The Adventures of My Ass

/ Robin

I’m serious folks. I am not kidding. I wanted to talk about pain. You all know what pain I mean right? That peculiar mental,  emotional pain that burns you alive and freezes you right out of your own life?

I have a few additional medical difficulties. I avoid talking about them because they are Legion. .  I have chronic back pain. Each disk in my spine is degenerating… Degenerative Disk Disease.

The physical pain is often marginally intolerable.  Meaning I can cook dinner 30 minutes after taking 10 MG of Oxycodone… for about 10 or 15 minutes.  Then I sit down and switch from trying to tolerate the pain long enough to cook (I can’t quite make it just yet) to fighting the overwhelming urge to abandon all remaining control and cry hysterically. 

I have such pain in my siatica area and shooting down my leg that I don’t want to breathe. Have you ever had physical therapy where they used the stim thingies? Yeah, the patches with electrodes that zap a current into the tissues they are rehabilitating.  The thing where the like to turn it up as high as you can tolerate.

Take the most discomfort/pain this has ever caused you, multiply that by the pins and needles felt when a sound asleep body part wakes and freaks your body out… multiply those together and add a dose of desperation and you’re getting closer than you were.

It is now 2 weeks after I began this post. Since then my medical people have narrowed down, if one can narrow it down, to the pain starting my L4 and L5 disks (spine). Like the rest of my spine they are degenerating.  Degenerative Disk Disease. 

After several failed attempts to ease the pain we settled on Tramadol as my base pain killer with Oxycodone as my breakthrough medication. They worked. And they made me completely loopy.  I backed off to 5 MG from 10 MG (Oxycodone) and that was better but I still shouldn’t drive.

And then the headaches started. I hoped that I was wrong about getting headaches after taking Tramadol for several days. No joy. It also brought nausea.  Nothing calmed that.

This morning I’ve stopped the Tramadol and taken Excedrine Migraine.  I hope it helps.

As for my Bipolar brain… I’m at a lower dosage of Lamictal but I’m doing surprisingly well. Chronic pain can be made less intense with anti-depressants. It is possible that my pain intestified recently because my Lamictal dose is lower.

These medical people also tell me I have FM (Fibromyalgia).

Terrific.

I guess I’m not a hypochondriac after all.

Again… terrific.

I Wish I Were Bipolar

/ Robin

I can’t believe I just said that either.

“I wish I were Bipolar. Yes, ME.”

I’ve fretted over when/if/how to approach what to say.   Again… another issue to stifle me me and stuff my hands with word stopping globs of goo. (Do you get what I’m getting at? Stay tuned.)

I can’t possibly explain who I am. Not even close. I’ll say one thing and think I’ve given you enough. I’ll pause my monologue and think I’ve given you space to consider me, what I’ve said. I hear my own voice raise over all the silences and questions I’ve left with you. Like…

“What the hell are you going on about woman?!”  I got no clue.

Lies. I’m lying. Laying? Damn words.

I honestly do wish I were Bipolar. Just Bipolar. It would make me.. my life.. so much simpler, even more possible. More probable.

I keep nodding off so I’ll keep this much shorter than I’m naturally inclined to do.

Last night (Wed night) I slept for perhaps an hour or two. It was horrible. My brain began alright. It is still flirting with every tomorrow in this newly less medicated state. We, my brain and I ended in the wee hours (Thur morning) stuck in the turnstyle under a boat load of cement. I couldn’t sleep. I almost did sleep.

Lies. I slept.

I slept for as many hours as I have eyes. Maybe.

I’m so tired.

I have chronic pain everywhere. Pain in every joint, every muscle, every imaginary and real messed up bit of me. I see a chronic pain specialist at a “pain clinic”. They specialize in, well, chronic pain that isn’t easily treated by ordinary means. That just means that in my case for example my MD isn’t comfortable prescribing high and long standing doses of Oxycodone day after week, after month, after year.

I take 10 mg of Oxycodone three times daily (assuming I’m not going to be driving) to try to control my lower back and bum pain.

It rarely works well. I keep taking it whenever I safely can. I bank on the thought that I can trick my mind into believing it really does help. Via my med provider and MD and so on my pain cocktail consists of:
10 mg Oxycodone 3 times daily
50 mg Hydroxyzine 4 times daily
800 mg Ibuprofen every 6 hours
Excedrin Migraine two every 6 hours
Ice, ice, ice, ice
Heat, heat, heat

No joy.

It is now 13 minutes after midnight. That’s 13 minutes into Friday.

So far today sucks. I have heartburn and my pain is nicely controlled at about an 8 (10 being the worst pain I can ever imagine) at the moment.

