Guilt Pains

So the other day I'm talking to my mom and my job comes up and we are talking about how things are going in my "new position" with my "new schedule" and she says, "Well you must have less stress." To which I reply, "Yes, I do." Mom- "So, then you must be feeling better." Me- "What do you mean?" Mom- "I mean your health, migraines and anxiety attacks." Me- "Umm...NO! Actually my migraines are getting worse right now, more frequent than they have been. I think I need to go back to the pain center." Mom- "Oh."
So when I came home tonight with a migraine feeling like absolute shit... it got me thinking... thinking about this conversation I had had with a co-worker (a pretty powerful co-worker) who said to me... "maybe this is for the best"... and "now you will have less stress and feel better". I know that there was more than just one person behind my fall from grace. But if these people think that they were doing me any favors.. if they sleep better at night because they believe that they actually helped me... they can bite me. My health has not improved because of their little career plan for me... which by the way I was not consulted about. I would just hate for anyone to be getting a good night's sleep while I still can't. Guess you'll have to come up with another excuse to ease the guilt pains.

2 years of hell

That's what my life has been... 2 years of hell. (Insert you little violin, playing a little song just for me, but this is my blog and I'm still going to bitch if you don't like it... stop reading now! Keep reading, maybe you might relate!) It all started in April of 2007 when I fell down the stairs drunk in a pair of too tall heels. Who knew a simple little ankle injury would fuck up my life. A month and several misdiagnosis later, I was in the hospital with a blood clot the size of Texas in my leg (stop me if you've heard this one!) and two small clots (thank god they were small) in my right lung (we nicknamed them Bert & Ernie). After 6 days in the hospital, a few days on complete bedrest I was ready to go home... to my brand new life with a clotting disorder. No more birth control, no more smoking, coumadin for at least 6 months, and no drinking. HELL!! Take away the birth control, and I get SEVERE PMS... AND HORRENDOUS CRAMPS. Then came the mental effects of nearly dying. Severe anxiety attacks... depression... a psychiatrist diagnosed me with mild depression, post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorder and panic disorder. That came with a couple of medications to control my panic attacks and mood swings and such. Of course, it took time to find the ones that actually worked for me. And then came the migraines. Headaches like I have never expierenced before... usually around the same time I would get severe PMS. Sometimes so badly I couldn't see straight. As the months went on, they came more and more frequently. And then... just when I thought I was getting my mental health in order... I fell down some stairs (yes, I know, AGAIN) while in Hawaii on vacation with my boyfriend. This time, I couldn't just bruise a bone... I really went all the way. I got myself a spiral fracture of both bones in my ankle... basically I broke it in 3 places requiring surgery... a plate... 6 screws and 2 pins to repair it. It also meant that I had to be completely off my ankle for the next 6 weeks... then in a walking cast for 5 weeks. You should have seen me scooting up and down my stairs on my butt for weeks on end. It was by far the worst pain I have ever endured.. and the biggest pain in the ass. You just don't realize how much you need a leg until it is taken away! So now that that's taken care of... let's get back to those pesky migraines that still have not gone away... and did I mention are just getting more and more frequent. I saw doctor after doctor... who put me on migraine medicine after migraine medicine... all without success. I saw a neurologist who sent me for an MRI which showed nothing... and then he put me on yet another migraine medicine which of course didn't work. So when I finally got a migraine for 6 weeks straight... I decided to take some drastic steps. I went to this center where they do injections to treat chronic pain... actual shots into your head, neck, shoulders, back. They are a sort of anti-inflamatory that when injected works to soothe nerves and muscles. Also I started going to a chiropractor, who x-rayed my back and showed me how messed up it really was... requiring treatments 3x a week. So while I am trying to make myself healthier... I get yet another setback... this time from work. All of this is 1 year and 10 months. And that's just the health stuff....
Let us not forget about my several car troubles costing a couple thousand dollars... one time leaving me stranded on the side of the freeway... an accident on Thanksgiving that was ruled my fault and resulted in a nice ticket for me... my several photo radar tickets...
And of course, my always tight financial situation, due mostly to my never ending medical bills.
I now see a therapist about once every 2 weeks.
A chiropractor 3 times a week.
My pain injection doctor once every 2 weeks.
My pychiatrist once every 6-8 weeks.
All in an effort to get control of my health, my life.
But it just seems like everytime I get a handle on one thing, something else pops up... everytime it seems like my life is finally getting on the right track.. heading out of hell, someone or something derails me.

