Ever have one of those days that seems to drag on forever and yet fly by really fast at the same time?
I thought today would be a relaxing day, a day to decompress after an emotionally turbulent weekend, and what will definitely be another whirlwind weekend ahead.
I've felt anxious and stressed all day long, I waited too long to take my anticonvulsants and my pain is sky-high.
I had a conversation with my fiance's ex-wife, after he accidentally gave me her cell phone number instead of the home phone, in order to talk to his daughter, who is getting married this weekend.
Maybe the fact it's so close is contributing to my anxiety and feeling that I just cannot relax, I just feel continually stressed without any obvious reason for it.
I called his daughter at home, tried to, and that was REALLY hard. Especially after the conversation with the ex-wife. I hate telephones. I hate talking on the phone, except to a few select people I know really well. I really did not want to make that call, especially after the first one. But I did. Lucky for me, no one picked up, so I did what I needed to do online, and my fiance can call her if he decides to.
I'm still trying to get their honeymoon sorted out, and I don't even know if they want what I'm trying to do but I'm kind of stuck with it now because it's been committed to until we hear back from them.
My body hurts so bad I can't even feed myself. Cereal is what I finally had once I finally had to eat.
I got some great stuff recently, things that make me really happy but I can't even enjoy them at the moment.
But then, I can't focus on anything I normally do that relaxes me or even is somewhat tedious but uneventful and not stressful. I just can't focus at all, on anything. That's why the day seems so long and yet so short. It's 4:30 PM and what have I accomplished? I am just having a really feel-crappy day, especially physically.
It's one of those days I could have just zoned out in front of the TV... And I guess I could have, if I'd thought of it. But of course I can't think. Period. My thoughts, focus are everywhere.
My step-son keeps coming out of his room constantly and talking.
Some days I don't mind. Today I'd just like some peace and quiet.
I had the MRI of my brain done... September 27.
I should get the results by tomorrow, which is when I see my family doctor.
I haven't made the appointment with the neurologist yet, even though they called a week ago.
Not that I expect them to find anything... I had normal CT scans as a child, and I was an exceptionally sick child.
I read something interesting recently... I was looking up whether having a lot of seizures can cause brain damage... Although I guess even if they did at the point I was having seizures that bad, I was a child, and if a child gets or has brain damage, they often just find a way around it. Your brain re-wires itself differently to get the same effect.
Like for instance even though I am left handed I cannot cut with scissors using my left hand. Years of occupational therapy, trying to get me to be able to do this, and then someone thought to have me try my right hand at it, and what do you know, I can cut with my right hand, but not my left.
I think a lot of people who are left handed have a tendency to be somewhat ambidextrous. My daughter, for instance, is, and my father.
But I am pretty much certain that my using scissors with my right hand is an example of such an effect.
In fact, for a whole year in my childhood for some reason I apparently started using my right hand (something screwy must have been going on in my brain so my left hand was not the easier one to use) and then spontaneously reverted back to my original left. I also started printing extremely small--something my teacher made a huge issue out of, said it was unacceptable--but it was the only way I could get my small, tremulous hands to do anything but scrawl, and if I did that, I got bad marks for illegible printing. Talk about being between a rock and a hard place.
Well, my step-daughter called, and at least everything is sorted out with regards to the honeymoon. I called my mother, and she is cancelling the extra days. I called my fiance, and let him know of the changes in my step-daughter's wishes (she wanted to spend more time with family). He's coming home soon, has court tomorrow which somehow he has to prepare for and get me home, and there's a massive load of dishes in the sink, and I can't stay here any longer, I've already been here an extra day because he worked until the early hours of the morning yesterday. I've got my appointment, and my daughter would be very unhappy to lose her mom for another day.
So now I'm REALLY stressed. He told me to do what I wanted, pack or do dishes but I cannot in good conscience leave him with all those dishes in the sink. His daughter will be visiting after the wedding and the place needs to be cleaned up after we deal with all the other details... Like suitable attire. (Hence, the emotionally turbulent weekend.) But I can't get into that anymore right now. The stress is building inside me and I have to get up and do what I need to do, no matter how bad I am feeling.
I have to, because I love him, and I know it will be bad for him if I don't.
The side effects of my meds really have a big impact on my life. My balance (suddenly falling over for no reason, fortunately I manage to catch myself), dizziness & loss of balance at the gym when I'm trying to do step ups on the bosu ball--which even when I finally manage to achieve *not* wobbling all over the place, and manage the dizziness by staying *really* close to a desk, or wall, or something else I can catch myself on, and looking only straight ahead, never down--I lose whatever I've gained if I miss as little as a week, and have to go through the whole process again.
Lethargy... So hard to do anything, or want to do anything. As if that wasn't bad enough with the chronic pain! Sleeping 12 hours, even if I am not overtired, if I am not interrupted by life.
Most annoying at the moment is when I talk. I will be trying to say something to someone and I can't remember or grasp the word I am looking for! For someone who is articulate by nature, this is really frustrating. This never happened to me before I got back on these medications. I know the word, I just can't remember or articulate it. Like I'll be trying to talk about my prescriptions for instance, and be looking for "I went to get my prescriptions at the pharmacy and..." Instead I will struggle and finally come up with an alternative that hopefully the other person will understand like "white piece of paper" in the context of talking about the pharmacy or a doctor.
It happens to me all the time, and I hate it!
It's so hard--impossible--to achieve any energy, any zest for life. It's like I'm a half me. Yes, I'm calmer and less agitated, but I'm also just... Not myself. Lethargic and lackluster, without any real passion or energy for anything.
Like right now, I just feel sleepy.
Hi, my name is Carrie and I have a childhood history of epilepsy. I've recently been re-diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of 32. It was quite a shock, more than I would have expected it to be, when you consider how much of a major part of my life has been impacted by this illness, how many years I've lived with it, like a shadow, following me throughout my life. A shadow that apparently just won't go away. I wasn't expecting it, I really thought it was a part of my past, it just didn't occur to me that I would have to re-identify myself as a person with epilepsy. And figure out what ever that means, in my life now. So it really did hit me far more than I expected. Not a "same old, same old" mentality which is what I thought it would be, in the (what I thought was) unlikely event that the tests came back positive.
Boy was I wrong.
I found out on November 19, 2009--7 years after I withdrew myself from what at the time I thought were unnecessary anticonvulsant medications. And it was hell, since one of them was a benzodiazepine, which causes physical dependence when it is used long term. But I was determined to be medication free, and so I fought with determination to withdraw from that drug, along with the other anticonvulsant and a few other medications, even though it was sheer hell. It took a year and a half, and was not my first withdrawal from that medicine. It was a misery. And yet here I am again, right back on those meds. I can take some comfort in the fact that I gained a great deal in that 7 years. Many necessary skills and the ability to cope, for instance.