21 pills a day.

I go back and forth between wanting to do every possible thing there is to do in the world and wanting to kill myself because the constant pain and the constant stream of pills is too much to bear.

I calculated it last weekend, and I’m on about 21 prescription pills a day. That’s 21 pills every single day just to survive. It’s 21 pills just to make it from sun up to sun down.

Every single day, I wake up in horrible pain because all my medications have worn off.

The hydrocodone and the gabapentin from the night before are no longer in my system, and my right rib hurts so bad that it’s hard to breath. It’s hard to even reach over and grab the bottles of pills and count them out and put them in my mouth and then grab the cup of water I put there the night before knowing I would need it and then take a gulp and swallow it all down.

I have to use every ounce of strength I have in my bones to get up and reach over and grab those pills every morning. And of course it doesn’t help that my brain is fighting off the fog of the sleeping pill I took the night before.

I hate it. I really hate it.

I want it all to be over so bad.

I don’t understand it, and the doctors don’t seem to either. The pain specialist and Loyola told me that he doesn’t know what caused it, he doesn’t know what will cure it and he’s pretty much just hoping it will go away on it’s own.

My primary care doctor told me to make an appointment at The Mayo Clinic, and after realizing that I just can not live my life by depending on two hydrocodone every four hours, I decided to take his advice. So I reached out to them this week, and then they said they would need a referral, which my primary care doctor gave them. But then they said they had to decide whether or not they would take my case.

Did you read that? They have to decide if they going to take my case or not. The Mayo Clinic is just about my last resort on this stupid blue planet and they could end up deciding that I am not worthy of their care.

They said they would tell me their decision in 10 days.

Whatever.

Just like everyone else, they think 10 days is a short amount of time, but they don’t seem to understand that for someone in chronic pain, 10 days feels like 10 years.

I’m so frustrated.

I hate dealing with this every day.

I know it could be worse. I know I need to pray and lean on God. But it’s just so hard to get up out of bed every single morning and reach over and grab those pills.

And then to have to take a bunch more four short hours later because my right ribs are screaming in agony.

I want to be healthy. I want to do all the things I used to do. I want to be awesome at both my jobs. I want to be an over achiever.

I want to be able to hop in a car and drive out to see my mom on a moment’s notice, or help my boyfriend clean out his office, or decorate the youth room or go to the grocery store anytime I want without having to calculate how much pain I’m going to be in at the first stoplight I hit.

I want to reach over and give my boyfriend a big hug without horrible pain radiating throughout my body. I want to cover a candy show without having to lay down behind the booth throughout the day because the pain is unbearable and I can no longer stand up. And I want to love being alive again.

And I can’t do any of those things right now. In fact, I can barely get out of bed.

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I’m finally getting some sleep, so I don’t want to kill myself anymore

So, sleep is freaking important.

And, I’m finally taking some medicine that is strong enough to overcome the stabbing pain in my right ribs and help me get some of it every night. YAY!

I mean, sure, whatever, I sleep for like 12 hours straight no matter how many alarms I set. But hey, at least I’m not suicidal anymore.

Seriously, it was those long nights awake in pain that were driving me down to Hell. When each long minute seemed like an hour and each night seemed like an eternity and the pain was at its worst and I was all alone.

That’s when I couldn’t think clearly.

That’s when I would lose all hope.

And it didn’t really get much better when the sun came up, because functioning on no sleep makes you insane. It just does.

So I would spend all day, still in horrible pain, dreading the night time, thinking about suicide. Laying on the floor in various places, because I was so tired and in so much pain that I couldn’t sit upright.

I remember laying on the floor in a dining room and being able to see into a bathroom where a jug of Drano sat on the floor. And I remember thinking, maybe I could just drink that and this whole thing would be over.

It was awful.

I kept clawing for help, reaching out in anyway I knew how. But I didn’t know  what exactly it was that was making me crazy. And I assumed it was the horrible, daily pain. And I couldn’t seem to get help for that.

I did know I needed to get the sleep thing figured out though. I knew, for example, that it was at least a third of the reason I would cry for the first hour after I got to work everyday. (The other two-thirds being equal parts horrible stabbing pain, and a cocktail of medications screwing with my brian).

Unfortunately, Advil PM is just not strong enough for me right now, but thankfully, my doctor finally put me on 50 mg. of amitriptyline.

And I’m finally getting some sleep every single day.

And I’m finally thinking just a little bit more clearly.

The other good news about that medication, is that it’s also supposed to help with my pain. I mean, I don’t think it really has yet, but I’ve been told that’s going to happen, so YAY!

I also went to see another doctor yesterday who put me on an anti-viral medication, just in case this is shingles without a rash. And he paired it with a steroid pack so that it’s more effective and so that I can get better at hitting baseballs and eventually play for the Cubs.

If the anti-viral/steroid thing works, I could be cured before the huge candy show I have to cover for my job at the end of May. And let me just tell you that I really, really, really, really want to work that show with all of my sugar-coated heart.

If that doesn’t work, well, then I’m pretty much screwed. And I do not use the word screwed on here lightly.

Let’s just say visions of The Mayo Clinic are dancing in all my doctor’s brains right now. And I thought they would think that place was like some sort of drastic measure. But no. They were like, you should probably make an appointment now just to be safe. And I was like, Crap.

Anyway, I hope the anit-viral medication works.

It probably will.

And now that I’m getting enough sleep, even if it doesn’t, I won’t get so defeated that I’ll end up killing myself. So yay.

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