Tag: CRPS (formerly RSD)

Tweets from Last Night

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

Tweets from Last Night

Last night I was in a rough spot. I was feeling really depressed and decided to take out my frustrations on Twitter. I some how digressed and came into being of my comparison of psychache scales paper. I went through it trying to find the link of the article as I can’t post it without infringing on copyrights. The PDF is available online, but for a price. In the article, it has the psychache scale that I used to use. I still have it in some old journals, with some modifications of my needs. Anyways, I was going through this paper and I realized I left out that reference. So at around 0230 in the morning, I am fixing this error. It was a crazy night.

I had started off saying why I do not trust the American Psychological Association. And then it somehow veered into my paper. I don’t know what else I was talking about. It was late, I was wicked tired. I wasn’t in pain, thank goodness. Otherwise, I might have had another Hyde episode. I was careful not to say how suicidal I was because I didn’t want people coming after me in the morning or on my Facebook page. But most of the later tweets never made it to FB for some reason.

I got an email from my psychiatrist this morning reminding me that she will be away next week and that another doc is covering for her. She said that if I need someone urgently, to page him. I don’t think paging someone at three in the morning is a good idea, especially with someone I don’t know. She will be available via email should something non urgent comes up. I still will have my therapist I can bug and text any time of day. She doesn’t responds to my text but will go over them in session. Then I have to try and remember what the hell I texted her. It can be a little frustrating sometimes. I am going to try and see her on Tuesday, if I can get my sister’s car. Course it all depends on if my leg cooperates with me. Today I woke up in pain. I didn’t have pain last night but woke up with it this morning. It is so random that it becomes very frustrating. I had to go to my father’s today to do his pills. He again didn’t take one to two days. So frustrating and the reason he doesn’t take it, is because he doesn’t want to pee every “ten minutes”. Tough shit. He is a sick man and needs to have the fluid out of his body. I just wish that my mother’s docs would put her on another diuretic so that her ankles aren’t so swollen. But they don’t. I find it sad that she doesn’t get the care that she needs.

My father’s girlfriend came over today. So we spent some time talking with her. She is a nice lady. I then had to leave after about a half hour because my pain was getting to be really bad. Plus it was kind of sickening seeing my father show PDAs toward her. He never showed that to my mother all the time they were together. He is really a bastard. I ate while I was over there. My father made chicken cutlets. Surprisingly, they weren’t too salty. I really want a pizza now. I have been craving it the last few days. But I don’t want to get a whole pizza because I just won’t finish it all. I wish I could get half a pizza delivered, and fries. I love fries with pizza. Maybe that is what I will order later tonight.

Baseball is on late tonight. They are in Seattle playing the Mariners. It is going to be a long night. I am tempted to make coffee so I can stay up. But I probably will be up anyways, least until midnight. I just hope that if I do stay up and listen to the game, the midnight demons don’t come out.

Cinco de Mayo 2015

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders, suicidality, suicide

Cinco de Mayo 2015

I got my S’mores frappucino with a shot of espresso. I had to have a real caffeine kick. I didn’t think I was going to go out because all the stuff I took for my bowels suddenly worked, all morning, for me. But things settled down after lunch and I was able to go out.

Had therapy and my therapist doesn’t remember reading the blog I sent her last week. The part she did remember was the nest part, which to me is similar to a hope box. She didn’t call it that and said she wanted to have things remind me of how important I am to people and such. It’s hard to do that when I am still in an environment that doesn’t fully support me in my illness. Today, I told her that my mother made me feel bad because I don’t do things “useful” around the house. My mother wanted me to put her breakfast plate in the sink to be “useful” and it made me upset. I don’t get why my mother has to be mean to me. I feel that giving her half of my paycheck every month to cover the bills of the house should let me live here, too. I just don’t get it.

