commotiocordis

Is it weird to cry about not being in pain and feeling kind of good?

TL;DR — omg Valium + Gabapentin is all I want for Christmas.

I took a Valium for my dentist appointment, and some of my dad’s Gabapentin afterwards because I have some kind of nerve issue on one side of my mouth that becomes excruciating when people poke around in there idk.

And this evening was probably the best I have felt in recent memory, easily.

I don’t realize how just generally on edge I am until I’m not anymore. Feeling relaxed is such a foreign concept to me that it was almost weird. And my mouth stopped hurting, and the fibro pain that’s been killing my back lately went away, and I was able to straighten my legs after sitting crosslegged without literally rolling around and biting my fist to keep from crying, and EVERYTHING WAS BRILLIANT.

I wanted to play music and write stories and go run around with my dogs outside and frolic in the sun and I’m pretty sure this is how life is supposed to feel for normal people.

It’s long been a wonder of mine how much my depression contributes to my chronic pain and how much my chronic pain contributes to my depression, and this certainly seems to lend support to my theory that fixing the pain would make me a much happier person.

But then I started thinking about how it’s all going to wear off in a little while and then all the crying because askdjfalskdjf I want to feel like this forever. WHY CAN’T I JUST BE A NORMAL PERSON WITH NORMAL PERSON FEELS AND NORMAL PERSON LACK-OF-PAIN?

Shoving (healthy) food down my throat even though I’m not at all hungry because my body decided to give out on me again during my gym class. It’s so fucking frustrating. I know it’s not because I’m missing any nutrients or hadn’t eaten or anything, though; it’s definitely my heart. I can tell the difference between low blood sugar and low blood pressure, and this was the latter. The doctor has said it’s undoubtedly just idiopathic (because if it were anything serious, I probably would have died already — she blames it on anxiety, like I knew would happen as soon as I got any kind of psych label put on me, when that’s obviously not the case. If it happened when I got up in front of people or was driving to school or something, sure, but not at the gym; give me a break), but it’s still scary.

I got halfway through the lunges (which are always hard on me, but today I’d thought were going pretty well), and in the 15 seconds or whatever while switching legs, my blood pressure ~recovered (read: dropped like a rock) so much that I sort of blacked out completely. Not as in actually passed out, but as in my vision went totally black, the girl next to me actually dropped her bar because she thought she was going to have to catch me because I was super white and kind of wobbled, and I only just managed to bend down and get enough blood back to my brain to be able to see enough to make my way out of the room and sit down on the floor. (I really should have just sat down right there, but I think I would have died from embarrassment.)

UGH UGH UGH. And then it did it again when I got out of the car after driving home. I was able to just, you know, hang onto the car door until I recovered that time, so it wasn’t nearly as bad, but STILL NOT FUN.

I hate you, heart. I want to make you stronger, but that’s kind of hard when you’re working against me like this whenever I try to exercise you, huh?

Spent several hours on Sunday collecting names and phone numbers and everything of about 10 different psychiatrists sorted by increasing distance from home (since there are only 2 covered by my insurance here in my university's entire city, despite it being the 3rd biggest in the state). Was planning to call as many as it took this morning to hopefully find somebody who could fit me in on Thursday to tack on an anxiety disorder diagnosis and get some horse tranquilizers to maybe get me through the rest of the semester without, you know, having a panic attack so bad (or continuing on this unbreakable series of them) that I kill myself.

But then I realized. If I don't get my lupus/fibro/whatever diagnosis legitimized by a rheumatologist before I get psych diagnoses, it will be impossible for me to find a doctor who will look twice at any organic cause of my issues ever again. Especially because I don't have a very elevated ANA and need to find somebody who will try treating me based on mostly self-reported symptoms (you'd think the malar rash would be sufficient, but since I've figured out my triggers for that, I only have two or three bad ones a year, and what are the chances of making it in to a rheumy on one of those pairs of days?).

So.

Um.

Fuck.

• Start thinking about what I've got to get done today/tomorrow.


• Have second panic attack of the morning.


• Jesus how am I on #2 already I woke up an hour ago.

I wanted to go back to sleep for a little bit (I guess I probably got a decent amount of sleep, but might as well eke out as much as possible on the weekend, yk?), but obvs not happening now without drugs. But I might be okay with that if it stops my chest hurting this much.

