The dirty secret no one talks about...mental illness

Now, I know those of you that are reading that title and know me are saying "dirty secret, eh?" this bitch is batshit crazy. And I am OK with that, my therapist, probably not so much. This is some thoughts I wrote approximately 2 years ago when I in earnest started therapy; Depression. Major depressive disorder. PTSD. Delayed grieving. Anxiety. All fun labels. Add on morbid obesity and you have me in a nutshell. I am trying to look my depression in the face, deal with the pain and get the fuck over it. I am so tired of being sad that my sad is tired of being sad. That, my friends, is a mouthful. I want to give a million excuses why I am depressed but in all honesty, believe it or not, it is an illness. It has it's causes and it's treatment. Currently, I am in treatment. I hate admitting it but I have been so sad for so damn long that it was time. So, I have been seeing a counselor. I am still unsure what I think about the whole thing. She is nice enough and seems intelligent. My first two attempts at counseling were less than successful. One was crazier than I  and the other wasn't the brightest light bulb in the box and well, how can you help me, if I am smarter than you. Well, with the counselor I am seeing a psychiatrist so I can be medicated for your safety. I do horribly with any kind of medications. I don't like the side effects when the dose is changed I get all weird for a few weeks. It is has been a trial. I mentioned the the Dr. that I didn't feel worse but not better by any means and I wanted to know what a realistic expectation would be. Am I going to feel better or be happy because in my mind happy is the goal. Seems legit to me. I am taking meds, seeing the counselor and I have prayed for happiness all of my life. The response the Dr. gives me. Well, it was less than encouraging. His response "Baseline, expect to be baseline". I don't remember ever feeling good and you are telling me I'll never feel good? That I can just expect to be Meh, for the rest of my life. Umm, thanks. Now, I wrote a few more less than stellar thoughts after this garbage but it really didn't make sense nor do I want to revisit that trash.

Where do I stand now? Well, I am currently on my 400,000 medication trial and have yet found something that works for me. Without the medication the suicidal ideation returns and I am real ready to leave this world yet. I still have all kinds of shit to fuck up still. I mean life isn't done being amused with me. And I need more tattoos before I kick the bucket. Plus, I booked a fucking cruise to Alaska. Let that shit sink in. This chick, who hates leaving the house is going on a bucket list, OMG, I am going to Alaska cruise. I am so excited this will be the best trip ever. Now, am I fixed? No, but am I working on things. Also, no. I kid. While I think I am not working hard enough because I still refuse to change my diet and exercise, I am working on healthy boundaries and only surrounding myself with those that bring me happiness. It is hard. Being happy and healthy isn't easy. The "stinking thinking" as Deb (therapist) calls it sneaks back in often. Deb is my fourth therapist. She is a grief specialist and she is brilliant. I would love to be like Deb one of these days. She has helped me more than everyone else combined. Now in the medication world, I am not doing well. I am on another trial of medications and not doing well with them. I was manic (read happy) and wanted to do ALL THE THINGS. After a person has been sad for a very long time and not wanting to do anything, this is actually a miserable feeling.

Let me explain. I have sadness, I get it. We love each other. He wraps his strong arms around me and pulls me into bed with him and we snuggle. He understands me and I understand him. Hate, loathing, disgust, and sadness, oh they are my friends. Now this bitch happiness comes along and I am all freaking confused. What the hell do I do with all this energy and happy feelings? How do I deal with wanting to be social, friendly, and wanting to leave the house and have people come to the house!!!!  So, I promptly called the psychiatrist and was like, OH HELL NO. I can't have these feelings. So, I have temporarily stopped one new medication. The one that probably is working. Being crazy is fun, I joke a lot, but it isn't. This is miserable and embarrassing.

For example my poor extra mother Kimmy, who is the best person ever, wants to come to the house and fix up my kitchen. My depression and anxiety is a hard stop on that. Now, she could come over and I would feed her and play games but fix my kitchen? Even though I want it to be pretty the thought of her coming over and changing my kitchen makes me physically ill. It makes the cycle of self-loathing, hate, sadness, anxiety, and feeling of failure overwhelm me. I know I have hurt her feelings and for that I am sad but I literally can not deal with the thought of that big of change happening right now. It terrifies me. And how do you explain to someone that you can't. Just can't. No real reason just can't?

But on the upside of all this mess, I have made a good boundry for me with a family member that needed to go. It feels bad to an extent but it needed to happen for my sanity and health.

What I will say about all this rambling? I can't help that I am chemically imbalanced. I don't like it. I don't like feeling this way and being who I am. But I am me.

