Tag: schizoaffective disorder

I can’t sleep

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

I can’t sleep

I had another sneeze attack today that left me in more pain than I was. So another setback. This sucks because I can’t move. Just turning in bed hurts me. Sitting hurts me so I try and do as little of that as possible. Which means I don’t spend as much time playing my game or on Twitter as I would like. I really haven’t been on Twitter other than to update saying my back is caput. This has been going on for almost a week now. I was doing better before the sneeze attack. Now I have to continue to rest it to feel better.

I have no new symptoms that would worry me that I need to see a doc ASAP. I have no weakness, loss of bowel or bladder (no more than usual), or new numbness. In other words, no red flag symptoms of CES. I am glad because I really don’t want to have another surgery. I think this is just muscle related more than anything. I just wish the muscle relaxants that I have been taking would work enough to ease the pressure a little bit. I have been taking two different medications and I still have not found relief, though all it does it make me sleepy. I somehow lost two pounds with me not getting around as much but that is because I haven’t been eating as much either. I just am not hungry at times. I think I am down to just two meals a day and that is all. So I guess that is good and that I am not starving at the end of the day. My appetite has been decreased. I really don’t feel like eating because the movement hurts too much and because I am depressed, I don’t really know what I want to eat. It just is so difficult when it shouldn’t be.

I am so very tired but I can’t sleep because of pain. I really can’t wait to have my therapy session on Tuesday. I would ask for a Monday appointment but she usually doesn’t have one available. I just feel the need to talk. Next week is my father’s surgery. I hope my back is better by the end of next week or it’s going to be tough. I also have my eye appointment but I will put that off too if I can’t get around. I am not going to push through it like I usually do. I will for my father’s surgery but not for my eye appointment. I am glad I have my pain medication but it doesn’t seem to be helping with the pain so I am not using too much of it. I really wanted to go out and get a latte today but after the trip to Walgreens to pick up my prescription, I was in agony.

It’s 1 am and I still am not tired enough to sleep. I feel really depressed that I am awake. Lately, I have been having the feeling of a weight on my chest. I think I know some of it has to do with my financial situation right now and trying to finagle how I am going to get my meds for the month. I have three I have to pick up tomorrow. Then I have to refill my bp medication. I am almost out of that. It will not last another month. I can try and stretch it out but the way my blood pressure has been running, I don’t want to chance it. Funny how it is lousy at home but at the doctor’s office it is normal. Drives me crazy. Maybe I do need a new machine. I want to get a wrist one but those are $45. I think I will be able to afford that next month. I had to pay extra for my cable and cell phone bills because I was behind on them. I still am trying to play catch up without having to rob Peter to pay Paul. I really would like a job that I get at least a 100 bucks a week. But with my back and leg issues, I don’t see how I can be working.

At least I am not suicidal or planning my death. I still want to be dead though. I just don’t have a reason to live. Voices have picked up a little bit. They have been nagging me to write this or that. Luckily I can type and they don’t bother me as much. They can be so nosey at times!

Ankle Chronicles 8

by Midnight Demon, posted in cauda equina syndrome, chronic physical pain, depression, suicidality

Ankle Chronicles 8

I was in mega pain last night and still am today. My ankle is swollen and despite being off it most of the day, it has not gone down. I wish I could say that it was because I walked too much or stood too much, but that isn’t the case. It just hurts and I don’t know why.

I really, really, wanted to vote today but never got the chance. I woke up in the early morning and felt like shit the rest of the day. So I laid low and slept. I still am tired and feel like I could just doze right off. I just had dinner, nothing fancy, just scrambled eggs and toast with juice. I didn’t have lunch, unless you counted the handful of chips I had washed down with coffee. Not even the coffee woke me up enough to let me shower. And I really want to take a shower but I guess it will have to wait till tomorrow. I have physical therapy tomorrow afternoon. It should be fun when I tell him that I didn’t do the exercises because they just became more painful as I did them. I tried, I really did but I just couldn’t handle the pain.

I don’t know why I am so sleepy today, other than not really sleeping last night. I feel hung over, like took too many drugs or something but I didn’t. I didn’t even have any gabapentin. That usually gives me a big hangover. But I didn’t take any. I guess I am just dehydrated. Other than coffee and juice that I drank, I didn’t drink any other fluids today other than a few sips of water to wash down some pills. If I am not thirsty, I just don’t drink. I know I should drink more but I just don’t think about it. Especially when I feel like crap.

