Tag Archives: mood

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Update

My friend asked why she hadn’t heard from Elizabeth in a while, so I thought I’d give a quick update. The good news is, my sleep continues to improve. It is a goddamn miracle. I cannot tell you how poor my sleep has been my whole life and this last year was like someone was intentionally torturing me. I was in bed more than ever, but sleeping less than ever. Unfortunately, I was awake in bed alone, for those of you that might think “in bed but not sleeping” is some euphemism for sex. As you may remember, I have posted sleep graphs from my Zeo that show nights with either huge chucks of “awake” through the night or I wake up over and over again, interrupting the regular, beautiful sleep cycle. The sleep study said my brain woke up 49 times an hour. Maybe, if I got hooked up to all those sensors again, I would still have waking brain activity of which I’m not aware, but I doubt it would be bad. For weeks after my last post about sleep, I was getting about 7 1/2 to 7 3/4 hours a night. The last 5 nights I have slept between 8 and 9 hours each night. But the best part is, the last few nights I have only woken up a few times ~ 2 or 3. My god, that’s bliss. Imagine turning off the light and, 9 1/2 hours later, you’ve had 9 hours sleep. WhawhAAT? This was last night:

2013-01-21_08-28-08_928

I still don’t know what changed besides drinking tart cherry juice, so, although it has a high sugar content, I will continue to drink it each night with dinner. My real theory, though, is that my sleep is a product of the same thing that has caused me not to write a blog in a while: a quieter mind. When my brain won’t turn off, I want to write everything I think and I never feel peaceful enough to drift into slumber. So, maybe it’s my daily meditation or maybe I’m just tired of the fight, but this is life now and I think I’ve found a tiny bit of quiet. No doctor is going to make a miraculous discovery and this will not be a quick process. I have to rest. Full stop.

Unfortunately, the sleep has not helped my waking symptoms. I’ve actually been feeling worse this past week than I have since December 26th. My pain, achiness and stiffness has increased and my energy has declined. After having virtually no headache for about a week, it came back a few days ago. Wow, does that make a difference in my mood. I can still feel pretty upbeat and functional with all the other symptoms, but the headache decimates me, renders me silent and grimacing. “Decimate” technically means only destroying a tenth of something, right? What would be, say, half of something? Headaches quintimate me? Or septimate me? Would that be destroying 70% of me? Much better.

My Mom told me something that has kept me going lately. In one of the hundreds of articles I sent her, she read that if you are without pain for even one day, there is hope that you can be permanently pain-free. I do not hold out hope for pain-free, but that little gem of information has made me think that there could come a time when there are more pain-free days than crippled-and-crying days.

I’ll leave you all with good news. My period came and went and I didn’t have to take a single painkiller. It wasn’t painless by any means, but it was tolerable. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the new diet, maybe it’s all the supplements. Also, I am seeing a new doctor this week. The universe sort of conspired to introduce me to him, so I’m heeding the hint and trying one. more. specialist. I’ll let you know how it goes.

Gratitude: For painless days that allow me to laugh and for good nights’ sleep.

irish proverb

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…it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled…

What a roller coaster it has been. One day I want to write about one thing, the next day, everything has changed and I want to write a whole different post… So, I wind up writing nothing at all.

