I’m feeling a little bit topsy turvy

25 Aug 2014 Leave a comment

by jes in Depression, Knee surgery, Life, My health, Panic Disorder Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn’t be. And what it wouldn’t be, it would. You see?”

 

I think my feeling of being “off” started on July 24th when I walked out to find my roof slashed on my car. Nothing was stolen, but it still felt very much like a personal violation. My car is very special to me. He symbolizes the grown up me who is supposed to be fun and spontaneous instead of dull and boring. I feel good when I sit in my car. I enjoy the attention I get when people comment on what a nice looking car he is. (It never extends to what a nice looking driver he has, but I’m quite okay with that)

Things started to get better once I was finally able to get to the claims adjuster to inspect the tear and get a check to pay for the new roof. I felt like I was finally making some progress. Then, the following Saturday, I suddenly lost fifth gear. Thankfully, I have a dual clutch transmission, and was able to utilize fifth gear by switching into manual mode. Once again, I fell into stress mode, worrying about what this was going to cost me to repair it, even with my super awesome bumper to bumper warranty. At this point I was looking at a $250 deductible for the roof, plus a minimum of $250 deductible on the transmission repair. Since I’m still on disability, this meant that I was going to have to save up for a very long time before I could get either repair done.

I returned to work on a modified schedule, working four hours a day. After the first two days, my knees hurt so badly that I could barely walk. I made an emergency appointment to see my surgeon’s PA and he cut me back to 3 hours a day to see if that would help. I’ve discovered that if I keep my legs elevated at work, they don’t hurt nearly as bad, but I’m still having to ice them for several hours when I get home.

My check arrived from State Farm and I called the auto upholsterer that was recommended by State Farm (and more importantly, but a very close friend of mine whose wife used the same company on her beloved Miata) and found out that the cost of the roof and labor was the exact amount of the check I was given. State Farm forgot to back out the $250 deductible that I was supposed to pay. Oops. I called them and asked, and they informed me that the check was correct, so I was went with it. I ordered my new roof . In the meantime, Morgan (my 350Z) decided that he was going to use fifth gear again, and hasn’t had any shifting problems since. I still want to get it checked out, but it’s not on the urgent list anymore.

Then I went to see my surgeon. He told me that he’s done all he can do with arthroscopic surgery, and the next thing to try is a procedure called “autologous cartilage replacement.” Basically, they do a quick arthroscopic procedure where they harvest some healthy cartilage and send it off to a lab to grow into a patch large enough to cover the two condyles on my tibia that are crumbling. Then, he’ll go in and do an open surgery to essentially sew the new cartilage onto the bone, where it should theoretically grow into healthy cartilage and be just like new. Finding out I need two more surgeries put me over the edge again and I spend a good portion of Monday crying and trying to wrap my brain around the fact that this means I’m stuck here in San Diego for at least the next two years, and possibly as many as four. I’m trying to stay optimistic and think of how wonderful it will be to not have pain and grinding/crunching in my knee every time it bends, but it’s hard to stay positive right now.

I did get my new roof on my car installed on Friday, and it looks very nice. It’s driving me a little nuts that I can’t lower the roof until tomorrow afternoon, because it needs to stretch properly so that I don’t have issues down the road, but that’s a minor inconvenience that I can live with. Also on Friday, I got a surprise visit with my son, as his father had some business to attend to here in town.

At this point, I’m so mentally turned around and upside down, I don’t even know what I’m feeling anymore. I’ve been having panic attacks again since finding out about the new surgeries and I have a pervasive feeling of anxiety that I just can’t get rid of. I try so hard to stay positive and always look on the bright side, but sometimes it’s just too hard. I feel like I’m bogged down; stuck in a city I hate, for the foreseeable future, and every time I try to make any plans to leave, something else comes up to hold me here longer. I should have never moved back. I haven’t been completely happy since returning, and I’m brokenheartedly homesick for the Carolinas. It’s getting to be time for the leaves to change color, and the air to turn brisk.

I feel like I’ve lost control of my life, and that I’m surviving on the whims of others. The depression is creeping back in, and so is the anxiety. No, they’re not the same thing. I’m trying to do the one coping mechanism that generally works for me, and that is taking control of one aspect of my life and setting it right. If I can control just one thing, then I know I’m not helpless. Inside, I’m still screaming though.

