Heating Pads, Food & Orgasms

*phooooooo*

*phooooooo*

*phooooooo*

That's the sound of me blowing the dust off my blog. Because it's been forever since I posted. Or a couple of weeks, same diff.

Still don't have a job but there's still money coming in for awhile so I'm not stressed out. Yet.

I've been taking it day by day, trying to be a good little housewife. Doing laundry, cleaning, making dinner almost every night. All the normal, day to day crap I'm in charge of all by myself since I'm the only one not working.

And I'm bored out of my mind!!!! My brain is turning to mush. I have such a greater respect for stay at home moms now. I always thought I would enjoy staying home, raising my kiddo, doing the domestic stuff, instead of working.

I so don't.

I enjoy spending this time with my son, who will be 7 later this month. Don't get me wrong. But he's old enough that he doesn't need me as much. He has his friends in the neighborhood, wants to be outside enjoying summer with them, or playing his XBOX.

Damn XBOX. Damn Call of Duty game. All the gunshots and artillery fire are grating on my nerves. (Can you get PTSD from listening to a war game all the time?)

I have lists, each a mile long, of things I want to accomplish while I'm unemployed. And no energy to do any of it. The chronic health issues I deal with daily make it nearly impossible to bust ass all the time. Those health issues alone are hard enough to deal with but I'm also trying to wean myself off all my medications.

Chronic pain usually requires strong narcotic pain medication. It definitely did in my case and I've been on strong pain killers for 9 years now along with stimulant meds for my Narcolepsy that helped keep me awake during the day. After years of taking these meds, your body becomes dependent on them. Not addicted but dependent. (And I'm not in the mood for the addicted vs dependent argument so don't start with me on that one today!)

I lost my health insurance when I was laid off and the medications I have been taking for years now require monthly visits to my doctor & blood and urine tests. All of which equal huge dollar signs. Which aren't possible since I was laid off. It's a crappy cycle.

I've been slowly lowering my doses on my pain and Narcolepsy meds since the end of June. And my body is not happy. I'm going through withdrawals in a big way which sucks big donkey dicks. I can't sleep. I'm trying to do without the pain meds my body needs for me to be able to function halfway normal like regular people do. Pain meds controlled my chronic pain levels to a point where I could actually get out of bed (most of the time), go to my full time job (90% of the time), and try to take care of my house and family (with help from Mr Man of course).

Yes, I was STILL in horrendous pain but the meds usually made it a "bearable" pain. Taking my pain levels from a 9 to a 7 on a scale of 1-10. Still awful but I could at least push through the pain most days. Now I'm trying to do without that help. All I want to do is sleep all day, curled up with my heating pad which has become my new BFF. Seriously, if it could make me dinner and give me orgasms, I'd never have to leave my room.

So what's a girl to do? I continue to do what I've always done. Force myself to get off my ass, take care of my family & home as best as I can with my limitations, and be a good mom. Even if that means I have to take 5 naps a day, it all has to get done right?

My New Lovah, Mr T... Strong & Scary but Without the Gold Chains

It's 3 a.m....

It's 3 a.m. and I'm up.

AGAIN.

Like I was last night.

And the night before that!

This new Topamax I'm taking has a ton of different side effects. For some people it makes them fall on their face exhausted all the time. Like they're sleep walking through their days. For others, it wires them and makes them wide awake. ALL THE TIME. I seem to have fallen into this second category.

I thought it would be good to keep tabs of this journey with my new lover Mr T, not only for my benefit, and the benefit of my new doctor who will need all the gory and boring details, but also because I'm finding there's a ton of information online about this drug. Most of it is EXTREMELY SCARY and horrific, little of it is very helpful and personal. So I figured maybe someone else can benefit by reading about this. If not, go read someone else's blog would ya? lol

No, I'm kidding.

STAY!

Seriously! Stay. It was a joke.

Let me begin first with a disclaimer...

