I am not proud to admit I’m voluntarily not attending my EMT refresher tonight, because a part of me is taunting the phrase "skipping class" in that slacker way. As in, I’m skipping class because I am lazy and would rather kick back with some beers and watch TV.

But I am not lazy, my TV is off, and I have no beer.

It all comes down to comfort level. Which is not to say, "it’s more comfy here in my jammies than bundled in a coat outside" but rather whether I am feeling strong enough to put myself in a situation that makes my heart pound and skin crawl in fear.

Today is not a Strong Day.

I had a doctor’s appt yesterday, as I believed I was coming down with shingles. I had insatiable, deep itching in a band around my left back and chest, and the lower 1/4 of my left breast. My lower back around T12/S1, as well as inside my spine at T6, were both sore. When I would scratch my skin, it didn’t help, because the itch was under the skin and I couldn’t reach it! I would scratch one place, and the itch would flare up in patches to the left and right. Then when I stopped scratching, the whole thing would flare up in defiance. Urghhhh!!! I also had a headache from sneezing/coughing, so I took an Excedrin, which cut down on the itching. (I later read, this probably happened because the aspirin/acetominophen decreased the inflammation of the affected nerve) I then took a neurontin, to try to make the Excedrin work better (because the sneezing/coughing headache rarely responds to pain meds) and naturally, that shut down the dermatome itching by probably 90%. I mean, wahooo!!! but, it’s also like taking your car to the mechanic when it’s not making the funny noise. "Hey, I’m sick, but you can’t tell." *snicker*

Anyway the doc popped a gasket about my weight, which is a smidge below my heaviest (which I’d hit last winter before losing 32 lbs), trying to scare me straight by telling me my wonky overnight/on-call work schedule is cancer-causing, and I was getting set up for a heart attack, diabetes, etc. To which my response was, (a) tell me something I don’t know, and (b) I don’t care!! I could have a heart attack tomorrow and I would not care. Got diabetes? Oh well. *shrug* Guess that’s the way it goes.

And I also told him where he could stick turning my diet upside-down, and eating all new foods that I hate. (Which is going some, because I love meat and veggies. So you know he suggested some real crap.) My diet might not be healthy, but what he was suggesting was climbing a mountain, freaking me out, and it was NOT gonna happen.

He identified a lot of what I was saying and feeling as depression, which neither I nor Mom saw … and this led to a frank discussion about my PTSD and where I’m at with it. Finally, a meeting of the minds. It pissed me off that I had to break down and snivel in a puddle of snot to get the point across, but by the same token, I protect my weaknesses and emotions fiercely. I don’t let people see ‘em. I don’t let people in. So the doc had to break down my barriers in order to get to ‘em, and honestly I don’t know any other way he could have gotten to it if he hadn’t pissed me off.

So instead of just upping my Paxil to 30 mg consistently — which did "get me by" during my first 6 months of (then-untreated) PTSD, he added 150 mg Wellbutrin XL to the mix, while keeping my Paxil at 20 mg.

I was uncomfortable adding a 2nd anti-depressant because I felt as though I am masking what was going on, rather than fixing anything. I was also worried I was basically going to go manic. However, I had forgotten that anti-depressants do not make you drunk like booze, or zombie-ish like Valium. The right AD will clear the junk and sickly thoughts out of your head, and restore your long-missed clarity and good attitude. But how does that work when you’re already on an AD??

Walking out of the Dr’s office, I felt like I’d been put through a wringer. I was tired, battle-worn, and weak. Mom and I grabbed some lunch at a quiet restaurant, which felt really nice, actually, and then we parted ways… she ran her errands, and I went home and went to bed!! I’d only had 2 hrs of sleep that morning and was exhausted. Well, my nap sucked… I slept very lightly, so the 4.5 hours that passed seemed to drag by… I woke up at 9 PM cranky as all hell and with a very dry mouth. OMG, it was like cotton mouth on steroids. As I woke up a little bit more and a little bit more, my mood did improve, and I read about the side-effects of Wellbutrin… naturally freaking myself out because "irritability, anxiety, and panic attacks" are all side-effects and had been widely reported by others. I was thinking, great, I’ve been started on something that’s going to cause the problems I’m trying to get rid of! I tried to push that thought OUT of my mind, and also noted that the dry mouth was a very common side-effect… much more so than irritability and anxiety. :) Well, at least I knew it was working, right? LOL. I drank some water. Dry mouth is not a show-stopper.

