I’ve lost 15 excess pounds. I’ve gone off anti-depressants. I seem to have quit engaging in “shopping therapy.” I’ve gone back to cooking on a fairly regular basis. I’ve started taking lovely care of my fingernails, even though that means seeing someone every two weeks for professional treatments.
Funny how these things work.
Yesterday I saw Jimmy Carter. Today I was incompletely quoted in the newspaper published from our state’s capital city, and while what what they included was fine, they left out the best part. This evening, I had three “bar” shots of Tequila (which I haven’t done in quite a long time) , at home in the safety of my own kitchen and they knocked me on my virtual posterior.
I must say that I’m not much impressed with myself.
The good news is that my husband passed his kidney stone about 11:00 pm Saturday. He’ll see the doctor again on Tuesday and I think at that point they’ll decide what to do, if anything, about the stones still up in his kidneys. He’s still kind of worn from the ordeal (early Monday morning until late Saturday night), but he’s getting back up to speed quickly.
Of course, here in the land of the Perils of Pauline, we don’t go for long until something else happens. Our gang gathered yesterday evening for a birthday dinner for one of our group. Although these things are held at our place most of the time, with my husband sick we had moved the venue to the home of another group member who lives in town. Because she lives in town, we park on the (sufficiently wide) street.
We had a fabulous meal. We’ve all been cooking together for 20 years and have gotten good at it. After dessert, while some of us were still sitting at the table, we heard a big bang, followed by an almost-as-big bang. It sounded like lighting strikes right out on the street, but there wasn’t any flash. Turns out that the first big bang was my car getting hit and the second was the birthday honoree’s van being hit. Long story short–it turns out that our hit and run driver was some 82 year old guy who may or may not have been intoxicated.
Friend’s van just needs a new left rear quarter panel and left rear tail light. My car, which I’ve only had for 18 months and which was hit first, needs a new bumper, left tail light lens, left rear tire, left rear wheel, left rear quarter panel, left rear back door, and driver’s side mirror. It takes some doing to catch the rim of a wheel and bend it all the way over so we’re hoping there’s no axel damage. At least the old guy had insurance.
So, more Monday morning fun. At least this time, it was just property damage.
Author’s note: The caps, exclamation points, italics and bold are an indication of the volume of my own voice screaming inside my head.
Here’s how it went:
I read an excellent and informative paragraph on DEA classifications of ADD meds (posted on a message board) which concluded with, “When taken orally at the prescribed dosages, these drugs have great medical value and rarely produce any sort of high. But make no mistake, they are narcotics, and do carry the risks thereof.” Because I was not able to successfully process that information, my brain focused on the word “narcotics.”
I got all excited, looked up the word “narcotic” to confirm what I thought I knew, and got agitated because the ADD drugs are not technically narcotics (which are the opiates, belladonna, heroine, etc.). I got further worked up because I couldn’t understand why, when the author clearly knew so much about these drugs, s/he would make such a mistake. I was completely mystified by this and it was a VERY BIG DEAL! I tried very hard to figure out a way to post to correct this ERROR! [an example of the way my brain processes in extremes and absolutes]
As a result of lessons hard learned, I managed to hold off posting until I’d had a chance to think it through, but holding off was a physical challenge. I kept leaning toward the keyboard and pulling myself back.
About this point, I took my Focalin because that’s where I was in my morning routine and it’s what works for me.
It finally dawned on me that use the of the word “narcotics” was probably shorthand for “drugs, which if misused, have a high potential for addiction.” Having figured that out, I would like to have been able to let it go at that point. What meds do for me is that I am more often able to do so. However, not in this case.
Instead, my brain took off on “But what if someone reads it and DOESN’T UNDERSTAND! What if someone who might be helped by meds doesn’t try them because they get the WRONG IDEA! I have to do something about this!”
At this point, my rational brain kicked in and responded with, “Bullshit. No you don’t. It’s no big deal and you’re probably the only one who had trouble reading the meaning. Besides, you don’t have to be in charge of the whole world.” Again, this should have been the end of it. However, this time, it led to cognitive dissonance so bad that I was rocking in my chair and my hypnotherapy breathing techniques kicked in.
The agitation continued, but I continued to fight the urge to blurt. Even with the meds, I knew I had 50-50 odds of this going on all day. I gave serious consideration to going away from the board for an extended period to avoid dealing with THIS ISSUE which had grown to such vast proportions in my head. Intermingled with all this were terrible feelings of shame and alienation.