Give it up?

Why should I have to give up something I love, just to be happy? Why should I have to change my life, my world, to keep my sanity? How is it that one person can poison it for everyone? Everyone keeps saying that I just need to let it go, let it roll off my back, not let it get to me. Don't you think I am trying to do that? But it is so much bigger than that. I am so angry. Angry at the ways things have changed. Angry that I am physically sick now. Angry that something that used to make me happy, I used to love to do, I now dread. Angry that all we do is focus on the negative. Angry I have anxiety and migraines the second I walk in the door. Angry that it is normal to snap at each other, take things out on each other, blame each other, throw each other under the bus. I am angry at what we have become, what I am a part of. I used to be proud, now I just try and get by. So what do I do? Let one person make me give up what I love or make myself happy? What is more important, my sanity and health on a daily basis or something I have always wanted to do and I am damn good at, even if no one recognizes it lately? What would you do??

Alone with my pain...

My life has come down to 2 options. Everyday I wake up and hope I will be able to pull off the first. Faking It. Faking it like everything is okay. Like I am happy with where I am and what is going on around me. The second option is to simply be a mess. Anxiety ridden, facing panic attacks, having migraine headaches, short-tempered, a super emotional fucking mess. For months I had the faking it thing down pat. I was the queen of the plastic smiles and the "sounds great". Then, I was knocked completely off my game. And now I am a mess. No matter how many pep talks I give myself, no matter how much medication I take, everyday I am just struggling to get by. And I feel like when I tell people what's going on, they are beyond over it. They are sick of my migraines, sick of me not feeling good, sick of me being an emotional wreck. Even my boyfriend, who is so supportive and loving and understanding, seems to be losing his patience. It feels like I'm burdening him by talking about it and like he just wants me to be over it already. And so here I am... alone with my pain. Alone with the anxiety and panic attacks that you can not possibly understand unless you have experienced. Alone with my migraines that blur my vision, make it impossible for me to think straight and make me feel like a complete idiot. Alone with my mood swings that could strike at any minute... sparing no one and then leaving me feeling like the biggest bitch ever.
And alone with the fact that despite my numerous trips to several different doctors over the past year and a half, my emotional issues are still NO WHERE NEAR UNDER CONTROL. Despite all my medications, I am still not in control of myself, my body or my mind. It is an incredibly helpless feeling. One I hope you will never feel. But if you do... I hope you will learn how to fake it with the best of them. Meanwhile... I just I hope I can somehow find my way out of the pain and back to the faking it. I just don't know how much longer I can take it before I break.

