Tag: hopelessness

oh what a day

by Midnight Demon, posted in bipolar, blogging, cauda equina syndrome, depression

Oh what a day

My PCP was 25 minutes late. That started my day just perfectly. When he came in, the appointment commenced just as I predicted. He poked and prodded my ankle and toes. Told me I needed to lose weight. Said that my back was muscular in nature and then handed my prescription for my pain meds for the month. He also tested my urine as I told him it smelled really bad. I don’t know why. I hope I don’t have a UTI.

Next appointment, I was a half hour early but I had forms to fill out so that is what I did. Fill out the same forms that I filled out at the other PT place. Wish they would get their shit together. Appointment lasted just about ½ hour. There was some confusion on what treatment to pursue. She said she would try the ultrasound but I still need to do the strengthening exercises, but we’ll start slow. I told her which ones made me hurt more and she seems like she is willing to work with me. Better than the other idiot. I then go for aqua therapy when the “dry” therapy is over in four weeks. We should know by then what is helpful and what is not. I am feeling hopeless about the whole thing. But at least it gets me out of the house a couple of hours. She doesn’t know if she will be the one leading the aqua therapy or if it will be someone else. After the appointment, I got really frustrated because she did nothing but evaluate me. I have to wait until next week to actually do something. My back was not happy with the evaluation. Anytime I had to move, I hurt. I just feel like giving up. I don’t know what the point of all this is. My ankle is not going to get better. But I will go through all the rig a ma role to see if it does decrease my pain some.

It’s going to be nasty out tomorrow. But I am driving the 30 miles to see my therapist. I just hope the car has gas or I won’t be going anywhere. And that will really suck.

My mood has been up and down all day. I was really hungry when I came home from my appointments and found I couldn’t cook anything because my mother was baking. I nearly had a fit. I hadn’t eaten anything all day because I woke up late. Well, really, I woke up very early (3 am) and then went back to sleep around 5ish. I just couldn’t sleep. So around 0430, I took some Ativan and hoped that I wouldn’t sleep through my alarm. I woke up about a half hour before it went off. I had to take a shower and get ready. I didn’t want to get out of bed because the pain was bad and I was groggy from the short nap. I knew that what was going to happen. I hope it doesn’t happen tonight. I need to be out of the house around 9ish so I can be at my sister’s work by 10. All of this is dependent that my pain isn’t through the roof and the roads aren’t icy like they say they are going to be. I am not driving 30 miles in slush!

I feel awful. I am tired and my stomach keeps giving me mixed messages about whether or not it is going to hurl, all because my throat is dry. I haven’t had anything to drink except for my latte and some water at the doc’s office. I didn’t drink anything with my supper because I just didn’t feel like making something or getting a bottle of water. I think I would feel sicker if I drank something. The cough is giving me dry heaves, which is why I don’t want to drink anything. I know that a little stuff will come up and I don’t want that. Fucking cough is so damn stupid. I didn’t cough once while I was at the docs then when coming home, I couldn’t stop coughing. So annoying!!

Morning Pain

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

Morning Pain

I woke up about a half hour ago in pain. My hip is on fire. It didn’t like the position I was in, though I was not sleeping on it. I was more on my back than my hip but it didn’t matter. The pain is changing my mood and I don’t like it. I know this pain is temporary. I know it will go away eventually, but I am starting to lose hope that it will. I have been in pain since before Dec 1st. That is already more than two weeks, maybe three that this pain has been awful. I know once I start moving around it goes away, a little bit. But waking up to it, is another fucking story. I woke up a few minutes before 0200, went back to sleep and now I am still in pain. I guess the pain meds that I took at 0200 wore off. I am so aggravated! Then trying to maneuver my body so I can get up and write and take more pills just kills me. I am going to call my physiatrist today and see if he can recommend something for the pain. I don’t want to be on another fucking pill but would like some advise as to when this pain is going to heal and I think he would be better than my PCP in helping me figure it out.

