Tag: CRPS (formerly RSD)

Saturday Blog 9

by Midnight Demon, posted in chronic physical pain, sports, writing

I watched college football for the first time this season. I didn’t think I was going to wake up early enough for it because I usually forget. Luckily, the game was on the cable network so I got to see it on my living room TV instead of the small kitchen one. It was OSU vs Navy. I had a hard time rooting for either team because both are my favorites. But in the end, I went for my most favorite team, OSU.

I forgot to take my morning meds again. It is way too late now to take them as I will be taking my night time meds in a few hours. This sucks. I also have not taken my blood pressure at all today and I am afraid to because I know it is going to be high. So I will skip that too.

After the game, I was very tired for some reason. So I took a nap before my bladder woke me up, angrily. I forgot that I drank 32 ounces of fluid before taking my nap so I was FULL. Not a good thing when you have CES. I am still wearing a pad because of my menses so if I leaked, I didn’t care.

I have to take a shower today. I am all icky and stuff. It looks like my menses are finally going away, which is a good thing because then I can restart my hormone pills. I just have to remember when I stopped the pills. This sucks that I have to stop the pill every three packs. What good is it if I do that?? Three months off is not enough time to forget the awfulness of being in the wrong body. And then have to deal with it again, three months later, just sucks.

Since I woke up this morning (around 11 or so), I have been eating constantly. I finally stopped around the time the game ended. I am now bloated. I don’t think I am going to have anything else to eat today. If I do get hungry, I will just have a bowl of cereal.

Ruby De La Rosa is pitching tonight for the Red Sox. I don’t want to even watch or hear the game. Ever since the Sox traded away three good pitchers, I stopped watching or listening to the game. I would, however, keep track on Twitter. Or if I really cared, I would go the website and check out the score. But usually they would have a lead and then blow it. Such is the story of the season. This year’s sox just cannot hold on to a lead for nothing. The only team that we seem to be able to beat are the Blue Jays. Tonight is a much more competitive team, the Tampa Bay Rays. I hate that team. So if I happen to sleep through the game, so be it.

The agitation that I was feeling yesterday is gone, thank goodness. I guess, all I needed was sleep, even if it took a few Ativan to get there. Right now I am just feeling sleepy. But it’s not even eight o’clock yet so I can’t take my meds. I mean I could, it’s not like I am on a schedule or anything like I was when I was in the hospital, but if I take them too early, the chances of me waking up in the wee hours of the morning is greater. I have done that before and I woke up at midnight or 1 am. Not good because then I have the energy of three people and I don’t know what to do with it.

I didn’t work on any writing today. I didn’t even have a cup of coffee today. I have a feeling the coffee is what is causing the jitters that I get. So as my writing award for next month, and seeing as I can’t afford Starbucks, I will try to make a Starbucks award for my writing next month. That is, if I can afford it. I am going to try and promote my book this month so I have a few dollars on the side. I sold 3 books this month. I want to try and sell 5 next month. That is going to be a huge task. It would be easier if I had a printer but I don’t. My sister does but she doesn’t have ink for it. I am screwed. But I can still hashtag away at Twitter every day a couple of times to try and sell my book. If I had the money, I would take an ad in a professional psychology journal promoting my book. I still have to mail my editor her copy of the book, which I will do on Tuesday. Monday is Labor Day so post office is closed. I am still debating if I should send my book to be reviewed by the American Association of Suicidology. I want to so bad but I don’t want to be criticized either. I have a lot of personal information. But they didn’t give me a lot of information to put in the book. “Just send two copies to this address” is all I have to go on. And I have the package all sealed up and ready to go. So if they needed me to sign the book or include my address in the book, too late for that. I just hope that I don’t have to be a current member because I let my membership expire. Dammit, the things I think of now.

My foot is killing me. The pain meds that I took earlier have had no effect on it. I am so tired of being in pain all the stinking time. I just want to chop my foot off right now. Sure it will be bloody and messy but I don’t be in pain, well not the type of pain I am experiencing right now. I think I will feel another type of pain but I am hoping that will go away with time. And if I happen to bleed out, so be it.

I am starting to get worried over a blogger friend of mine. She is having difficulty with her illness. I tried reaching out to her but got no response. She has been blogging saying that she what she is doing and I don’t like it. Even though she doesn’t know it, I think it is a form of self-harm. I just want to help her but if she doesn’t respond to me, that is kind of hard to do. I just hope she is sleeping off what she took and no harm comes to her. I will really miss her if she should die.

pain and sleep ramble

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Got things done today

Last night I started the process of changing the bedding and sheets on my bed. See, half of my bed I use as my “office”. It has books, journals, my laptop and a couple of other items. So clearing it off was the real problem to changing the linen. Once I did that, I got the comforter off the bed and washed it. I knew it would take a couple cycles to dry in the dryer. I already had a set of clean sheets. Trouble was that today after I took my shower, I didn’t want to do anything. I had a rough night sleeping and thought a shower would wake me up. It had the opposite affect. But once the comforter was drying, I knew I had to change the sheets. I forced myself to do it and it went quicker than I thought it would. Usually I only have one clean set of sheets because I always put the clean sheets somewhere and forget where I put them. But the last time I washed my sheets I put them in my bureau where it wouldn’t get lost and hopefully the clean smell would stay on it. Score for me.