I spent three days feeling good. And I mean good. Stiffness was drastically reduced, my back pain was virtually eliminated, my energy level was up and, best of all, I had no headache. For three days, I wasn’t grimacing at my husband’s footsteps or holding my ears while we watched tv. It was bliss, I tell you. Then, a series of unfortunate events: Sunday night, my husband turned on our yet-unused gas fireplace insert (purchased because wood fires make me dizzy and my lungs burn) and the house filled with chemically burny metal paint fumes. I didn’t think much of it ~ it’s a brand new unit, after all ~ until Monday morning when I woke up very dizzy. My husband had gone to SO MUCH trouble to get this fireplace for next to nothing ~ driving out of the city to a clearance sale, standing on the roof, repairing the chimney for days, going into the crawlspace and disappearing into the hearth to run the gas, building/grinding/soldering/I-don’t-know-whating a framework because the insert was much smaller than the opening to our fireplace… So, I was upset and emotional all day. What if the fumes from the fireplace made me dizzy? Oh no, we didn’t think of that! What if the new paint or whatever doesn’t burn off and that smell lasts for ages or the permanent off-gas causes me to get dizzy or makes my eyes burn or makes my chest tight…? Where will I go while he tries to burn off the smell? Should I get a hotel? What if this bloody fireplace causes me to be worse in the long term? The usual fretting. So, we were worried and annoyed and frustrated. Also, I think everything was exacerbated by PMS because, after months of being an emotional zen master, I felt inflamed. I was distraught and enraged. I was guilty that my husband’s fireplace project might be a complete waste. Knowing my sensitivity to scents and chemicals, I was frustrated that we hadn’t taken this into consideration. I was upset that my husband wasn’t more sympathetic to how this might worsen my symptoms (he wasn’t pleased when I asked him not to turn it on again). I was furious that this disease ruins everything. That night, knowing my period was looming and taken aback by the onslaught of my emotion, I started the birth control pill again. I thought, Whoa, PMS is HELL. I need my hormones regulated again. Then, that night, things fell apart. I woke up feeling like someone had turned on a shower over me. Sweat was running down my ribs and dripping onto the bed. I was so confused. At first I thought it was blood… Then I thought maybe my cpap machine was leaking water… I hadn’t had these sort of drenching night sweats in so many months, that I didn’t even recognise the symptom. My sheets were soaked. I got up, pulled off the sheets, changed my pillow, lay down some towels. My cpap mask and headgear were slick with sweat. I had to take it all off to dry it, wash my face. And I was shaking. And scared. Was it from the pill?? Was it from the heightened anger and emotion of the day? Was it from the tart cherry juice I started drinking? Was it from the fireplace somehow? Was it because I have been taking melatonin every night for too long? I checked my blood sugar to rule out hypoglycemia and went back into fitful sleep.

My acupuncturist encouraged me to see it as a good sign. He explained that, in Chinese medicine, as the body gets stronger, you will experience some of the earlier symptoms again. He said, I had been in the Yang Ming stage, where the pathogen was deep inside my body, but, as I try to fight it off, the pathogen is pushed into the Shao Yang ~ the “Lesser Yang”, Which is characterised by the chills and sweats. He said, “Fever means you are winning.” That made me feel better for about two hours until I developed a crushing headache, which hasn’t gone away in five days. And this headache isn’t the normal one ~ it feels more like the narcotic bounce-back headaches I get. So, I start the relentless questioning again: Is it from the acupuncture (it got much worse that night)? Is it from the birth control pill? Is it from the fireplace? Did I overexert myself? Is it from the tart cherry juice, for fuck’s sake?? The hard part is that I am convinced the headache is from the pill and, if you stupidly go online and research it, like every other drug in the world, the horror stories make you want to stop right there and then. So, here I am again… weighing the pros and cons of having a viciously painful, incapacitating period over Christmas or putting up with this headache all day, every day, which is not touched by painkillers and makes me feel as if I am carrying a very dangerous, sleeping 2,000lb crocodile on my head: constant pressure and pain, never making noise or sudden movements… Right now, not being in the throes of period cramps, I choose a period over the headache and I decide I won’t take the pill tonight (imagine what I am doing to my body jumping on and off the pill like this!). However, you know one week from now, when I am curled in a ball, weeping and ~ god forbid ~ the headache hasn’t gone away, I’ll be wanting to put myself back on birth control.

Those few days before the fumey-angry-sweaty-pill day were glorious. I thought I was coming out of the dark ages. I was sleeping better, I hadn’t put IcyHot on my back in ages, I didn’t think about a painkiller for two whole days! I’ve had the surge in energy before but I can’t remember the last time I had had some relief in stiffness and pain. Heaven.

That’s my catch-up. I am just trying to maintain my tenuous grasp on Okay, so we can have a nice Christmas with my sister and her boyfriend.

