Going Through Hell

Sometimes our lives our hell. Sometimes we go through hell for the people we love. That's exactly what I did today. It may have been my extreme PMS... or the fact that I just got injections into my spine and head. Perhaps it was the five bulging discs in my neck... the constant headache... the fact that my neck felt like it was in a brace... my shoulder, back and colar bone pain. Maybe it was a little bit of everything. But despite my off-the-charts pain... my pain was meaningless compared to what my boyfriend was doing today. It was a big day for him. So I did my best to put on a happy face. Unfortunately, my best kind of sucked. And I spent most of the day hiding... and crying... and feeling like shit. I sucked it up for dinner. And tried not to be hurt by the fact that my boyfriend had other priorities today. But I still felt very alone... alone in my pain. And then as I was sitting here I realized something. What a selfish bitch I am. Am I really going to be mad at my boyfriend because he didn't have time to personally come and check on me? Am I really going to hold a grudge because I braved one of the worst and most uncomfortable days of my life... so he could make a good impression? My boyfriend is the one person who I can honestly say I believe would give anything to take away my pain. He has and always does put me first... especially when I am in pain. And when you are in love with someone... you make sacrifices. Today... I went through hell for the love of my life. And I would do it again in a heartbeat.

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.

What is normal??

You know what the difference between you and me is?? You wake up every morning, and know exactly who you are, feel exactly like yourself. I, on the other hand, have to work for it. Sometimes I wake up with a migraine that makes it so I can't think straight and I am not my sharp, whitty self. Sometimes it is simply that I am easily irritable, short-tempered, easily confused, sluggish and simply unhappy... not me, until I take my morning medicine. It's sad. It's sad to not feel like yourself, the fun, energetic person that people used to love to be around, without medication. And it's sad to feel those characteristics slip away as my medication wears off. I don't take medication to medicate myself. I take medication so that I can feel like myself again.
When you are dealing with what I am dealing with (Just for the record, I have been diagnosed with mild depression, post traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder, anxiety disorder and severe PMS) feeling normal and finding a balance, is a difficult task. One that I wake up every day, and work really hard to do.

JUST TOO MUCH...

Do you ever just feel like you can't win? I am too needy... too crazy.. too impulsive... too anger management. Consequently, no one wants to hang out with me, even my own boyfriend. He thinks I am more than difficult, impossible. In fact, at times, I think he simply avoids me. Here's what I know. No.. you know what... right now.. I'm so angry, I don't know what I know. My boyfriend hates me. He thinks I am always over-reacting... he thinks I blow everything out of proportion. Let's break it down to what this fight is really about.. I have super bad PMS. I mean uncontrollable emotions... anger-management issues... I am out of control. I know it.. I can feel it... I realize it. I am well aware. Listen, I would have loved the opportunity to just go home and be at home in my comfort zone... and not have to worry about anyone else... any other interactions. But unfortunately that was not my lot in life today. My bf was all about hanging out with our friends... grilling steaks (yumm... did I mention I was a vegetarian??) and drinking scotch with the boys. Good for him.. but do I have to be involved because.. let's face it... I am in no condition to "kick it". I end up going to our friends house where my fave gf is not feeling her man either, makes it so much easier for me. We just hide out... I cry...
I cry because I feel like I am a failure... a failure for not finding him a job by now, a failure because he is not happy, a failure because he wishes more than anything he were not here.
Everyday I wake up and (ps I don't pray) but I wish that I have the strength to make it through the day. Bottom line... I am broke... more than I would ever like to admit. Would I love my bf to win Top Chef??? Would I just love my bf to get a job?? Hell Yea!!... but you wanna know what's most important to me?? Cheesy as it sounds.. that when he goes to bed at night... there is NO doubt in is mind that he wants to be with me... that we have fun together.
Of course all that also causes us pleanty of tension, I know he wants more and sometimes he takes that anger and agression out on me, he makes rude comments and then says he is kidding but I know they are designed to sting. I brought him here. To this big desert oasis wherer he still hasn't found work or a lot of his own friends. No matter what he tells you, he is bitter.. unhappy... probably angry.. and on the other side of all those emotions... ME!! Welcome to Arizona!

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.