Welcome to 2014

01 Jan 2014 Leave a comment

by jes in Life, My health Tags: , , ,

18 1/2 hours in, and honestly, it doesn’t feel any different from any previous year. I still don’t understand the big deal of celebrating a new year. Is there a point to it? If so, can someone please explain it to me? Shouldn’t we try to better ourselves all year round, not just the first couple weeks of January, before tapering off and sinking into our same old routines again?

Tomorrow, I will be calling the scheduler to find out when my MRI will be for my knee. I’m anxious to move forward, because I’m tired of dealing with the pain. I’m hoping they can fit me in rather soon, so that we can get this moving.

I did my volunteer work with the kitties today, and that made me think of my earlier “contemplate three good things every day” assignment that my psychologist had given me. Today, I came up with four.

  1. I spent 2 1/2 hours with homeless kitties, making them feel loved and less lonely. Especially Chloe, who seems to be a purebred Norwegian forest cat. I sat in with her for 40 minutes, and when I left to go buy food for Tiggy, she stood up and pressed her face to the bars until I came back again and sat with her some more.
  2. I made a padded bed for Tiggy to lay on. He’s taken to laying on one of the newly cleaned off shelves in my room, and I thought he’d like to have a little padding on top of the hard laminate shelving. So, I put some batting in a pillowcase and made him a squishy bed. He approves of my offering.
  3. I offered to let someone cut in line at the grocery store, because he only had one item and I had about 20. He graciously declined, but at least I offered.
  4. I bought myself a beautiful red-flowered plant for my desk at work to brighten things up a bit. I don’t know what it’s called, but it has clumps of little red flowers all over it, and it’s just the right size to sit on the shelf next to my desk.

It may not seem like anything special, but each one of those items made me feel good about myself, and that’s the most important thing. I forget to put myself first a lot. I always try to help others and I’m terrible at saying no to someone when they say they need help, so I’m trying to remember that I need to put my health and well-being first, and to only say yes if it’s not going to have a detrimental impact on myself.

I’m really looking forward to the day when I can start exercising again and try to get back into shape. I feel like a lazy bum when I park in the handicap spot close to the door and hobble inside, even though my doctor agrees that it’s a necessary evil right now. I’m doing what yoga poses I can that don’t impact my knee or my spine too badly, but I miss long walks. Hopefully by my birthday, that will be back on my list of three good things.

Chaos Theory, aka The Butterfly Effect

18 Sep 2013 1 Comment

by jes in Uncategorized Tags: , , ,

Over the past several months, I have had a slow progressive spiral down towards serious depression. I know that I am prone to depression, so I do whatever I can to avoid it. It’s not a fun place to be. Sometimes, sheer will is the only thing that gets me through the day. The past two weeks have been especially hard on me. I have known for 26 years that my left knee is bum. A combination of patella-femoral syndrome and arthritis, so I’ve spent roughly 68% of my life favoring that leg because of the pain and stiffness. Finally, things came to a head and on Saturday, the 7th, my right knee decided that it’s had enough and it collapsed beneath me. The bright spot in this event is that it happened when I was walking up the stairs on my way into work, so I do have worker’s comp helping me out, but it’s a slow, bureaucratic filled process, and my knee is not getting better on its own, as far as I can tell. I’m waiting for approval to get physical therapy, which hopefully would make everything all better again. Unfortunately, it appears that it is either a severely sprained or torn lateral meniscus, so PT probably won’t do a whole lot, but I can’t do anything else until I get past this next step. That’s not really what this post is about. That was just a mini-vent, because I’m in pain, and being in pain for long periods of time is a known contributor to depression.

On to the real statement of this post.

