Duality

"You've been through a lot of pain. And it's hard to trust anyone, hard to believe that anyone could care because you've always hated yourself. On one level, you've wanted people to believe your tough facade. But on a deeper level, you've wished that someone would be able to get past it, to get inside you and listen to your heart. But you've been afraid that no one in the world would understand - or worse, that you would drive them away." Rachel Reiland

This whole blog has been my demolition of my facade. All of my writing here is the crazy side of me, the side that unrelentingly points out: "I'm still here. Still sick". It's the reason my family can't stand half of the things I write because it's so much easier to imagine me as the fully-functional woman that gets up, goes to work everyday, performs her tasks easily, and goes to sleep with a contented heart. I understand that it's easier to see me that way because that is what I present to the "real world", - the world that lives outside this computer screen. At least most of the time. I've cried so often at work that people don't even seem to think it's strange anymore...it's just B....crying again.

I have a potential lawsuit against the FOB and a family that I rely on and need in so many ways that I can't even begin to count. When they ask me to take down a post or move it to my private blog, I honor their requests. Yet, there is this almost masochistic drive to prove to the internet that there are two women living inside me (without the dissassociation of a multiple personality disorder, fortunately).

There is the me that can bathe and dress a child in under 15 minutes and enjoy the beautiful peace and love of my son's smile when he cuddles up to me the morning, in bed together. There is the me that can be an A-student in a MBA program and sit through hours of unrelenting pain to learn subjects that I can't immediately apply to any conceivable work situation. Then there is the me that just wants to disappear. The me that says, "You've fucked everything up. Every decision you've ever had and every choice you've ever made has led to nothing but pain for yourself and those you love. Anything you haven't fucked up yet is just a matter of time. Leave now. Go. Just go now and you won't have to be around to deal with the mess you've made of everything. You're so pathetic. You've alienated everyone whoever trusted and loved you. They're sick of you and your so-called illness"

That's usually how it goes in my head before I end up in the hospital. On Thanksgiving I decided that I wouldn't make my Dad find me in my apartment. I decided to hide behind a restaurant and wait. Then the phone rang it was like Fate/God/Life/Universe was giving me a game show lifeline, one of those "Phone a Friend" gimmics. I answered and smiled. It was one of my best friends, telling me how much she loved me. Then suddenly my Dad was on the other line, demanding to know which parking lot I was in. I clicked back to my friend and told her that it was a neat trick to call my Dad while I was still on the phone with her. She said she was worried. I made an incredibly stupid decision and decided that my Dad would never find me if I was on the freeway...that I would just pull over when I got tired. It didn't work like that though. I drove almost 30 miles south with no memory. I woke up in the ICU the next day in the seaside town I drove to, vomiting, alone with a nurse that cleaned me up afterwards.

Four days and many pages to a psychiatrist who never answered later, I was released. I went back to both of my jobs, like I've always done. Sure, after two weeks of bickering back and forth about insurance and deductibles, I got a new therapist and felt excited about the possibilities of actually recovering. Nothing had actually changed though. Nothing ever does from an event like that. It takes all your problems and magnifies them by about 1,000 until you're lucky if you can make it out of bed every day without feeling like a worthless piece of shit that brought all of this down on yourself. I mean - if you feel like a failure, try failing at death. It's one of cosmos' cruelest jokes. On the screen of life you see the same message flash over and over: GAME OVER! You've failed at both living and dying! GAME OVER. Try to find someway to live now, sucka. Sucks to be you.

Fast forward to Sunday. I can feel it all happening again. I'm crying uncontrollably and I decide that I want to break the pattern. I decided to proactively go to a hospital that my new therapist recommended. She said that there was a unit there for highly-motivated patients. After several phone calls, I found out that the unit was closed and I would be placed into the general population in a locked unit. During the admission process, they took my blood pressure and heart rate. I was having chest pains and a BP of 149/93. My heart rate was a steady 110 beats per minute. I should be burning calories at that rate, instead I'm clutching my chest wondering if it's possible for a heart to beat so hard that it damages the muscles surrounding it.