The problem is that if I take my sedative things (I'd totally forgotten until a few days ago that that's pm what my migraine pills were), I run into the same reason I couldn't take them all week -- I'm having these panic attacks over fear that I'm out of time/have screwed things up seriously badly/won't be able to perform at the level I need to to make up for my past fucking up, and by taking them, I knock myself out for a few hours and decrease potential time that I should be studying/writing my papers/etc.

FUCK I CAN'T HANDLE THIS.

Idk why I'm using my "requisite monthly suicidal crisis" tag except that it's my new go-to for mental freakouts. We're right around that time, true, but this has been going on for two weeks now. I've literally not been able to fall asleep without a panic attack for two weeks straight, save this past Friday and Saturday when I was able to take meds. This is getting ridiculous.

I mean, as per usual, super high stress about grades and such --> panic attacks and super depression --> not being able to function to go to class/study/write papers/take tests --> bad grades --> super high stress about grades and such . . . .

I'm kind of glad I'm not going home next weekend like I'm supposed to, because I'm pretty sure if I did, I'd end up having some kind of freakout and refuse to come back.

The only thing that's keeping me on the path I'm on right now is inertia. If I actually had the emotional capacity right now to make a reasoned choice about the best thing for my heath and the best thing for not having some kind of psychotic break, I'd be out of here like a shot. I keep saying that I'm done, that I can't do it anymore, but nothing ever changes. I barely pass (though doubtful that's going to happen this time, as I'm in considerably a worse situation scholastically) and just keep on going, and the same stuff happens and things pile up and pile up and get worse and I get crazier and I'm pretty sure there's kind of a ceiling on crazy. Like, eventually I'll stop inching towards crazy and be actually there.


I've sort of meted out that there are vaguely three choices:

1. I keep going as I am, escalating from depression to panic attacks to, idk, full on crazy, at which point choose options 2 or 3.


2. I stand up and say "Fine, brain. You fucking win. I am evidently too mentally ill to keep going to school. I'll go be a fry cook or something."


3. Or I kill myself.

And I'm really really bad at admitting defeat.

Blatent crosspost from mah tumblr, because believe it or not I think I actually have more LJ friends than Tumblr followers idek.

AGH

FUCKING HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

FUCKING REPUBLICANS

I AM SO UPSET RIGHT NOW

LIKE, LITERALLY SHAKING

HOW CAN YOU DO THIS

I KNOW IT’S PROBABLY NOT GOING TO MAKE IT THROUGH THE SENATE BUT JESUS FUCK

I DON’T THINK I HAVE EVER BEEN THIS UPSET ABOUT ANYTHING POLITICAL EVER

THANKS A LOT, GUYS, I’LL JUST KEEP ON DEALING WITH MY CHRONIC ILLNESSES WITH ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT WHATSOEVER BECAUSE I’M AFRAID OF THEM BEING COUNTED AS PRE-EXISTING CONDITIONS WHEN I HAVE TO SWITCH OFF OF MY PARENTS’ INSURANCE

I DON’T EVEN HAVE A GIF THAT CAN EXPRESS MY FEELINGS RIGHT NOW BECAUSE MY CHEST HURTS WITH HOW ANGRY SAD BETRAYED I AM

This has been a post.

Fall break = \o/

I get home, and mom's like "hey, got a copy of dad's pet scan this time, want to see it?" I'm like "sweeeet, medical geekage." = \o/

Giant white spot in the middle of one of his lungs that wasn't there 8 months ago = /°\


Also, from the third hand info I'm getting, the guy is trying to tell them that it's totally different cancer. I'm like ya rly? Suuuuuure. Previously generally healthy (minus diabetes, but very well controlled) guy in his 50s with randomly multiple simultaneous cancers? Hahaha, no. I mean, obvs possible, but give me a fucking break. You just don't want it to count as a metastasis because then the surgeon's numbers go down (dude boasts this like high-80% cure rate after just surgery and mid-90% cure rate after surgery and radiation, and dad having had both and it still spreading means both would drop). Pics of the matching tumor genomic sequences or it didn't happen, bitch. Also, stfu "oh, it looks like it was the shadow we saw last time". I looked at the pet scan last time and there was no lung spot, so it obviously hadn't angiogenesised up, and if you thought there was a mass on the CT, why the motherfuck didn't you check?