Loss of control- Part 4

So you, I'm sure like everyone else in my life, think that as soon as I got released from the hospital, the worst was over. Well you, like just about everyone else in my life, would be WRONG. I saw more doctors in the next two weeks than I did when I was in the hospital. One of whom was a hematologist who gave me some fantastic news. We know why I developed a blood clot, at least in part. I have a very rare clotting disorder- Factor 20210A Mutation. It basically puts me at a way higher risk of developing a blood clot than the average person. It also, according to the hematologist, meant I needed to be on coumadin(AKA rat poison) for 1 year. As if that weren't enough, I also had to deal with some major side effects from going off the birth control. I now had awful PMS and killer cramps, debilitating cramps. I saw my gyno who believes I probably have endometriosis, but without doing an invasive scope, we can't really confirm. She doesn't want to do the scope because of the clotting disorder, but would like to treat me with endometriosis medication. The problem... it, like so many other medicines, interferes with my coumadin. So for now, it's pain killers for the cramps. Then there is the anxiety attacks. They happened every day at least a handful of times a day before I finally went to the ER, afraid I had another clot in my lung since I couldn't breathe during them. Instead, they told me I was just having anxiety. Just anxiety... it was supposed to be better, but if you have never had an anxiety or panic attack, let me try to clue you in. It feels like you can't breathe, like someone is squeezing your chest so hard your lungs will collapse. It is incredibly scary. But after experiencing 5 a day for a while, I learned that you have to try to relax and breath through them. Sometimes it works... other times, I was just a mess until it would pass. I went on medication to try and treat that. And then came the migraines. Brutal migraines like I had never experienced before. They were blinding and almost debilitating. As I started to pay attention to them, I realized many of them came in the week before my period. Then I learned about a little thing called menstrual migraines. Yes, it's true.. tied to your cycle. Once again, I had to get a daily medication to try and prevent them. My life was supposed to be better post-blood clot right? I was supposed to feel lucky to be alive. But I gotta tell you, it's really hard when around every corner is a new medical challenge. When losing one pill, put me on three other ones. It has been one year and three months since I was released from the hospital and I am STILL dealing with medical issues related to my blood clot, my coumadin, my PMS, my anxiety, my migraines and my cramps. But here's the thing, aside from educating myself as much as possible, there isn't much I can do. My health... how I am going to feel from one day to the next, is really out of my control. And that is perhaps the most frustrating feeling ever. I nearly died... I know I should just be grateful to be alive... but like the saying goes.. nothing in life is free.

Lonely for control

Do you ever feel like you are living your life in a dream? Like at times you are watching parts go by, but not really participating? Or at other times, watching from the outside... yelling about how you want to change things, or say something different, but no one can hear you? Do you ever feel like your life, this life that is so amazing from the outside... is so out of control you don't know what to do about it?? Control... it seems to be the one thing I keep coming back to in my life. I panic/have anxiety attacks whenever I feel like I'm losing/lost it. It's perhaps THE most important thing to me right now, being in control of my life, EVERYTHING in my life. You think it's silly. Of course no one can be in control of everything in their life. You're right, you can't, yet still I try. And when I fail, I go into panic mode. Why?? I'm not exactly sure, but as far as I can tell, it stems from the fact that a little over a year ago, I completely lost control of my life and almost lost it. So now, maybe, if I just hold on tight enough...
Really it's just driving me crazy. And probably the people in my life too. I need to know what's going on with them, so I can make sure that I am being the best friend, best girlfriend, best employee, best co-worker. It's exhausting. And the bottom line is, I can't do it all. Not everyone is going to be happy with me all the time. I need to be happy with myself. I know that. And I could say it over and over in my head a bigillion times, but it doesn't make it hurt any less when my friend is not supportive of who I am right now or what I am doing, or my boss doesn't like the way I approach things and thinks I'm a bitch, or my boyfriend doesn't want to talk to me and needs his own time and space. If you think you question my decisions... you should be inside my head. I question everything I say... think... do. Do you have any idea how exhausting that is?? Tell me that it doesn't matter what other people think about you, only what you think about yourself. I'll tell you BULLSHIT~! I don't need everyone to like me.. but when the people you count on suddenly aren't there... this world can feel very lonely.

