Tag: CRPS

writing continues

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

Writing Continues

I woke up around 0630 and got to work right away. I worked on my story that I wrote up the other night. I finally typed it up and added to it as I did so. It felt good to be productive before having breakfast and coffee. I had my breakfast but I didn’t have cream so I walked up the street to get it. I was completely exhausted by the time I came back home. Mind you, I wasn’t gone for more than twenty minutes. I am glad I opted for going to going out rather than showering. My ankle is having a fit and a half for walking and going up and down stairs. I almost took a tumble yesterday and in balancing myself, I had to put my weight on my bad ankle. It hasn’t been the same since. But it’s not terribly swollen. It just hurts more.

I worked on my paper. It’s a little more than 500 words but there is plenty of room to work on it. I sent it to my psychiatrist but haven’t heard feedback on it. I am glad to work on something. After I typed it up, I just let it sit for a bit. Because it isn’t finished, I didn’t blog it. I am going to print it out and see how it looks and maybe go over it tomorrow after therapy. Course, it all depends on how my ankle is doing.

I have to go to the mall sometime this week to get some clothes for a wedding I will be attending in two weeks. None of my dress clothes fit me anymore because of the damn weight I have gained. I am going to try looking online first before actually going to the mall. I might have better luck finding my waist and a 29 length. Course if my ankle doesn’t calm the fuck down, there won’t be a wedding to go to.

I am so pissed right now. My fucking cousin called me because my mother had grocery bags. I told him I was busy and he just played it off. That is what pissed me off more than anything, like my writing is just playing. Sorry buddy, but it is my vocation, you jerk. I go down the second flight of stairs and my ankle acts up. I can’t put any weight on it. Fuck. I shouldn’t have answered the damn phone. Then my mother gets out of the car and is in fucking pain. She won’t get out of the way so my cousin can get the stupid bags he refuses to bring up the one flight of stairs. He doesn’t have any physical problems. He just is a lazy fucking bastard. My mother tells me she bought me yogurt. It’s the light and fit kind, which I do not like. So she just wasted her money. Three fucking bags the asshole couldn’t bring up the stairs. I am livid. He does this all the time. He knows I am on disability because of my ankle. Does he fucking care? No. He only cares if I have a few extra bucks in my pocket. Asshole. He really is. Next time I am not answering the damn phone. Fuck them. Now I have to take extra pain meds because I really am hurting. No way I will be able to take a shower tonight. Thank you fucking cousin for the extra pain you brought me.

My therapist hasn’t answered my text and it’s getting late so I doubt there will be a session today. I don’t fucking care anymore. I am too pissed to talk anyway. I might have to take an Ativan to calm down. My neck is killing me from the stress of being so angry and not having anyone to yell at. I think I need a nap. My mother is probably going to call soon as I get to the point of sleeping to see what I want for dinner. So screw that. Hope she doesn’t want me to make dinner because that is so not happening. I can barely fucking stand. I hope I don’t have to go to the bathroom because that will suck having to go back downstairs. I am not hungry anyways. If I get hungry later, I will try and make the French bread pizza. I haven’t had lunch but I am still full from my late breakfast and the coffee killed my appetite.

I hope my ankle is better by tomorrow. I need to get out of the fucking house and seriously focus on my writing. It fucking sucks that I get no support from my family, just my psychiatrist and therapist. How sad is that? Sure, my sisters are supportive. They never interrupt me while I am writing but then, they usually don’t call while I am as they work during the week.

depression and delusions

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

Been reading my blogs from a year ago and found that I was very depressed. I didn’t want to be in treatment. I didn’t want to take my medication anymore. I just wanted to be left alone. I felt like I was a bother to my psychiatrist and my therapist. Then things got more serious. I was in pain and that just sent me over the edge. I became suicidal. Now there was no way I couldn’t see my pdoc or therapist. They wanted to see me despite me telling me them it was a waste of their time. I must have read at least three blogs that said this.

It was after my book was published and I sunk into a deep depression. I don’t remember it now. I just have the blogs to monitor these things. I am glad I have this record because I don’t remember half of what I write. Some blogs were written in the evening. Some were after midnight. The ones written after midnight were more depressing than those written at an earlier time. But then, my moods always get worse after midnight, especially if I can’t sleep. I talk about Hyde in a few of the blogs but not all the time. Hyde is my suicidal alter that comes out when there is a perfect storm: I am in severe pain, deeply depressed, and want to end my life. He likes to write the most morose things. He will write suicide notes. He hasn’t been around much since July. I hope that he stays away.

There was another blog that I read that was “private” I had to throw it away because it was a description of me trying to end my life. I couldn’t justify keeping it so I “threw” it away.

