Tag: PTSD

feeling like a grump

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

Feeling like a grump

I didn’t sleep well last night. I was up every couple of hours due to either my foot or back acting up. The temp dropped another ten degrees and is now raining. I am hurting very bad. My mother kept calling me all morning because she forgot her keys to the house. This is the second day that she has done this. I reluctantly had to get up because my bladder said so. I made coffee to try and wake up. I am just in a grumpy mood because of pain. My back is really bad, the worst it has been in quite some time.

I called a therapy place that I hadn’t heard from in more than a week after filling in their online submission form. I got their voicemail so now I am waiting for a callback. I need to call the dentist so I can get my teeth drilled. I’m kind of nervous to do it because needles and drills always gives me great anxiety when it’s pointed at me.

My check didn’t get deposited today so I didn’t order my groceries and other things. I don’t know why some Mondays it does go in and other times it doesn’t. So weird. I think I will have it tomorrow. I added some sparkling water to my grocery order. I hope I like it. I figure it would be better than tonic.

My mother made asparagus and eggs for supper. I was slightly reach for a slice of cheese and I got cramps in my lower back. This is the worst my back has been in a long time. It’s starting to set off PTSD again. I took an Ativan so hopefully I can take a nap to ease the pain. I took a strong pain pill as my regular one is just not doing anything for my pain. It’s just too severe.

I am thinking of emailing psych again about my back pain as I am getting worried because it isn’t going away. I know this is weather related and once it warms up or stabilizes, I think I will be okay. I don’t think anything major is going on but any time I have back pain like this I tend to freak out.

Got an email saying only one phone was shipped out so I had to call Sprint, again, to make sure two are in the box. There are. I will be getting them soon. The hard part will be to track my niece down to give it to her. I need to wait for the Amazon order to come in first so the phone is protected. I am not giving her an unprotected phone. I am excited to be getting a new phone, even though it will be a pain in the ass the first few days getting used to it. It’s an Android phone but I will have to program it so that all my preferences are there. That can be tricky. Hopefully it won’t be as bad as I think it will be.

severe back pain and PTSD doesn’t mix

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

Severe back pain and PTSD doesn’t mix

The past few hours, I cannot straighten out my back without severe pain. It is causing me to have flashbacks of the time I was first diagnosed with cauda equina syndrome. I remember not being able to walk or stand on my left leg without severe pain. Now I have back pain and my left ankle/foot is going berserk, which is causing me great anxiety.

I emailed my psychiatrist because I didn’t know what to do. I would have paged her but it’s late and I don’t want to bother her even though I am freaking out. I am trying to calm myself down by distracting and reading tweets about the game. Sitting is difficult but laying down is worse because my thoughts go crazy. It also increases my ankle/foot pain so I can’t win. I was able to brush my teeth but it hurt. I couldn’t use the prescription toothpaste because I had to sit down. I hate that I have to use two toothpastes at night.

I’m hoping this pain is caused by the weather. The temp has dropped several degrees and usually that brings me pain. I don’t know if it is going to rain or not. I am guessing it will because it usually activates my back pain. I haven’t don’t anything I shouldn’t have done or lifted anything heavy. It annoys me when I am hurting for no reason. It could be a delayed reaction to the beds in the psych unit. I was on a hospital bed but it was lumpy.

Sox are leading 3-0 as of now. The pain is driving me nuts. It’s all around my waist and lower back. I am trying to reassure myself that it is NOT cauda equina syndrome as there would be more symptoms of the syndrome but with my ankle and foot tingling and throbbing, it’s hard. My brain knows that it’s not CES but my feelings are like yes it is. You need to go to the ER right now. I am in panic mode and I don’t like it. I took an Ativan to calm down. Hopefully it will also relax my back muscles so they don’t hurt as much. I already took my pain meds, except the strong pain med, which I am contemplating. I have never taken it for severe back pain before so I don’t know if it will work. It’s funny, while I was in the hospital, the pill color was orange. The ones I have at home are white. Same size, just a different color. I have never seen it orange before.

Well, the score is now 4-3 Angels. Damn Price sucks. Giving up a gift of a 3 run lead. I don’t like him at all. Never have. I took the strong pain pill and hope it helps, or at least allows me to go to sleep. I really hate having PTSD. I remember nearly everything while I was in the ED and them telling me I needed surgery, the surgeon sees me all for 10 minutes and then says yup, 830 in the OR. I was scared shitless. I asked him when I would be able to walk again and he said three days. It was a week before I was able to move my toes again, with effort. I never want to go through that again. I will kill myself before I need another emergency back surgery. Two was enough for me.

St. Patrick’s Day 2017

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

St. Patrick’s Day 2017

I had a rough start to my morning. I woke up around 0430, again and made the mistake of going back to sleep. I woke up a few hours later and was in severe pain. I didn’t want to leave my bed. But I had to see my psychiatrist so I took some meds and hoped it worked. I wanted to catch the 1050 bus so I had to wait a couple hours. Ample time for the meds to work. I played on my phone while I was waiting.

