Thursday, August 8, 2002  9:38 pm  <|>
<155> Getting some life back: There will always be something that threatens to get you down and there will hopefully always be a matching force to give you hope and keep you going. I know that the forces of bad started taking over the good in the last two weeks or so and this is a dangerous place in my world. In my life I've always dealt with things quite well - in whatever manor or area that I had to - and some people would say this has built up without my knowledge, but what I really believe is that there are just certain things that no matter how much you are open to dealing with them cannot be solved simply on your own. I guess that's the point I have hit lately and am now trying like hell to deal with, on my own or with more help than that alone because just me doesn't seem to be enough now. Those involved tell me that I shouldn't expect to deal with all this on my own anymore, it's a lot to deal with, and yes I suppose they are right. But I never felt like I was on my own anyway. I was always supported by my family, my friends, everyone... so what is breaking down now - is it me? It seems like it, because I have never really lost complete control over myself before and that's what it feels like sometimes now in the past two weeks. Yes, it's explainable and even not surprising actually, I realize this, but that doesn't make it much easier to deal with nor does it solve the problem directly. Basically thanks to all the medications I am on it is causing joltiness/shakiness plus the worse, panic attacks and just an overall "out of it" feeling a lot of the time. My doctors think it may be because now that my Lupus and blood pressure issues have calmed down a lot more I am over-medicated (I'm on what 6 or 7 blood pressure meds alone, it wouldn't surprise me...) so now they have to look at all that and try to decide what is safe to have me stop taking. So that's all well and good, but this isn't the only issue. The shaky feeling, I've always dealt with that mildly, knowing it was part of the side effects of the meds, but recently it's really been bothering me because of issue number two and what I was sort of talking about in my last post actually. There is some odd hormonal imbalance that is being caused every month (you figure out the timing) either from the meds or the kidney failure or some combination of both, they aren't sure actually. I'm the one who figured this out, not my doctors, though at least they do agree with me. So they're not too sure what to do to fix this either, thankfully it's passed for this month, but I want it figured out before the next one rolls around. I can't even describe the feeling, but it's just horrible and something I wouldn't wish on anyone. So that's issue two, which is closely related to issue three that has come up most recently of all, and that's the panic attacks... I've never had panic attacks in my life, I've always dealt with situations pretty well, whatever came up, been a little nervous traveling or if a big event came up I suppose, but it never caused a panic attack. I know my grandmother and mom have had trouble with them in the past, so I knew what they were and when I had my first last Friday well it's not something I ever want to repeat like that again. I'll admit, that's when it hit the worst, as I was still feeling the weird hormonal feelings then and that is precisely where the panic attacks come from combined with the medicine effects. I do pretty well trying to calm myself down on my own, but it's this feeling that overtakes you and you just can't do it all by yourself fully. Well, so for a week I have had this problem and while like I said it hasn't hit fully like it did that one day, ever since every day has had it's own little instance of it and THIS is what is bothering me the most. I know it stems from these med effects of the shaking, it's not a pleasant feeling on its own, and then add in all that hormonal stuff it's no wonder my fear of the hypertensive seizure that I had terrifies me to the point where I have all this panic/anxiety for fear that it will happen to me again. But knowing this is the reason for these feelings unfortunately doesn't keep me from having them, I know it's purely this because it's only when I'm thinking about it/talking about it that it really comes on in any full force. But you can't keep yourself from having such a major issue in your life from passing through your mind several times a day no matter what you do. So I wanted to just deal with it, I thought after a couple of days it would just go away on its own, but it hasn't and yeah it's been just over a week, maybe I don't give myself enough time, but it's so bad something has to be done. So my doctors and certainly I was avoiding adding on any further medications to battle this, but that is what it has come to. I haven't touched the new pills yet, but I will be tomorrow before dialysis. One, we'll see if this solves the problem and two, I'll convince myself that I won't become addicted to it (as it's not in my nature but pills like that have gotten the better of even the best of them) so I'll do my best to make this run and need for them last for as short a time as possible. And I realize that is up to me and I swear I've been battling it the best I can from the start, I don't think anyone would disagree with me on that. But I'm getting tired of fighting and maybe THAT is precisely why things are getting harder than ever on me just when things health wise (according to my latest lab results) are becoming the best they've been considering. I'm getting tired of fighting all the battles every single day, of having no real summer, at least not the one I planned, of missing my friends all the time because I'm not where they are and even when I am I am too tired half the time to do anything real with anybody. I miss my real life, the one I had, and I know and accept that I'll never get it back quite the way it was, maybe I don't want it back the way it was, but honestly I know deep down that's a lie... my life, even with all the crappy things that happened in there at "the end," was really great this past year. So many things happened to me, I learned so much, I gained so much, and even the things that I lost weren't really lost fully. So now I work to get something else back, not the life I lost, but the one that was in my future already. I fight every day for a lot of things, but it's not just my health that I battle and I know this. I don't ask to go it alone right now, but knowing I could is helpful in some way I suppose. But I'm supported on my sides, maybe not by everyone in the way I wish they could support me right now, but I haven't given up all of my hope throughout any of this and I'm not about to start now. For some reason in the last few years I lost my opposition to change and embraced fate and chance in the process. For some reason I really believe that what is meant to work out will and where certain situations are concerned I have no choice than to accept this anyway I suppose because it's all I have to go on now.