Calgon take me away

Preface: This blog is about me and my experience/feelings with regards to medications. It is not a judgement on or valuation of what anyone else does/feels with regards to their anxiety, depression, pain, insomnia, allergies…etc.

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Monday morning I went to physical therapy for my shoulder. I’ve been going for close on to six weeks I think, but only once a week because they are so booked they can’t usually fit me in twice a week. This past Monday, I actually cried during the appointment because the pain was a) so bad and b) so frustrating. For the first three weeks or so, I was doing my exercises religiously at home. Then the therapist started adding in more and more exercises–without giving them to me in written or picture form–and I got overwhelmed and lost. I still try to do stuff daily, but it’s not everything I should be doing. Even so, I’m continuing to progress with my flexibility, but the pain continues. And I guess because the therapist is trying to push my range, the pain is…bad.

I am extremely sensitive to medications, and have been for most of my adult life. I don’t even take OTC pain killers like ibuprofin or acetaminophen or tylenol because they either screw up my stomach or they don’t work. I will take anti-biotics when prescribed, but I hate the experience and it’s mentally very challenging for me.

So last night I was in the shower and thinking about how much my shoulder still hurt, how sore it was, and I was under the hot spray of water and thinking…if I only took pain killers this would be a lot easier. And I knew…I KNEW part of the reason I don’t take pain killers or cold medication or antihistamines or sleeping pills or any other medication is that I would cause a bigger issue for myself. It’s NO LIE that I have medication sensitivities…I very much do have them. But maybe if I searched hard enough I could find things that work for me. I don’t do this…and here’s why.

About fifteen years ago I had a bad cold…a sore throat that was horrendously painful. I started using these OTC throat drops that had some kind of liquid medication in the middle. It was probably Haul’s brand, probably cherry flavored. I used them constantly in the beginning and they seemed to help. Then my throat started getting better but I literally got addicted to them and was continuing to suck on them like they were candy. I had to use them. I was addicted and I had to have one in my mouth almost all the time. It was vaguely terrifying when I finally realized what was happening (maybe like 3-4 weeks later). I quit them cold turkey and made Hub take the bag to work with him to throw away. I knew if they were in the trash in my house, I would dig them out and eat them. I don’t buy those kind of lozenges anymore, though in the last two or three years I have started buying honey-drops for sore throats.

I don’t do drugs and I don’t drink any alcohol and I don’t smoke. I never did any of those things. I feel like if I did or if I started using something like pain killers or anti-anxiety medication or sleeping pills, I would be using them constantly and for the wrong reason. I’d be in less pain, I’d probably have less anxiety, I might sleep more, but I’d also be zoned out and not living. I would just figure out the best way to shut myself off from everything and everyone in life by doping myself up on OTC or prescription medication. I would be gone, in every sense of the word. I’m not sure I’ve ever admitted this fear to anyone out loud, but in my heart I know that I’d use the medications to hide away. I’m not sure I’d be doing anything illegal or overdosing on the meds–or even overusing in any significant way–but I’d be using them in a way that would excuse me from life.

I feel like my anxiety over medications keeps me safe from all of this. Yes, I DID use some pain medication after my first surgery, but it was only a day or so (and so regimented!) and then I used tylenol. And then after a day or so I used nothing. The second surgery I didn’t use pain meds because I didn’t like the way they made me feel the first time, so I used tylenol as needed and I suffered through. I suffer through pain on a daily basis because I’m afraid of who I would become if I muted all the pain in my life…physical and mental.

Before I first got sick in 2001 (at 29yo), I’m not sure I ever really needed medications. Sure, I probably took cold meds on and off over the years, and never gave it another thought. Yes I did use Advil every month for cramps (which is how I ended up with stomach issues!) and probably occasionally for headaches. But after I got sick, everything changed, including who I really was. Who I really am.

The physical therapist said that I could go back to my Ortho doctor and ask to get a steroid injection to help with the pain as we continue with rehab, but I declined. I hate the pain I live with daily, and I hate the pain that reduces me to tears during PT, but the pain reminds me that I’m alive. I’m alive and I’m experiencing life.

This all sounds very fucked up. I guess I’m not surprised at that revelation.

 

Whole30 end of days, or…?

So yesterday was our official 30th day of Whole30. Hub and I had several conversations over the weekend about what we are going to do, one of which was kind of an argument. During which Hub told me he never wanted to do this, that I made him do it.

WHUT.

