A Dose of Reality
Sometimes I write fictional stories, and sometimes I attempt to write humorous things, but today's post is going to be about how life has been recently, and it won't be very funny. And it will be longer than my usual posts.
I struggle with winter depression. My brain becomes numbed by the grayness, sameness, and drabness. The customary cloudy days begin and end dimly, and the middle isn't much better. (Yes, I take heaps of Vitamin D3, and I just ordered a Happy Light.) Saturday I really bottomed out, and determined that Sunday I was going to go somewhere and do something and try to forget it is winter. I treated myself to breakfast at a restaurant in the next town, and was pleased to run into old friends who I rarely see any more! They invited me to sit with them, and we had a great visit. Next, I went across the street to church and sat with my good friend and neighbor, with whom I had also watched murder mysteries on TV the previous evening when I couldn't stand myself any more.
Then I drove another 20 miles to pick up my youngest daughter, who had suggested we do something fun together. We shared our favorite pizza at a lovely little pizza shop near her apartment, browsed in a home decor discount shop, and then headed for the movie theater. The day began to unravel right about then. My daughter has endometriosis, and is scheduled for another laparoscopy in March. Meanwhile, she is having difficulties managing the pain. She has a high pain tolerance level, so when she complains it has to be BAD. We made it through the movie (Mary Poppins Returns; we loved it), and she almost convinced me to go get my ears pierced but I chickened out and we went to a grocery store to buy ice cream. (Much cheaper, and guaranteed to be enjoyed.) By then she was nearly doubled over with pain. The last M.D. had told her to go to the ER if it got worse, so we decided it was time to go to the ER. (She was just there last Wednesday, but the pain pills they gave her there were not doing any good at all.)
We stopped by her apartment to put the ice cream into her freezer and take her dog out to potty, and then drove across town to the ER. Thankfully, it had quit snowing/raining and there was little traffic at 7:30 p.m. There were dozens of people in the ER. We waited 2.5 hours to get into an exam room, and another hour to see a doctor. They did the usual urine test and blood tests, found nothing new amiss, prescribed a different pain medication, and sometime after 12:30 a.m. we were on our way.
I am not a late night person and I am no longer young. I was barely awake enough to drive. We got to her place, she found me some pjs to wear, and we both squeezed into her full size bed with her mini-dachshund happily tucked between us. We are his favorite people, and he is happiest when he has both of us at once. He was the only happy being in the bed. I was supposed to be paying attention to my daughter's breathing, because she had been given an IV that might make her stop breathing. Such a cheery thought! So I was trying to sleep, but still listen for her to breathe. It was not a restful night. And then her roommate's cat came in and walked all over me, stood on my head, and demanded attention.
Around 5:00 a.m. I retreated to the sofa, shut the cat in her roommate's bedroom (she had gone to work), and slept fitfully for a couple of hours. When I finally sat up around 7:30 a.m. the vertigo was back. Oh crap! There I was, 32 miles from home, and could barely walk. Driving was out of the question. But my older daughter, who lives in a town between us, picked me up, took me to the chiropractor, took me to her house, fed me some late lunch, and then drove my son to their younger sibling's apartment to retrieve my car. My son brought it back to my older daughter's house, played with his niece for a couple of hours, and went back home.
Today I am still dizzy, but it is not TOO bad. Thankfully, it never was as bad as it was three weeks ago. I had slept on my arm wrong a few nights ago and had a sore shoulder, so I suppose it was a combination of that, plus nearly no sleep, plus not being particularly young any more, which lead up to the vertigo. I hope it goes away. Meanwhile, I am resting at my daughter's house, sleeping often, drinking plenty of fluids, and thinking hard about running away to my sister's house for a week and leaving my cell phone and computer at home. I would like to escape from everything and everybody. Even myself, perhaps, but that's not possible.
Please resist the urge to give any medical advice about the endometriosis. We have already been thoroughly inundated with suggestions from both traditional and non-traditional medical approaches. My daughter is an adult and will have to make her own decisions about how to deal with it. She is exhausted from months of pain and loss of sleep while trying to hold down a job and be a responsible adult, and financially drained from trips to the ER at $275 copay each. She is too tired to try to follow a fancy diet, and hasn't the money for acupuncture or hypnotherapy or a gym membership or any other "extras" that might potentially be useful. If you are a praying person, feel free to contribute prayers. It is free and certainly won't hurt.