Speaking of, my sister and brother came over to visit for one day last week (my brother, a pilot, had a layover here) and it was absolutely wonderful. Even though I had tried very hard not to talk too much, gesticulate too much, laugh too much, walk around too much, still, by the end of the night, my internal tremors were vibrating from scalp to toe, my eyes were unfocused, my face was red and muscles stiff… I crawled to bed at 9:15pm and thought, “That day was worth every symptom.” I am so grateful for family, for lightness and conversation and laughter. Once in a while, it is important to put fear away and forget the careful construction of the day… and just live a little.

You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn’t like it.They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster.

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An update for everyone…

I am still feeling stronger than I was a month and a half ago, but still so much worse than two and a half months ago. My energy level is holding steady. I’m able to walk 2,000 – 3,000 steps and have about 12 usable hours each day. I’m able to do house chores, work on the computer, watch TV and read. I’ve walked seven laps of our house the last two days and been able to play a little bit with the dogs. The last time I got hit by stronger pain and fatigue was when I cooked a meal that had me standing in the kitchen for an hour, chopping veg etc. That took its toll.

My pain level has also been steady since the Worst Headache. My muscles ache, my joints are stiff, my neck is always in pain, my head always hurts to some degree, but, in the last two weeks, I have not been immobilised, I’ve not been reduced to tears of helplessness. However, I do keep resorting to Solpadeine (acetaminophen/codeine). Not a lot ~ a quarter to a half of a dose to take the edge off ~ but, I’m aware that the longer chronic pain goes untreated by long-term pharmaceutical therapy (ie: drugs that change brain chemistry, like antidepressants or anticonvulsants), the harder it is to get on top of the problem. So, I have to stop the Solpadeine and start experimenting with long-term solutions.

My sleep is still poor. “Unhygienic”, as the doctors like to say. Sleep hygiene is very important! I have switched to the “nasal pillows” with the CPAP. It’s the mask that shoots straight up your nostrils as opposed to covering your nose or covering your nose AND mouth. It has a much lower profile, fewer parts, more minimal headgear, so it makes sleeping on my side much, much easier. But, if/when you open your mouth, a hollowing wind pours out. The air going up your nose comes straight out your mouth rather than going down your throat. You can feel your uvula flapping and it makes you kind of choke. I keep waiting for a colony of bats to fly out of my mouth… or a high-speed freight train. It’s like Charlize Theron sucking the soul out of those girls in that awful Huntsmen film… Or, even better, the dude in The Green Mile sucking the bad stuff out of me!! Anyway, with the nasal pillows, I have been taping my mouth closed with athletic tape. Yes, it’s true. It worked wonderfully for the first few hours, but, what you don’t know is, when you put tape over your mouth and go to sleep, you DROOL. A lot. Or maybe it’s the humidified water coming through the nose and condensing at the lips… Either way, it wakes you up and, when you pull the tape off, on top of hurting your delicate facial skin, you dribble and your mouth is all wet. Gross. They have chinstraps to keep your mouth closed, but, honestly, I can’t take one more strap around my head. Someone suggested I wear swimming goggles to stop my eyes from being dry and burny in the morning, so imagine this: Zeo headband, mouth guard, swimming goggles, CPAP mask, chinstrap, and tape over my mouth… Really?

Physically, my eyes are swollen and bloodshot (I think it is actually the pressurised air drying my eyes from behind ~ from inside ~ because there is no leak on my mask blowing up into my eyes), inside my nose is raw, ears are plugged and my throat is sore. All from the CPAP. Other than that, I’m having IBS issues again. I think it is because of the iron supplement and also because I have been adding back foods I haven’t had in months. Which brings me to my diet…

I am in the middle of a very long elimination diet. It’s been ten weeks since I eliminated all legumes, grains (except oats), dairy, starchy veg, fatty meat (kinda), eggs and tomatoes. And I’ve been gluten-free for seven months. So far, I have “challenged” myself with dairy, eggs, rice, tomatoes and sweet potatoes. I think rice, tomatoes and sweet potatoes are okay, but I am going to continue to eliminate dairy and eggs. After eating dairy, I became extremely exhausted ~ that indescribable inability to move or speak… So, I am going to re-challenge dairy and eggs down the road. Corn is next to be added in (oh dear lord, I can’t wait for popcorn) and then beans…