I feel bad that I didn’t vote today. I had every intention to but it just didn’t work out. Oh well, there is always next year. I really don’t care that much about politics anyway.

My foot is throbbing big time. I suppose I should take something for it. That will make me really sleepy. I had to take a strong pain pill last night to get relief. Now my bowels have stopped working. I am going to have to take something to get them going again. I hate that and with me not being hydrated, that is no fun. But I can’t hydrate myself now or I will be peeing all night and that will not be fun either.

Needless to say, I didn’t work on my writing today. I really wanted to go to Starbucks and write but I was too sleepy after my therapy session. I woke up just in time for it too. Luckily she doesn’t call exactly when she is supposed to so I had a few minutes to get myself together. She read my blog that I sent her about how I had to leave the SPSM chat the other night. I hardly remember what I wrote, I never do. Once the thoughts are out of my head, I usually don’t remember them. But she reminded me and we talked a little about it. Mostly we talked about my ankle pain and how it is driving me berserk. I don’t get any respite from it anymore. Every day I am in some level of pain. And it sucks. I still don’t think she gets it. I honestly don’t think she understands just how much my pain is controlling my life and that there is no more having a life. My life now just revolves around taking pain meds around the clock and sleeping them off at times. I don’t even think she gets the bowel issues that I get from my nerve injury. She says she does but I don’t really think she does. And I know she doesn’t get the level of shame it brings me every time I lose my bowel control. It just sucks and it got me wicked depressed. I don’t think any medication can help me this time. My mood was doing fine until my bowel accidents. Now it’s headed south and I think it is going to stay there for some time. I just hope I don’t become suicidal again. I really don’t want to be in the hospital again this year. I spent 3.5 weeks there in August and I don’t want to go back. They wouldn’t understand my disability anyways. All they cared about was if I was going to kill myself that day and if I wasn’t then so be it. Who cared about anything else going on in my life that was making me suicidal. But that is a subject for another blog post. I really don’t want to write about how crummy that hospitalization was.

Been up since four

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

Been up since Four

I have been up since four in pain. I took something to calm it down hoping I would go back to sleep but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I slept four hours before I was rudely awakened. I then had breakfast with my mother. We both had the same thing, an egg McMuffin. She made hers her way and I made mine my way. I then hoped to get some sleep but I had a cup of tea and that woke me up. I have been going since. I walked to the store to get some half and half for tomorrow’s coffee, but they didn’t have it. I was bummed so I walked a little more to get some exercise.

I have been playing my game since this morning. The only thing annoying is that the mouse seems to have a mind of its own. I can’t seem to place down crops with it going all over the place first. And trying to drag the homestead is torture. I literally have to hold on to something on the stead to move the board around.

I really wish baseball would play tonight. But it doesn’t until Tuesday. I can only figure they planned it that way so it doesn’t interfere with the NFL games (American football for my UK friends). All this rest is no good for the players, in my opinion. They will play like shit once the game starts.

Today has been a cool day but I still have my ceiling fan on. It’s a little stuff in my room as I keep the door closed at all times. I do this so I don’t hear the noise downstairs of my mother playing her dice game or the TV that is on close to full blast. My mother is deaf so needs things to be loud.

Today while on Facebook, it suggested my consultant as a friend. I couldn’t believe it so had to go to the profile to see if it was truly him. It was. I didn’t friend him because of professional boundaries, but thought it really cool of him to be on social media finally. Now if only I can get him on Twitter.

It has been a while since I last talked to him about stuff. I sent him my book, autographed and everything. I felt like he should have a copy as he has a chapter in it. I don’t know if he read it. He hasn’t written back to me about that. Come to think of it, neither has my psychiatrist really. She did say that is was very personal, which it is. Maybe it is too personal. I just know I haven’t sold a book in a month and that means that I will probably get charged a fee on my checking account. I just did some promoting via Twitter and a Facebook group. I don’t know if it helps but it is worth a shot. Self promoting is a big thing and you need energy for it, especially when you don’t have an agent. I emailed one back in September but never heard back so I don’t think she picked me. Oh well. Her loss, right? Right.