Last night I was really beside myself. I didn’t want to take my night medication. Have over 8 pills to take. Three blood pressure pills, antidepressant, mood stabilizer, two anti-spasmotics, stomach pill, vitamin D, anti-inflammatory, allergy pill, OCP, and my anti-psychotic pill. This doesn’t include my pain meds or my Ativan. It like taking a meal of meds. When I was in the hospital, it was worse. One of my blood pressure pills they split in half, so instead on one 40 mg pill, I took two 20 mg ones. I would be at the nurses station a good while, taking each pill, two or three at a time. It was maddening. And my mood stabilizer they didn’t have the 600 mg tabs so I again got 2 pills, 300 mg each. I hated taking my meds every night because it took me so damn long to take all the pills. Now, I take just as many but more pill counts. I can’t win and it is depressing me. I remember before CES, I was just taking one or two pills a day for my mental illness. Either I was taking an antidepressant and my antipsychotic or I was just taking the antidepressant. After CES, I remember taking up to 20 tablets a day!! It was ridiculous. That was because I was taking my pain medication like four times a day plus my anti-inflammatory pill. Once I found out that they had an extended release pill, I got on that. I love this pill because it helps with my arthritic pain and usually my back. I think it has lost its effectiveness on me because I don’t get the relief I once did. I think if it continues, I might have the physiatrist switch me to another one and see how that works. I will still be taking a pill, but at least it might work better in relieving my pain. I was reluctant to do this back in October when I first met the guy, but since having this new onset of back pain, I am will to try something else, it would help me.

Ankle has now started hurting and I have not even put ANY type of pressure on it. I didn’t stand on it. I just sat up in bed. The stupid mysterious pain that I get every single time I wake up in the morning. ARGH!! Right now, my ankle pain doesn’t hurt as much as my back hip pain. I really am having terrible thoughts of hurting myself with all this pain. I just want it to end but I don’t think it will. I am losing help that this temporary pain is going to last. But I will say that as long as I can wipe my butt, I am happy. It’s when I can’t do that, I get worried that something more serious is going on. But like I have said before, the pain isn’t radiating down any of my legs or into my butt. I don’t have any problems with my bowels or bladder that are worse than my usual. I don’t have any new numbness or tingling in any of my lower extremities or genitals. I have nothing that would suggest that this is a disc problem, though it very well could be, but it is highly unlikely. I always am on the lookout for CES symptoms whenever I get back pain and it doesn’t go away. I am always worried that I will get acute CES again whenever my back flares up. For more information about this, check out my CES 101 page at the top.

I really wish I had a therapy appointment with my therapist today. I really could use the extra support in dealing with my father and this fucking pain. It is draining me so much. Not only am I waking up early in the morning, but once I am up, I usually am up. I don’t usually go back to sleep until later in the morning but I can’t today because I have to deal with my father. Least I don’t have to take a shower this morning because I took one last night before turning in. I was pretty exhausted. I had pork and my GI system doesn’t seem to tolerate the meat anymore. It just went right through me. Thankfully, I didn’t have any accidents. I took some Immodium to ease the gas and stop the runs. I really didn’t want to spend the night on the toilet.

Saturday Blog 15

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

Saturday Blog 15

I went over my father’s today to get his medication and fill his pill box for the week. For some reason he does not use the last S to take his pills. I don’t know why. Drives me nuts. But I didn’t stay too long as my sister came and got me. She dropped off some groceries.

I have been feeling okay today, despite my ankle giving me grief. I really didn’t think I was going to be able to go to my father’s because after I took a shower today, it flared up on me. Then the voices started acting up, telling me to take some pain meds. I think they wanted me to take more than what I wanted so I didn’t take anything. I gave the reason as dizziness and they seemed satisfied with that. The voices haven’t been demanding in quite some time. I think because I have been under so much stress with my father, they have found me again. It is always when I am vulnerable they come out.