If there's anything in the entire world that could possibly make me want to become a doctor more than I already do, it's this unending incompetence that I keep seeing with dad's health, all the way back to when he first started going to his GP for sore throats and swollen lymph nodes and stuff and just kept walking away with antibiotics when at the very least, the last time or two he went, you could have seen the tumor in his throat with a fucking tongue depressor.

So much to do. Doing none of it.

Quiz in molecular cell biology in 9ish hours (yes, it's 5am). Homework for computer class due by midnight tonight, paper for health law class due midnight Sunday (though I actually started that one today, OMG). Molecular cell biology test on Monday. Organic lab writeup due Tuesday, as well as pre-lab and actually, you know, doing the lab on Tuesday. Not to mention I didn't go to volunteer at the hospital at all this week--I only need 10 more hours and I have all of April to get them, and it's not like they actually need me around anyway, but I feel bad because technically I'm supposed to be there twice a week, and I've been trying to make it at least once--so that's 6 hours gone on Tuesday and probably no sleep the night before because I leave so early. Then, molecular cell biology lab book I haven't been keeping (no one has, and the teacher knows it, but I'm fairly sure he's a massive dick) due Wednesday. And at 8:30 on Wednesday, an organic chem test that's cumulative over the material I didn't learn for the last test because that's right around when Dad was going in for surgery, the material I didn't retain from the first exam, and the material from the massive amount of classes I haven't made it to these past few weeks because of this sleep failure I've been having.

Like I said, it's now 5:15 and I'm awake. I'm pretty much one of those people who needs to tip over and lie down on the spot when I feel tired or the tiredness passes. My circadian rhythm is still a 30ish hour cycle if left alone, so if I got a solid 6 or 8 hours of sleep (rare, but it happens), it's about 24 hours from the time I woke up that I'm really tired again.

Also, I'm just starting my period, which makes me ruminative and mopey and depression!exhausted, and much more prone to mope and consider suicide than study. Somehow my organic chem teacher has for two semesters now managed to schedule every one of his tests while I'm on my period just to make my life miserable. I should really find drugs for that, especially because I think I might be able to blame hormone stuff for the weird shift in my acne (it's worse, as well as on my back in crazy amounts for the first time ever) and incessant weight gain (yes, I will never stop harping about that because I'm about 5 pounds from officially being "overweight" again even though I've tried everything short of full-blown <400kcal/day uberlow diet to not even lose weight [though by this point, I want to] but just stop gaining it) but me and birth control did not mix well (morning sickness and weight gain).

So idk. Mope. I swore I was going to finish this health law paper tonight and probably do some of my lab too, but nope. I got mopey, and then I trolled LJ to cease aforementioned mopey, and then I updated my extended info and made a playlist on Facebook, and now I'm considering not going to orgo again today and trying to go to sleep now instead. But I'm afraid that because I didn't go to sleep until noonish yesterday, there's no chance I'd get to sleep before the quiz in molecular cell bio at 2 and I'd just be wasting time by trying--unless I'm going on 36h without sleep, it takes a good long while of lying down quietly for me to get to sleep, which majorly eats in to my productive time when I've got this much work to do. Plus, when I'm trying to sleep before some kind of appointment (like aforementioned quiz), I autonomously wake up every 15 minutes to see if it's time to go yet.

Basically, I fail. It doesn't help that I've been very *wants to write fics* lately even if they're not coming out of my head fully formed enough to do anything with, because that's another distraction and one that doesn't come along that often, so I hate to waste these spats of desire to be fannish.

Graaargh. Must pee, but navigating kitten barriers and trying to stop mama!cat from running out of the bathroom as soon as you open the door and then navigating kittens themselves once in the bathroom is a hassle, so I keep putting it off until I have to dance over aforementioned kitten barriers holding my crotch like a 3 year old. Excuse to quit whinging, I think so.

*chooses icon that looks most like what I wish to be doing atm*

Yeah. It's cancer. Oropharyngeal, also in the lymph nodes.