Can't a girl get a break?

This week has been a total bite in the ass. Total. Bite. In. The. ASS. *sigh* And it is only Friday, which starts my oh-so-wonderful work week. Yeah me! I only have two more weekends to go before I stop being a weekend warrior and start a more normal schedule (well, whatever is normal for a nurse working night shift). I am really kind of on the fence about "coming off" weekends. Tony is not overly happy with my decision because me not working weekends will interfere with his d&d time. Like I really give a big flying...(well, maybe I will just stop here for peace sake)...Anyway there are things that I want to do and some of them involve Saturday and Sunday soooo, guess Tony will just have to suck it up and get over himself.

As most of you know, I never pick up time at work, as I am lazy I really don't like working. I like staying home and doing well, whatever, the hell I want to do. You know important stuff like laying around in my nightgown all day and wasting a huge amount of time on the internet and watching TV (and I wonder why I am I fighting the fat? hummm). But with new pay cut we are facing and the fact that I have been ignoring the bills (do you know those pesty bastards just keep coming? No matter how much you ignore them or throw them away?! They don't care that you are depressed and need to do retail therapy to feel better..shitheads) I picked up some time at work and well, I never pick up time again. Never.

Why? Well, it first started off with a close family friend dying and her visitation being on Monday the same hours that I picked up. Of course, I went to the visitation and thankfully I work with a pretty decent bunch of people that are understanding and just traded back with me the hours I traded with them. No harm no foul.  Then I had told someone I would work a few hours for them Thursday and  my Wicked-Step-Mother ended up in the hospital. Thus the same thing happened I traded back the hours I was going to pick-up, guess working extra just wasn't meant for me.

The Wicked-Step-Mother was doing better when I left last night. Her sugar was down to a more compatible with life range and she was tired but feeling better. I tried not to be too annoying while at the hospital but I just can't help myself. I want to know numbers and what are they going to do next. Why are they doing x,y and z. What was crazy is only one resident was kind of short with me and everyone else was great and answered all of my questions without any problems. One of the nurses actually told me that she was thankful I was asking questions and active in my families care. I am grateful for such great care.

So I am really worried about the hospital I work at and what is going to happen to us. Guess health care is not the job laden, safe field I thought it to be. People everywhere are taking pay cuts and getting laid-off. It is a scary world out there. I wonder if I go back to bed and pull the covers up over my head if the real-world monster can still get me? Hum....

Dr. Dork STAT

I love my husband. Really I do. I love him from his fuzzy lil' head to his Fred-Flintstone like feet. However, he is a medical weirdo and it is wearing me out. Fourteen months is a long time to be struggling with an unknown medical problem. We thought were we going to have answers on Monday but someone upstairs had a different plan as it snowed asshole deep to a big tall man and the appointment for Dr. Expensive Specialist was canceled. Yeah it has been rescheduled for March 11th. I don't want to wait that long. I want answers now dammit. Tony wants answers now. He has been in a terrible mood since his appointment was canceled and I have been mildly crazy. It has not been fun at this house.

But the medical drama doesn't end there. We need a new family doctor. Ours up and moved due to a nasty divorce so at the moment we are currently doctor-less. Easy enough to fix, call around find someone new. Yeah, good theory however, it seems that no one is taking new patients. And Tony only feels comfortable with female Dr.s so that really narrows down the search. I am not giving up though. We will find someone I am sure of it. I just hope that nothing else comes up during the hunt for a new doctor. (like the hives he has been having off and on for the past several days)

Well, as I have to work tonight and really hate being up in excess of 24 hours. I guess I will be heading back to bed. Have a great day.

Oh yeah and guess who lost 4 more pounds? That would be me!!

Please can I sleep?

Besides liver disease and my mother; insomnia is my worst enemy. I love, need, crave, have to have a good amount of sleep to function or I really get depressed. I can't be one of those functioning insomniacs that clean house or get lots of shit done since they can't sleep. I am one of those toss, turn, get up and eat a snack, pee, flop, get on the internet, go back to bed kind of crazies. I am hell to live with. Thankfully Tony sleeps like a log or we probably wouldn't have made it as far as we have. God love him.

I know what my problem is, I just don't know what to do about it. Tony is sick and I am grieving about it. I am already grieving the time I might not have with him and I feel like every second that passes is a second less I won't be able to spend with him. I want to grab all those seconds and save them. I know I am being a drama llama right now, hell, we don't even have the test results back but these are test results that I don't want back. I want my somewhat healthy husband back. Damn you platelets, damn you illness, damn you! I feel like my heart is breaking. Tony told me last night "it's not like I am going to die tomorrow." But what he don't understand is he is supposed to live forever. Who else will love me like he does? Who will tuck me in every night and fix my dinner? Who will love me at my worst and my best? Dammit. I am sick over this, sick. I know I am being selfish and bratty but I don't want my husband to be ill anymore. I am so fucking mad, MAD! This isn't how things are suppose to be. He feels bad at least 5 days a week now, maybe more, maybe less and well, I just can't talk about it anymore.