I was taken to a large hospital in the Med Center. Ironically, it's the hospital that Dew now works at. I thought for a moment to ask for him, but I was deemed a threat to myself and put in a room with no medical equipment, save for a bed that moved up and down and table that rolls bedside at 7:30pm. The lock was on the outside of the room and required a key to enter. The light switch was also on the outside of the room. I was there for three hours before I got a glass of water and was able to go to the bathroom. I called my Dad. I asked for him to come down to the hospital and stay outside the door - just to remind them that I was still inside. He decided not to come. It was late. The nurses and doctors took my blood, did two physical exams, a EKG, and chest x-ray. They fed me a sandwich and locked the room back up. At 5:45am the next morning, I left the hospital, again in an ambulance, back to the hospital my therapist recommended. Apparently I had been medically cleared. My anxiety was the culprit to my chest pain, not anything vaguely related to the cardiovascular system.

At 6:15am I was back at the hospital. I had to wait until 10am to go up on the unit. I'm not exactly sure why, something about the nurses not being ready to admit me. The unit is the loudest, most choatic place I've ever been. Everyone is either yelling, listening to music, or singing. Nurses are shouting orders at each other and the patients. The patients are mostly ignoring them and I'm wondering where the closest bed is so I can go to sleep. I left, AMA, 48 hours later into my parents' custody. Although everyone from my psychiatrist to my sister thinks that I'm crazy for admitting myself one day to discharging myself three days later, I knew I wasn't going to get what I needed from that situation. Hell, I couldn't even get a decent nap in that situation, let alone intensive therapy.

So now I'm back. No one trusts that I made the right decision to go AMA. Yet once, just this once, I believe in myself. I stopped the destructive, abusive pattern that I've been putting myself through. I didn't give in to the urges of the dark side. If I could have seen into the future and known what life on the unit was like (it's not like they give tours before admission, ya know?) there is no way I would have admitted myself there. But I did, then I had the presence of mind to get out. I don't see it as a failure. Even my dark side doesn't see it as one, even though she desparately seeks the approval of her friends, family, and doctors and realizes that she won't find it.

I'm scared about the future...almost horrified that I've yet again fucked something up with this confession. Someone, somewhere will find it and I'll be embarassed and horrified to have my dirty laundry on display, but if I've learned one thing from the past six years, it's that you can't deny the existence of the duality. To do so leads to disasterous consequences.

Happy

(and I'm told that he made this sentence by himself with the wooden letters. So very Montessori, no?)

I'm picking Zac up from his preschool in a couple of minutes and I couldn't be happier at the thought of going home with him and settling in for the night. We are going to decorate the apartment tonight for Christmas, although I was just told that Santa needs to come for ALL members of the family, not just the kids. Basically, that means that I have to buy stocking stuffers for myself, which is somehow demoralizing. I find myself walking around stores going, "Now just what would Santa get me anyways?"

At least this fight is over for now. I can relax and continue fighting every other battle that I have on my plate. More to come...

Pause

Sorry about that. I get the feeling that my pause in blogging was being interpreted as rather dramatic. I didn't intend for that to happen.

So much to catch up on. I guess the first thing that I'll clear off my plate is an explanation of where I've been for the past two weeks. I'm not sure exactly how to answer that, other than a basic outline. I was in the hospital in Galveston for four days following Thanksgiving and discharged on Monday, November 30th. I worked at Pier 1 that night, to avoid missing even more shifts there. The rest of that week is a blur from trying to write a couple of grant requests, complete the 2010 Development Plan for my "department" (which is me, managing me, and forecasting on my productivity), trying to prepare for an accounting test on Friday, sitting in school for 9 hours on Sunday, and working for five hours at Pier 1 on Sunday. That brings us to today. If you ask me, as many people so kindly have, if I'm "OK", my answer will change depending on the day or time. After work on Sunday, I was most definitely not OK. I've been really down today at work today as well and I called in sick to Pier 1 tonight. Am I likely to go back to the hospital in the next 24 hours? No. Should I be in an inpatient or intensive outpatient program somewhere? Possibly.

