Too much...

I've been feeling wretched since last Saturday.  Really, things started to go downhill for me on Sunday.  Even though I was out of milk, I did not leave the house until Wednesday, when I had a prescription to fetch.  Oh!  How I wanted my beloved milk!!

As I told my dear friend Becky, I was so "wrong in my head."  Wrong. In. My. Head.  Those words should have reverberated throughout my broken rememberer so strongly that even it would have realized the problem.  But, oh no!  I was so darned STUPID!

Instead of realizing my problem, I blamed the allergy medicine that I started taking, adding a 39th drug to my profile.  And them I blamed the medication dose change.  And then I blamed the new mediation.  And then I blamed my lack of sleep.  And the constant headache.  And the constant dizziness.  And the increased pain.

Wrong.
In.
My.
Head.

Do you remember?  The last time I was this way was because, whilst filling my two-week medication boxes, I forgot to put in the gabapentin.  The highly addictive, rather dangerous gabapentin.  It is fine whilst you take it, but it is a bear to come off of it.  In fact, folk who go cold turkey risk seizures and death.

Yes, I spent the week in withdrawal from 1,600 mg of gabapentin.
Cold turkey.
Wrong in my head.

It has been about five or six hours since I had the thunderous realization that there were no yellow pills in my hand.  That there had been no yellow pills in my hand all week.  I was crushed and relieved and terrified all at once.

I would give anything, anything in the world, if I could have someone to at least sit with me whilst I filled my medication boxes.  Cramming all the pills in them, since several of my medications are multiple pills per dose, is quite the challenge.  Making sure that I get all the pills from all of my medications is, apparently, practically impossible for me. Even with highly honed organization skills.  Even with three college degrees.

Since I have had several misses with my medication—always with the dangerous ones—I have started filling the boxes with the most important medications first:  nerve pain, blood pressure, thyroid, and stomach.  Any of those causes significant problems when I miss them.  Next is my beloved Celebrex and my asthma pill medications.  Then I go on from there.  I have a bucket for the big bottles and two small containers for all the small ones.  The problem is that the gabapentin bottle is too large for the small containers, so I've been setting it on top.  It must have fallen down onto the shelf, because at some point during the previous two-week period, I stuck it in the drawer where all the unopened bottles are (most of what I take I get in a 90-day supply).   So, even though I went through my three containers, I missed the gabapentin because it wasn't there.

I really, really, really need some sort of container that will hold all the small bottles and that gabapentin bottle together.  SIGH.

It has been about five or six hours since I had the thunderous realization that there were no yellow pills in my hand and my head is feeling ever so slightly better.  I'm supposed to titrate back up, and I did fill the other boxes appropriately, but I took 400 mg straight away to try and stop the madness that is going on in my head.  It is my most fervent hope that I will soon be able to sleep more.

I came across this meme that I had saved for later.  The fact that I just came back inside from doing a little bit of planting probably makes now the later.

A while ago, I got two six-inch pots of fox glove.  They were on clearance for a dollar each.  I planned to plant them right away, but I didn't.  Then I was feeling so wretched.  Digging holes is one of the hardest things for me to do these days.  It is, I believe, right there behind getting up from a squatting position (or having bent over).  It is much worse than a shower and those are pretty darn draining.

The good thing about having an antique garage is that it has three windows.  There is one on the wall with the old workbench, and I had set the foxgloves right in front of it.  I did remember to water them.  I am not sure, but I think I might have had them in there for two weeks now.  Maybe even longer.  In any case, they were not dead and, whilst waiting for some help from the gabapentin, I swallowed, and whilst avoiding thinking about this medication miss and how very very dangerous it was, I thought to pop those foxgloves in the ground.

I'm hoping they live.
I'm hoping the bees like them.
I'm hoping Amos doesn't believe they need watering.

