the trick is to keep breathing

so mike and i are going to pittsburgh this weekend for my brother's birthday. i had a full list of things to get ready for today - get things settled for the catsitter, clean the kitchen, do some laundry so i have something to wear, pack, rig up my bike for the weekend, sort out my medications (this takes about a half hour every week to load them into my "morning" and "evening" weekly pill boxes, ugh) ... there was a lot.

the thing is, i have been tired as actual fuck this week. because i end up overcharging my energy credit card during the week, i usually try to save up and pay it off on weekends, meaning i need lots of sleep, relaxing, and a good amount of alone solo-time. because of the recent messes (previous posts), i haven't had a free weekend to myself since the middle of june. this means not only am i exhausted, and carrying around the static background-noise of someone who hasn't been able to ground herself and clear everything out*, but of course the house is a mess and i am behind on everything.

(*i am also suffering from not having my Vicodin at the moment; those four hours of reduced pain help me clear out the static noise and ground myself like fuck, but because i have to go back to formal pain management (which is a process) i don't even have that tool in the toolbox right now.)

so anyway, i am tired and pretty strung out at the moment, but it's jim's birthday and mary wants us to be a surprise, so we'll be a surprise :)

so last night, i come home tired from the pain-load on my circuits. i take two tramadol and a glass of wine, which i'm sure my liver is mad cool about but it helps shut the pain up when i don't have opiates. i crash on the couch for a bit, with cats, and then slowly start hitting my chores. i make a pact with myself because i'm watching Chopped on tv, so every commercial break i get up and do a thing. this continues on, laundry and litterboxes and drugs, via Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay commercials (look, i love BBF, it's all fancy cooking and trash talk, that's my jam), until the second wind wears off and i get tired. well, i say, i'll get up early in the morning to finish it.

the alarm goes off at 5:00.

1. i am having a dream where a group of people (no one i know, which is surprising for my dreams) and i are hosting some kind of event luncheon thing with food and wine for fucking Donald Trump and some Republicans, I guess trying to talk some sense into them or come to an accord or argue with them or spy on them or, i don't know, it seems reasonable in the dream. and i'm some kind of power hostess but i'm focusing mainly on the cooking (thanks, fucking Chopped and Beat Bobby Flay), and trying to make points and break up fights while making sure everyone has food?, i mean at one point i fucking leave an argument to go make more fried cornmeal balls (hushpuppies i guess)???? so like: i'm already pretty discombobulated.
2. i finally manage to get out of bed, after some snooze buttons, at about 6:00
3. i head downstairs, turn on the keurig, head to the basement. pull the dry laundry out of the dryer and put the wet laundry in the dryer. yes, i went to bed with laundry in the washing machine. it was literally only there for like 5 hours, it didn't smell or anything
4. i get my coffee and sit down on the floor to fold the laundry but i'm tired as fuck and end up playing out my stamina in FFBE
5. i fold the laundry, while finishing FFBE/FFRK stamina, with Iggy and Potato helping. this literally hakes maybe an hour? i'm so tired i feel heavy, like i'm moving slowly because everything weighs 500lb, including my thoughts
6. i finish the laundry and go to get the cats ready. write a note, set out food, fill their dishes, give them wet food breakfast, get everything set
7. my brain finally processes that i had a dream about catering donald fucking trump, where i made him bruschetta and fucking hushpuppies rather than punching him in the face, maybe with a knife. i spend a good 15 minutes severely disappointed in my subconscious
8. it's starting to get close to when i should be leaving for work, and i'm starting to unravel a bit here. i go upstairs to pack. weirdly i fucking gained back 9lb in the month of july, i do not know how, so i'm also trying on everything i want to pack to make sure it fits. a lot of random shit just goes in the bag
9. i spend a half hour sorting out my pills. i have 20 empty pill bottles and at least 2-3 refills of each type, which makes everything more confusing than it should be. i do not know how it happened and my brain really wants to know rather than focus on getting each med in its appropriate pill box. eventually the boxes are full
10. i scramble to get ready for work, throw some shit on, the jeans are actually still damp but honestly i ignore it bc they stretch out better that way after a wash. hair goes up in a braid, fucks not given
11. head down to start loading the car. checking my important list on my phone. get jim's gift in the back seat, bike pump in the trunk because once it had a spider on it. look around the garage, and i don't have my bike rack
12. it must be in fucking mike's garage
13. i legit spend 20 minutes attempting to cram my goddamn bicycle into the back seat of my fucking honda civic
14. i mean, maybe if i take the front wheel off
15. the front wheel isn't coming off, the brakes are in the way
16. how do i undo brakes
17. maybe if i wedge it this way
18. fuck it we're gonna have to stop by on the way out and get my bike
19. head back in to wash the oil and smudge off of my hands. i am sweaty, and extremely cranky at this point
20. hands clean, everything else in the car, head out to get in and go to work
21. the bike rack is hanging from one of my ceiling hooks
22. someone was helpful and "put it away"
23. at this point i am decidedly sweaty, cranky, and obscenely late for work. there's a constant stream of "fuck you, fuck this, fucking fuck, fuck this shit, fuck everything" coming out of my mouth like i'm reciting the world's worst rosary
24. while taking the rack down the straps get caught in my hair and pull half of it out. everything is terrible
25. the rack is on the fucking car. the bike is on the fucking rack. go wash my hands again.
26. get into the car. what's on my seat? oh, it's the post it note of my to-do list. let's check it. i forgot to leave the key for the fucking catsitter
27. fuck you, fuck this, fucking fuck, fuck this shit, fuck everything
28. the key is safely in a plastic bag in its place
29. i am stopping at starbucks if it fucking kills me
30. literally i do not care if i am fired for being late i'm getting a goddamn starbucks

