Day 1729 - 3am and still awake

God, I need some peace.  Please.

I'm stressing out here.  The thought of losing my pain meds is making me hurt more.  The necessity of decreasing the anxiety med certainly isn't helping.  If I weren't so sensitive to medications, I could just jump into another category of meds or something and maybe that would help.  However, I am severely limited, and therein lies the problem.

I need, for relief of my pain and anxiety, a combination of medications that has the potential of being a not-so-healthy combination.  In fact, benzodiazepines and Methadone have the potential for making the partaker, well, dead.  Never mind that I have been taking this particular set of meds for 4 years without obvious consequence.  My pain doc will no longer allow me to combine them in the dosage that works for me when it comes to both pain relief and the ability to sleep, as you can tell by my still being awake at 3am.

Okay.  For some reason the "enter" key no longer precipitates a line break.  Hm.  I wonder if this is a new tweak that Blogger has added to assist me in pulling my hair out.

Anyhow, so I stopped the nighttime dose of Xanax that was helping me enter dreamland without a long and arduous fight, and, as anticipated, sleep is now way overdue and longed for.  It's not just the lack of sleep that the med affects...it's also the anxiety I've lived with since who knows when and no longer have the ability to hide at the level I could attain before.

I know in my heart that God is the Author of peace and that He is my sufficiency; my All in All; that He is my hiding place, my refuge in times of trouble.  The struggle lies in the part of me that is still so very human - the part of my being that used to dread bedtime because of the monster that crept into my bedroom and put his hands where no male caretaker should ever touch a child...and yes, I've heard and been taught and read and had preached to me that God can take those memories away, but in His great wisdom He has chosen to allow me to retain them, partly in order to garner compassion and understanding and the ability to identify with the abused, the molested....and I struggle with this every day to one degree or another.  The tweaking of the meds and the pain doc's desire to wean me off my pain meds triggers my abandonment issues.  It also strikes at the fear of mismanaged power that I can hold at bay most of the time; it is not so easy when the issue is my well-being and ability to function as a rational member of the human race.

I am struggling, also, with a deep sense of melancholy and loss....the loss of opportunity that I perpetuated when I decided to marry an abusive man and create three lives that, along with my own, pay for that decision every day.  I love my children deeply, yet it tears at my heart to watch them struggle, knowing that part of that struggle was my choice for their father.  I realize that the concept of free choice is an integral part of becoming part of the family of God, yet, hindsight being 20/20, I also see from where I am seated that the result of my maternal grandparents' abuse of my mother led, consequentially, to their struggle as well.

What a conundrum.   What a revelation.  What a discovery of the absolute necessity of the saving grace of a loving and forgiving God, the Father that so many of us never had.  Without Him I would have no hope, no reason to go on.  I could so easily sink into the melancholy and let it swallow me alive, becoming lost in the hopelessness the evil one holds out temptingly if, for one moment, I turn my eyes away from my God, my Savior, my Hope and Salvation....I am achingly aware of the despair that drives some to suicide.  I am, however, also acutely alert to the abhorrence that would be to the One Who, through His Son, closed the gap between a race of hopelessly lost mankind and His eternal rest.

Ah, my philosophizing brings out my vocabulary.  There really isn't much need for it here with the cats and chickens, and my sweet hubby hasn't the education I have, so we speak much more simply with each other.  Not that he isn't bright or gifted....it's just not in the same areas I am.  Isn't it funny how God does that, pairing us with those who remind us that ours is not the only perspective of and on the planet?  He is indeed a Great God, full of wisdom and patience, lovingly encouraging us to try again and again when we stumble and fall on our backsides, forgetting in our great rush to go somewhere, anywhere, that we must walk before we can run.......

In spite of the pain, the insomnia, the anxiety, the depression, the anger, the sadness, the hesitation....God is God and He will do what is best for me, in spite of my best efforts to mess it all up.

And for that, I am grateful.  Without the pain, or the other associated issues, what, then, would be my  need for a Great God?  If I did have it all under control, why would I require the Master of All to intervene in my life?  What would be the reason for His healing touch if none were ill, or feeble?  Why would He demonstrate His redemptive powers if not for those wallowing in the filth of sin?

I will, therefore, trust Him.  He knows what is best for me, and He will lead me through this just like He has led me through all the other trials in my life.  It may not be easy, or fun, but I will not have to walk it alone, and I will reach the other side as long as I keep my eyes on Him and not the chaos around me...and here is my struggle....and my hope.

Med changes and side effects

On the 23rd of last month, the pain doc increased my pain meds from 30mg of Methadone a day to 40mg.  He was concerned that my increased Vicodin intake might create a tolerance, thereby limiting its effectiveness for breakthrough pain.

I went up to 40mg a day for about a week, and noticed substantial swelling in my feet in addition to a lot of fatigue.  I also couldn't drive or, on some days, even focus.

So, a few days ago, I decreased the dose to 35mg a day, divided over 3 doses.  I take 10mg at midnight, 15 at 8am, and 10mg at 4pm.  The pain has gone up some but the swelling hasn't done much at all.  I'm going to give it a few days to see if the edema will lessen; if not, I suppose I'll have to go see my primary doc and maybe she'll give me a script for a diuretic to pull the extra fluid out of my tissues.  Of course, I'm not sure if it will help or not...but it is definitely worthwhile thinking it might.

For a couple days there, I had pain at a 4 again.  It was nice.  I'm just not sure I'm prepared to deal with the swelling that goes with it, and it's not just in my feet.  My hands are swollen.  My body itself is edematous, in fact.  Along with this there is the increasingly aggravated symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand.  I do believe I'll be making an appointment with my hand surgeon post haste to have this tingling and general mess taken care of.

I recently had my disability review and they approved me for another 3 years.  The first review was supposed to be after one year.  My initial application was approved in 2007, so it was only 2 years late.    For sure, getting reviewed and re-approved is easier than getting through the initial approval process.  I thought that was never going to end.  Fortunately, my tenacity comes in handy when needed.