This is hard because it always hurts my back when I do change the sheets. It would be easy if I didn’t keep my bed as an “office” but it is easier to work from my bed than from a desk. I know sleep docs would have a fit if they knew. But I won’t see them as I know my problem with sleeping comes from my mood disorder than any other cause. Last night, I slept a few hours and was up at 0230. I wrote a nice blog, something about demons and that is all that I remember of it. I was in a lot of pain when I wrote it and also was a little drugged up with my pain meds. But I had to write. It was the only way I would get back to sleep. Around 7ish, I was finally ready to call it a night. I wish my sleep schedule would be normal but when I am in pain, all bets are off. And I was in so much pain last night it woke me up. Then I started getting cramps in my neck that just wouldn’t allow me to go back to sleep. It was a really bad night. Probably the worse since being home from the hospital. And I was so angry at my treaters. Angry that they had kept me alive. Angry that I was in so much pain and couldn’t sleep. Angry that I couldn’t vent with someone because it was 3 in the morning. I was so WTF at everything.

I am to have a lunch date with my aunt this week. But I don’t think it is going to happen because I have my appointment with my PCP this week. It’s an appointment I am not looking forward to. My blood pressure is still borderline high to high at times. It seems to be worse in the evening. I don’t know why. I will mention that to him as well. He isn’t going to be happy with me because I gained a few pounds while in the hospital. I have been trying to work it off but it’s been so difficult as all I want to do lately is sleep because my nighttime sleep schedule is so fucked up. Maybe I will go for a walk tonight. It can’t hurt. Well, I suppose it can. I just never know what will jack my pain up. Sometimes it is over activities. Sometimes its doing NOTHING but resting. I just don’t get it. I know that if I go up and down the stairs more than a few times, I will hurt. My ankle just doesn’t like the normal flexion it is supposed to have. But I really have no idea why I woke up in excruciating pain last night. I am so baffled. I know part of it is because I was sleeping on my left side (I usually sleep on my right). But I was in a deep sleep and for me to be woken up in severe pain, I just don’t get it. I wish I could talk to some doctor about it to help me figure it out. My PCP is useless when it comes to trying to figure out my pain. But then, he is not a pain specialist. And the pain specialists don’t have any answers for me either. So I am stuck with figuring it out on my own. I need to become a pain expert and study pain but the brain is so damn complicated. I am lucky if I remember the structures of the brain. I can’t even remember the amygdala from the gyrus. It has been too long since I looked at it and its pathways. My memory is not the same as it once was. I used to have photogenic memory. Now, I am lucky to remember things such as when I had lunch or breakfast.

They say not to use the word “demons”

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, chronic physical pain, depression

They say not to use the word “demons”

In recent news about suicide, attempt survivors are asking that the word “demons” not be used and that the real “thing” be used. I forgot the term as it was many days ago and I don’t have that much of an attention span that I used to have. It got me thinking about my blog as the word “demons” is used.

I don’t really care what these people say, I am still going to have my blog and though I don’t talk about the “demons” in my blog, I mostly talk about how I feel, which is often suicidal. These suicidal tendencies often come out in the middle of the night, when I can’t sleep, and when I am in pain. I would write some horrible stuff and get a lot of people concerned.

Tonight the “demons” are out. I am hating everyone that has kept me alive the past few weeks. Though I could kill myself now. It doesn’t make a difference with the time frame. I am in excruciating pain and just want to end things. I am so tired of fighting pain. It used to be just psychological that the fight was about. Now, it is both physical and psychological and I am sorry but I can’t keep fighting both. It is too hard. I know that I will feel better in the morning, when I get a few hours of sleep. But right now I could write an email to my psychiatrist and tell her how much I hate her for keeping me alive. I could text my therapist with the same hate. But instead of doing that, I am just going to blog until I fall asleep.

What makes my life so special that I can’t commit suicide? Robin Williams was special. He did the deed. So do a lot of people, every year. They say that 39,000 people will take their life in a year in the US. And the number of attempts are in the hundreds of thousands. Or maybe it is a hundred thousand. We just won’t know because it is so underreported. Many people survive their attempt and often don’t seek medical attention afterward. It is so hard to kill the human body. It boggles my mind when I hear of homicide, though. Seems like that should be higher than suicide but it is not (and please correct me if I am wrong).