...

1. get to work. no one is here. half the group is traveling or on vacation, and the other half is off for 9/80 fridays. all my brain can come up with is "9/11" and i sit staring into space for 20 mins trying to figure out what the 9/11 schedule is
2. it is surreal
3. i don't know what i'm doing

so now i really just want a nap. and another starbucks

Yesterday I had an appointment for an evaluation at a Pain Management Clinic. This is the third doctor I've seen for the problem in my neck/back/shoulders: the first being my GP, who is the one that sent me for the X-Rays and MRI (and PT) and found the herniated disc; the second being the neurologist I went to see about the bulging/herniated disc and the MRI results, who was a super asshole that I actually flipped a proverbial table at and cussed out for being dismissive and spending too much time playing up his jokey mannerisms and not enough time listening to me; the third is this Pain Management Clinic specialist to which Doc #2 referred me to be evaluated for cortisone shots in my spine. (For the record, I will not be going back to Doc #2. I will eat nails first.) Keep in mind that there have been 2-3 week waiting periods to even get an appointment at these specialist places; my MRI was in October. The pain started in June. Just yesterday I actually spoke to a doctor who has an actual plan to help me.

Doc #3 was pretty great. He was a little slow - the whole clinic was - but it was the methodical, I'm-actually-thinking slow, which is okay when you're a doctor. But he listened to me, and actually evaluated me there (making me move around, looking at where the pain was, feeling around for trigger points) instead of just reading the notes from the nurse and the previous doctors. And we have a plan.

So, what Doc #3 told me was that basically, after listening to my descriptions/symptoms and feeling my actual neck/back/shoulders, he isn't sure if my muscles are jacked because my spine is fucked, or my spine is jacked because the muscles around it are fucked. He's taking me very seriously in terms of wanting significant pain relief: I'm scheduled for a cortisone epidural (steroid shots into my actual spine places) at the end of February. But since A) there's a long wait time for the epidurals anyway; B) shooting shit into one's spine is a fairly significant procedure; and C) there's a chance the muscles are the cause, not the disc; he suggested that we try something less invasive in the meantime to see whether it provides any level of relief. I have to say, I like this logic: I love a doctor who is cautious and tries the less dangerous stuff first, while I simultaneously love that he hasn't taken the more drastic option off the books (other doctors have done so, and I'm like no, dude, give me the big shit, I fucking need it). It's a good progression plan in my opinion.