I am in a lot of pain right now and I just realized I forgot to refill my bottle of pain meds that I keep by the bed side. I will have to get up and do so. My ankle is not going to like it but it needs to be done. Because if the pain gets worse and I have to walk the three feet to the bureau, that will be worse. I hate being in pain at night. It is awful. But hopefully my meds will kick in soon and I will fall asleep. I doubt that it will be soon. Foot is also acting up along with my ankle. It’s the trouble twos. I usually can’t rest when both my foot and ankle are flared up. I didn’t do anything. I think it is nerve pain because my toes are throbbing big time.

I read a lot of my blogs tonight. I didn’t notice any patterns or anything in my mood for the months I was depressed. And when I was depressed, the world stopped spinning. It was horrible to read the pain I was in and I don’t mean the physical pain. The mental pain of depression was awful. I don’t know how I got through those episodes without trying to kill myself. According to the blogs, I had extra sessions with my therapist. That must have been what got me through. I wrote that I fired her a few times in addition to cancelling my sessions that she refused to do. In one blog, I wrote that I had pain and she un-cancelled the session. I had to see her. All because my ankle was hurting me. She is a weirdo, but she is my weirdo.

I feel depressed right now because of my pain and that I can’t sleep. It’s after midnight. I feel like I should write. Writing tends to make me sleepy so I can actually sleep, even if it’s for a few hours. I am sure to wake up anywhere between 0400 and 0700 today.

As I have been writing about my second diagnosis of Cauda Equina Syndrome, I have another story to regale. One night the nurse practitioner decided to give me a high dose of Neurontin with my other meds that I was taking. Mind you, I was still recovering from surgery so I still had some anesthesia in my system and I was on some powerful pain meds at the time. She gave me the Neurontin to try and ease the “nerve” pain I was having in my thigh that was weak. I have been on Neurontin before so didn’t think nothing of it. Until I started having delusions. I imagined I was in my bed at home and when the tubes fell into the nursing stations, I thought my mother had fallen out of bed. I couldn’t get up to see her but when I woke up from the noise, I realized I was in the hospital and went back to sleep. Soon after the nurse came in to wake me up as I had to go for an MRI to find out what was causing the weakness in my leg. She was to give me valium so I could be relaxed during the MRI and a pain med so I would be comfortable on my back for the hour. She didn’t know my mental status was impaired until I told her I had to call my mother and find out if she was okay. At 0230 in the morning, I called home to see if my mother was indeed ok. She was and told me to worry about myself. I realized I was dreaming and the nurses went on their way but I still wasn’t myself. The orderly wheeled me to the emergency department imaging center and I had a flashback of when I was first diagnosed with CES. I was stuck in this time. I had no idea what was going on. But I was too drugged to do anything about it. By the time they had me on the table for the MRI, I passed out. When I came to, two nurses were trying to catheterize me because I hadn’t gone to the bathroom in hours and my bladder was very full. They asked me if I knew where I was and I told them I was in the ER (I was actually back up in my room but it was still the middle of the night) and that I had CES again. I then passed out but not before hearing them say something like “he’s gone”. When I finally came to the next day, the nurse practitioner came into my room to talk to me. She said that I had a bad reaction to the Neurontin. I just looked at her and said, that wasn’t a dream? She told me no. I was floored. She was going to put me on another medication and that is when I stopped her. I told her to run it by my psychiatrist first before putting me on any more meds. My psychiatrist must have scolded her because she came back and said she wasn’t going to put me on anything else but to make me comfortable. Results of the MRI showed that I had a fragment on my L3 nerve root and would need surgery again. Oh fun! It would be my second in three days time.

ARGH, Another Pain Day

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

ARGH, another pain day

I woke up this morning and I was fine. I made a phone call to my PCP to find out if my prescription was ready to be picked up and it was. So I set out to go into town and get it. I was feeling okay, not 100%. I am never 100% but felt good enough to venture out. I really wanted to stay home and relax but I wanted my Hawaiian coffee. I stayed at Starbucks for about an hour before heading to town. By the time I finished walking to the PCP’s office and back to the train station, my ankle started up on me. I just missed the 1230 bus so would have to catch the 1330 bus, which meant having to wait a half hour at the station. I was feeling really worn out and just wanted to go home but I wanted to fill the prescription and then not have to go out tomorrow. So as I was waiting in line at the pharmacy counter, my ankle had enough. It screamed and I almost gave out a little yell. I couldn’t believe it. It has never done this before. Luckily, I was called next, then sat to wait for the script. I was grateful to sit down a bit or I would be crying.

