oncall sex for life: sick

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Tried a short walk yesterday

I'd thought to get out and get a bit of light exercise yesterday. Patrick and I went to this park called Meadowdale Beach, and I hadn't ever been there before, so I didn't realize the trail was pretty steep (steps involved). Climbing uses my back muscles, so we weren't able to do much without me being in pain, but I did get a few pictures anyway.

I'm such a sad sack lately. I'm frustrated at this pain and not being able to do anything. I'm afraid of this coming week as I have a ton of work to do plus another therapeutic massage (first one was yesterday, fairly excruciating), and I know I'm going to be in a lot of pain and be very stressed. Dreading all that.

Everything makes me tear up and want to cry. I'm very pathetic just now. I'm not taking pain meds currently because I want to save them for this horrible next week, and I can't take Ibuprofen. The last two times I've thrown up for some reason or other (last was Friday night, time before that was Valentine's), my saliva afterwards has had streaks of fresh blood in it. I think perhaps the Ibuprofen is doing something to my stomach, so I'm not taking it anymore. I'm going to bring that up when I see the doctor on Wednesday and see what he says.

I can't even lift the cello without pain, so lessons are currently out of the question. Fortunately my teacher is very understanding. Not sure when I'll be able to go back to it. Probably a few weeks at least.

This morning before Patrick had to go play his opera I made breakfast. Cheese blintzes (sweet crepes with a filling of ricotta, huckleberry honey and vanilla, raspberry sauce drizzled over), cantaloupe and tea. Patrick graciously cut up the cantaloupe before having to shower and dress (opera requires a black suit).

It was mostly okay, except I've been feeling like I've got a tiny bit of vertigo today. It keeps happening. Suddenly my head spins a bit and I get a wave of half nausea, half dizziness. Doesn't matter if I'm sitting down or standing up. I am not sure what that's from. Maybe either the accident giving me a minor concussion or going completely off Lexapro. It isn't severe, thankfully.

Anyway, that's what's going on. Here are the pictures I took. Hope y'all like them. Hopefully clicking on them will give you bigger versions, but I'm not sure...

Beautiful Friday

I'm feeling a little better. I hope that continues and I don't relapse! Have a good weekend, everyone. Don't forget to reset all your clocks. Not sure why all Pinterest will give me for links are small pictures. Click on them for their larger versions.

Source: flickr.com viaAdrasteia on Pinterest

Source: Adrasteia on Pinterest

Source: mostbeautifulpages.com viaAdrasteia on Pinterest

Source: loveliegreenie.tumblr.com viaAdrasteia on Pinterest

Source: yusufartun.deviantart.com viaAdrasteia on Pinterest

I am sick YET AGAIN.

So monumentally tired of this crap. I feel horrible, and I'm going to go home and back to bed as soon as I can. This is the third or fourth cold in just a few months. My throat felt swollen, and it was hard to swallow. Then on came the stuffiness, and now the icky throat feeling and congestion are being accompanied by a wonderful dry cough. I'll take something to make it productive when I get home.

Hope all of you are healthier than I am.

Dude, the movie

Patrick: Well, there wasn't a lot to do, but at least I got to see the end of Dude.

Me: What?

Patrick: Dude. You know?

Me: What are you talking about? Is this a TV series or a movie? I have no idea.

Patrick: DUDE! Dude, with the worms?

Me: Oh, DUNE!

Patrick: Yeah, Dude. I'm still very congested.

Me: That makes so much more sense now.

I want to tell you a story.

This story begins years ago, but it flashes back and forth between those days and these.

I went to my doctor appointment on Monday, and had a meltdown. I went by myself. Usually Patrick goes with me, but he was unable to, and I am a big girl. I put on my Woman Pants and went my damn self. We were discussing what to do about my medications, and the doctor put forth a very reasonable suggestion (spurred in part by how artsy I am; he felt it would be neat for me, since I am creative) that I should videotape myself when I'm very depressed and suicidal, in an attempt to better understand that mood (or something like that, I don't remember exactly).

I didn't react well. I felt terror and revulsion welling up inside me, and began to have a mini panic attack. I couldn't speak very well anymore, and told him I couldn't do it. He said that was perfectly okay, and it was only a suggestion, and thanked me for hearing him out. I obviously couldn't have a productive appointment anymore, so he said it was okay for me to sit there and take as long as I needed. After he left, I sobbed and silently screamed to myself. I could not handle the idea. I wasn't sure why, exactly, but I couldn't. And I felt alone. Horribly, utterly alone. I finally managed to get my shit together enough to put my coat on and get ready to go. A nurse came in and asked if I was okay. I said I wasn't, but I was fine enough to get home. Then I left. After I'd gotten home, the doctor called me to make sure I was doing all right. I tried describing what was wrong with me, but I was still upset and didn't do a very good job, so I wrote this letter today to better illuminate my situation:

Hey Doc.