***I am not a doctor. This blog is in no way meant to be used as medical advice. Always, always, always consult your own physician about your own use of this medication and my story here is just that, my own story and experience. Do not use my story as a basis or direction for your own medical use of Topamax. There are many different reasons why patients can be prescribed this medication and because of that, there are also many different dosages and instructions you can be given to follow based on your own personal medical history. If you have questions on your dosage and side effects, please speak to your own physician.***

There, I feel better. Now back to my entry...

So, if you haven't read previous entries, I am taking Mr T to hopefully help with migraines, chronic headaches and chronic pain from my fibromyalgia. My new doctor, bless her heart, thinks it may help me and I'm crossing my fingers and toes in that same vain.

My instructions are as follows:

For week 1 I am supposed to take 25 mg at bedtime.
Week 2, 25 mg in the morning and again at bedtime.
Week 3, 25 mg in the morning and 50 mg at bedtime.
Week 4, 50 mg in the morning and again at bedtime.

Day 1, which was Thursday night, I took the first 25 mg pill 5 minutes after the pharmacy handed my prescription to me. I had 3 seizures when I was pregnant with B and when I was in the hospital being evaluated to see why I was having seizures out of nowhere, since I'd never had one before, they shot me up with 2 different anti seizure medications that I ended up being allergic to. I was supposed to take Mr T at bedtime but because of my past history with anti seizure meds, I was afraid of having a huge allergic reaction to it and, oh I don't know, suffocating in my sleep or something. So that's why I took it right away, while I was still lucid and aware of everything.

Within about 35 minutes I had a horrible coppery, metallic taste rush into my mouth. I think I mentioned it in my last post. It was like I put a whole bunch of pennies in my mouth to suck on. The Coke I had been drinking started tasting like metal and was very tingly on my tongue, almost painful actually. I had to make cookies for a potluck at work the next day and Mr Man said I was acting very goofy and wired and energetic. (He kept calling me "Mrs Topamax" which I found hysterical for some reason. I must have been high lol)

I was in a really good mood, laughing and joking with him and B but my brain was kind of skipping beats here and there. I had to read the recipe about 20 times because I couldn't focus on it and what ingredients I had already put in the bowl. I needed to find the pastry blender that
Mr Man had put away when he cleaned the kitchen the last time I used it. It wasn't in the drawer I keep all my baking supplies in and for the life of me I could not think of the name of the damn thing.

Now, forgetting the names of items is not something new for me. I have fibro. It's an everyday occurrence and Mr Man is used to it but this was different. With fibro it's usually a complete blank. I can't think of what the thing is AT ALL. It's like someone takes an eraser and just wiped out that little memory card that's filed away in my brain that holds that item. Then later on, it comes back. This was different in that it was on the tip of my tongue. I kept trying to explain it to Mr Man over and over and over again. I was miming it with my hand, trying to make the shape of it. Telling him you make pie crusts with it and it smooshes the flour and the butter or shortening together until it looks like peas. Unfortunately, I think I even tried calling it that "knuckle looking thing!" What the hell is that all about? How do you get knuckle when talking about the pastry blender? It was pretty comical. Mr Man just kept laughing at me even though I was getting frustrated.

I had no problems falling asleep that night but I was awake by 3am. I woke up with RLS (Restless Legs) and got up to take some Mirapex I'm prescribed for it. By the time I walked from the bedroom to the kitchen for water, the restless, jittery feeling had spread from head to toe. I took the Mirapex still, hoping for some relief. I started shaking with really, really bad chills. If you know me at all, you know that I am ALWAYS hot. I live in Utah which is nipply cold in the winter. I could be outdoors, in shorts and flip flops, in the middle of January and still be wishing for a breeze of some kind. So, I knew something was wrong if I was freezing. I couldn't hold still, I was shaking and jittery and felt like I needed to jump out of my skin. I paced the house for about 2 hours before snuggling up to Mr Man again for the warmth and falling asleep for half an hour. Then I was up again, wired and jittery and wide awake again. BUT....