I originally started discussing this with him weeks before we started, and he said if I was going to do it, he was going to do it with me. He said he had hoped it would break some of his bad habits and help him get on track to eating in a more healthy fashion. Now he says this was all my doing and he never wanted to be involved…and he was angry that I seemed to be “bait and switching” him in the last week of the program. In that, I started asking him if he was thinking of how he was going to maintain any of the new habits he had created or if he was going to go back to his old habits. He said, “You said this was only thirty days and now you’re acting like we’re going to eat this way forever!”

*sigh*

I said I wasn’t saying that at all, only that after all the hard work he went through to make all these changes, why would he let that all go and fall back into all the old habits he had. As addicted to sugar and carbs as he was, I was SHOCKED at how well he did getting off all gluten grains and sugar. If that was so successful, why would he go back to eating and drinking all that sugar? Yes, if you want something, eat it consciously, knowing what you are doing. Not mindlessly because that’s what you’ve always done and without any enjoyment of the actual thing you’re eating. I told him, if I want ice cream, I’m gonna eat it. But I’m gonna do it when I want it, not every time we pass an ice cream shop because it’s RIGHT THERE.

He was really mad, but I’m not entirely sure he was mad at me. When we went to the store the next day, we were looking for sausages for him and the ones we saw had sugar in them. I asked him which flavor he wanted and he said no, he didn’t want any of them because they had added sugar. So after all that argument and him blaming me for everything, he’s decided to pay attention to what he’s eating still? I really had hoped this would allow him to modify his eating patterns, not that he give everything up altogether, you know? It’s where I wanted to be, so I thought he would feel the same way.

He said he doesn’t want to have to think about food choices like this. That it’s too hard. I told him I live like this every day because of what I have to eliminate from my diet. That it’s hard, but sometimes we have to do that kind of thing. He’s never had to. Even with cheese, he can eat it to a point, but in excess it gives him stomach issues. So he just eats it and gets sick sometimes and doesn’t get sick other times and oh well! He has diabetes, but he told me it “wasn’t that bad” on a scale of diabetes. Ignoring the fact that he’s on three different diabetes medications to keep him below an 8 A1C…which he’s only a sneeze below. And even the medications are barely working, as his A1C has been rising until this last blood test, where it fell 3/10ths of a percent, to like 7.6. Maybe if he were able to change his eating habits, he’d be able to get off one or two of the meds and find a better way to handle the diabetes. But he doesn’t care and isn’t interested. Or is he? I don’t fucking know anymore.

I told him I’m not going to tell him what to eat. I didn’t do it before this program and I’m not going to afterwards. I thought he wanted to make a change since he was willing to join me in the program, but now I’m not sure. And all I can do is pay attention to what I’m doing and hope things work for me.

Let’s NOT EVEN discuss that he lost 10 pounds in the 30 days and I lost NOTHING. Jerk.

We’re supposed to be considering re-introduction to the food groups we eliminated. I’ve been having some stomach issues the last two days–despite not changing any of my freaking foods–so I’m waiting at least a day or two before making any re-introductions. I don’t want to go into the “test” phase already f’d up.

So I lost no weight, no mood differences, I don’t have any increased energy, my stomach and digestion was no different, I didn’t sleep any better, and my overall pain did not change. Pre- re-introduction. Yay.

 

2190 days

Six years.

It’s been six years since Hub and I had to let our Sweet Pea go to the Rainbow Bridge. I post about her every year, usually before the anniversary of our loss, but this year I didn’t. I’m writing this today, ON the day, 6 hours after we let her go. Today, as it happened on the first year anniversary, I am alone at home. Hub has been out since early this morning and will not be home until late tonight. I have not and will not bring up the anniversary to him…he deals in his own way and I deal in mine.

I was re-reading what I’ve written in the past on this day, and I cried. I cried for the pain of losing her, I cried for the pain of loss, I cried because it hurt me how much she was hurting in the last weeks. We never had a final, concrete prognosis of what would have happened if we had made her try to hold on…would it have been days, weeks, months? It didn’t matter in the end, because there was too much pain in her for us to even consider prolonging her life. There was no way…

In all I’ve written, this is what I would want to say again and again. I just don’t want to find new words this year.