What else? Well, I did see the Infectious Disease doctor. She thinks that the acineobacter in my mouth is a red herring and that I've probably had it for sometime. The fact that I've never known that I've had it can be attributed to the fact that nobody has ever cultured me for it before. In her opinion, you tend to find what you go looking for. She thinks my mouth problems are caused by my sudden weight gain (+35lbs in less than six months, that has to be a record), sleep walking, and sleep eating as a result of sleep apnea. She's ordered a sleep study for me, which I hope to complete by the end of this week. I'll go into the sleep study at 7:30pm, hang out while they hook me up, watch tv until 10pm or so, go to sleep (Ambien aided, which surprised me), and get woken up at 6am - sharp. I can shower or leave at 6am. I was also told that my nasal passages are almost completely closed and that I should be using a steroid nasal spray. So, there's that.

Big surprise! My back didn't hurt at all while I was in the hospital...unlike the days during the weekend where I would hurt from lying on the couch or in my bed too long. Nope, not like at all. I had no pain. Now that I'm back to typing and sitting upright in a potentially non-ergonomic office chair, I'm in all kinds of pain. My forearm and my wrist hurt. My ribs hurt. I generally hate life in this position, yet this is where I find myself 8-10 hours a day.

I have one more accounting test to complete before the end of this module of grad school. I have a week to complete it, so here's hoping that I can do it this weekend. Until then, I'll try to make my pauses a little less dramatic and shorter in length.

I Just Want One Part of Me to Work

Isn't it fun to jump back and forth between medical conditions? Really, I think I just complain a lot. If it's not my back, it's my mouth. If it's not my mouth, it's my job. If it's not my job, it's my volunteer work or school. See? I'm a barrel of complaints and not fun at all.

Back to my mouth though. I had an "interesting" (if you call getting completely freaked out an "interesting experience") talk with the ENT nurse yesterday. I said that the first round of antibiotics they put me on for my mouth weren't working. They did nothing, actually. My throat still hurts. My mouth is still white, dry, and sticky. So, I asked if they could put me on another class of antibiotics (preferably one with a generic). She said she'd ask the doc and call me back. When she called back, she said that they would call in another prescription for me, but if it didn't work that I would need to go see an Infectious Disease Specialist.

Let me say that again: Infectious Disease Specialist. As in, I quite possibly have a rare form of bacteria that I picked up from God knows where in my lymphatic system. It's expressing itself in my mouth and throat. Every time I have gotten my temperature taken for the past five months, it's been between 99-100. Apparently, I have a relatively harmless infectious disease. It's more like a baby goat at a petting zoo and less like a flea-infected marmot carrying the bubonic plague. Did I mention that I was quarantined for the bubonic plague in Mongolia because someone had died from it? Granted, that was six years ago and none of my symptoms match (of course I checked, do you think I'm an idiot? I'm paranoid, not stupid), but none of my symptoms match anything else either.

I immediately call my sister, who begins wondering why I'm screeching at her. I was just so upset that the nurse wouldn't even tell me what kind of bacteria they cultured out of my throat. I asked the nurse today when I talked to her and she said that she didn't have my chart in front of me, but would fax the information to my primary care physician when I needed a referral to the INFECTIOUS DISEASE SPECIALIST. This kind of specialist is located lovingly in the not-ominous-sounding-at-all Department of Molecular Virology and Microbiology.

So many things can cause a white film on your tongue. Add in a sore throat, persistent low-grade fever, resistance to BOTH anti-fungal and antibiotic medication, and you have a nice medical mystery and very annoying condition.

Want to Feel My Rib?

Do you ever notice that there is two kinds of pain: ouch (that hurts! Stop it immediately) and ouch (yeah, that hurts, but I can tell that it's for a greater good and it feels almost a little good)? Physical therapy on Thursday really pushed the boundaries on ouch - in a bad way - and ouch - in a good way. I find it interesting that I'm actually looking forward to going back this afternoon.

Much like the drama in my mouth, this is a medical mystery months (going on years) in the making. I don't even really know where to start, other than to say my back started hurting in February 2008 when I was writing a grant. I waited a couple of months because, apparently, that's what I do. I'm a good waiter. I wait for my medical problems to resolve themselves before seeking treatment. It's just so unfortunate that they rarely do. Anyways, I saw a family practitioner, which is perhaps the WORST possible kind of doctor for pain. He thought I was drug-seeking because I had been using vicadin left over from an oral surgery to help me with the pain. In his mind, vague, non-injury-related "back problems" clearly indicated that I was hooked to hydrocodone and should immediately get out of his office.