Survivor

One year ago today... my life flashed before my eyes. In the blink of an eye, I ended up in the hospital with an Emergency Room doctor telling me I had a blood clot in my leg the size of Texas... and two clots that had broken off and traveled to my right lung. I spent the next 6 days in the hospital.. learning all about how lucky I was that I didn't die. I had probably been walking around with that ticking time bomb for at least three weeks... and if one of those chunks of clot that traveled through my heart had been just a little bit bigger... that would have been it.
May 9th, 2008 my world forever changed, I forever changed.
In the aftermath, I learned I had a clotting disorder which would make me susceptible to blood clots like this for the rest of my life. It also came with a laundry list of other side effects, like it can make it difficult to get pregnant, and if you do get pregnant, it will be a high risk pregnancy.
I was also immediately taken off birth control and told never to go back on it again. As a result my hormones went wacko, literally. I began having migraines, severe cramps and crazy PMS.
And then there was the worst part... the anxiety. I started having anxiety attacks... sometimes up to five times a day. They are undescribable, except to say that I wouldn't wish that feeling on anyone.
As a result, I am on medications to control my world and blood thinners.
There were some very dark times, and some times where I didn't feel like myself. I feel much better now, but I have forever been changed. I have always been a control freak, but I think now it is even worse. I want to control everything I possibly can in my life, because I know what it is like to lose control. I lost control of my health and that is a feeling I don't ever want to have again. One year later I am no where near recovered... or past this... but I am coping and learning and trying to be the best person I can be.
There have been some positives in all of this, I learned that I have a very rare clotting disorder that could have presented itself later, and the older you get the more likely you are to die from a blood clot.
I quit smoking... and so today also marks the one year anniversary of my last cigarette.
And I realized how strong a person I really am. No matter what anyone says to me, or thinks about where I am or where I should be, I know what I have been through. And I dare anyone to go through all that I have, and not come out a little bit scarred. If you went through this I guarentee you would understand what it is like to really be a fighter.
I'm not trying to pretend like I'm the only one who has faced tough times... I know they are all around us. I'm just saying I'm proud to say on my one year anniversary... I KNOW that I truly am a survivor.

To Medicate or Not Medicate...

...that is the question??? So the other day I went to see my therapist, originally with the plan to try to convince him that I should try to ween off my medications. But that plan was blow to bits the minute they decided to do layoffs at my work and for a week straight I was a crazy mess again... insomnia, migranes and anxiety attacks galore. So, I had to re-think my plan. Perhaps now is not the best time for me to be cutting back on the meds. But I did ask if this was how my life was always going to be, anytime I got super stressed my "craziness" was going to take over. Basically, my therapist said he couldn't really answer that. But that he has absolutely no problem with the amount of medications that I am on and doesn't think I should worry about that. Instead, I should be focused on just feeling good today... tomorrow and the day after. That got me thinking. Why was I so anxious to get off my medications? It's obvious I need them. And then it hit me. I have heard from numerous people that believe that since I started taking medication, I have become a different person. That's what was driving me... but I need to do what is best for me. My therapist told me medicating is like religion and politics, people have very strong views about whether it is right or wrong. I was talking to my mom about it all later, one of the people who had said she noticed a change in me, and she said she didn't mean that it was neccessarily the medication. She felt like I had changed, but she totally understood why. I had been through a lot, a near-death experience, a life-changing disorder, mental problems that went untreated for months. The truth is, I am a different person. Whether you blame the medication, or the life experiences, it doesn't change the fact that this past year has forever changed me. I'm pretty sure I can't ever go back to the person I was before. I just have to learn how to be the best person I can be now. And for me... at least for now... that includes medications... like it or not.

Never Enough

Do you ever feel like you are just plain never enough? Never good enough? That is how I have been feeling at work lately. I work my ass off. I give 110% every day. I come to the table with ideas. I care... about my performance, and the overall outcome. But still it seems to not be enough. And every day I feel like it is something. Everyday I wake up feeling like, "It is a new day," and then I get to work and within hours my good mood is crushed. From a boss who I feel like hates me and is constantly targeting me and picking on me, to a manager I barely know telling me my foul language is out of control and I am a "poor representation" of our company. And then there is the fact that I am the only one losing in the ratings in our early show. All of it just makes me feel like shit. Especially because I do care so much, not only about my job, but being good at it and respected. And worse yet, all of my major health issues have returned. I have insomnia, migraines and anxiety attacks... things I went for months without having to deal with. Problems I was thinking I was finally getting over and then with a snap of the fingers I am right back where I began. Is this how my life is always going to be? When times get tough, I am going to have to deal with all this extra bullshit too? I'm snapping, crabby, I can't be any fun to be around or talk to. I feel bad for my friends and especially my boyfriend who gets the brunt of my bitchiness. I just don't know what to do to make it better. Everyone says just hang on. You just hang on. I'm busy going crazy. Everyone says it will get better, but when? Because in the meantime I am so unhappy it hurts. And I feel like everything I do to try to make it better, come to work over-prepared, with tons of ideas, just ends up blowing up in my face because no one really gives a shit. And I still get snapped at. I guess the bottom line is... at least right now... if there is a light at the end of this tunnel, I must be blind.