I got really angry today so I posted on Twitter my feelings. A fellow CES sufferer saw a doctor today for her disability claims. He discounted her having CES, Cauda Equina Syndrome, saying she HAD CES, but once you have surgery, you no longer have it. That infuriated me. Infuriate is my word today as I have used it several times. I don’t get how a doctor can say something like that. If she had a stroke, the result would be the same. I just don’t get it. I really don’t and the more this happens, the more I distrust the medical profession. To me, despite their high degree, are all bozos, unless proven otherwise. I have yet to find a doctor that helped me with my ankle. No one wants to believe that I still have nerve damage in it. That the weakness is just from tendonitis. Just pisses me off, big time. So I have to take pain medication to quiet the pain. Normally, tendonitis heals with rest and therapy. I have been resting for three years now and I still have flare ups of pain. And no one can tell me why I am in pain or why my ankle swells up and all the veins in my foot pops out when I am in severe pain. Course, a doctor has yet to see this happen because it only happens in the after hours, late at night with the pain so bad I want to kill myself. It doesn’t flare up during appointment hours or even during an appointment. I am hardly in pain during the day, usually. But after seven in the evening, almost every night, the pain will rise and if I don’t start taking pain meds it becomes out of control. I have been fortunate that lately I have stayed on top of it. I am kind of lucky that I no longer work because if Friday was any indication, I would not be able to walk and stand eight hours a day. I would be in too much pain. Friday I walked more than I should have and paid heavily for it. Only reason I walked too much was because the eyeglass place made my glasses wrong. If the idiot explained to me what he meant by distance, we wouldn’t have had this problem. I still haven’t gotten my glasses back yet. I will call tomorrow and find out when they will be ready. I need them to read Dostoevsky. The glasses I am currently wearing can only go so far and then I start straining my eyes to see with them. It sucks having bad eyesight. I have been wearing glasses since I was in first grade.

My therapist and I talked about the chat that had me upset Sunday night. It’s like, am I smarter than all these clinicians and therapists in this chat when it comes to suicide prevention? I understand they want research and evident based treatment, but the research is there. If I know about it, why don’t they? I don’t get it. I don’t even hold a bachelor’s yet I know what needs to be done for a suicidal patient. Understanding, compassion, empathy, and the client telling his story. Treatment can be DBT based or CBT. I understand not everyone is trained in these modalities. There is a “short” kind of CBT, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, that seems to help veterans in as little as five sessions. This is from what I have gathered on the internet vines and through the research of Jobes. So why do they not trust these kind of therapies is beyond my understanding. If they are looking to predict a suicide, they will have to wait a really, really long time for that to happen. You can’t predict a suicide anymore than you can predict cancer in a patient. And if this prediction is what they mean by prevention, they don’t understand anything about suicide at all.

Lot of traveling

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

Lot of traveling

I did a lot of traveling around the T (my public transportation system) today. Started with a trip to Starbucks for my morning coffee and breakfast sandwich. I did some writing and then it was time to go to see my pdoc. It was good seeing her again. She appears to be recovering nicely from her hip and I am glad. We talked about how things have been and then about my father’s troubles or rather how much of a pain in the ass he is. I wasn’t feeling too good when I saw her. I have been feeling dizzy most of the day. I had a couple waves of dizziness while sitting with her but I didn’t tell her. I didn’t want to worry her.

After my appointment, I went to the eyeglass place to get my glasses. They weren’t made right so I had to return them to get them fixed. The woman said they would expedite the work but didn’t know how long it was going to take. Good thing I wore my trusty old pair or I would have gotten a headache with all the running around I did today. I was kind of upset. I hope they get done quickly. I need to read Dostoevsky. My trusty pair of glasses are slowly making me strain to see as the prescription is so old.

My game has officially ended. I talked about that with my pdoc today. I didn’t talk about my suicidality, at all. I told her I was depressed and left it at that. When I brought up what I told my therapist about her saying I was her role model, her face lit up. She was really sincere and I hadn’t heard wrong. I told her little things like that help keep me here.

While going home, for the second time, I bumped into a friend of mine I hadn’t spoken to in years. We sat and talk a while. It was so good talking with him. He gave me updates his life and I gave him updates of mine. He is such a swell guy. I had a copy of my book with me so I gave it to him and signed it. He was so excited to see me. I was thinking about him the other day. I realized we have been friends for more than 20 years. We might not be in touch every day but when we do, we generally have a good time talking. He and his brother were milieu counselors where I had a lengthy psych hospital stay at the time.