Sigh.

Fast forward...I don't know....to August 2008. I met Dew and we started going to electro-accupuncture sessions. Basically, the needles are attached to electrical current and vibrate inside your skin. You can imagine how much fun that would be for 45 minutes, while lying on your stomach listening to music from a cd player. The pain relief from a session would last for about 3 days. Then I was back to my normal level of pain. I had a lot of accupuncture sessions and it worked for a while.

Then I saw an orthopedic surgeon and he suggested physical therapy and an anti-inflammatory. I went to one session of physical therapy (for $45) and didn't go back because it took too long and was too expensive.

I think at some point I see another family practitioner and beat my head against a wall. Then my psychiatrist started prescribing things for my back pain. Probably not the best idea considering muscle relaxers don't actually make me feel better, they just make me not care that I'm in pain. And I was in so much pain.

SOOOO....back to another family practitioner at my new place. She doesn't give me anything for pain and sends me to...get this...another orthopedic surgeon!! For another $45 I go and see the Ortho Doc, who happens to be Chair of the Orthopedic Department at a very prestigious medical school in town. I fall a little bit in love with him when he says, "Show me your pain" and I point to the middle of my back. He says, "Hmm...sometimes my patients don't tell me that the pain moves from side to side because they are afraid that it will affect their credibility with me" I gasped. "Yes! That's exactly what my pain does," I solemnly swear. He says, "It's probably a muscular problem that I'm not going to be able to help with. You are a non-surgical candidate. You should go see a Physical Pain and Rehabilitation Specialist".

Dew and I trundled to another doctor where I have a 2.5 hour appointment that involved pushing and pulling. I was prescribed physical therapy and an anti-inflammatory (stop me if you've heard this one before) and two MRIs since the x-rays and blood work came back normal.

I'm committed to physical therapy this time, mostly because I have to take care of myself. No one else will and I've worked like a dog all year. I thought I didn't have any vacation time because what was showing up on my check stub was a pitifully small amount. I'm still in a negative for sick leave after being in Peru in February 2009, so every time I go to the doctor, I have to use vacation time. Turns out, what was being printed on our check stubs was wrong. I have a surplus of vacation time from not taking more than 1 or 2 days all year. I can only carry-over 40 hours of time and if I don't use all my surplus vacation time before the end of the year I lose it.

The Pain Doc recommended a very specific therapist for me to work with at yet-another-prestigious hospital in town. I really like him, especially when he said he could literally feel where my rib was turned out and spent 20 minutes trying to manipulate it. That was the "ow, I want to kick you in your nuts" part. Fortunately, it was over relatively quickly.

Now there is just the money part to worry about. On my insurance plan, every session of pt costs $45. I'm scheduled for two sessions this week and my MRI is going to cost another $45. That's $135 in medical expenses for this week alone. I reapplied to Pier 1 to help cover some of these expenses. I'm hoping that I will be able to work a couple nights a week and on Sundays.

At least I can point to the really cool rib that's sticking out if someone thinks I'm faking my pain.

I'm Dying

(My apologies to folks who read part of this story already when it was up at this site. Just consider this a recap)

I'm all kinds of dramatic. I know this about myself. What's funny is that I tend to be like most people and will go crazy over a stubbed toe that is clearly an indicator my complete lack of balance and potential inner ear disorder. Yet, it took me 6 weeks to actually go to a doctor for a dry mouth. Mostly because, seriously, who goes to the doctor for a dry mouth? So if we back up from the time that I wrote that post, I have been having problems with my mouth since July 1st or so.

August: I pay $20 to see my old primary care physician, who looked at the whiteness in my mouth and on my tongue and said, "Why yes. I know what it is. It doesn't look exactly like thrush, but thrush it could be. Take this horrible oral anti-fungal medication four times a day for 14 days." Me: "Uh...ok. I guess I have been on a lot of antibiotics for a while now". The only problem is that anti-fungal medication didn't cure the problem. I called and asked for a refill and took all 192 doses of the next round. Guess what didn't happen? Yep, it didn't clear anything up. I still had a dry mouth and whiteness. It felt/feels like I'm constantly sucking on something sour, only drinking water doesn't make it any better.

