Once again

I haven't posted on the regular blog in quite a while, for no particular reason. I haven't posted here because I haven't needed to. But now I do.

I think I'm having an anxiety attack. My brain keeps circling back to the same thing, over and over obsessively. I'm shaking and trembling and on the verge of tears. Or laughing, I'm not sure which. I want to crawl into a corner and I want to run into the street.

Mom's back in the hospital. She fell in the garage of her place, looking at someones brand new shiny motorcycle. She probably wasn't paying attention to where she was going and tripped. Her skin is thin and she's on blood thinners so it was a mess. Because she seemed to have hit her head (and she was pouring blood from various places) they called an ambulance to take her to the emergency room.

The ambulance arrived and she was sent off. By herself. Without her purse, without her phone, without her ID. They had called Ron and knew one of us would go to the hospital sooner or later, but mom was still alone. I'm furious. Sending off an 83 year old woman who had just fallen and hit her head? You DON'T leave her alone, that's one of the things we pay such a high monthly rate for.

Luckily I was able to drive in and meet her there. She had been triaged and stuck in the same room she was in the last time (when she had chest pains a few months ago). She had a bruised lip, bruised eye (and chipped glasses), torn up left elbow, very torn up left knee, scraped left hand and right knee, various other scrapes, bad bruises on her right hand and arm. She had pulled lots of muscles in her back and chest when she fell. But she was in surprisingly good spirits, for all that.

About 5 hours later, after cleaning all the wounds and putting 11 staples in her ugly knee, and patching up all the other bloody parts, she was sent home with a prescription for antibiotics. Unfortunately being Sunday evening, every pharmacy in the area was closed. We decided to just cross our fingers and hope they'd get it filled early on Monday.

Which, they didn't. She didn't get her antibiotics until Monday night, 24 hours without any drugs. Their claim was "it was a holiday, nowhere was open." I cry bullshit; all the pharmacies were open, they just forgot.

Tuesday she went to her doctor for follow-up. Since it was her doc's day off, she met with the PA who inspected and rebandaged her wounds. The PA wasn't too happy about how her knee looked and instructed mom to keep an eye on it. They made an appointment for another follow-up for early the next week. I joked with mom that she'd be back there before then; she never likes how her wounds look, whether caused by injury or surgery, when they're healing and always needs to revisit the doctor.

She's been in a lot of pain, not unexpected. Mostly she's stayed in her apartment, not even getting dressed to go down to meals. Today she went back to the doctor since her knee was all red and her ankle swollen. Sure enough, they sent her back to the hospital to get an antibiotic IV.

Ron met her there so that she wouldn't be alone, but needed to get back to work when they decided to keep her overnight. I made plans to pick her up and take her home tomorrow.

I just spoke with her and now it looks like she won't go home for 2-3 days. They're that worried about her. She's getting fluids and antibiotics and of course, hates the hospital. I'm terrified that they'll give her something that will make her crazy and we'll be right back to a year ago.

I haven't been sleeping well for the past month and her situation has increased my insomnia. I'm so afraid of what can happen and even though I know that probably nothing worse is going to happen, I can't stop thinking about it. I try to read and realize I thinking about her. I try to watch tv and realize I thinking about her. Try to nap and the same thing.

It's natural to be worried, but I feel like this is obsessive. There's a good reason that I didn't have kids, why I don't have pets. Too much caring, too much anxiety. I never thought I'd be responsible for someone like I am for mom. She hates that she relies so much on me but at the same time, tells me that she only wants to spend time with me. All the time. Way more time than I already do.

I feel like my cup is full and I'm leaking all over.

Trying to fix things

My insurance company told me I still had 7 visits to a physical therapist, occupational therapist or chiropractor. I called my doc and relayed that message and now I have appointments with the same physical therapist that helped me rehab my knee. First visit tomorrow and it can't come too soon.

My back is aching, especially at work. I'm trying different chairs to see if that makes a difference but so far nothing feels better. Lounging on a sofa is comfy but that won't do for work. Not like I can call in sick for the next few weeks until my back feels better.

My best friend right now if my bottle of muscle relaxants. I've been warned that they're terribly addictive so I don't want to take too much, but one in the evening helps me sleep (that's one in the evening with a glass of wine). I think I've had more complete sleep for the past 3 nights that I've taken them than I have for the last 6 months. I won't take them every night but it's amazing the difference they make.

My stomach is feeling better. Not good, but better. The worst time is about 4-5am when I first awake and it's tough to go back to sleep. After I've been vertical for a couple of hours it feels better, unless I eat too much or don't eat anything. Or eat the wrong thing. I haven't been able to eat fruit all summer. Veggies don't seem to bother me as much.

I missed the second to last run with Pam last night. Hopefully I'll be able to run with her next week, although I don't think it's too likely. She said she'd walk with me if I couldn't run, so we'll have that. Mondays and Thursdays won't be the same. I'm so happy I have Olivia to continue weekly runs with, even though she's too fast for me. We'll work something out.

My moods are still unstable, but the swings aren't as wide. I still feel weepy much of the time but I'm able to not cry. That's a huge improvement. Judging from my reaction to a call last night I'm still able to get horribly frustrated and hurt and angry. But the meds are helping. They certainly aren't taking away the highs and lows, just making it easier for me to deal with them. Somewhat.