I know I should be working on my co-authored book but my ideas are running low and I think they are stupid. Plus I don’t know what to write exactly because there are no guidelines to really help me. And my co-author isn’t being to helpful with her general ideas about things. I need things to be specific. I am a condensed writer so I cut out the heart of the matter and just get right to the point. I already wrote 17 pages, which is a start but when I was editing, I realized I repeated the same thing three times!! So the best written lines stay and the rest get deleted. That is going to be so hard! I think the third set says it best though. I just have to work on the beginning a little more. Maybe if I write like I did my book it will help me. Like write the introduction, chap 1, etc. it will give me some sort of goal. I don’t know how we are going to mesh this. We haven’t talked about that because she has other fish frying right now. She hopes to publish on of her books sometime in 2015 so I have been giving her some leeway on our book. She wants to have it done by 2016 for the AAS conference. I don’t know if I will be able to attend. It is in Chicago and I would love to go as I love Chicago but my finances are nothing. I’m struggling as it is and saving money is not possible. I was hoping my book was going to be more successful than it has been but it’s not. I feel like a failure because it’s not. People tell me that at least I got a book done. Yea, but I care if they read it because what is the point of writing a book if no one is going to read it??

This week is going to be a long one. I have two doctor appointments for my father. I am going to be wiped out by the end of the week. I am hoping to keep my therapy appointment but it might have to be on the bus or at the train station. Those are my only alternatives as I have to be near my father’s house around 12:30 pm to get my sister’s car so we can get to his appointment on time. I am going to have wicked anxiety about this. Course, just thinking about it now is giving me anxiety. I might cancel the appointment just so I don’t stress myself out. Dealing with my father is going to be stressful enough as it is.

Saturday Blog 12

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

Saturday Blog 12

There were a couple of blow out games in college football today. One was the embarrassing Texas A&M vs. Bama, 59-0. Second game was with Ohio State 53-17. I am more of an Ohio State fan than I am of Bama. But I couldn’t believe these teams going in there scoring and just beating the crap out of the other team. I would have loved to have watched it but I like watching the scores on Twitter. Nebraska will be starting shortly, but they are on the BTN tv and I don’t have that channel. So back to Twitter again. I hope Ameer Abdullah gets his 122 yards to make 1,000 yards rushing. This guy is a beast!!

Today has been another exhausting pain day. I woke up around 7ish and then was able to go back to sleep a few hours later and that sucked whatever energy I had out the window. I only took one pain pill today because although I have been in pain, I knew this pain wasn’t going to be helped by opioids. It sucks and the only thing that would help would probably be gabapentin but that would seriously knock me on my ass.

I hate it when there is nothing that I can take for my pain. I am going to take the gabapentin and hope that I don’t wake up at 3 in the morning. I will be taking my night time meds soon. I just wish I knew what was causing this pain. I have literally been in bed for most of the day because I have been sleeping so I don’t understand why I am in pain. Throw the whole tendonitis theory out the window. Laying down doesn’t seem to help it and neither does standing on it so I don’t know what to do. The pain is quite intense throbbing starting from the middle of the side of my leg down into my foot. It is annoying as all hell.

I really wanted to go to the store today to get half and half so I could make coffee. I miss having it at home. But I can’t drink the coffee black and I can’t drink it with milk. I will just be wasting it. And it is not like I am buying cheap coffee to be thrown down the drain.

The side effects of the pink pill are in effect. I can feel the spasticity in my forearms again. So I just took a pill to counteract it. I hate that these side effects are happening more frequently than they have before. I want to talk to my psychiatrist about this but scheduling an appointment has been difficult. We are trying to shoot for Halloween but I haven’t heard back from her. The thing about the spasticity is that every time it happens, I think it is a MS flare up or something. I know I don’t have MS but people with CES can mimic MS symptoms. I don’t have any weakness though, least not that I know of, other than in my damn foot. It’s just something I like to discuss with her to calm my fears about MS.

It’s difficult being on this medication but I need to be on it to keep the voices at bay and the paranoia and delusional thinking that can happen. I have been taking it every other day to try to keep away the side effects but that doesn’t seem to be helping. And when I get stressed for some reason, the psychosis is worse. I am not stressed at the moment or I think I would be drinking more. The gabapentin that I took really zoned me out for a few hours and now it is hitting me again with dizziness and fatigue. I need to lay down so I will stop here.