I had tweeted Walgreens over the weekend to say I was upset with their customer care. They got the details and while I was at Starbucks, the manager called to apologize. She agreed someone should have called me to tell me what was going on with my prescription (Zofran). She apologized and said that she would call me back when the issue was taken cared of. Apparently, because their system was down, my insurance thought I picked it up and then was trying to refill it so it wouldn’t go through again. They had to cancel out the transaction to let me have my meds. It was complicated and then three hours later when I went to pick it up, it still wasn’t ready. So glad I didn’t go when she said it would be fifteen minutes! In the end, it helps to complain to upper management to get things done. I know some people have problems with the alerts and I keep getting refill reminders more than I get prescription ready alerts. It helps to also have Twitter as a go to for getting customer care. I seriously doubt I would have the meds ready when I came if the manager hadn’t called me this morning. I would have had to wait longer for them to figure the damn thing out and I would again be out of my meds for possibly another day. There would be no way I would be able to wait longer than 15 minutes anyway. My bladder was telling me it was time to go home and my ankle was already crying. It needed to be put up, like it is now. I desperately needed to take a pain med so needed to come home as soon as possible.

I am glad I didn’t buy the Hawaiian coffee because I don’t like it hot. I would have to make it iced and I am just not that talented. I was able to get my Brazil Sertaozinho today. I can’t wait to make that coffee tomorrow. It’s like milk chocolate in a coffee cup. I have had that iced and hot and enjoy it. It’s probably the only thing that I enjoy right now. My mother was confused as to why I bought another bag of coffee. I told her it was different flavors. Really, they are just different places where the coffee is produced. I forget where my Kati Kati is made, but I still have that, household blend, and soon will have Pike’s Place. I am not going to get Pike’s grounded until I am done with the household blend. I have a quarter of a bag left.

I am not planning on doing anything today. I do have to eat something as I really didn’t have breakfast or lunch today. I had a ring ding this morning but I don’t think that counts as breakfast. I am totally wiped so I need to rest a bit before I try and make myself something to eat. While at Walgreens I was able to get some shredded cheese so I can use it for my burrito. I might make eggs. Or I might make a turkey sandwich. I just remembered I bought some turkey breast with my online grocery order. I am so glad I can order groceries online. It is so convenient and doesn’t hurt me. I can order them and have them delivered and I don’t have to carry the bags up the stairs. I just have to put them away. I won’t order eggs again, however. I had to get a credit because two eggs were broken out of the dozen and a half that I ordered. It was something that I feared would happen.

I tried getting a hold of my therapist today but she must be really busy as she hasn’t gotten back to me yet. Now that it’s late in the afternoon, I don’t think she will. I am just feeling really out of sorts and depressed. This pain is really throwing me for a loop. Just when I think I have made it go away, it flares up on me again. It is really bringing me down. I am not suicidal but I wish someone would take me out of my misery. I can’t stand being in pain every day. You would think that I would be used to it by now but it’s not something you ever get used to. Today I went out and did a few things but tomorrow I will have to rest. I might have to rest Wednesday too because Thursday is going to be a long day. I have to deal with my father and then I have my pdoc appointment in the afternoon. I haven’t quite decided how I am going to get to the red line as my father is on the orange. I will have to time it right to get to where I need to go, which means more walking and traveling. I don’t know if my ankle is up for the task. It kills me that I can’t do things every day like “normal” people do. I will have the Friday and the weekend to recover but I don’t know if my mental health will. I am just getting really annoyed that this pain hasn’t let up despite rest and pain meds. Or it has and then soon as I am a little bit active, I am in agony all over again. I am glad I have the energy to do things but paying for the efforts just isn’t fun. It outright, just sucks.

In a Shitty Mood

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

In a Shitty mood

I’m in a shitty mood right now. Pain has come back with a vengeance and have been trying to come up with a way to take my night meds without hurting myself more. If I stand on my foot, the pain is temporarily stopped but soon as I get off, it returns worse than before. I took some pain meds fifteen minutes ago so I am hoping the pain will ease some and then I can stand up and take my meds. I should have taken them when I came back from the bathroom but thought it was too early. Then my medication app went off and I started cursing. This pain has gone on for about a week now. It is dragging me down into a well and I know soon I will be thinking about ending my life if it continues. Either that or ways of chopping my foot off. Just cut the part that hurts away and I will be better. Least that is my theory, though I know it won’t be true. My nerves will have a field day and a half should I attempt it. So cutting off the affected limb is out.

It’s really stressful to be in pain every day. Yesterday I got notification that I will receive my disability payments until I am 65. I found that it was depressing. It means I can no longer join the work force. That I am truly disabled and I don’t like being disabled. I thought I made peace with this idea of not being able to work but was hopeful that once the LTD stopped, I could face the possibility of finding a part time job. Now that doesn’t seem likely. I can’t go to college and I can’t work. What the hell am I going to do 24/7? Sure I will sleep for at least 6 hours so that will leave what, 18 hours to do something? I can write but it only comes in spurts. Sure I write on my blog frequently but it’s not the same as writing for my book, which I have my doubts on. I know I might sell a few copies of the new book, but I doubt it will be as much as my first book. Or maybe it will be more because it’s concentrated on something else. I don’t know, it’s frustrating because I know I will never be a Neil Gaiman or a Lawrence Block. My writing is just not that great all the time. Even my stories that I have posted on my blog don’t get read that wildly. I am just a dark writer and unless I find a dark audience, the material is just not going to go anywhere.