After I got home on Monday night and Patrick turned up, I regaled him with the tale of my meltdown. He thought of something I'd blocked out that might explain my reaction to your (very good) suggestion: many years ago, when I was married for the first time, my then husband pressured me into letting him take naked pictures of me. I wasn't comfortable with it, but I wasn't comfortable with much in that marriage, and I was young and trusting. Anyway, at some point after that, I did something (I no longer remember what) that he didn't like, and to keep me in line he threatened to post the naked pictures of me all over the internet. I freaked out and felt the need to warn my parents in case he decided to send the pictures to them. The following day I got home before he did and went through his computer, deleting all the pictures and the backup copies. When he came home, I told him what I'd done and he seemed shocked that I'd actually take the step of getting rid of them. He seemed even more surprised that I'd found and gotten rid of all the backups he'd made. I have never trusted anyone to do that to me again. That first marriage was full of Never Agains.

Making a videotape of suicidality isn't the same as naked pictures, but then again, it is. I guess I can't bear the thought of being caught somehow in such a state of vulnerability. I have done everything possible to ensure I'm never vulnerable again. Before I was married, a guy held me down in front of a bunch of people and tried to yank my shirt up. No one helped me, and they laughed. I finally got away and cried in the bathroom. Afterward, I kicked him in the balls and took up martial arts. I swore that no one would ever be able to do that to me again. I already knew my ex would never come back and help me, no matter what happened. He let the sensei from the martial arts dojo stick his tongue in my ear, which was when I quit. He left me on a cliff when I was trying to climb out of this ravine thing and was afraid of falling. He told me what a terrible person I was when I was huddled in a ball on the floor of my kitchen, crying.

I learned that no one will ever help you. You have to help yourself. And if you do tell people that there is something wrong with you, they will betray your trust, tell other people, call you a liar, send people to your apartment to try to break in, pound on your door and call you a fucking bitch. It is a terrible, beautiful secret you have to keep, when something is wrong with you. If you don't keep it, they will call you crazy. Or worse, insist that you are fine and they know exactly what you mean because they once felt sad, or like punching someone. They can deal with it, so why can't you, you weak excuse for a person?

I sobbed a lot in the room after you left, and that was both because of my reaction to the suggestion and my brain screaming at me that my supports were being taken away with nothing offered in their place but an abhorrent suggestion. You are alone in the dark, and no one will ever help you. I know that isn't true, but that is how borderline feels. It is excruciating and overpowering. We are so desperately afraid of being abandoned that we create abandonment where there is none, and we overreact to the imagined desertion. So, of course, I overreacted. Fine, if I'm to stop some drugs with nothing to help me, then I'll stop ALL the drugs. I will show you what fucked up looks like. Watch this. You can't abandon me, I'm leaving YOU! Anger keeps the terror away. Anger has always been my shield against fear.

I stopped taking everything and spent the entire night lying awake, staring into the dark, worrying someone was going to break into the house and smash my head with a baseball bat. I did not go to work the next day, and I didn't sleep then either, until the nightfall. During the day, Patrick got through to my sense of reason and made me see that stopping all the drugs cold turkey was a very bad idea. I knew that, but I was so angry and afraid that torturing myself was the only control I felt I had left. I didn't eat yesterday, either, until about 5pm. After he and I talked about it, and I'd had some food, I felt a bit better. I took my pills last night, all of them except cut the Lexapro down to 5mg, and I slept well. I feel better today. I've lost something like 15 pounds in the last few months. I like that. It makes me feel better about myself. I haven't had a drop of alcohol since I had that ghastly hangover episode on Lexapro, and I don't think I will start again after I'm off of it. It isn't fun the way it used to be, it's expensive, and it's a lot of unnecessary calories.

Anyway, I just wanted to explain myself. I hope you don't feel badly about my meltdown in the office. It wasn't your fault.

Taryn

None of this is new. I've been like this since I was very little. I've always felt that no help was ever coming, especially at night, with the hellish dreams. What normal nine-year-old girl spends her chore money on ever bigger and sharper knives?

Mental illness is real. And, sometimes, it is terminal. I'm hopeful that it will prove otherwise in my case.