For the first time in 17 YEARS, I WAS HEADACHE FREE!!!!!!! It was funny because I remember standing there talking to Mr Man as he was walking out the door to leave for work, about how awful my boss had been about some comment he'd made a couple of days before, when it dawned on me why I was so happy! I didn't have a headache! It's been so long since I haven't had one that I couldn't even remember what that was like. It was wonderful.

He had made me toast and poured me coffee before he left for work as he always does in the morning, because he's so sweet and he knows how rough mornings always are for me. I had zero appetite. The site of the toast and just the thought of eating it actually made me want to gag a little. I think I drank about half the coffee, which thankfully tasted like it normally does. But then he left for work and I sat on the couch to relax for a minute. And I felt like someone had just pulled the plug on my happy mood. It was very odd. One minute I was fine and the next minute, I was very melancholy and sad and depressed. I almost felt flat, if there's even such a way to feel flat. I can't explain it very well but it kind of scared me a little. Then just like that, it was gone.

Now, I also started my period at this same time which could be why I might have been having the elated feelings and the feelings of flatness and melancholy although I will say that I am not a big PMS kind of person. With my period I am emotional in that I cry at commercials and songs and stories but I never get depressed feelings or feelings of elation like I did that morning. Maybe it was Mr T, maybe not, maybe Mr T just intensified that? I dunno.

I remained headache free until around 11:30 am Friday morning, which is actually about the same time I seemed to get my appetite back too. That's probably when Mr T left my body from the previous nights dose. I had lunch but couldn't eat much of anything. It all tasted the same but still couldn't have anything with carbonation. Still tasted like fizzy metal. I drank a lot of water all day Friday so I didn't notice any tingling feelings at all.

Day 2, Friday night, I took the dose at bedtime and had the same coppery taste in my mouth. I didn't have the same elated, happy feeling as before. The only memorable thing that happened really was that I tripped going up the stairs! Twice. On the same trip. Actually, on the same step. I know this med can affect coordination which is the only reason I'm mentioning it. Jittery/restless feeling was only in my legs. Started having tingling in my hands and feet but as I drank more water, that went away.

I was not headache free today (Saturday) though. I had a horrible pounding headache which could have been from the lack of sleep from the night before. I had fallen asleep snuggling with B putting him to bed. Woke up at midnight and was awake until I think 3:30 am when I was finally able to fall asleep, and then was up by 9 am because of the dog and cat wanting attention. Did not have much appetite at all. Went out to breakfast with my sister and the kids and had about 6 bites of my food. Ate 3 chicken strips for lunch and that was it. Tried drinking lots today though to keep other side effects at bay.

Today, Day 3, Saturday, I thought I would outsmart Mr T a bit and take half the 25 mg dose around 3:00 pm to see if that would help a little with the sleeplessness. Unfortunately, it did not! (As you can tell since it was 3 AM when I started this post and it's now 5 am!!!) After I took half the dose, I had no appetite. I did have tingling, which I've read is my body letting me know I need hydration since Mr T does dehydrate your body very quickly. So as long as I was drinking water or Powerade, that stayed at bay.

I took the 2nd half of my 25 mg dose around 7:30 tonight I think. Because I'm not hungry in the least little bit, I forgot about making dinner. I was promptly reminded though by my hungry family. When they started giving me fish eye and drooling, I decided to make dinner. I made it through cooking the chicken just fine but when I went to drain the pasta, I dropped the pot of pasta, complete with the boiling water as I was trying to drain it. Splashing boiling water all over my hands. Now, not only did I do it once, but as soon as I tried to lift the pan up again to finish draining it, I dropped it a second time! That is when I hollered for Mr Man to come finish the job since I had burned both hands really bad. I'm ok now but they were bright red tonight.