September 21st: I pay $20 to see my new doctor at the very large, very prestigious medical school clinic in Houston. She looked at my mouth and said (no, I'm not kidding): "It's not thrush. You have a white film on your tongue and throat that goes away when I scrape it. You have an oral disturbance. I will prescribe an anti-fungal, but it probably won't work". Me: "Uh...what do you mean it won't work?" Her: "It's not thrush, but you can try this. It's a very good anti-fungal, but if it doesn't work, it's because I don't know what you have." Me: "Oh well then" (and like an idiot walked out of her office without asking her to 1)culture my throat or 2)address the back pain that I went into the office for. I will give her credit for one thing, it wasn't thrush and the medication didn't work. I guess I was hoping for some kind of miracle cure.

October 20th: I saw my Ob-Gyn, also at the very large, very prestigious medical college clinic. Since I paid a $45 co-pay to see her for my annual checkup, I ask her to look at my mouth. I figured she'd be swabbing things anyway. She looks at me and says, "Well, I don't see too many mouths in my line of work, but sure, I'll take a look". Then I fell in love with her. We are moving to California after the holidays to raise baby llamas together. But seriously, she cultured my mouth. Three days later she sent me an e-mail (can you see why I love her?) that she FOLLOWED UP with a personal phone call. It's like I've died and gone to Ob-Gyn heaven. Unfortunately, that culture showed yeast, but then again, I asked an Ob-Gyn to look at my mouth. Of course she saw yeast. She's a veritable yeast whisperer. I go back on anti-fungal (the same one as in August) and think, "Maybe, just maybe this magical woman has it in her powers to cure me." Well, she didn't, but she at least referred me to an ENT. Would you believe that insurance companies don't accept referrals from Ob-Gyns for ENTs? The nerve. I had to call my primary physician (the new one) back and ask very nicely for a referral without another office visit.

November 3rd: I see the referred ENT and she's lovely, even if she's not located in the same office building that all the other doctors are in and I have to pay a $45 co-pay to see her. My throat has started to hurt fiercely and there are strange things coming from my nose. I'm pretty sure I'm dying a slow, dry death. She cultures both my nose AND my throat after looking at them both extensively and proclaiming, "My word! Your lymphatic system is completely inflamed. Have you been feeling run down? You look like you'd be feeling run down". To which I answered, "Well, I have this thing...with my throat....and now my nose....and how about you fix it, mkay?" She agreed to my conditions and had her nurse come in to give me instructions. The nurse comes in with a water bottle and a sheet for mixing baking soda and salt in equal quantities to gargle and brush with. The water bottle is supposed to go up my nose where I would squirt 4oz of water and solution into each nasal cavity while repeating, "Kitty, kitty, kitty" over and over so it wouldn't go down my throat. I just sat there staring at the nurse going, "Oh yeah. I bet you love your job". They sent me down five floors to drop off my culture samples in a very large, non-profit hospital in the middle of a damn medical center of office buildings. I confuse easily. I blame my inner ear disorder.

November 6th: ENT nurse calls me and says, "So...it turns out that you don't have an oral yeast infection. You have MULTIPLE EXOTIC STRAINS OF BACTERIA" (direct quote). Me: "What the hell??" Her: "I'm calling in an antibiotic to your pharmacy. Take it for 14 days and call us back." Me: "Wait, I thought this problem started from being on antibiotics." Her: "Umm...I don't know. Just don't call before you finish the prescription"

Today: Day 3 of very-expensive-antibiotic-that-had-no-generic-equivalent. My mouth is worse than ever. Very, very dry and all white. I want to go home and take a nap, but I know that if I do I'll wake up and my mouth will still have bacteria (and not the good kind) growing in it.

Now you have the story about how I'm dying and why I'm completely broke from office visit and prescription co-pays. Moral of the story: ask for cultures the first time, don't see general practioners when a specialist is more qualified, then make sure you see the right specialist, and once you are at said specialist, for the love of God, make sure you confirm that the medication they put you on will have a generic. The end.

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