I have thought about what I am going to do with my check now that it is secured. Maybe I can save up for a college class online and see how that goes. There is a psychology class that is available only in the summer at UMB that I have been dying to take. It will take some budgeting but I think I can do it by next April. I also want to go on a trip to see my friends out in California. One lives there and three others have moved there. It would be nice to see them again. Then I have a friend in Texas that I have been dying to see since she left Boston. My cousin also just moved there so I will be killing two birds with one stone. Least I hope so. Texas is a big state and unfortunately, my friend lives on one end and my cousin is in the middle. Not close together so it will take some planning. Least she is closer to him now than she was before. So next check will be a huge saving deal where I put money aside for travel and some aside for college. But all of this is mute if I end up dead because of this fucking pain that won’t go away. This is the second month that I have had a bad flare up where I had to take strong pain meds to quiet it down. I thought after the good day I had earlier I would be fine. All that changed when the pain became intense that I couldn’t ignore it anymore. Sometimes the pain goes away if I don’t pay attention to it and then there are times when doing that just intensifies it. I guess getting the migraine earlier out of the blue really caused my mood to shift.

It started while I was watching the OSU game. Western Michigan had the ball at their 2 yard line and the crowd noise went ballistic. I know the volume on the TV was loud but the crowd noise made it amplify. I should have known I was getting a migraine but didn’t think nothing of it. My mother came to the kitchen so I switched TVs. I watched from the living room and my head started hurting. I was also becoming irritable and tired. I was watching baseball and every time I switched games, from football to baseball, I felt like I was watching golf as the baseball game was so quiet compared to the football game. I watched baseball during halftime and then when they place Ogando in whatever inning it was, I went to my room. I can’t stand to watch him pitch because he loves giving up the long ball (homerun). But he did good today, kept the shut out. It wasn’t until I heard a saw running that my head exploded with pain. My sister is doing construction in her kitchen. They were still working on it from this morning. I immediately took my migraine pill before nausea could set in. I guess that was why I was sick the other day. If the nausea lasts more than 24 hours, I usually end up with a migraine some where in the next day or so. This is why I need my Zofran. I know it’s the weekend but I should be able to have them fill it. If it doesn’t cost too much, maybe I will pay out of pocket if insurance is the issue. I can’t imagine it can be but I won’t know until someone picks up the damn phone and tells me why they can’t fill it. If they need a diagnosis, I can tell them but they probably want it from my doc, which means having to wait till Monday. I will try tomorrow to get someone in the pharmacy and then if I don’t get someone, I will tweet walgreens to make a stink. Sometimes I get a faster response tweeting than I do on the phone.

I really am trying not to let the pain get the best of me but it is so fucking hard. I am in such a shitty mood. I need to take my night meds so I can try and get some sleep. But the throbbing is so incessant. I just need about 5 minutes to stand to take my meds and then be back on my comfy bed. I don’t think that is asking too much after all the walking I did and stair climbing, it should be a piece of cake. But no, not tonight. The ball of my foot is being prodded so viciously and angrily. It’s in my between the last two metatarsals of my foot. And the pain is going to the side of my foot near my ankle. Complex Regional Pain Syndrome sucks so bad. I guess I should be grateful that it’s a mild case and not severe as it can be. Doesn’t mean I like it very much. This is why I am disabled, aside from my mental illness. My mental illness is the 1st diagnosis that lead to me being disabled. Then you add my physical disability and whammo, I can’t work anymore. I really can’t stand this. Being in mental pain is one thing. I thought, at one point, being in physical pain was better. How wrong was I? Terribly wrong. I only thought it was better because there would be medication for it. But I soon found out that being in pain all the time screws up pathways and shit that medications just don’t touch. I would have to take Neurontin and my opioids to get total relief for ONE day. But the problem with the Neurontin is that it makes me hungry and I need to watch my fucking weight. So I don’t take it unless I absolutely have to. It’s hard to tell when I am having a nerve pain attack and when this is physical pain that is only helped by narcs. Usually in this flare up, I have to take a Neurontin or a dozen to get relief. And I do mean a dozen. I will take a handful and then be fine for a week. Then I know it was nerve pain and not physical pain. It’s been an hour since I took the pain meds and now my foot has calmed down so I know that it was physical pain. It’s still throbbing but with less intensity. I can now take my night time meds and try to go to sleep. Maybe the shitty mood will be gone by morning.