Other then that clumsy act, I have extremely bad heartburn and I'm kind of nauseated. I also have this weird feeling like there's something stuck in the pit of my stomach. Like a knot or something. You know that feeling you get when you're really nervous or really stressed and you have this feeling down deep in your stomach? That's what it feels like all the time now. But I'm thinking it has more to do with Mr T then with any of my life's stresses right now. I don't know. Also, I'm still extremely emotional, crying at EVERYTHING! Today I cried at about 7 different commercials on TV, cried at a story a friend told me, cried at a blog I read and cried at a song I heard. Which is a lot more then I normally cry around this time!

I think that might be it for the wrap up of days 1-3 of Mr T. I'll try to keep this updated daily with more information on how this is going. I've noticed a lot more hits to my blog now that I'm talking about Mr T and Topamax. Hopefully this will be helpful and beneficial to some of you. Please feel free to leave me comments! I welcome them!

Are Things Looking Up? Or am i Just Looking Away?

Ever since the day we shall call the-day-I-pulled-my-head-outta-my-ass-and-confronted-my-worst-nightmare, things have been different around here. He has been a much happier, more contended person this past week. It's like someone slipped him some of my good drugs, ya know the ones I hide when company comes over? He's been really happy and smiley, almost like the man I fell in love with. It's been nice and surreal all at the same time.

I am not sure if it's because his secret is out in the open now and he's no longer having to sneak around and hide things from me. And maybe he feels relieved.

And maybe he's realized what a GIGANTIC ASS he made of himself and how he risked the biggest and best thing that's ever happened to him.

Maybe he realized he risked his entire family and his entire future over this stupid woman he claims didn't mean anything to him.

And maybe that day he pictured our sons beautiful face in his mind and realized JUST.LIKE.THAT. it could have all been gone.

Ya, and MAYBE tomorrow I'll wake up to a clean house, rainbows in the sky and unicorns dancing on my front lawn!

MAYBE I'm being a tard, WANTING him to feel these things. WILLING him to think these things. DYING for him to realize what a humongous mistake this was.

I want to believe it. I badly want to believe it! He tells me things that I desparately want to hear and I need to believe what he says. For my families sake, I need to believe all of it. There's 7 years and a beautiful, gorgeous, funny and intelligent 6 year old little boy riding on it, counting on me, to believe all of it.

I've surprised myself, even scared myself a little, with how easily I've wanted to move past this part of our life and get to a better place. I've quickly and happily gone back to our routines, the I love you's, morning coffee together before work, clean laundry, dinners, dishes, bathtimes, laughter and snuggles. I've willed myself to this place of family contentment with him by my side. He's been grateful I haven't chosen to leave him, thankful I asked the questions I had and then dropped it. There are still questions I need answers to but not right now. Every day there are new questions that i MUST know the answers to, but I can't bear to hear those answers while this is still so fresh and new in my heart. The wound is still bleeding profusely and it needs to heal a little before I can let anything new into it.

I don't want this post to come off as stupid-wife-looks-the-other-way-while-husband-continues-affair-she-refuses-to-believe-is-going-on. My eyes are wide open. He's on a short leash. His cell phone records are being checked, call and text record logs searched for her number or any other number that I know doesn't belong to any of our family or friends.

So what's a supermom/domestic diva to do? Well, besides washing all the dirty, icky boy underwear, cleaning up after Miss Peabody (who still can't tell the difference between our kitchen rug and the grass outside), and finding all the toy action figures who've gone missing in "combat"?

She plows through. She holds her head up high, reminds herself that SHE IS THE BETTER WOMAN in all of this, and SHE will win in the end since she's the one who holds his heart.

I'm the one who's stuck by him through thick and thin, through the births and deaths of various family members, through all of it.

I am the one he loves and the one he's still attracted to even after all these years.

I am the one he can't keep his hands off of even though I've put on 40 lbs since he first met me.