I don't know much more than that because I was getting it from my brother. The parents wanted to call me and tell me, but I had just gotten home and was tired (I never go to bed the day before an orgo test) and didn't really want to have to deal with that. Though I know I'm just going to be all "TNM Staging! When's the surgery? Transoral or are they going to have to go in through the neck? Where's it happening? DATA DATA DATA, I CANNOT MAKE BRICKS WITHOUT CLAY," just like I was barking questions to my brother over Facebook chat, there's always the possibility that they'll say something and I'll burst into tears (because I'm on my period for the THIRD TIME IN JANUARY. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT, BODY?!).

Stupid empathy. I mean, sitting here and processing it, I'm totally fine with the whole situation. It's in his lymph nodes, but from what I gather, only the proximal ones, which means radiation after surgery will probably take care of it pretty easily. But especially with my dad--he's totes a sensitive theatre guy, LOL, but he's not often openly emotional, so more so than with my mom, I pick up on and multiply by a thousand whatever he's feeling. One of the last times his mom had a stroke is one of the last times I actually cried at something IRL, actually, because he was freaking out; even as old as I am, I'd bet it harkens back to a simple "OMG, if this is scaring my dad, it must be really really scary" childhood thing.


Anyway, looking forward to digging through his lab results and stuff (must make sure they remember to have me CC'd on stuff--for ages now, LOL, whenever I get my hands on somebody in the family's lab sheet, I fill in to have it CC'd to myself), not looking forward to finding out how he and mom are dealing with it. His dad died of cancer, so I'm going to bet that no matter what he tries to make it seem like, the answer is going to be "not well".

To summarize that last ranttastic emo post, because tl;dr--I'm half-decent at everything, so I never get told I'm good at anything.

But because self-centeredness is to be punished, the universe decides to cow me quite spectacularly.

Got an email from my mom a minute ago. Basically, my dad's had swollen lymph nodes and lately trouble swallowing and pain, and just recently was coughing up a massive amount of blood. Went to the doctor, who sent him to an ENT specialist, who is sending him to (I presume from mom's tone, though she didn't actually specify) an oncologist.

So I feel even more like shit, because now it feels like I spent all morning being really, really undeservedly whiny. I mean, STFU, Alexandria, your dad's probably got fucking cancer. We don't care that you feel like your life sucks and nobody appreciates you, suck it fucking up; at least you don't have an oncologist's appointment this week.

Obviously, I'm jumping to the worst-case scenario, but it looks bad. Made even more bad-looking by how my mom tacked on to the end "By the way, this is more than your siblings know," meaning "Don't tell them," meaning "Oh, shit." But LOL, perfect example of how even my family knows what a heartless bitch I am--"don't tell the kids because they might get upset, but here's a medical puzzle for Alexandria!"

The worst part is that she's absolutely right. My first thought was "Ooh, glad I didn't sell back my oncology textbook!" Fail.

Idk, it's made so much worse by the fact that I'm not there. When I first came down to college, it was sort of the same thing--his diabetes had been under really great control, but what that means to an endocrinologist is that you aren't going into high blood glucose ranges at all, which makes lows more common. And though highs are what kill uncontrolled diabetics over time, lows kill you overnight or when you pass out at the wheel or something like that, and having been in the car where that almost fucking happened, I was really uncomfortable leaving. Same thing here--I mean, I'm not in tears with anxiety or anything, but I'm much more concerned sitting here getting the second hand information than I would be if I were home and could make him let me go to the onc with him (as I often do when somebody in the fam goes to the doctor for something being wrong, since became the medical expert in the family when I was very young) and get the info told to me as if I were a doctor rather than (I say this with all affection) dumbed down for my parents and telephone-chained to me.

THAT IS ALL. Didn't pay attention and made way too much food and still absently ate it anyway, so my stomach hurts and I'm tired and my laptop charger is all but totally not working, so I'm 42% on the tablet and (hopefully) 100% on Tosh away from being totally computerless. Gah, the shitstorm, when it hits . . . .

You know what bothers me? The fact that I've never really been good at anything.

Ironic!LOL, Alexandria's melancholy when she's 28 hours from failing an organic chemistry test she can't get her stupid ass to study for and has slept weirdly (and by weird, I mean in 2 hour bursts with a very low total hour count) all week. It's 5am, which is probably the reason, though I've never found myself unable to allow the slightest stimuli to throw me into ". . . I fail" mode no matter what time of the day it is.

( Wherein I mope and act all juvenile and emo while espousing how I fail. )