For some reason, I read a comment that said I should be “real” in therapy. It was from that person that I wrote that I was the problem in therapy. I had to laugh at this because I don’t know how to be “fake”. This is who I am. I write the truth about how I feel and if that is too much for that person, there is the door. I don’t get how people can think they are better than another person in dealing with their problems. I am doing the best I can to keep going every day and not kill myself. I don’t want to say that I am living, because I hate that word. But that is the definition of what I am doing, despite dealing with chronic pain every day.

I got a message from a high school friend that read my book. He was appreciative that I wrote such a powerful book. I still don’t get what is so powerful about it. It is just my words on how I feel. He said the book helped him and that is all that really matters.

On the menu tonight is Nyquil served with my night time meds. I really don’t feel well. My mother has a chest cold and is hacking her brains out or trying to cough up a lung. I can’t decide which, but she is miserable. My sister lost her voice today so there are germs all around. I hope I don’t get sick again but my throat hurts and this cough left over from my cold of three weeks ago, still hasn’t gone away. So it’s going to be a Nyquil night, where hopefully I sleep all night. I also will be taking the abilify aka the pink pill to ward off the voices.

My ankle is being a brat right now so I just popped some pain pills. I really didn’t want to, but the throbbing is not helping my damn mood. I have been in pain consistently for three solid weeks with no break whatsoever. I am was tempted to call out the strong pain pills this morning when my hip was hurting but I decided not to. I am glad that once I started moving about, the hip pain went away.

Doing Nothing Kind of Day

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

Doing nothing kind of day

Last night, my back pain returned. It was in competition with my ankle as to which body part was going to hurt more. Back won. This morning, I woke up with it and decided I was going to do nothing but try and stay in bed with muscle relaxers and pain meds. I wasn’t going to go over my father’s just so he could bitch and complain and be miserable. I’m done. My sister is done. He just better get used to things or he is going to alienate the only family he has. I just need to get back on my feet with my back and need a day to rest. So far resting hasn’t been working, though I can move my torso with less pain than I did last night.

I know I have writing to do. I have to type up the few pages that I wrote for my next book but I just can’t bring myself to do it. I know once I start doing it, it will be ok but for right now, I am having to sit up and type for only short periods of time because my back is aching so much. I really wish that it would get better. I took a nap after breakfast and had a dream that I went to the doc for my pain because the pain was now in my buttock. I woke up with excruciating pain in my hip. In the dream he just poke me and my butt exploded in pain. It was horrible that the dream was kind of true. I was in extreme pain but not in my butt, in my hip.

I have been debating calling my therapist but it’s after 2 and I doubt she will have a time for me. She is usually booked on Thursdays. I just feel like I am going crazy with having to deal with my father and this extra pain. And all of it started with a sneeze a few weeks ago. I am not at the suicidal range yet because I know this pain is temporary. Muscles take a while to heal and I know that. It is just the depression mixed in with the pain that is driving me crazy. I hate not being able to move or sit at my laptop for a few hours at a time, playing my game or writing. I haven’t written in my journal for at least two weeks and I usually enjoy that. Now I think it is a hassle. Since I have been blogging regularly, I feel like the writing, the actual pen and paper kind, is superfluous. So I have decreased the writing until I get the writing bug. The writing bug is when I have to write or I literally become anxious and don’t know what to do with myself. It doesn’t matter if I am typing or writing just as long as I get the words out of my head, whatever they might be. I will also write a letter to my therapist, or if the writing goes on for days, many letters. I just get this urge to write and it all comes spilling out.

My friend is in Brazil for his humanitarian efforts in the Amazon. He is providing free eye care to those in need. He has learned Portuguese so he can converse with the Brazilians. From what he has told me, they are literally dirt poor. I feel bad but I am glad my friend is doing such important work. Only trouble is that I haven’t seen him since August when he visited me in the hospital. I miss him. I miss our conversations. Hope we are able to get together after the holidays.

Yesterday’s blog was a success. I was finally able to figure out how to put in a YouTube video. Now that I know how, beware that there might be more in my upcoming blogs!