I was going to wear my awesome new fascinator today, and I even brought it with me, but halfway to work I decided I felt too tired and ill to deal with being stared at and poked by curious humans, so I left it in Patrick's car. I'll wear it when I feel like I can better handle the extra attention.
The neighbors next to us have this infuriatingly perfect-looking Stepford house and yard, so I was delighted to see that their current lawn ornament, supposed to look like a rustic homage to western wildlife, got sort of angled incorrectly and now appears to be a rusted-out buffalo taking a dump on their front lawn. It's the small pleasures, you know?
I finally managed to rid myself of this bag of junk from the attic I've been driving around in my car for approximately a month. I wanted to throw it away but I didn't want to get arrested for illegally dumping it, and we only have one 32-gal garbage can removed per month, so I had been looking for a good place to throw it away. I found to my surprise that I could cram it in the can for this month's collection, so I'm very pleased to have that gone. Just 350 more pounds of loft stuff to go! Sigh.
This cold at least isn't in my lungs, which is a good thing, but it is making my sinuses feel like they're stuffed with cement. I can't wait until this crap is gone. SO tired of being sick.

I dragged myself in today

I've never been stoned, but I'd imagine this is what it would feel like. I feel dumb as a post and kind of useless, but I'm trying! Stupid cold. I've got stuff to do, so no more days off for me. It's okay, though. I will manage. My throat began getting sore last night, and I still feel exhausted. Hopefully the doctor will help me out today, although more likely he'll tell me it's a virus and I'll end up having to wait until it gets really bad before they do something about it. That's usually what happens. I will ask about the shots, Mom, so don't worry! :)

I'm too out of it to write much more, so instead I will leave you with a picture of Gurgles playing Catch The Ribbon with my sister's dog Kitan (I'm mediating with my hand in the middle), a pit bull-mastiff mix who is sweeter than honey. He is mostly afraid of cats, since my sister's cats hate him, but Widget and Monkey didn't know that and hid under the bed. Gurgles has no fear of anything except thunder, so he sauntered right out and they played together. It was pretty cute.

STILL home sick

I slept until 1pm or so and I'm still in bed. I think maybe I feel a little better today. I have a nice wheeze when I exhale, but my back doesn't ache as much and I'm hopeful that tomorrow I will feel a little more improved. No nightmares for the last three nights or so, thankfully! I don't want to have to put up with that crap along with this illness.

Thank you all for your thoughtful comments! My phone won't allow me to comment even on my own blog, so I'm responding here. Sigh. I think Blogger and Apple have some sort of problem with their interaction.

Much love. Will try to look less homeless tomorrow.

Stayed home sick today

Still feel vile. Ugh. Head starts pounding every time I stand up, and my back still really aches. Is this the flu? I don't know, but I feel like crap. I'm going to try to make it in tomorrow. We'll see how that goes.

In better news, my grandmother, who along with my dad is also sick, was just discharged from the hospital after being admitted with pneumonia. She is recovering at home now, and I hope we all feel completely better soon!

Good luck to R with your appointment tomorrow! I hope you are able to make it and get your poor back looked at.

I hope the rest of you are healthier than I am!

My head is killing me (not literally)

This cold SUCKS. I'm sorry for not commenting on y'all's blogs. I am still reading, but my phone has quit allowing me to comment on them for some reason, and my head hurts too much to get up and do it at the laptop. I promise I am not ignoring any of you!

Thank you for the comments on the last one, girls. I have a doctor appointment on Wednesday, and we'll see what comes of it. I agree with you that something needs to change as far as the meds go!

We left an electric candle on last night, since sometimes having a light on makes the nightmares less bad when I wake up from them, and I slept all right. So I dug around and found a nightlight I bought years ago and plugged it in beside my bed. Maybe it will help. Can't hurt, anyway.

I hope you all have had a nice weekend. I'll definitely be glad when I'm feeling better.

Don't want to sleep, but I gotta

As jotted down in my doctor note:

Monday Dec 31 nightmares, don't remember details

Tuesday Jan 1 nightmare with sibling of some sort trying to kill me, changing gender (murderous sibling, not I), bugs outside, weirdly bent white woman with black designs all over her in yard

Wednesday Jan 2 paranoia about Patrick, severe anxiety about work emails, which are never bad. Just opening the email thing and seeing that I have some unread ones from work makes me want to slit my throat or cut my arms because somehow that will make it better.