My calves feel like they are going to fall off the bone. They are so tender from walking all over the place today. According to an app that I have, I walked 1 hour and 53 minutes. That is a lot of walking when you are not used to it. I am sure I will be sore tomorrow. I am not planning on going out. I also know I am going to be in pain tonight and tomorrow. It’s a given. I don’t know if it will stretch out to Sunday. Time will only tell. Right now my ankle is not happy with me, at all. I took a pain med to try and ease the pain before it gets worse. My mother noticed how exhausted I am while I was eating dinner. I left the house around 0845 and didn’t come home until around 1630. I don’t think I have ever been out of the house that long since becoming disabled. Even though I am hurting, I am glad that I did the amount of walking I did. Only problem is that because I didn’t sleep well (I went to bed late then woke up every hour since 0330), I wasn’t able to shower this morning like I wanted to. And it doesn’t look good for tonight. Though I have been able to once I rest for a few hours. It’s such a balancing act. You’re damned if you do and then damned if you don’t. Right now I am wondering how I am going to stand while gathering my meds tonight. I didn’t fill my pill box this week. I get lazy and just don’t do it some weeks. Then it becomes a hodgepodge of what meds I do take and which ones I don’t. I try and remember to take them all but some nights, like tonight, I just can’t stand that long to take them.

I found out yesterday that my friend’s mother passed away. Her wake is Monday and I am going to try and go. If I can find dressy clothes that fit me. I have known my friend since kindergarten.

Random 347

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

I did a lot of walking today, more than what I normally do. I am hurting, a little bit, but it was worth it. I have to keep on trying to stretch my limits so I can hopefully get back to work sometime this year. I was really tired today but I forced myself to get up and go. I got my glasses and because the glasses were more than the sunglasses, I got the sunglasses free! I only paid for one pair. That is half of what I need. I also need to get the multifocal glasses, which I probably will get online, now that I have the pupillary distance that is needed. I also got a haircut today. It was done by the same guy but he gave me a different cut! This cut will last me a while, though not as long as if he cut it closer like the last time.

I didn’t know what to have for lunch so went to my favorite pizza place and had a slice. Even though I went to Starbucks today, though I didn’t stay to write or even have something to eat. I really wanted to get the glasses out of the way and then go home. I stood way too long trying to find a pair of glasses that I liked. I found a frame that was on sale and got that. The sunglasses selection was not that great. They must have had a few dozen to choose from, none of which really stood out for me.

I am not that pleased that my legs are killing me right now. Other than walking every day, I don’t know what else to do to increase my endurance. It really sucks that I can walk half a block and then my calves cramp up. I have to try and be more active. It’s the only way that I am going to increase my stamina. I think it might also help my mood. But I don’t want to suffer at night with big time pain. That is one thing I don’t need! Because even though I am feeling proud of myself for walking the distances I did today, if I am hurting later it will be for not. I will be really upset with myself. I have to conserve my energy for Monday when I go to the museum with my friend. I don’t plan on doing anything tomorrow. Sunday is my niece’s birthday party. I suppose I will show up for food and snacks, then make a get away.

Took a shower to get the loose hair off of me. It was really hot because my mother had just finished washing clothes. Felt really good though. Now I can go to sleep, hopefully. I was going to make a steak dinner but I don’t think I will. I am too tired to cook. If I get hungry later, maybe I will. I still haven’t made my fish and chips. I probably will make that sometime this weekend.

In a week, I will have new glasses. I hope that I see better. It’s getting tough to read the Idiot because the print is straining my eyesight. I have been reading a chapter at a time to get through the thick book. It is one of my favorites of Dostoevsky’s books. I am glad that I took that Russian class. I have always been fascinated by Russia, the old, not so much the new. The new Russia has been broken up into so many pieces that I don’t know it anymore. Hell, I don’t even know the European geography anymore as so many countries have formed. I would have to take a class to know it all again.

And just like that, my ankle is throbbing. Is it too early to go to bed at 1800? I really don’t care if I wake up later. I just don’t want to deal with this pain today. But I know that I taxed it a little bit more today than any other day. I really hope this doesn’t cause a flare up. My friend has timed tickets to the event we are going to on Monday. It will really suck if I can’t make it because of my bum ankle. I don’t want to get ahead of myself. I just took a couple of pain pills to head off more pain. I really don’t want this to turn into a flare up. Only thing I have to do tomorrow is go to the pharmacy to fill my pain med prescription. But I can do that on Sunday, if I want to just chill tomorrow.