Monday, August 25, 2008

I just realized

I'm going into my 4th year with this wonderful disability.

I know a lot more about it than I did, which is still pitifully little.

That is because there is pitifully little to be known.

Without the Provigil, the sleep issues are still right up front. I'm going to try to go to bed here soon and see if I can get some sleep. I have been at least making the attempt several nights a week. The thing is, I've been picking a lot now too and that doesn't necessarily help. If I can't sleep and I go to bed, I tend to lie there and pick. My skin is a mess. It's from little bug bites and cat bites and scratches and goodness knows what.

I see the psychiatrist on Wednesday. I had to reschedule last month because of a honker headache. Oh, they're always fun.

The more stress I'm under, the worse the symptoms of the OCD and borderline personality disorder are, and they're not the best right now. Picking, obsessing, procrastinating, self-degradation...That reminds me. In a minute I need to look something up.

The situation with Becky is still bad. The other two and I are getting along, but not necessarily all that well with each other.

It's hard to believe I've been in the midst of this for 3 years now. I didn't think I could handle it before. I guess I proved myself wrong.

Thursday, August 07, 2008

med adjustment

Dr. P increased my methadone yesterday. I'm taking 10 mg 3 times a day from now through fall since I'm more busy in the summer due to gardening and the like and my pain has increased a little.

I did manage to drop off the prescription yesterday, but I didn't wait an hour to pick it up. I need to get it next time I'm at WalMart.

I had a few extra pills so I increased the dose yesterday. While the pain is notably better already, I've also noticed a couple other side effects I'm not really thrilled about.

1) I am dead tired almost all the time. I dozed off twice today and spilled my soft drink all over my lap. The first time I also spilled some on the floor. These incidents both necessitated a change of clothes, which is embarrassing. Thank goodness I was at home and not out and about.

2) I forget things. I had something to drink here on the end table by me tonight and went to the refrigerator after doing a couple small things and got more to drink and brought it over here, only discovering that I already had something here when I got to my chair and was ready to sit down.

3) I'm not going to be able to drive for a while at least. The fatigue makes it hard for me to concentrate even long enough to drive to the store. I don't want to take any chances with my life or anyone else's while under the influence of this medication. I can wait to do my shopping and errands until I get a ride.

I'm hoping I'll adjust to this so I don't have to count on other people to get me to the store and back. It would make it very hard to do the things I do on the spur of the moment, like when I run out of thread and go to the store quickly to get whatever color I need and things like that.

Oh well...we live with what we're given.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

bad couple of weeks

The pressure of the Mississippi River Valley on my head, and inside it as well, has made the past couple of weeks pretty miserable for me. The pain level on my right side is up from a 4 to a pretty steady 4-5 again and I've had to take 1/2 a Lortab a couple times and I took a Maxalt on Friday, I believe. I haven't had a migraine in a while. I wasn't even really sure what this was and was just trying to cover all my bases. Tylenol, then Vicodin, then Maxalt. Progression of reason.

Going outside even to do the chicken stuff has become a greater effort. It's harder to breathe in the increased humidity and by the time I've been out for say, 10 minutes the sweat is pouring down my legs and forehead and I'm feeling a bit sweaty and wondering if I chose the wrong profession.

I see the pain doc this week on Wednesday. I'm going to talk to her about the pain and see if she'd rather have me back off on my activity or increase my dose from 25mg to 30mg a day to compensate for doing more because I feel a bit more human.

I need to get my iron level redrawn. I need to schedule my mammygram and a bone scan. I need to stop by my PCP's office and get more OAB samples so we can find one that works for me, or at least a reasonable facsimile.

I also need to go to the ophthalmologist and take a sample of my needle and thread and handwork and tell him I need the bottom part of my lenses to enable to do that, which it is not doing right now. I can't thread a small machine needle till like the 5th or 6th try. That's not enough. That's why I got the progressive/bifocal lenses. I need to be able to do this. It's part of my therapy.

I miss my life.