Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Back To Life...Back To Reality...

Last night I had a vivid dream that I was filing the freckles and sun-spots off of my body with a finger-nail file. This reminds me that I need to see the Dermatologist for my annual once-over for skin cancer (Arizona can do that to you!), need to make my annual Gyno appointment and basically get back to tending to my life that has been ignored as I have stroked, Prednisone-freaked and blog-obsessed these last few weeks. I am taking Flexeril to keep myself calm and from going into a steroid-frenzy every day, exhausting my body with activity spurred by energy I do not own. It is making me groggy and foggy. Manic and inducing headaches or groggy and foggy, why are those my only choices? I have opened up a whole new world since going "live" with my blog only 7 days ago. The response has been overwhelming, and as I connect with so many beautiful souls each absorbed in their own layer of process with this illness I am touched, honored, reminded and renewed to keep going...keep on keepin' on.

I have set goals that I am not able to keep, and although I am sorely disappointed, I am trying to be compassionate toward myself. Not only is there no immediate masters program in my future, given the strokes I do not feel comfortable taking 2 classes so I have dropped down to an easy conversational class solo. I could not make it to puppy training class last night, layering yet another burden of responsibility on my overworked-overwhelmed-stressed-out husband. I need to pay the bills and get my thank you notes out and do laundry and get back to cooking dinner at night and stretching every day and going to bed early and managing our household and still somehow find a way to rest and renew. And I really need a paying job! I need  bla...bla...bla...whoa is me.

I saw my psychiatrist yesterday and he is taking me off the SSRI's, given their possible link to RCVS's unknown etiology. He chopped the Welbutrin dose in half due to the seizure concern and thinks the Prednisone will keep me from going back into major depression, but if I do we will deal with it at that time. I told him I only want to take "old" drugs, with years worth of documented side-effects. I simply do not trust the new ones. Being an educated yet paranoid conspiracy-theorist by nature I feel the FDA is in the pocket of the lobbyist, as is everything and everyone else in this country, and don't trust. I simply don't trust.

So this is my ridiculous list of meds I am now on to treat the multitude of problems my healthy-looking body is hosting:
1. Tricor
2. Neurontin
3. Prednisone
4. Verapamil
5. Xanax
6. Flexeril
7. Tramadol
8. Valtrex
9. Percocet
10. Welbutrin
11. Lexapro

Half of these are to combat the side-effects of the few necessary ones I am on! Absurd!

Supplements:
~Multi-Vitamin & Mineral
~Calcium, Magnesium & Vitamin D
~Acidophilous
~L-Lysine

I am not allowed to take my customized cocktail of supplements due to unknown interactions with the steroids. I am actually only supposed to be on the Calcium, Magnesium & Vitamin D and Acidophilous per my doctor but keep having these horrible viral flare-ups so am taking L-Lysine and need the nutritional support from the Multi-Vitamin & Mineral due to my somewhat mystifying immune systems need for a prop-up. Just reviewing all this, taking a moment to ponder the snapshot that is my life, I am overwhelmed with what is actually happening to me and understand the need for rest and relaxation. I will survive this, yet again another psychotic round of prescription drugs and scary medical conditions, and will get to the other side. But as my brain sits in a fog and my leg and foot will not stop bouncing a mile a second, my hands shaking uncontrollably as I type, I understand the juxtaposition I am and think I am going to take a nap.

Thanks for joining,
Leah

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