I eat when I can (as in when I am not nauseous).  I sleep when I can (as in if I cannot I won't try to force the issue).  I arrange things how they best fit me and my broken rememberer.  I do the dishes in the way that works for me.  I do the laundry in the way that works for me.  I shower in a way that works for me.  I walk Amos when it is best for me.  I have plans and processes and scripts to get me through my days, and I need my routines and procedures to not be interrupted or questioned.  So, I absolutely understand why that meme was created.

The questioning of what I am doing and when I am doing it is crushing.  It fillets me and leaves me mentally curled up in a ball, weeping.  I get it a lot, especially from family members.  Bluntly I am told I am not taking care of myself.  I want to scream back, "ALL I DO IS TAKE CARE OF MYSELF EVERY DARN DAY!"  And it doesn't really help me if I try to talk about this and I have the rather un-empathetic response that the other person probably meant well.  If you mean me well, you will learn about my illnesses and how I cope and support me in those coping mechanisms rather than criticize me.  Or tell me what to eat.  Or that I need exercise.  ARGH!

Besides.
I have enough criticism in my life already.
From me.

I want to talk to my new GP about this problem with medication.  The only real solution would be 1) to have a pharmacy service package the medications in single doses (wildly expensive) or 2) pay a nurse to fill my medication boxes (wildly expensive).  I want to talk with her about it, but I am afraid it would make her question my ability to live independently.  I think that I still can, especially if I got help with my bills and my medications.  I want to talk with her because I wonder if she might have another mediation-management idea for me.  She seems to be an idea kind of doctor.

Not those kinds of ideas, either!
SIGH.

Realizing what I had done to myself was also incredibly lonely.  It is one of those moments when I am most certain that I am unworthy of love or care or compassion.  For I think that if I were, then someone in my life would help me in those two areas.  I mean, if I just had someone to check my medication list and ask me if I have filled X or Y or Z, then I would at least have something of a back-up.  And I've said many, many times that if I just had someone check in with my bills a couple times a month, running down the list of what I need to be paying, then I would at least have something of a back-up.

It's funny-but-not-funny.  Back in Alexandria, I did have offers of help from the church I went to for a while.  "What do you need? How can I help?"  But the answers I gave were met with ... enthusiasm and then disappearance.  I heard over and over and over again ... you need too much.  For someone who often struggles to find a reason to keep breathing, that's pretty devastating to hear.  Because what I was told was that I was too much.  My life.  My illness.  My hurts.

"How can you help?  Scrub my tub every once in a while."

"Okay, I will come and clean your house once a week.  "
"Oh, but it's an hour drive each way.
"I have my own family to take care of.
"I am tired myself."
"I cannot do this."
"It's too much."

But I didn't ask you to come clean my house every week.  That was your idea of what you thought I needed.  You made it too hard, and then you disappeared.  I think as I struggle to scrub my tub.

I need to keep hidden my past, because it is too much.   I need to keep hidden my cognitive struggles, because they are too much.  I need to keep hidden my bodily ills, because they are too much.  I need to keep hidden my PTSD, because it is too much.  I need to keep hidden my spiritual terrors, because they are too much.

The last is pretty wretched to hear.  I need too much spiritual care.  All I really asked, in the end, was to read to me.  I even bought a spare NASB 1977 Bible and Gerhardt's Handbook of Consolations.  No wonder I really question where I'll be when I die.

SIGH.

That I forgot to take gabapentin for a week is almost too much for me.  It is enormous and overwhelming.  I cannot go there in my mind so I planted foxgloves at 3:00 in the morning and I backed up my computer—I hope the entire world is backing up their data this weekend—and I did laundry.  I did all those things after midnight and after a week of little sleep and despite being weak and weary and wrong in the head still.  I did them because I needed to so that I could get through the aftermath of realizing what I had done.

Another medication mistake.
Another danger to myself.
Another time I needed God's saving grace.

I also went ahead and put in the gabapentin doses in the now empty week's container so that I won't forget it in another week when it comes time to do that Grand Mediation Refill once more.  SIGH.  Maybe I should print out a list of my meds and cross them off one-by-one each week?  Would that help me??

It's one thing if the world is telling me that I am too much, but it's another if I begin to think so.