But aside from the global effect of Williams’ death, I still feel like it is my turn to die. I really don’t want to live knowing I am going to be in pain the rest of my life. It’s too much of a burden to think about. But I am lucky that all I need are a few pain pills to ease my pain. It doesn’t get rid of the pain entirely, but just enough that it takes the suicidal feelings away. I just took these meds but it takes a half hour or more to work. Chronic pain is a big risk factor for suicide. I know because I live with it every day. My treaters know that. That is why I am hating them at this moment. My foot is throbbing up a storm. I don’t know if it has to do with the weather change. My body can’t tolerate huge gaps of temperature changes. But I have no control over that and I am not about to move to another state. Yes, moving to California might help my pain but it will be isolating because I have a few friends there and most of my family are here. Isolation and being suicidal do not mix. That is why I stay at home. It is a preventative factor for my suicidal brain.

I don’t know why I am up at 3 in the morning. I woke up in pain and still my pain meds have not kicked in. The “demons” are still around me, wanting me to try and take my life. But that will involve getting out of my cozy bed and I am too tired and in too much pain to do so. I guess you can say I am too lazy to take my life. So I write about it instead. I won’t write about the methods that have been swirling around my brain. But one of them include the method Williams chose. He is a brave person. It takes a lot to kill yourself. I am not giving him praise, the media has already done that. But I am happy for him. People in the hospital didn’t understand that. And maybe you might not either. I am happy for him because HE is no longer suffering. HE succeeded where I am a failure. His suffering has ended while mine is still going on.

He died as a complication of depression. I like that term. “Complications of depression” yes, I like that term very much. But I doubt it will be used for my death. The throbbing has escalated. My foot is now on fire. And there is no extinguisher in the world that can put out the fire. So I take another pill. I hope that I am sleeping soon.

Blog Anniversary-2nd Year

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

Blog Anniversary

Today is my two year anniversary of starting my blog. I just gained 500 followers. I guess that is fitting. One of the last two people to become a follower is a clinician. I read her blog about inpatient treatment. We exchanged some comments. That is what I like about the blog world. You never know who you are touching or following you.

Having a rough day. Been trying to write something about coffee and therapy and I am failing at it. I wrote something for half an hour but the flies on my front porch got to me and I had to go into the house. I thought I would type what I wrote but that hasn’t happened yet. I don’t know why I am struggling with this piece of writing. Sure it is personal, but all my blogs are. I do have a pain flare going on so that might be one of the reasons why I am struggling. I just can’t get comfortable. Maybe I will work on it later tonight once the pain meds have worn off. And hopefully this migraine that has been brewing will stop.

Today was a good weather day but I was lazy after I took my shower. It sucked all the energy out of me and I had to take a nap afterwards. By the time I woke up from my nap, I had already missed the bus so I was pissed at myself for sleeping so late. I wanted to go out. I still might as I want to get some donuts. I have been craving one for weeks now. Also been craving Chinese food but I don’t have the money for that, least not until next week.

I am also struggling with thoughts of death. Past few hours, I have thought of nothing but killing myself. The pain is driving me nuts and my heart has begun aching, which combined, just kills me. I haven’t told my therapist because I figure why bother. She is out of the office until Monday so it’s not like I am going to get a response. Besides, it’s not like she can do something about it. Most she will do is “contract for safety”, which is stupid. It’s not like she can really stop me from harming myself if I really want to. I just have to figure out how to kill myself as my previous plans are out the window, so to speak. I still have thoughts of hanging but where? I can’t do it in my room as the ceiling is too low and I don’t want to be home when I do it. I just feel so stuck in trying to kill myself too that it just leads to more frustration.

I just don’t want to be anymore. I am tired, so very tired to the point of total exhaustion of struggling all the time with one thing or another. Either I am struggling with myself, or I am struggling in pain. I don’t know what psychological pain feels like anymore because my physical pain has been too great it overwhelms everything else. Yesterday my mother told me that I should see yet another doctor at another hospital. I told her I was done seeing doctors. They can’t find what is wrong with my ankle to do anything about it anyways. I have a vague diagnosis of tendonitis or CRPS or maybe something else. I don’t know anymore. I just know that I hurt almost 24/7. The only time I don’t feel any pain is when I sleep and that is iffy at best. Luckily, today I had around 6 straight hours. But I still woke up in pain. Luckily, the pain was manageable as I was able to finally take a shower. I hate the summer because I sweat more and stink. I usually shower every other day but with my pain levels being the way they are, it is more like every three days tops. Last week, I almost went a week without showering because I was on bedrest and in a LOT of pain.

So I hope to get to the rest of my Coffee and therapy story tonight. But if I don’t, it will make an interesting blog for next week.