On to other things and I am failing at besides coping, sleeping and general life, I fell of the Weight Watchers wagon last night and early this AM. I have been doing so well the past two weeks. I am have lost a little over 8lbs in two weeks. But last night, not a good night. KFC was my downfall, book club, I did somewhat better there but I still ate way to much. And I kinda feel lousy about it but it's too late. I can't "uneat" what I have already eaten. So I hope today I will make better choices and that today will be a better day.

Sleep, beautiful sleep

I am dead-dog-ass tired. I am tired and worn-out and I can't cry anymore. Did I mention I was kind of hungry too? I know that it is "head" hunger and not real hunger because I just scarfed down a bag of popcorn about an hour or two ago. Damn. Why don't I just go to bed? Well, therein lies my tale of woe. Care to sit a spell and listen?

First off we will start with the tale of death, doom and destruction that started last Thursday with the trip to the liver specialist at B-North, which is approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes away. Nice Dr, wants to "get to the bottom of this platelet thing". Great, you have a go at that Dr. because the hematologist was "getting to the bottom of this platelet thing" for about 13 months. And 13 months and about $11,000 later guess what she found out? Tony has low platelets and they don't get any better. I could have told her that for free and we could have bought a newer car with that insurance money! But I digress. So Tony has to have all these test and guess where they have to be done? B-North. Nice hospital, really, great too bad it is fucking an hour and twenty minutes away and we have to go down there three more times for tests and then another time for results. Sweet. I love driving and Tony loves tests so it works out. Fucker.

So this whole test thing, how does it go? Well,to start off, Tony's decides not to take his blood pressure medication for about 5 days before the test because "he ran out just the other day" and didn't take before the test even though he was instructed to take the damn medication. Dammit just take it OK?  So his blood pressure is nice and high and he has just enough water weight not to be able to have the scheduled test completed. Seriously. Then they decide he has to get some platelets (because he has none) and the shit hits the fan. He threatens to rip out his IV and leave. Things were ugly for a minute but got better. Amazingly enough he gets some platelets (I figured with his luck and health issues they would be fresh out of his kind or some stupid shit) and breaks out in hives. Which is not a good thing. After a small amount of panicking because the nurse would not listen to me "hey look at this hives, he just got platelets, don't ya think something should happen?!" We get to another department which notices the hives and takes care of them. Yeah! Tony gets the liver biopsy and about 3 1/2 hours later we get to leave!

Tony is doing pretty good. He is just a little sore but he refuses to go to bed. Could be all the steroids he received because of the hives. So up I sit with him to make sure he behaves.

If he doesn't go to bed soon, I am pretty sure I am going to just fall over. My head hurts and my eyes are tired and dammit I am starving and I wanna go to bed! I am thinking about slipping him some benadryl and calling it a night...;)

Mad as hell

My husband is sick and I am pissed off about it. Pissed off, guilty, sad, confused, worried and even more pissed off. I am not really pleasant to be around right now. After 13 months of platelet death we still know nothing. And now he is having all these tests over the next few weeks (they have to be spread out because he has to have anesthesia to have them done) and we are scared to death. I have cried and cried and cried some more. I got into a fight with my Mom and I am pissed off at my baby sister. I am not a good person right now. Not sure that I have ever been a good person but now is really bad. I am losing my hair, broke out, can't sleep or can't stop sleeping and did I mention I cry a lot? We have been through so much I just am wore out.

Tony is a trooper, he still does all the grocery shopping, waits on me hand and foot, cooks and pretends to clean even when he is sick. I am still mean as hell, unsympathetic and demanding. Apparently I am narcissistic and a jerk on top of that. I am not a good at home caregiver. I am caregiver-ed out. And it's not fair to Tony. He didn't do anything to be sick like this. His health problems are just because no real reason. And it pisses me off. I want to be the perfect wife who stuffs and fluffs and knows the perfect thing to say. Who cooks the best, healthiest meal ever and kisses all boo-boos away. But, alas, I am not. I don't cook and I whine a lot. I try and I fail, then I try again. I wish I knew what to do, what to say and dammit I wish I could stop crying.