If I’m not sleeping because of my brain, I’m not sleeping because of my pain. Often the bodily pain causes mental pain…  making sleep an even less likely reality. I need to sleep. My jumbled writing is becoming more jumbled. I hate it. I get my Bipolar brain to cooperate and focus. That’s so awesome. I know that’s so awesome.

The chronic debilitating pain makes it only a shadow of a triumph.

No sleep is not sleeping no matter what the cause.

Oh my. I nodded off for a fairy tale minute. It’s passed.

I’m going to move the warm and melted ice pack from my butt to the freezer. I have four I rotate through. The big hospital size ones for things like knee replacements.

I am so exhausted. I think I might be tired enough now that the pain won’t be able to make me cry and whimper… maybe that means I’ll sleep.

I nodded off again.

I self medicated tonight. Two vodka shots of really bad vodka. Trying to kick start the painkiller and bring sleep and I together faster and hopefully for longer than zero.

I wish I were just Bipolar. Chronic pain plus Bipolar Type 1 completely sucks fried reeds.

Well… started to cry again. Gonna say goodnight to the ice right now. I’ve gotta sleep.

I wish I were Bipolar.

Moving Forward – Goals

/ Robin

I’ve been writing/working on a particular project for several years. I’m talking of my CURRENT project.  The main and most important one. (Okay. That’s completely untrue.  My kids are my most important project.)

I’m telling you my objective now, here, in “public” so I’ll have witnesses… so to speak. I hope that knowing someone else is aware of what I’m working toward I’ll keep my promise to myself and finish what I’ve began.

The project – Weird Parenting: How to be a Bipolar Parent and Not Have Your Kids Hate You

That’s the working title. . .for now.
My goal is to complete the entire rough draft by the end of my youngest daughter’s driver’s training course is over.

Honestly, I admit it will be hard to get it done. But look, I’ve been sitting on it for too long time. And I have an unpredictable superpower.  It’s that not so secret dirty little monster commonly referred to as MANIA.

Question to ponder: Can I be stay on my meds and yet let myself be manic to the point where it aids me in the completion of my work? Is that even possible? 

I think it is. What do you think?

I Mystify Me

/ Robin

I don’t understand.

One of my many health care professionals recently asked me if I knew why I wasn’t sleeping well. Aside from the notion that if I knew the answer I would be sleeping, I indicated that if the applicable momentary alignment of the giant reflux glucosamine . . . Eh . . . Sorry. Little grey cells got caught up in some lint. I wanted to say that if I knew… I’d have a chance to fix it. But I didn’t.

Eventually I was able to say that without question I was not able to sleep well as a result of a sleep aid help get me sleep. In a bizarre twist when I finally dropped off and slept… for the briefest of moments… my sleep deprived brain believed that if I slept I would die. So as a psychotic episode loomed nearer I panicked thinking sleep meant death was upon me  and I couldn’t tolerate the fear… so I woke up and panicked because I still had no sleep.

How did I manage to start sleeping again? First I stopped taking all sleep aids. Then I ate better and was more physical… What next?

I decided quite deliberately that I was going sleep and that I needed to stop thinking about it so damn much.

Speaking of sleeping it’s now 2:20 a.m. and I keep nodding off. Time to sleep.

(The next day at 11:25 p.m.)
Would you believe that I keep thinking of too many things and then I tire and stop writing?

Sigh…

Dancing Drugs

/ Robin

I’ve just left my Med Provider. I have chosen to decrease my dosage of Lamictal (for Bipolar) because of the following side effect….. intense sensitivity to the sun. I burn in the shade and even while wearing long sleeves. I live in the Pacific Northwest and I love living here. However, that won’t stop me from craving sunny days and need to soak up some rays to feed and heal my brain and  my body. So, sun sensitivity completely sucks.

Freckles.

The med provider, lets call her Jane Smith, agreed with me in my desire to go off Lamictal. She made up a very stupid dosage and times to take it instead of exactly doing what I asked. I mentioned her “plan” to another health care provider and the look on her face convinced me she reacted to Small’s arbitrary orders the same way I did. I’ve been taking 200 mg twice daily. She wanted me to change that to 150 mg with dinner and 200 mg at bedtime. . . . say what??!!

So… I’m taking 150 mg in the a.m. and 200 mg at bedtime. This drug does not hangout in my body for a long time. My MP told me it’s half life is pretty short (how long it lasts). Some medications stay in the body for awhile after a dose. No so with Lamictal (according to JS). If that’s correct it seems so) then telling me to alter my dose schedule for it to the scheme I’ve just mentioned is, well, moronic. Yep, I said it. “MORONIC.”

Freckle soup.