the time for no reason, also feel worthless, and now the cognitive stuff. It just really sucks. I want to be able to be there for my family but I am declining. I am so tired all the time, even with getting at least 8 hours of sleep at night. I am surprised I had the energy to climb up the hill to the nursing home but now I am totally wiped out. I know tomorrow is going to be worse.

Rainy Day in Boston

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

Rainy Day in Boston

I had an aggravating day and the rain didn’t make things better. I don’t know why I don’t carry my pain meds on me when I know I am going to be out of the house for more than a few hours. I was at the hospital visiting my father because the social worker was suppose to come by between 11-1130. I wanted to be there because we had some things to discuss. 1230 comes by, nothing. 1330 comes by, nothing. Another hour passes and I am pissed now. The nurse finally got a hold of her for our concerns and the paperwork we needed. The idiot gave me the stupid run around about the health care proxy. I was supposed to give it to her was my understanding but she said the social worker needed it so that was what I was waiting for. Soon after that, my sisters got my father all riled up and I took that cue to fucking leave. My foot was ready to explode in pain and I wanted to be close to home when it did.

Except when I was close to home, my sister said I needed to fill out some more paperwork and had to go back to the hospital. I was cursing. My foot was cursing. The three metatarsals that always give me grief in the rain exploded and I had to limp back to the hospital and the care unit where my father was. It was the longest walk I ever walked. Then of course, I had to walk the same way back to the train station. I am in so much pain and the rain is not helping me out one bit despite the temp being in the fifties.

When I got to the hospital, the prognosis of my father was given. He has weeks to live, maybe a month if you push it somehow. We finally have an answer. Not one we were anticipating but it’s better than not knowing and leaving uncertainty. My sisters and I are making arrangements and such. I’m still trying to wrap my head around it but I can’t. I am just so damn sad.

Before all the trips to the hospital, I went to Starbucks and got a caramel Macchiato and a breakfast sandwich. Then when I was at the hospital, I had half of my father’s turkey sandwich. I think I will finish the day with an Ensure as I am not in the mood for anything else. I thought about making a tuna sandwich but my foot will kill me if I stand on it. I took some pain meds and I am already starting to feel the effects. I don’t think going down some stairs right now will be a good idea.

just a ramble

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

About an hour ago, my foot exploded in pain after I took an NSAID and some Neurontin. Now the pain is a little bit more manageable. I keep thinking over today’s events with the AAS conference tweets. I like that my Twitter buddies went to difference speaking engagements so you got different things. I especially liked the Marsha Linehan talk. She is a great person, though I didn’t like her at first. That was many years ago and at a time when DBT was the “thing” to do for people like me.

Now I would love to see CAMS to be the “thing” to do. But I don’t think I will ever find or convince my therapist to take a workshop on CAMS. She thinks her way is the right way and there is no more “learning” to be done because I do it. I am the suicidologist, not her. I think her attitude reflects most therapists that have become set in their ways. She is collaborative, don’t get me wrong and I am grateful for that but when it comes to my suicidality, it increases her anxiety and so I get shafted. I have to “limit” what I tell her so she doesn’t freak out. She has become better since the letter that I sent her last September. She is more willing to do what needs to be done in therapy to help me rather than hinder me. I give her credit for that. I know it wasn’t easy to give up my sessions this week. Whereas before, she wouldn’t think twice about canceling. It would be a no and that would be all. I would have had therapy whether I liked it or not.

I think next month I need to spend more money on my laptop because the cooling fan is going. I saw how it was to be replaced and it’s too complicated for me. I am going to ship it back to Dell and use my old laptop. I should make sure that it works before I send this off. I changed the battery on it because it needed a new one. That was the easy part. I am just grateful I have a backup laptop that I can use for what I need. I know internet explorer is useless on it. There is a problem with the hard drive that makes it impossible to update windows. I never got a new hard drive because it’s a pain re-installing everything.

I emailed my psychiatrist and told her I wasn’t going to the hospital because there was zero data supporting that it would be helpful or useful for me. All it would do is babysit me and I don’t need to be babysat. The last time I was in the hospital, my psych thought it would be “helpful” for the team to know that my father was sick and that I was his “caretaker”. I went in there because I couldn’t handle being transgender, or being in chronic pain all the time. I went there for my needs not my father’s. I was pissed that she brought it up. And it’s not like they were doing psychotherapy with me, though I am sure they were billing my insurance company for it. It’s just stupid. I rather go to the city hospital and stay there for a few days. It will be worse as I won’t have any electronics to play with, including the use of my cell phone.