I got to Starbucks and had a sandwich and my espresso, which I missed terribly. I was still tired and I just wanted my bed but I still had my appointment to go to. I kept snoozing in Starbucks, in between sips of deliciousness. I started writing in my journal after I finished my sandwich. I wrote about two pages. My mother need some things so I went to CVS to try and find it. They didn’t have what she was looking for. I left to go to my appointment.

I had a good appointment with my psych. I made her laugh several times and that made me feel good because she usually doesn’t laugh. I got my refills. I didn’t look at the Ativan refill when she handed it to me. I did while waiting at the pharmacy and found she cut my supply to less than what I was taking before. Shit. Oh well, I guess I am going to have to watch my pills from now on.

I told her about my father’s birthday and anniversary being next week. I am glad she didn’t want to see me that day. I would have been a wreck. I was almost a wreck today as I saw the bus I used to take to see my father go by after I finished shopping at Walgreens. I was walking toward Rite Aid as I needed some half and half and Walgreens didn’t carry the kind I use. I almost started crying but I held it in. Just thinking about it is making me sad. I still can’t get his last day out of my head. From the moment I walked into his room at the nursing home to basically his last breath runs through my mind nearly every single day for the last eleven months. The other night, I swore I heard his rasping crackle as he breathed. I never want to see someone die ever again. So my mother better live a long time and never get sick like my father did.

I told my psychiatrist what my sisters and I plan on doing with his ashes. She smiled and said that could be a blog. I’d write about it anyways as I am sure it will be emotional for me. After the trips to the stores, I came home and started to rest. I was dying of heat as the weather warmed up some and I was overdressed. My t-shirt was soaked. I got undressed and cooled off in my hot room. Once my body temp went down, I got dressed. I was planning on taking some pain meds but decided to play on my laptop as a distraction. While reading Facebook, my mother called saying she needed help with dinner. I thought shit, how is this going to work? My ankle is already being a brat so I sucked it up. It was chicken stir fry and rice so nothing too complicated. But I had to be on my feet to stir things around.

After we had dinner, I retreated to my room where my ankle and foot blew up on me. Pain med time! I am wicked exhausted so I think I am going to take my meds around 1900 so I can be asleep by at least 2100. I just have to pick up my meds at the pharmacy tomorrow and drop off my other pain med. I would have dropped off both the pain med and the Ativan but there have been reports flying that the combination has been leading to overdoses. I didn’t want there to be a problem on a Friday afternoon to get both meds when I really need my Ativan as I have just enough to get me through till Monday. So I just handed in the Ativan slip and will fill my pain meds tomorrow. If there is a problem, I think I can wait it out till Monday as long as I don’t have a flare up until then.

Random 215

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

I woke up around 0430 and didn’t go back to sleep till around 0800. I had breakfast. After breakfast I took some pain meds and an Ativan to get back to sleep. I also took some Neurontin. That was my downfall because when I woke up, I really didn’t want to get out of bed. I had wanted to go to Starbucks, just to get out of the house, but I needed a shower and it just wasn’t happening. I was too groggy. I made coffee, hoping that would give me more energy but it made me sleepy. Or it just wasn’t strong enough to override the need for sleep.

I called my PCP’s office to see if my prescription was ready. It was but wasn’t. No one printed it out for me to pick up. That would explain why I never got a phone call saying it was ready to be picked up. I hope to pick it up tomorrow either before or after my appt with my psychiatrist.

After that, I called my mother to see what she was doing for dinner. She was going to heat up some lasagna from Sunday night. No thanks. I ordered a burger and onion rings. I waited an awfully long time for it to be delivered and the food was not as hot as I wanted it to be. Plus, they were very skimpy on the onion rings, though they did put some in the burger. That was weird as they never did that before. I still ate it and it’s probably going to be the only thing I eat today.

I am going to try and shower after I write this. My ankle is giving me grief so I am not sure I can just say fuck it and shower anyways. That usually has dire consequences. I am running low on my pain meds because it’s close to the end of the month so I can’t afford to take “extra” meds to quiet down a flare right now.

Last night was torturous. I had really bad pain, which began around 2 in the afternoon. I took my strong pain pill and then hoped for the best. Around 10 PM, the pain was still there and worse so I took another pill. While waiting for it to kick in, my ankle went berserk on me and I did, too. I got this band feeling around my ankle and that triggered my PTSD. I was flipping out I was going to get CES again. I tried to calm myself but the anxiety took over and I was very, very scared. I called my psychiatrist and had her tell me I wasn’t getting CES again. That seemed to calm me down some. I stayed up till around 1 am. I got hungry so I had something to eat around 0030. After eating, it seemed to settle me down so I could sleep for a few hours. I knew my sleep was going to be bad because I had taken two strong pain pills within 24 hours. It happens every time. I don’t know why.

I need to go out tomorrow so I will be going to Starbucks. I need to see my psychiatrist because I need some refills. Actually, all my psych meds need refills on them. I hope she has had better luck trying to find a therapist than I have. I’ll find out soon enough.