It's times like these that I go back and read my own "pep talks" to myself, because it's not easy to remain frustration-free. For the first time in at least a couple of years, I had found myself being able to engage in some healthy activities that carried the hope of combining with my current medication regimen to possibly show some real improvements. After one week of feeling great - this new round kicks in. And sure, I'll get over it, and I'll get back on my feet...but the timing just sucked. I guess it's never a good time to have mind-numbing pain keep you up for all but one or two hours a night, but this seemed to be worse timing than normal.
One of the downers is that my long and checkered history with medications means that I have very, very limited options for dealing with these flare-ups. Ok, pharmaceutically, I really have only ONE option. And it's a toxic poison. yeah, they call it a medicine, but it's a medicine like chemo is a medicine - it just gets rid of the bad stuff faster than it would actually kill you. Here's a paraphrase what wikipedia has to say about this wonderful pharmaceutical option:
The drug's toxicity has been compared to arsenic poisoning: symptoms start 2 to 5 hours after the toxic dose has been ingested and include burning in the mouth and throat, fever,vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pain and kidney failure. These symptoms may set in as many as 24 hours after the exposure. Onset of multiple-system organ failure may occur within 24 to 72 hours. This includes hypovolemic shock due to extreme vascular damage and fluid loss through the GI tract, which may result in death. Additionally, sufferers may experience kidney damage resulting in low urine output and bloody urine; low white blood cell counts (persisting for several days); anemia; muscular weakness; and respiratory failure. Recovery may begin within 6 to 8 days. There is no specific antidote, although various treatments do exist.:
What, pray tell might be the toxic dose? Well, actually, any dose. The stuff is so nasty, the instructions literally say: "take one every x hours until vomiting, nausea, and/or the other nasty symptoms kick in, and discontinue immediately". Most patients I know of, that means they get to take ONE. Last week there was a day where I had to take 3 in a 30 hour period.
Why do I clarify this? Well, because of how much grief it causes my parents when they know I'm here poisoning myself just to make some pain go away. Of all the things to happen, to add to their burden of worry is one of those things that just gets to me like few things ever do.
Anyway, there have been some pretty bright spots through the month so far, though. Wonderful times spent with friends...a serendipitous series of reversals of the immobility just in time to handle two events that lifted the spirit and made me grateful all over again for those in my life.
Still, some days, you just have to say it like it is. It sucks. It sucks, and I'm still going to get up tomorrow and see what else has to be done to move me on down the path towards graduation. But, I doubt it will suck any less. :)
Thanks for putting up with the rant. G'night all...
From: http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/hallucinations.png
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The Old Fool
“If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” -George Orwell.
Blog - Musings of an Old Fool by Juan Lopez is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at lopezj4141.blogspot.com.
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