You don't know!!!!

So, I totally feel like a bitch saying this... perhaps that is why I am saying it here. I could never say it out loud to anyone, but I have thought it so many times in the last five months... that if I don't say it somewhere, I am going to explode.
With that said... here goes.
Don't tell me you know how I feel. Don't tell me you know what I'm going through. Don't tell me you understand. There is no possible way you do. You have never had to realize that you spent four weeks, as a walking time bomb, one that could go off, taking your life at any minute. You have never had smoking, drinking and your sanity taken away in one swift move. You've never been poked every four hours for 6 days. And you've never had to face the fact that decisions you made... nearly cost you your life. You've never been told you have a mutation... a defect that will put you at risk for the rest of your life... and could cause you pregnancy problems. You have never made it through all that... only to learn that was just the beginning. The battle was not nearly over. Now... perhaps in part to the near-death experience and the fact that everything in your life is completely out of control, you have anxiety. Daily anxiety attacks that many times you can not control. A lack of control that makes you feel even more crazy that you already are... thus causing more anxiety... and the vicious cycle begins once again. You have never been there... you don't know. You don't know what it is like to be prescribed medication that is supposed to "solve your emotional problems", get your hopes up that you may be closer to normal again, and then get no results. You don't know what it is like to be taken off birth control (which did I mention you can never have again)... and be crazy for half of every month. Wild mood swings... migrane headaches... killer cramps... crazy. You don't know what it is like to be told there is really nothing that can be done for you, short of removing all your reproductive organs. You have no idea what it is like to face the fact that it may be nearly impossible for you to get pregnant... but at the same time, if you don't want to get pregnant you will forever have to use a condom. You don't know what it is like to have to carry five pill bottles with you at all times "just in case". You don't spend your life "pretending"... like you are happy, better, satisfied. You just don't know. I realize you may know what it is like to face one of these issues... or maybe even a couple during your life, but not all of them... at once. The bottom line is this... I appreciate the love and support. I appreciate people trying to help. I appreciate people trying to understand. But you could not possibly know what I am going through. You may think that all I am doing here is whinning, that I don't realize that everyone goes through tough times, that there are people who are way worse off than me, that it could have been much worse. That is again where you are wrong. I get that I am lucky I am still alive. That's part of what makes this all the more difficult. Because I made it, but I am still suffering. Because I should be happy, but instead much of the time I am miserable. You may think you know... but you have no idea.

Heavily Medicated

The laundry list of medications that is my life...
Coumadin- 10mg Monday thru Friday
7.5mg Saturday & Sunday
Lexapro "my pupulei pills"-20mg Everday
Xanax- 1 pill at the onset of an anxiety attack
Midrin- 1 or 2 pills at onset of migrane
Vicodin- 1 pill every 4-6 hours to treat cramps
I though I would share the long list of medications that make up my life with you. Why? I'm not really sure. Maybe I'm just looking for a little validation that a list this long is crazy... crazier than I apparently am. I mean I am 27 years old, fairly healthy, in pretty good shape. So WTF... should I really need this many drugs to deal with my daily life?? I have even resorted to using one of those daily pill containers. You know, the one where you put your pills in for each day so you don't forget to take your meds. The ones your grandparents probably have. Yea, I'm at that point. So you may be thinking all those pills are a little extreme... and that perhaps I am just a wuss, who can't deal with my life, or things not being easy. To you I would say "Fuck off!!" If you are not crazy, you could not, would not and will not ever understand. If you don't get PMS, you could not, would not and will not ever understand. If you have never had a blood clot, you could not, would not and will not understand. If you have not had cramps, you could not, would not and will not understand. If you don't fit into any of these categories, thank what ever holy figure you believe in. Here's the thing... I would really like to be able to live my life prescription free... but I would also like to be able to live my life without pain, anxiety or feeling totally out of control. Now if only someone would make a pill... one pill... for all that!!