Tag: mood disorders

Fast Car

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

Fast Car

This song has been covered by my favorite male country artist, Luke Comb. I started crying listening to it because it brought back such memories of the past. It made me sad that things are changed and now I will never be able to work or do much else. I am feeling discouraged because of my back pain right now. I tried going to the bathroom again and failed to cath on the first try. I thought I was going to pass out on the toilet as I couldn’t stand for the length of time to pee. It took longer because I couldn’t get it done right. Pissed me off, no pun intended.

I am having a difficult time sleeping again. I can’t seem to settle down. It has been like this all day. I got a bloody headache so made myself a sandwich, which took more spoons than I thought it would. I was already in the negative. I couldn’t have someone else make me the sandwich because there is no one else. I could have heated up some chili but I will have that tomorrow with some tortilla wraps. It is really good with the flour tortillas. I like to make a little burrito out of the chili.

My sister made a beef stew today. It was her first. It was okay. I like my mother’s better. Hers had a weird taste to it. I am not sure what it was, possibly too many bay leaves. There was nothing to the thing as the potatoes had disintegrated and there was hardly any beef. It was all stew which was good with a couple pieces of bread. I always enjoy a stew. I need to buy some chunky soup. I haven’t had them in a long while and the soup is really thick. I like soups that are hearty.

I don’t know if my blogs have been making sense. They have been just a stream of consciousness that I use because I cannot sleep. I would write but my fine motor skills have been affected by the medication Invega. I also been taking PRNs of trilafon, another culprit in the deterioration of my skills. I just feel so shaky lately because of this fatigue. I am not looking forward tomorrow. I know I will be fine but it might take me a few days to recover.

I’ve been in contact with my psych and she wants to have a zoom meeting with me. I will be seeing her face to face for the first time in 9 months. Can’t believe it has been that long. She sent me her information for our appointment and I can’t wait. I just hope there are no glitches. That would really suck. Things have been going okay with the virtual visits for therapy. I haven’t been fully present though so I find it hard to talk about stuff because I don’t know what to talk about. I am not really depressed though I am feeling devastated at times. I cannot believe that my surgeon was so good to help me get better but things will still take time. I have it in my record now that I had a tethered cord. I got to contact my neurologist and let her know about it. I know she wanted to know the outcome of the surgery. Maybe I will do that tomorrow as I don’t have anything else to tell her other than I got a numb butt and genitalia. Price of surgery I guess. I just hope in time feeling comes back. I got to ask the surgeon this. He would know or maybe he wouldn’t know for sure but I think feeling will come back in time because there is no other compression going on. He had to irritate the nerve to get it to go numb. Those nerves are sensitive and take a while to recover, if they recover at all. That is why I am worried and devastated at times. Bladder is still being the same as it has been though I have been voiding more just because I want to see if I could. I do but I don’t empty my bladder fully so that isn’t good. That can lead to infection with residual urine in the tank. I am emptied now and hope that I can sleep. It is just after midnight so I will stop here for now.

post op day 12

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

Post Op day 12

I am still not feeling up for much these days. I find that I am tired and don’t want to do anything. Occupational therapy came today and I hated the whole thing. She was late so I was waiting around for her. Normally I wouldn’t mind but I was tired and just wanted to lay down. Then she was talking about routines and shit and I am like I am still recovering. I am not that far from surgery. Slow the fuck down already. Just because you want to Netflix all day doesn’t mean I do. I actually don’t have a show I watch these days anyways. I still have been trying to get into Picard but it is hard because it brings up memories of the way things used to be. I can’t describe it more than that. I don’t have the words to.

Last night I felt devastated and I am still feeling this way. I am debating on texting my therapist but at the same time I don’t want to say it in a text what I feel because it is too long of a text to explain things. I just attempted to explain it to her but we’ll see. Maybe she has a way of telling me how to deal with this. I don’t talk to her again till next week. That is a long time to go with feeling like this. I hate that this is because of bathroom issues. I feel like things would have been okay if yesterday was a normal thing but instead it is my new normal for now and I don’t know how to deal with it. I know I might recover from this but right now it just feels like it isn’t going to happen. I talked to a friend and she said that after her surgery she was numb and has been since. I didn’t find this comforting.

I got to lay down again. This sitting up and then having to lay down really sucks. I can only seem to type for a little bit before I hit bottom. I hope this is just a temporary thing. I just wish I could speed things along but I can’t. Just got to take it day at a time, sometimes an hour at a time. Last night I found that I couldn’t do two flights of stairs in one day. I am craving a piece of rum cake from my brother in law’s party but I don’t want to tax myself. I would have to go to his apt to get the cake and that is two flights of stairs and I am not ready for that again.

Last night I also did my med box for week. It took me a little bit longer to do even if I was sitting. I am glad it is done so I don’t have to worry about missing meds. I do have a couple of refills at the pharmacy though. I hope to get them tomorrow but it might be Thurs when I might be able to go. Tomorrow is just going to kill me and I know it. I am going to be exhausted. I am exhausted just thinking about it. I just hope I can make phone calls if I need to. I do have a virtual visit with my psychopharm tomorrow. Just hope I am up for it. It is at the cusp at when I should be home again.

tiring day despite weather being good

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

Tiring day despite weather being good

It is beautiful out today and my energy levels are crap. I had OT/PT come this morning and that wore me out. Then I had to go to the hospital to drop off a specimen for urine culture. I hope this is just my “new” bladder sensation and I don’t have a UTI. Every time I go cath though it feels like I am popping a balloon so something isn’t right. I hope I am just fatigued due to surgery and not an infection. Everything is shut down so I can’t even get a latte at Starbucks.