I'm the one he takes care of when I am in so much pain that I can't even roll over in bed to take my pain medication in the cold, dark winter mornings.

I'm the one he gently and lovingly gathers in his arms to help me get out of bed and to the couch so I can watch TV while I wait for my medication to kick in before I can start my day.

I'm the one he runs hot bubble baths for when I've had a horrible day at work and it's storming out and I'm not feeling good at all.

I'm the one he pours coffee for every morning while I'm still half asleep.

I will be the one he's still with 40 or 50 years from now as we watch our grandbabies grow.

"SHE" will only be a distant memory...

How I got here....

I've always wanted to write. Do something artistic with my life. I won a few places in art shows in junior and high school, including first place once thank-you-very-much, loved to write stories, even in elementary school I loved to write. But my life took another turn.

After I graduated high school and moved in with my 2nd serious boyfriend to date, I started feeling run down, tired, just plain old like shit. It started gradually... One day I was tired, then it felt like a flu that I couldn't shake, then lost muscle control. Then there were numerous, COUNTLESS, doctors over a span of months and months. Months where I spiraled further and further down the rabbit hole, where I lost the use of my legs, then arms, lost the ability to feed myself, dress myself, bathe myself, where I lost myself completely. Finally a doctor knew what was wrong with me!!!!! ONE doctor out of the 20+ doctors and specialists of every field I had gone to begging for an answer, ANY answer, as long as I knew what the hell was wrong with me. A diagnosis was made and I finally knew why I was the way I was, why I felt like I was literally dying. Unfortunately, what was handed to me was sometimes worse then a death sentence. I was told, hey, you will NEVER EVER get better and this will NEVER EVER go away! You can try some things to control the pain (which have been a joke), but hey, if you give up doing anything that rquires exertion of any kind, you might be able to stand it for a while. The doctor was at least honest about it and I learned, for the most part, what I could but mostly could NOT do any longer. What activities and chores and social things I could do and what would leave me screaming and crying in pain, so exhausted sometimes that no tears would come. My life became a balancing act;

Having the strength to wash my hair...

BUT UNABLE TO COMB OR BLOW DRY IT...

Leaving the kitchen a mess...

JUST SO I CAN MAKE THE WALK TO THE BEDROOM TO GET TO BED FOR THE NIGHT...

Letting hundreds and hundreds of dollars of groceries go bad...

BECAUSE I JUST DIDN'T HAVE THE STRENGTH TO PUT IT IN THE FRIDGE OR FREEZER WHERE IT NEEDED TO BE!

Giving up and letting go of everything I knew to be true in my life to learn this whole new life, the one where I was "sick" all the time. The new life where nothing was as it seemed, where my body would betray me over and over again, sometimes hundreds of times a day at the beginning. I would think I had it figured out and then bam! My body would seem to be saying "ah, ah ah.... Not so fast little lady! and I'd be down for the count again.

I gave up dreaming about my future so I could focus on today, on NOW, on how to get through the next day, the next hour, sometimes the next minute even. How could I think about my future when I was worried about getting thru the then and now, that moment, that time???? I felt like I would never even have a future, so why should I plan for one?

While I was worrying about this medication or that medication, my friends were partyng and having fun, being young and carefree. While I was stuck in bed, too exhausted and in too much pain to move, my friends were at the clubs dancing the night away. Before I knew it, my life had sort of passed me by. Yes, I live with J and we have a beautiful, smart and funny 6 year old little boy who I wouldn't trade for any amount of money in the world, except maybe when he's slammin his bedroom door when he's pissed off... lol But I still feel like something is missing. Like life was this big cruise ship and everyone but me is on it. I'm running down the dock to make it to the ship before it pulls away and right as I get to the edge, the ship is sailing away and everyone on it is waving good bye to me.

Those are my musings for the night I guess. It's now almost 12:30 AM and I'm probably starting to make less and less sense as I ramble on and on but hey, that's me at my best. I hope everyone has a good night!