I’m back to acupuncture and using the light box, but still haven’t started Lyrica and I’m still waiting on supplements (besides iron and vitamin D and B). After talking to Z, my best friend here in Seattle, my goal is to be able to celebrate a teeny, tiny Thanksgiving. We spend every year at Z and her husband’s house and now they have a new baby. I was going to tell them that I’m not doing holidays this year, but she said, “What if we brought the mountain to Mohammad? We could come to your house and only stay as long as you’re up for it. Maybe an hour, maybe the whole afternoon and early evening…” I’m scared because I know I will want to put a bunch of effort into it ~ cook, clean the house, interact, talk, laugh, play games etc. ~ but, if I can hold myself back and relax and just think of it as a visit as opposed to THANKSGIVING, I should be okay. It made me want to cry that she would want to keep the holiday spark aglow and cart the whole family to our house. Good friends stick by you, even in housebound sickness.

I became sick exactly one year ago this week. I left work exactly six months ago last Friday. I will never stop trying to get better, I will never stop looking for my next career, I will never be okay or content with this new life, but I think maybe I’ve reached acceptance. And, for that, I am grateful. Emotionally, I’m calm. I have a lot of fear, but I’m not depressed, anxious or despairing. This is it. One day at a time.

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Spoke too soon. Again.

This is such a sick joke. I actually thought the last few days, maybe this is the beginning of the end. I think I’m going to get better now… What’s wrong with me? Am I going to spend the next 20 years thinking this is over every time I have a day when I’m able to move? I’m so angry about the tease. I’m so angry about the Catch-22: I can’t move without hurting myself and, if I don’t move, I’m hurting myself.

I had a horrible night’s sleep. Didn’t fall asleep until nearly 2am, had nightmares, awoke constantly, had drenching sweats. Today I feel like a truck hit me. All of my muscles feel inflamed. I’m hunched, I’m hobbling, I’m creaking, I’m wheezing. My spine is rebar, my eyes are embers, my head is a rotten apple.

But my mood isn’t plummeting into despair. It’s just sitting in anger, which, for me, is much more manageable. My stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance) seem to be mixed up. You’re meant to go from depression to acceptance. I’m going backwards. I was in depression last month, denial yesterday and today I’m angry, so let’s get straight to bargaining: I would give a limb to be out of pain. I would give two limbs to not have this disease. No contest. I will never, ever work myself close to death again and neglect all my friends and family. I will do nothing but altruistic work for the rest of my life, if this is taken away. I could bargain for days.

Now I hope we can just jump over depression and get straight to acceptance.

 

 

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Diet… Day 51. Wash-Out… Day 12.

Last night I drempt that I had been out socialising with friends and I started to crash. I couldn’t get back home, so I was trying to get my husband to find me a hotel room… I had to lie down… I was going to collapse… please help me, it’s dark and wet and where is everyone?… I just need a bed for a few hours… I don’t want to die… And then rats attacked me. They were fat and wet and squeaking and hanging off of me everywhere… I woke up panting while I was being eaten by the rats. I was scared shitless and didn’t know where I was and my sheets were wet from sweat.

I have, however, been feeling a little stronger the last few days. Not strong, but stronger. My headache has eased up enough to be manageable with epsom salt baths, the tens unit and icy hot spray on my neck. The pain and stiffness in my back doesn’t have me in tears and the exhaustion seems to be controlled. Just a normal ME/CFS exhaustion, not a crippling, slurring, crawling-up-the-stairs exhaustion. I have a new symptom driving me batty: constant pins and needles in my right foot for the last 3 days. It moved into my calf last night, but doesn’t seem to be there today. I have had this before in my hands and I have the Raynaud’s issues in my feet, but I can’t remember this maddening constant tingling before.