I am hurting so this blog is not going to be long. I need to lay down. I again didn’t sleep through the night because I woke up and was confused. I wasn’t in horrible pain and I didn’t know if I had to pee as there was no sensation but something woke me up. Maybe it was a bad dream, I don’t know. I waited a half hour and when nothing else happened, decided to cath and sure enough my bladder was full. I had emptied twice before sleeping so I don’t know why it filled so fast. Guess my kidneys are working pretty good. After I cathed, I decided to have a bowl of cereal as I was hungry. I finished off the box of cereal with a big bowl. I was really hungry because I finished it all. I haven’t been eating so good since coming home. I have to remember to eat or I just won’t because appetite isn’t there. I try to have at least one Ensure a day to make sure my calories are over a 1000. My sister made beets last night and I had them for a late lunch. It was so good. I should have warmed them but they tasted ok cold.

While I was at the hospital I sat down on the bench a little harder than I thought and hurt my back hip. I took some pain meds when I came home as I haven’t had any all day yet. I was doing okay pain wise until that snafu. I want a burger so I might order Five Guys tonight. It has been a long time since I had one from them. I will get a vanilla shake, too. It tastes wonderful. I really love the shakes more than the burgers LOL.

I am almost done with my library book I borrowed. I think I will try and finish it tonight. There are only a few more chapters left. I think it will be the only book I have read this year. I don’t think I have a reading challenge going because my brain has been so wonky with the depression and stress of surgery. Hard to believe March is almost over with. Like where has three months gone?? I heard they are keeping schools closed until May. That really sucks. Hope the kids stay at home and are not abused or neglected because of their parents hands. I am sure it is stressful. My mother embarrassed me today and it sucked. She saw that my ear was red so she had a PT look at it but there was nothing wrong with the fucking thing. It gets red sometimes and I don’t know why. Then she used the wrong pronoun to address me which threw the PT/OT off as they couldn’t believe it. I hate it when she does this shit. Makes me so mad but there is nothing I can do about it. Yelling at her isn’t going to change her mind about anything.

day one home from surgery

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

Day one at home

Today has been rough. I did too much and caused myself to get a headache that I still have that the neurosurgeon is worried about. I have to go back on steroids for a week to see if that helps calm things down. I am trying to sleep but it isn’t coming. I have too much on my mind.

My numbers for my blog stats have been terrible. All day I have just had three views so I am hoping this post will draw some readers out. I know I have been sporadic in my writing but I am recovering from surgery right now. Meds are making comprehension difficult and concentration has been worse. Because of the steroids, I have some appetite. Unfortunately, meals have been difficult to sit through as it hurts my head to be upright. I rather be laying down.

I had an appointment with my therapist today but we didn’t get much accomplished as the connection was terrible. I was kind of out of it so that didn’t help matters. She put me down for another time next week so I think I should be better by then, or at least less druggy. Today was a real test as I had a lot of phone calls. I got accepted for the Ride, a disability transportation service but I can’t seem to navigate it on my phone or laptop so will have to call tomorrow to set something up.

I want to try and shower tomorrow. I don’t have a health care worker coming in yet and for some reason I am on MRSA precautions. I don’t know when that happened. But the nurse was worried about it and sent off a special stethoscope for the clinicians to use. Nothing fancy about it just deemed “MRSA”. I have no use for it as I use my blood pressure cuff for my readings and my own thermometer. I have no fever so that is good. I think I would be feeling sicker if I was. I have been feeling hot and cold all day, running the fan, shutting it off, turning it back on. I also have been taking my long shirt sleeve shirt off and on all day. I don’t know why I seem to run hot then cold then back hot again. Hope I am not getting sick. I worry with those that are outside the home may bring it in, like my nieces and nephew and sisters. I am at a high risk because I am just off of surgery and am on steroids. I have been trying to keep fluids up but it has been a challenge. I don’t like standing right now as it hurts. I have been able to void on my own though. Last night I had to put myself on a timer so I would go. It worked but disrupted my sleep and then the bowels did their thing on me. Luckily, I didn’t lose control or I would have been crushed. I did have to change my underwear though. I didn’t want to track the stuff to my wound. I don’t have a bandage on so I am careful about what I touch around the scar.

The one question that I am shocked I keep getting asked about is suicide and suicidal thinking. The nurse today very concerning asked about it and wanted me to let her know if I have those thoughts. I am not having them because I got other stuff on my mind. I am depressed because I feel like I should be somehow a long better than what I am but I am only a week post op. I am having a hard time keeping track of pain medication management because I was used to a nurse bringing me the meds. Now I got to sort it all out. I spoke to my pcp about it and he is okay with the increase in the interim while I am recovering. I’ll get a refill next week when I am due for one. I am glad I can talk to him about my pain med needs. Some docs don’t want to hear it after surgery. I had a hard time finding a doc to listen when I had back pain like this. In the end, my pcp put me on pain meds and there it stayed. My pain meds have always been managed by my pcp and I am glad because they get to see what you are like more so than a specialist.