Finally, as the meds began to ramp up and I continued to do all my calming things, the physical agitation let go (although my odd interpretations were still niggling at the back of my brain). At that point, I found that I was hungry, thirsty and feeling exhausted, which are symptoms I have observed in dogs post-seizure.
I’m a high-functioning ADD person (and have the test results to prove it) and this is how it happens for me.
I’m back on the shoulder merry-go-round, but this time, it’s the one up the arm from my dominant hand.
Unlike last time, there is no acute injury involved. It’s just wear and tear on a rather poorly designed shoulder socket.
Funny conversation with my orthopaedist, who I hadn’t seen in eight years because he got it absolutely right on the first shoulder. He’d taken the time to re-read my file and remember exactly what went on last time. He knew the results he’d attained, so I got a very worried look from him when he asked, “So what has happened? What’s gone wrong?” Me: “I can tell you’ve read my file. But I can also tell you didn’t read my intake form. It’s the other shoulder.” We both got a laugh out of that one.
One of the things I love about this doctor is that he accepts that I know my own body and believes me when I tell him what I know about my condition based on my prior experience. Of course I’d already had the appropriate x-rays and, once again, they didn’t show anything because a shredding socket doesn’t show up on x-rays. But I know what this feels like. In fact, I know it all too well.
You know how a hangnail hurts all out of proportion to the actual injury? Well, imagine having some hangnails on the front of your shoulder socket. (Last time, it was all the way around.) In short, it hurts like hell.
I’d like to put off surgery for awhile. Fortunately, my doctor agrees with both my diagnosis and treatment plan, so I’m back to physical therapy. I have plenty of flexibility. That’s part of the problem. But I need to build some strength so muscles can help out in holding it all together.
What I learned this morning is that one of the exercises we’re trying isn’t going to work. In fact, it’s going to make things worse instead of better. It’s nice that this time I can be confident in my determination and act accordingly. It’s still going to hurt for a few days, though.
I saw my orthopaedist today. He’s a great guy and as pleasant as when we parted company just over eight years ago.
There are big differences between the left shoulder, which he repaired perfectly back in November of 1998, and the current discomfort with the right shoulder, which had me there today. The left one had a traumatic injury in 1990 and I lived with eight years of escalating chronic pain. This time, there’s just a little injury from wear and tear.
What’s really wrong with my shoulders is poor design. They’re a little bit too square and set back just a little bit too far. As a result, the ball at the top of the arm bone is always pushing forward against the socket. Eventually, the edges of the socket start to fray and the sensation is just as nasty as a hangnail.
Anyway, one of the reasons I like this doctor so much is that he believes me. I told him what I thought was happening and how the current sensation compared to the one before. Since he’d seen the inside of my left shoulder and gotten rid of all those frayed bits, and since the x-rays today didn’t show anything (they didn’t last time, either), he’s happy to prescribe a couple of sessions of physical therapy and let me continue my exercises at home after that.
I may yet end up with having surgery someday, but if I strengthen everything else, I’ll probably be able to put it off for awhile.
The knowledge which comes from experience is a wonderful thing. This time, it’s all much less scary.
We’ve been having “the sick” around here since the middle of December. First, it was something that bore a strong resemblance to walking pneumonia. About the time that lifted, husband had to go to Cleveland for yet another funeral and he brought back with him–wait for it–the cold from hell.
As best as I can recall, I haven’t had a continuous run of the cruds lasting this long since sometime in the early 1980s. Wise choice, that. Wish I’d kept with it.
Like all things, both good and bad, this too shall pass. Either that, or I will, but I don’t think that’s very likely. This is the type of thing which comes around every once in a great while to keep me from getting too big for my britches.
Okay, I’m already too big for my britches, but that’s a separate issue. Of course, two of the more annoying side effects of this mess are that I can’t eat and I can’t smoke. Well, I can do a little of each, but I’m enjoying withdrawal on both counts and it’s making me grumpy.
Eh, I think this is the end of the run I’ve been on. Three years of non-stop stress and grief leaves one rather vulnerable to these things. If this is, indeed, the station at the last stop of the drama-llama express, I’ll deal.
I have no idea what the title means. Probably nothing. But that’s what showed up when our orange tabby cat, Dennis, walked across the keyboard.
For the record, I didn’t name him.
Now that I look at it again, it’s a fair rendition of the noises I have been making for the last few days with my nose and tissues. Maybe this cat is smarter than I want to think about right now.