There are a lot of things that I need to talk to my therapist about and I hope that we don’t talk fifty minutes of my father’s ailments. I don’t mind talking to my psych about my father because we just briefly talk about him and then we talk about my symptoms and how I am doing with it. We don’t spend the whole time talking about my father’s problem. My therapist is the crazy one. We always talk about the same things with my father. It’s never different because his ailment doesn’t change. He is a sick man and will probably die within a year if he continues to deteriorate. I have come to terms with that. My therapist just doesn’t see it and wants to talk about it like it’s so very important, thus avoiding my other side, the depression and subsequent suicidality.

I feel like taking a handful of Neurontin tonight. I just want oblivion. Maybe I will take a high enough dose and see what happens. My luck, nothing will happen.

cement shoes

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

Cement shoes

I was wearing sneakers but you wouldn’t know it. My feet felt like they were in cement blocks as I trudged my way down to the bus stop. I really didn’t feel like going out but I wanted a latte and I figure going out was better than making coffee at home. I wasn’t expecting my sneakers to change to cement blocks though. Each step took a lot of effort. I was exhausted by the time I reached the stop. I am glad they have a bench so I could sit down and rest.

The depression takes many forms with me. It is never the same with each episode I experience. Sometimes I am walking through mud. Other times I have cement shoes on my feet. Each step is always painful whether it be mud or cement. I just can’t get through to my head that there is a clear path and that there is nothing physically there to slow me down. The physical symptoms of depression doesn’t care. It holds you back when you want to move forward, all the damn time.

Recently, a Twitter friend said that I should keep fighting. I don’t think she realizes just how exhausting that is. It is so much easier to give up. To stay in bed until the sun rises again, when the black dog disappears. But you have responsibilities and that keeps you from staying in bed all day. Appointments must be kept. Prescriptions must be filled. It’s hard, it’s really hard to go on when you feel like this.

Feeling hopeless is the worse. I wasn’t feeling this when the depression started. This episode started two months ago and I lost my appetite as well as my thought speed. My thoughts became slow as molasses. It’s still hard to get the words out at times. I lost weight because I wasn’t eating. I felt tired all the time. I felt down a lot of the time. But I still did what I had to do rather than stay cooped up in bed like I would have loved to do. Now that my appetite is back, I am beginning to feel like this depression is not going to end, that it is going to stay around and I am forever in its grip. I feel hopeless that things are going to get better again. Part of me knows that it will. It just takes time. I have been put on medication that should help relieve some of this suffering but I still don’t know. I have to wait two weeks for this medication to work and I am overwhelmed by this because I can’t even think of tomorrow or the next day.

I have to just think of the present time. It’s the only way to get through the day. If I can get through this minute, that hour, I will be okay. But it’s hard. I am still not eating 100% of the time. I have to remind myself to eat. I have broken the “no food in my room” rule. I had to because pain keeps me from going downstairs to get food when I need it so I keep some pretzels near me to offset hunger. It might not be the best food in the world but it’s something. And something is better than nothing. If I didn’t have to worry about mice, I would bring some of my chocolate granola bars in my room. Those are good for hunger. The reason I have a hard time going down the stairs is because of pain in my ankle and foot due to a condition known as complex regional pain syndrome. I have been living with this condition for the past four years. It’s difficult when you can’t walk and walking is your main mode of transportation. I don’t own a car so I don’t drive that often. I used to be able to borrow my sister’s car but she traded it in for a monster truck and I just can’t drive it for fear of sideswiping another vehicle or something else.

The cement shoes have come on in the last two days. I don’t know when they will come off. I hate wearing them when in fact, I have sneakers on. The cement is so heavy. I feel so weighed down with them on. It’s like I can’t move. It’s so painful. You are exhausted by the time you reach your destination, which is only a few short blocks from your house.

The exhaustion from the depression has to be worse than a physical illness or about the same, depending on who you talk to. It really sucks because you might have energy before you get dressed and then when you are finished showering and putting on your clean clothes, you are wiped out. It sucks more when you are in physical pain as well. I don’t know what is worse at this point. Dealing with my chronic pain in my ankle or the depression. Maybe it’s both. I just need to find a chisel and a hammer to try and escape from these cement shoes. They are no fun.