Friday Jan 4 nightmare with stalking, torture, cycling through again and again, birthday cake with all these birthdays on it named Belinda. I showed them the bag of torture implements with blood and flesh on them and said what each would be used for. A white hot brand i blew on trying to cool it down got to only glowing red before I passed out from fear. A giant sea turtle hugging me, told Mom could not keep going through same actions as same result each time, finally realized dreaming, screamed to wake up, shattered. Next level, men in suits, still not right, still dream, screaming, shattered. Twice more, woke for real, slipped back down. This time I had a bow and arrows. I hunted them. I shot one through the heart and another through her side. I went over and physically rammed another arrow into her throat until she choked to death on her own blood.

I have a cold, and I'm NOT happy about it.

I don't think I would ever be happy about having a cold, but in this case I'm particularly pissed off. The last of our new hiking gear just arrived, and I really wanted to go for a hike this weekend, but I couldn't even open a tightly closed bottle at work today without stopping to rest in the middle of my efforts. My body is that out of it. I'm doing that stare-off-into-oblivion thing, and it's an effort even to compose a coherent blog post. Ugh!

I was really confused a couple times last night. One was when I'd gone to sleep and then woke up to see the light on and Patrick playing video games. I don't know what I thought, but suddenly I was all, "What's going on?!" Poor Patrick. Maybe I thought there was a video game apocalypse. Or it was suddenly the middle of the afternoon in August. I don't know.

The other occasion was when I'd woken up around 7:45am, and my alarm goes off at 8. There was enough light outside that I could see it through the blinds, but damn if I couldn't figure out what the blinds were. I have horrible vision without glasses, and my brain was so clogged up with snot and such that I just stared at the blinds for about 2 minutes trying to figure out what they were and why there were lines of light between each one. Sigh. This cold is turning me into an idiot.

I finally got up and dragged myself in to work, Patrick in tow, but I can't wait to go back to bed. So out of it. I hate you, sickness. *stares blankly at the wall for a while*

In other news, I want THIS (see below):

The model is the lady who makes them (I think...). Except with different colors, primarily red, blue, green (all in jewel tones since pastels look insipid on me), and black. Maybe some white and grey, but I'm not sure yet. I want it to look like stained glass. And I want a slightly different hood, done in their Faerie Queen style (long tail down the back).

Sadly it is expensive (as most things I want are), so I must save up for a long time in order to buy it. I tried to get Patrick to not buy me Christmas and birthday presents last year in order to feel like I was saving up for it more. He kind of listened. Sort of. Not really. He got me an awesome umbrella. Oh, and these neat hair dye thingies, purple and blue. I will try to take a picture of what it looks like when I use them when I'm feeling better, if I don't screw it up. I tried doing it the other day and ended up with blue snot the next morning. Apparently the color gets aerosolized pretty easily...

I want to wear that Dream Coat (that is what she calls them) whilst carrying my mad Tim Burton parasol and having blue and purple hair. It's a good thing Patrick knew I was nuts when he married me, or this all might put him right off...

Numb face

Well, as if this weekend full of sewage weren't enough, today I had to have a tooth crowned. I went to the dentist for a cleaning, and it turned out one of my big fillings in my right bottom molar had a hole in it, and decay was beginning inside. I asked if they could just go ahead and fix it today since I was already there, and fortunately they weren't too busy, so we were able to get it done.

I'm at home now, with shaking hands, a numb face that doesn't work on one side, and just a general feeling of vileness. They give you epinephrine to make the numbness last longer. This is so they don't have to stick you again halfway through a long procedure. I like the numbness lengthening effect, but epinephrine makes my heart race and my hands shake. The last time I had it, they had me get up and go over to this machine for X-rays after, and I could barely walk without passing out. I had to sit down and rest. Sigh.

Anyway, I am going to take it easy today and recover feeling in my face. Hopefully this icky feeling wears off soon.

Almost everything in my house has the sniffles

Except Patrick and Widget, who both feel better. Now it's Monkey, Gurgles and myself. This cold hasn't progressed into anything worse, it's just lingering a bit. Monkey and Gurgles both have a cold that they caught from Widget. Who knows where she got it... Kitty colds are just so pitiful. Monkey will sneeze a couple times, sniffle a little, then look at me with overwhelming sadness like she can't believe I'm letting such a thing happen to her. Sigh. Gurgles is obviously ill, judging by the exponential decline in how much he's airborne during the day. Poor sick kitties.

I'm so looking forward to this three-day weekend and then a week-long break the week of Thanksgiving. Our entire household could use some rest and relaxation. I really hope we aren't all still sick when the holiday rolls around. Probably won't be... *knock on wood*