In 2011, she started slowing down. Not surprising to us, because based on what we knew we adopted her, she would have been going on 12 years old. That’s old-age for a large dog. Then, in late July of that year, she developed a cough. It scared me. We took her to our vet, but he found no reason for the cough…but found an auto-immune disease that would explain her increased and pretty marked lethargy. And as the tests continued–along with medications–the news got worse. And so did Sweet Pea. She became unable to walk the stairs to our bedroom, so Hub began sleeping on the couch in the family room to be near her. She started having trouble walking down the three deck stairs to the yard, so Hub began helping her out to the front yard down only two concrete steps (one step out the door, then the concrete porch and one step off the porch) to do her business. Then she began having trouble getting up…and the medications made her pant heavily…and they made her painful. And every day, I died a little inside. Not only because we knew this was serious–likely fatal–but because she was suffering. Even though it was only a little at that point, there was no uphill from there. I prayed she would give up. I prayed G-d would take her in her sleep–though she only dozed during the day, she was restless at night. I prayed that we would get some kind of report saying there was no hope and that it was time. I got none of it. The tests were inconclusive, but experience from our vet said there was likely nothing we could do except extend her life a few weeks or a few months…maybe. But in the end, she was not going to last long…and it was not going to be an easy time for her. And letting her hang on and die “naturally”…our vet said it would be painful for her. Like drowning, or being unable to breathe…struggling, gasping. It was three weeks from the first vet visit for a cough to the day we took her in for her last visit. In between was medication, tests, an emergency drive two hours away to an ER vet for a transfusion (where she had to stay locked in a cage overnight without us) during a bad hurricane, there was a bad reaction to the infusion, more tests…and pain. My sweet, loving, gentle girl snapped at a vet tech who barely touched her, snapped at our vet when he tried to help her, and cried. She’d never done any of those things in the nine years we’d known and loved her. She’d never snapped at anyone, ever, over anything. Man or beast. And then there were the eyes. She watched us every day, with these big, sad eyes. Pain seemed to radiate from her gaze. We hesitated to touch her because we thought it caused her pain. I laid on the floor with her in our dining room…the softest carpet in the house, and I stroke her paw. I stroked the spot from between her eyes down to her nose, so lightly I barely felt her fur. I wanted to hold her and hug her close, but I couldn’t. I wanted her to make the decision for us, but she refused. She refused to stop caring for us. She refused to let go, because she knew it was her job to see to us first. We had no choice. We had no fucking choice.

We took her in to the vet. I talked to her from the moment they put her on the table until long after she was gone. I told her that we were letting her go, and that her job was over. That it was our turn to take care of her the way she had taken care of us for the last 9 years. I told her it was all right, that she could go, she could be free of her body that was betraying her. And I cried like I’d never cried before. I told her how much we loved her. I told her how thankful we were to have her in our lives. I told her how much we would miss her. I sobbed and I petted her and I held on to her. I smelled her fur and her feet and touched her ears. And I cried. And inside, a part of me curled up and died with her.

We took her to our property and laid her to rest in a pretty spot near my parents’ dog, who had died one year prior. It was incredibly hot and humid, but my family–my brothers and my parents and Hub–dug a hole. Deep and wide, so there would be no concerns about the animals in the area. And it was so hot out, but they did it. And they put her in the grave, wrapped in her two favorite bed covers, with a couple of her favorite toys and an unwashed shirt of mine that smelled like me.

I can’t tell you the tears I’ve cried for my girl. I can’t tell you the hole in my heart from the loss of her. I can’t tell you how much I’ve changed because of her. I can’t explain how much I’ve changed with the loss of her.

I’ve written about her a lot. A lot in the first year she was gone. Not as much during the second year, though I’ve talked about her often in a professional and personal setting. I think about her every day. I’ve gone back and read the things I’ve written about her…and cried like it was the day that we let her go. I did it today in preparation for this post. It was incredibly painful. It IS incredibly painful.

I posted this on her six month anniversary, elsewhere. I re-read it earlier and every word is still the truth for me today.

I woke this morning early, looking directly at the clock by my bedside. The clock shows not only the time, but the date…and I almost felt my heart stop. I had been crying most of the night after I turned off all the lights. Images of the day we let SP go were running through my head, making me sob like it was the day it happened. I am crying now as I type. So when I woke this morning, I was fuzzy-headed, and I could swear the clock was telling me today’s date was 3-3-12. How could that be? I knew today was the six month anniversary, and that SP had left us on 9-2-11. I couldn’t believe I had missed the day, although I have been feeling the pain of this date for weeks.