So next week Tuesday morning I'm going in to have a steroid concoction injected into the trigger points in my muscles. At best, this will calm the inflamed muscles, relieving the stress on my spine and (maybe after multiple treatments, admittedly) solving the problem entirely. At worst, it will provide temporary relief until the end of February when I get the epidural injections.

I'm also on a sweet new cocktail of epic maintenance drugs to help me make it through the days on as little pain as possible:
- Super Advils (800mg; I have 90 of them) for general off-the-top relief
- a less-drowsy opiate for during the day that I can take at work, hopefully allowing me to not have stabbing pain while at my desk and on the job
- Vicodin to take at night, to help me actually sleep (Vicodin is at the top of the very short list of "things that actually help relieve this pain"), at a higher dosage than I had before
- a new muscle relaxer to take at night; previous ones didn't work well on me, but last night I was seriously in bed by 9:30pm so maybe there's hope for this one

I realize this is my first day on the new cocktail and it might just be a coincidental "good day" at random, but I do have to say the overall level of pain has already decreased. I don't feel like I'm being stabbed in the neck with a red-hot knitting needle at the moment, for once.

So I will get injections next Tuesday and then work with that and the new drug cocktail for ~2 weeks, at which point I go in for a check-up/eval with the doctor again to report back. From there we can do another round of the muscle injections, up/change the drugs, and/or reevaluate the need for the spinal injections. Thankfully, that checkup is before my next trip to the plant, so hopefully I'll be able to have some kind of relief before going back down to work those physically demanding 14-hour shifts.

I'm... I've been hopeful so many times and things haven't worked out. So this time I'm trying to be reasonably hopeful -- this is all new stuff we're trying, and so far I think the plan is good and the drugs are (as a VERY early judgment) working well.

We'll see.

After last weekend, I was determined to get me some things done! I was ready to go, planning out multiple weekends, factoring in family birthdays and prior commitments and school/homework and Big Bang projects that have sort of whirled out of control and balancing it all with moving, and then--

Monday morning I woke up with a stomach-ache. Not a big deal, I thought.

By the time I got to work it was so painful I couldn't move, couldn't sit, couldn't stand. And it wasn't just a stomach-ache like usual: it was accompanied by painful stabbing, fever sweats/chills, and definite nausea. My lower abdomen was painful to touch or press on, like a bruise.

I went to lie down in the backseat of my car and, after half an hour of absolute agony, called my doctor and pleaded for an appointment. The drive there was abysmally painful. I actually had to lie down in the waiting room because I was in so much pain.

The doctor looked me over and said he was pretty worried. I went in to give them a sample for a urine test, and apparently the trip from the bathroom back to my little examination room was too much. When I got back, I threw up all over the place - or it felt like all over the place; when I was done I noticed it was "mostly" in the sink.

The doctor immediately went, "Oh! You 'just' have a stomach bug! Okay!" and I walked out feeling irrationally better (I HATE how puking makes you feel better. It is somehow ridiculously unfair) with a script for some anti-nausea meds and orders to eat nothing but toast.

SO here it is, Tuesday, and I'm missing class again (already twice this semester, I am awesome) and I've missed another two days of work for this and of course I can't even feel bad yet because I am too busy feeling like shit and -- hahahaha, there goes all my motivation into lying in bed with kittens and feeling abysmally sorry for myself.

"A life in ruins with vomiting," indeed, Miles Vorkosigan.



I'm firing my immune system. I assume no one wants it, but it'll be up for grabs as soon as I figure out how to replace it with antifreeze.