I have made a lot of mistakes in my life. I’m sure I’m not alone. I accept that they are my mistakes, and I have to deal with the fallout from the choices I make in life, including mistakes. I’ve come to the conclusion that every single bad choice I have made in my life is because I have chosen to put the needs and/or desires of someone else before my own wants/needs. There is a reason why flight attendants always tell you to put on your own oxygen mask first, before helping other people. If you are helping other people before helping yourself, they are going to benefit – which is a good thing – but you are going to suffer for it – which is a bad thing. Being the type of person who tries to please others whenever possible, I forget that sometimes I need to make decisions based on what is going to be best for me, first. I know that sounds a bit selfish, but I still think it’s true. The only major decision I’ve ever made in my life where I put my own needs first was when I packed up my life and moved from California to North Carolina. I knew I was unhappy, and that I needed to do something drastic before I became one of those people you see on TLC or MTV reality shows. Living in the Carolinas – both North and South – are some of the happiest years in my life, barring a few bad events. Again, those bad events happened because I put someone else’s needs before my own.

I’m alive, but I’m not living my life. Everything I do is because I’m trying to make someone else happy. Somewhere, along the line, I subconsciously decided that my own happiness was not as important. That’s just plain stupid. I deserve to be happy, but I know that in order to get that back, I need to start evaluating every aspect of my life and deciding which things I’m doing because they are beneficial to my well-being, or if I’m doing it because I think that it’s the expected thing to do to make someone else happier or to make their life easier.

I’m 38 years old, and I’m having a mid-life crisis. Unfortunately, unless we’re using a very, very loose interpretation of “mid-life” (as in, it’s happening at some point between being born and dying), I’m well past the mid-point in my life expectancy. The worst part of always trying to make other people happy is when it doesn’t work, and then both you and that other person are unhappy. I have said ad nauseum that I want to get out of California, because this state is sucking away at whatever happiness I have left. So, it’s time to play with some butterflies, and set some changes in motion that are going to make me a happier person. I’m tired of hiding my unhappiness, and the fact that I’m always in pain, and that I feel like no one cares about me. I know that last part is the depression talking to me, but it’s a very convincing whisper repeated in my brain endlessly. I want to be happy. I’m scared of doing anything that is going to make someone else unhappy, but I can’t keep living that way. From now on,  I promise myself that every choice I make will consider whether I am doing it to make myself happy or to make someone else happy. If the answer is that it only makes the other person happy, it’s just too bad for that person. I need to start focusing on myself. It’s time to write down my list of goals, and get back on track to finding my way back to happiness.

Invisible disabilities

04 Sep 2012 Leave a comment

by jes in My health Tags: , ,

You know how sometimes when you’re in a parking lot, you see some “jerk” pull into the handicap parking space, hang up their nice blue placard that denotes that they are handicapped and then stroll into the store, seemingly without any type of condition that would constitute a disability? Certain friends of mine gripe about this all the time, and I try to explain to them that not all disabilities are visible.

It’s true, there are probably a good number of people who are working the system and taking advantage of a loophole in the disability system to allow them the up-close parking as well as financial aid if they are unable to work, but many others – myself included – are also disabled, with no outwardly visible signs.

To start, I have extreme arthritis in both my knees, along with bursitis in my right hip, a pinched disc in my lumbar region, and that silly little headache thing. Now, normally, one wouldn’t consider a headache to be a disability, but mine certainly qualifies. If you’ve ever had a migraine, you know the intense pain and suffering it can cause. If you are lucky enough to have never experienced one, ask a friend who has. Once you’ve grasped how much it absolutely sucks, imagine that this headache has been going fairly non-stop for over five years. In the beginning, there were brief lulls where the headache was either completely gone, or low enough that I didn’t feel it at all. As time goes by, it’s getting worse and worse. I’ve reached the point where I can’t look up for more than a few seconds at a time (which kinda sucks when your boyfriend is taller than you and you have to look up to kiss him). Any type of loud noise – especially high pitched sounds like whistling or computer beeping, for example – increase the headache exponentially.

Now of course, you can’t see a headache, or arthritis, or bursitis, so when I complain about being handicapped, I frequently get shot down. I’ve contemplated applying for disability, because my health is dropping so quickly that I don’t honestly know how much longer I’ll be able to work in a productive manner. I don’t want to be a drag on society though, and rely on government handouts, even though I know I’ve been paying into disability for as long as I’ve been working, so it’s really kind of my money anyway. It’s a tough decision, and one I’ve been battling for the past six months or so. At some point, I’m going to have to make up my mind. Is the blow to my pride worth the ability to not end each day in agonizing pain? How much longer do I have before the pain becomes so unbearable that it no longer becomes a choice?