I stayed in bed for hours, long past my husband let Le Moo out and went on his way to work. I stared at the clock, tears clogging my throat as I berated myself for missing the 2nd. It wasn’t until I was standing outside with Le Moo, staring at the trees in our back yard, when I realized that my clock must not have allowed for leap year. I KNEW today was the 2nd…I knew today was the day. I had spent hours thinking about it, not knowing how I could have been mistaken.

I feel whipped and beaten. I spent most of the hours crying last night and early this morning thinking that I desperately wanted to go to the basement and bury myself in the dog bed SP slept on in our old house in our bedroom. It’s an atrocious 70s orange color, something I found at overstock and bought merely because at the time it was the only memory-foam dog bed I could find big enough for her that we could afford. She loved the bed and we put up with it because of that. I mean that color would burn your retinas and I have no idea why it was ever made, but she loved laying on that thing. I suspect before the afternoon is over, I will be sitting with that bed, trying to find her smell and looking at the dog hair I hope it still clinging to it.

I cannot tell you how often I ache over the fact that I do not have a pawprint from her. I know there is one embedded in my heart, but I wish I had one to look at and touch. I have finally put one picture of her on my wall in addition to the polaroid picture I keep next to my bed. I want to put up so many that I fear it would cover the entire wall…but then I think it would kill me to see them.

I feel like I cannot get past this loss. I feel like I will never get past it. I still think of her every day. I still wish that she was here with us. I still look to step over her next to the bed. I cannot believe I have woken up without her every day for the last 180 days…how is it possible? How have I made it?

SP, I carry this pain of your loss every day. It is a part of me and will always be. I miss you so much that sometimes it hurts to breathe. And he misses you, too. I see it in his eyes and I feel it in his heart, even though he doesn’t show it the same way I do. You know how much he adored you, how he lived for those early morning and late night conversations with you. How he looked forward to coming home from work every day to see you waiting for him at the window, or at the top of the stairs, wagging that gorgeous tail of yours. How we both loved your big brown eyes and the “eyeliner” that Mom swore you woke up early every morning to put on. I miss touching your soft fur, feeling you snuffle my face and my eyes and my hair. I miss hugging you and calling you Sweet Pea. I miss singing to you when we went downstairs every day for lunch. I miss you, dammit. There isn’t a thing about you I don’t miss. The way you would eat your food, then come find one of us and burp right in our face like it was a “thank you”. The way it felt when you leaned against us, sharing your love with us. The way you used to run out into the yard to see neighbors walking by the fence…the way you used to run back to the house looking happy and “lighter” after you poo’d.

And as I sit here, I remember your last days, and I sob for the pain. I remember sitting on the floor in the dining room, on that atrocious pink carpet you loved to use as a scratching post for your toenails…I was already in pain as I considered what lay ahead of us. That we would have no other option but to let you go, to take away the pain of your disease. I remember posting here, asking for guidance and support, knowing that we had to do the right thing. I remember laying there with the laptop nearby, wishing I could hold you close and never let you go, but knowing even the smallest of caresses could cause you physical pain. I remember touching your paws, hoping it would not be too much for you. I remember using one finger to stroke the spot between your eyes and down your snout, praying it would not bring you pain but give you comfort and show you my love for you. I remember sitting in the family room, begging him to take a picture of the two of us because we had NONE….but only hovering over you because I was afraid to touch you. I hate those pictures. I remember taking you to the vet hospital, and sitting in the car with him, both of us dreading the moments because they were our last with you. Your beautiful gorgeous face, watching us, looking so tired and old and sad…the pain from the meds and the disease having beaten the life from you. And when we arrived, how you tried so hard to get out of the car on your own, but we wouldn’t let you. We were so afraid you would hurt more. The moments when we stood with you in the exam room, as the vet gave you treats to say his goodbye to you. The way you laid there on the table, so trusting and loving, but so tired. I hated every second of it. I hated that we had to do it. I hated that it had to happen. I hated that we had to let you go. It was so bittersweet to see the pain lift from your body as your life ended.

I am literally doubled over in pain, sobbing with the pain of this all. Of the memories. Of the loss. Of the regrets.

I love you, Sweet Pea. I love you, Sweet Pea. I love you my precious beautiful Sweet Pea.

It’s been so many years without my Sweet Pea. 2,190 days…the Polaroid picture of her is still in the exact same place next to my bed, on the corner of my dresser. Every now and then I go look at pictures (other than the one that is the background on my laptop) and a few videos we have of her. On the landing going upstairs, there’s a picture of her front and center on a console table…I never want to forget her smile, or what she brought to my life.

I miss her so much.