I suppose there is a lesson to be learned in all of this mess. Something brilliant and life-changing. I just hope I don't miss this lesson because it would be a damn shame to go through all this for nothing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we have heard this song before

Today was for shit, thanks for asking. I ask my pt what she thinks about me going back to work next week. She clamps her lips shut and looks at me for a minute. I am like, oh so not going to happen huh? She then starts talking about 3 weeks this and 3 more weeks that and I stopped listening somewhere around 3.  Now if I didn't want to go back to work, you know I would have been back about a month ago. Can't get a girl get a break? Oh wait, I guess that was the problem in the first place eh?

Then Tonys platelets don't know what the hell they are supposed to do. Stupid fuckers, they were supposed to go UP with all of the steroids he is taking. UP, not down, first week down from 67 to 55 (or something close to that), this week down to 43. Dammit. So now the hematologist doesn't think it's ITP, could be something else. Maybe now it's his liver. Really? Maybe now, what about a year ago when all this shit started what about then? GRRRR

And this isn't a good time of year for any of us. The anniversary of Gran's death and Gertrud's death is this week. It's been two years and I think it will take 200 more before the pain goes away. I love you gran and gertrud and I miss you every day.

Well, with that I am going to bed. Fuck you Friday, I am going to try again tomorrow.

Seriously? Is that how it's going to be?

I have had the dreaded "writers block" which has been ongoing for about a month or so, give or take a few days. I have things going on in my life, never a shortage of things to talk about when life is concerned eh? But when I try to write all that comes out is whining shit that I don't really think I should subject anyone including myself to (ending a sentence with the word "to" makes me think I am breaking some sort of sentence law but it's late and who the hell really cares?) (ok so maybe it is bothering me, perhaps it should be "anyone to, including me"? yeah, yeah I think that's it but I have already typed in "cute" thoughts so deal ok?) So basically I have started and trashed everything I have written, including the 2000 words I have completed for my senior seminar paper which is due Dec. 2nd. Yeah me. The paper needs 3000 more words and I could really just give a flying shit about that paper. Screw you paper fairy you can't eat me! (fail me perhaps but eat me, never)

So what is going on in my oh-so-itchy life? Well, the cast of doom is still on. I am on the countdown however, 7 more days until the cast comes off or I lose my sanity. We shall see. For some crazy reason I have it in my head that I can be mostly non-weight bearing since August and just return to work full-time Nov. 5th after getting my cast off. I think I am delusional but what's a girl to do? She can dream can't she? Not that I ever really want to go back to work but I sure like electric, food, water and the such and without work, this fat girl is going to starve. Thank Goodness for savings or Tony would be out there hooking, making me some money!
(by the way, if your place of employment offers short-term disability and you don't take it, you are a dumbass, just ask me, Mrs. Dumbass).

My love and I just celebrated 16 years of marital bliss. Or some shit like that. 16 years of total drama, fighting, whining, bitching and moaning and I wouldn't change a thing (well, except maybe have sex more often but you really didn't want to know that eh?) Good lord I was just a baby. What the hell we were thinking! Getting married young is hard but I wouldn't trade Tony for the world (maybe a Dodge Charger, full loaded however, but not the world. Have you seen the shape it's in?!)

But onto other things. Tony has been really sick with this gallbladder, which, most generally other than being sick, isn't a big deal. Meet up with a surgeon, select a date and boom, no more gallbladder. But things are never that easy in Tony's life. He just can't have surgery because he has ITP (which is idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, basically, low platelet count of no known cause). For those of you not in the know, platelets are these wonderful things that make the blood clot, thus if platelets are low, blood doesn't clot making surgery a big no-no. If you are really excited about ITP you can read up on it here:
http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Itp/ITP_WhatIs.html
I am really feeling bad for my husband because I am broken and I can't drive so no matter how bad he feels he is dragging my ass to p-town for college once a week. Steph thank god is taking me to class on Weds. Thanks Steph!  Sean has been riding up with us to keep Tony company and that has really been a blessing, as the Tone is getting pretty down about all the upcoming Dr. appt and crap he has to do before he can even have surgery! Life is never simple. For example, to get the platelet count up, Tony has to "trial" steroids, which in turn make can make blood sugars raise and because of the super dose he will be taking, it is almost a sure thing that his blood sugar will go through the freaking roof. So one appointment to the hematologist, one to the family doc. See the cycle here. Weekly blood work, daily blood glucose checks, more meds, repeat. All this for a damn gallbladder. At least it is just annoying things and nothing really serious. It always could be worse.

Well, I think that is about all I have to say tonight. It's late and everyone else is snoring.