Betrayal

I've always been able to rely on my body to do what little I asked of it. When I started running marathons several years ago I asked for more, and my body responded at first with a stress fracture but then by complying and running happily and for the most part healthily. Little things would pop up and go away on their own. I'd have minor health issues that would, in short time, go away with little fuss or bother. My sister has health problems, my brother has health problems, my mother has a ton of health problems, but I've only had high cholesterol and post-menopausal issues. This year has been different.

First there was the knee problem. My knee had acted up before, several years ago, but cutting back on running for a few weeks made whatever was wrong disappear. Mysteriously and magically, it just didn't bother me at all. Until this January when it got too sore to walk on, let alone run. After an MRI and diagnosis of femoral-patella dysfunction and a torn meniscus I had 3 months of physical therapy. That helped, although the meniscus pain continued on.

Then my stomach started hurting. Not eating hurt. Eating hurt more. It hurt in the morning and woke me at night. I started eating less to try to ease the discomfort. The silver lining of that was I lost weight, so I lived with the problem and decided it was stress related.

When the weather got warmer I started having hot flashes again. During the day they were just a nuisance but at night they'd wake me over and over. Woken by hot flashes, kept awake by the stomach pain.

The topper was the depression. I've been sad before, hurt and angry and disappointed at changes in my life, but never before have I felt the crushing anxiety and despair that I've been feeling for the past two months. That finally sent me to a doctor to get fixed. Two weeks ago I started taking an antidepressant for the first time in my life. After a couple of days I was infinitely worse, then seemed to turn a corner and started to feel, on a limited basis, almost human again. At the same time I started taking a powerful antacid, assuming that my stomach problem was caused by the stress and depression.

The first week of tri training I tweaked my lower back by doing mule kicks. I took it easy for the next couple of weeks, watched my activities, and it seemed to go away. By last Saturday I was feeling fine: my back felt good, my knee felt great on the short run, I was happy to be on the team, I was feeling much better than I had for weeks. Then I picked up my tri pack and tweaked my back again.

This time it was worse. While driving I could feel the spasms in my back. Sitting hurt, standing hurt, activity hurt more. I did the long bike ride on Sunday and although it didn't hurt too much while cycling, it ached when I finished. But I figured it would get better and go away on its own.

The stress from that made my neck hurt too. So I had the lower back pain, and I couldn't turn my neck. Nice.

Last night at our workout we were scheduled to run, cycle, run, cycle, run and repeat until it got too late. From my first steps I knew my back wasn't happy but I decided to gut it out. I ran out for 5 minutes, turned and ran back. I changed to cycling gear and tried to get on my bike. I couldn't even lift my leg high enough. I just couldn't move. Forlornly I stood there and realized my workout was done. My back ached and the depression returned in a rush. As coach after coach asked me what was wrong, I could only say through clenched teeth, holding back tears, that it was my back.

Today it's still causing severe pain. Driving just sucks, sitting at a desk hurts like hell. I need to go see someone. Last night one of the coaches, a chiropractor, gave me a stern talk about how it's not going to get better by itself. In fact, although I might make it through the tri I would certainly have the problem again and again. She said there was obviously an underlying problem that probably stemmed from when I originally hurt it (20 years ago) that hadn't been corrected. She said, and I'm paraphrasing, I need to fix the immediate problem, repair the damage, build up and correct whatever had failed in the first place. That won't happen just by wishing and hoping and magic.

So I'll take tonight off, tomorrow off, and I insist on doing the 1 mile open water swim on Saturday. I may not be able to run afterward, may not be able to cycle on Sunday. I don't know when I'll be able to get in to see someone, I'm not even sure who to go see.

I think I'll just sit here and cry now.

Tired and shaky

For the past several nights I've had a change in my sleep patterns, unfortunately not for the better. I get tired, I go to bed, I toss and turn for an hour, I get up, I read for at least an hour, I go back to bed, I fall asleep, a couple of hours later my alarm goes off. I'm averaging about 4-1/2 hours asleep each night, not nearly enough to let me function capably.

The antacid isn't working quite as quickly as I'd hoped. One reason I can't fall asleep and one reason I'm awakening so early is that my stomach still hurts. A burning, clenching, bloating pain. Fun.

The antidepressant isn't working quickly either. I'm still subject to frequent outbursts of tears, I'm emotionally exhausted to go with the physical exhaustion. I'd truly like to just stay in bed, not an option.

I didn't run last night. I couldn't face the chance that I couldn't keep up with them and have to follow them in. I didn't want to run alone and didn't think I could tell them what was going on without crying. That only leaves a couple of runs left with Pam. Damn.

An improvement?

I made it out of the house today. I've only broken down crying twice. Or maybe three times. But I managed to not flip out in public, either with my team or my family. I count that a victory.

I've never felt like I did yesterday. The overwhelming despair and pain, for no discernible reason. I've been unhappy, been hurt, been pained. I've been through deaths of beloved family members and betrayal in marriage. But I've never wanted to curl up and cry all day just because.

I got a few hours of sleep last night and my stomach feels marginally better. It's been a long day and I'm tired of holding it together. I think I'll just go to bed.