My days have become very predictable. I am up at around 8:30am, after about 7 to 7.5 hours sleep. I have GREEN tea now and, for breakfast, homemade granola with almond milk and a smoothie (today was pear, pineapple, strawberry smoothie with flax seed, coconut milk and walnuts) while I do some “work” on the computer (pay bills and curse Comcast and Verizon, see how our budget is going, answer emails, apply for disability but get overwhelmed and stop, try to make an Amazon Fresh shopping list because I can’t go grocery shopping and decide it’s too much energy and too expensive, research ME treatments and start to bang my head off the wall, research MRI stories and wish I had the option of Valium, write in my blog etc.). Then I warm up my muscles with a bath or the hot tub, do some stretches and then a meditation, which I always try to turn into a nap. Then lunch (usually a salad or soup or tuna and I’m currently addicted to Terra Chips) and maybe some house chores if I’m able. Maybe some reading or some more computer time. Another meditation (rest before and after activity, always. Resting is considered only lying down with eyes closed, awake, meditating or sleeping, says Dr. Bested). Walk around the house, if I’m able and then the evening with my husband, having dinner (whatever is leftover or whatever he makes because I’m virtually never able to stand for long in the evening without hitting that pain and exhaustion wall), watching a movie ~ whatever I can manage. Another meditation if I’m not going to bed early. Most of the time I’m in bed at 7 or 8pm, reading/researching. Some of the time I can stay upright until 9 or 10pm. I usually don’t turn off the lights until after 11pm.

My sister-in-law sent me a Stretching for Beginners DVD and usually anything anyone buys for me is too advanced because I’m more decrepit than they realised, but this DVD is good! I have done the sitting, standing and lying stretches ~ one on each day that I’m up for it. So far, it has felt good and I’m so proud of me. And I’m ecstatic that I haven’t pulled a muscle doing it. Maybe I’m finally learning. I walked five laps around my house yesterday. I’ve been wearing a pedometer this week and have taken between 1,700 and 2,200 steps each day. I realise this is not a lot — my dog park visits alone were over 2,000 steps — but, those numbers are including 400 to 500 steps walking laps around my house. There are many, many days when I’m not able to do that and my pedometer would say more like 1,000 steps at the end of the day, so I’m happy. I want so desperately to double, triple those steps. I want to go outside and run as hard as I can for as long as I can. On top of everything else I have had to endure, the patience needed to deal with this disease is mind-blowing. Every time I have to go upstairs or downstairs, I think, “What can I take with me?” so I don’t waste any trip. Every movement is about conservation, every day is planned, every physical feeling analysed to ascertain whether it was caused by too much of some activity or emotion. Damn, I shouldn’t have done laundry… I knew I shouldn’t have chopped those vegetables… If only I hadn’t lost my temper… From now on, I must sit down when I dry my hair…

My mood is much better, which is probably why I’m feeling stronger and my symptoms seem a bit more manageable. I think my Mother and brother being here helped give me strength. Plus, I got to Skype with both of my best friends in the last week and that is like a pain killer. Literally ~ people can be pain killers. It’s amazing.

Something else helped nudge me from defeat into fight-mode: I read that there are multiple studies putting the average age of death of ME/CFS patients in the late 50s. That’s about 30 years too early. On the one hand, I’m very grateful that I might have 20 more years to live and, on the other hand, I’m devastated that I might only have 20 more years to live. I’m not emotional over it. It just caused me to think, Alright, time to get over this now because I’m not going to die in my 50s, dammit. Obviously, I’m not just going to “get over it”, but it made the fight come out a little. I can’t just accept that this is permanent because I don’t want to be one of those statistics. So, time to heal. Seriously.

My back is killing me, I have to stop typing now. So, a moment of gratitude: I am grateful every single day that I am not worse off. I am grateful for walking and talking and typing. I am grateful for eating and drinking and showering myself. I am grateful I was never in a motor vehicle accident, never got fungal meningitis from a steroid injection, never got shot or stabbed or beaten up. Some people are much more… oh, ever so much more… oh, muchly much-much more unlucky than you!

It’s a troublesome world. All the people who’re in it
are troubled with troubles almost every minute.
You ought to be thankful, a whole heaping lot,
for the places and people you’re lucky you’re not!