Today I have noticed my eyes are very dry too. At this rate I am going to have to take my contacts out for sleeping (I know, I know, spare me the lectures) because they are way dry and clouded up. Dang! Now that’s annoying.
However I’ve also noticed that I am in a fairly decent mood today. I don’t feel quite so victim-ish today. Just generally, I don’t feel like I am at the bottom of the totem pole. I feel like I’m up a bit higher on the pecking order in life. I do feel uncertain, and fragile, like I am struggling with sorting things out in my head? I don’t feel strong. But I do feel less bad.

Add to that the fact that the world is literally covered in ice outside… we had downpour rains, then downpour ice pellets, then the temperature dropped 25° in a couple of hours, and then it snowed up the wazoo, yesterday. And the temp kept going down, down, down. The roads suck. It has been sub-zero temps all day with an incessant, cutting, dangerously cold blustery wind. Now the sun has gone down and the temps are dropping even further. My class is at a rural fire station that is out in the boonies, miles off the highway. If I go to class, we are talking a total of 45 miles on glare ice-covered roads, with bald tires, in sub-zero temperatures, in the middle of frickin’ nowhere, after dark. Uhmmmm, no, thank you. That is just way, way outside my comfort zone, especially with the emotional and physical upheaval I am going through, 36 hours and counting. The timing on this is just crackpot.

So I sent my instructor a nice email with an apology. I didn’t explain the PTSD/meds thing, I just cited the bad roads and sub-zero conditions. If he wants to push it, I will go into the gory details. I also suggested his sending me the homework assignment that he had created for the 3 people who are missing tonight due to a conference. So, there is a suitable make-up assignment, and by suggesting it I should have met the criteria the ADA cites.

An interesting thing, my Dr. was quite adamant about my having rights to financial support for medical bills (meds, appts, counseling) and that I need to hire a lawyer, if necessary, to stand up for myself and collect that. Yesterday I was sitting there looking at him thinking, "no Goddamn way, what is he smoking?!?" — particularly I did not feel I was deserving of it. Today, I find my brain actually wondering if I am deserving of it. Not so much in a logistical sense, but more in general terms, do I deserve help? As a person? Do I have a right to that expectation? I don’t believe I do, yet, but at least I am questioning it. Rationally I know there are people out there who would say this is progress.

Similarly, it took me some time to think about it today, before I finally realized that yes, I did have a right to expect to be safe at home and not out in the cold on crappy-ass roads (I mean, we are talking crappy by northern Wisconsin winter standards — this isn’t 2 inches of snow and 28° here — so you know it’s frickin’ bad) risking life and limb for something non-essential. (A 911 call is essential. A class is not.) It’s nothing like taking classes on a campus. I remember those days — totally apples and oranges. It seems rather preposterous to me that a night class being held at a backroads location 90 miles away from campus would not be canceled when every other school and meeting that required any bit of travel was canceled today. This is where the community colleges are way out of touch with the real world, IMO.

Incidentally, I have taken a NeoLife Phyto Defense pack every 12 hours and the itching has not returned. (That is also probably why I didn’t sleep well yesterday or part of last night — Phyto is so packed with nutrients, that it gives me an energy buzz and it’s just about impossible to sleep through) My New Chapter Stress Advantage arrived by UPS yesterday and I re-started my daily 2 pills/day yesterday. Between the two — I am sure mostly the Phyto, that stuff is titanium — the itchyness has not really returned, and my backaches are easily 60%+ less. I haven’t had the viral aches in my hands/wrists today either. I am thinking that I might actually successfully fight off the shingles. How freakin’ sweet would that be?! Guess we will find out when the rash doesn’t appear over the weekend or next week… :)

###

Tagged with: • • • • • • •

Filed under: Meds & Supplements • Physical/Body

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!