Hello you Lovelies!
I haven't been on this forum for ages!
for the last, what, one and a half years, things have just been so busy and I have been managing myself pretty okay. More or less.
It just seems I can't catch a break.
In september '14 I hit my all-time low with panic/anxiety attacks so bad I couldn't manage the way to work or going outside at all anymore. Thankfully, in december '14, i got a place for a stationary psychotherapy in a really wonderful clinic only an hour from where I live.
I stayed there for 10 weeks and once I started antidepressive medication (near the end of my stay) things really, really started to improve! I was starting to get really into the feeling of freedom and being able to, you know, have a life more normal than I've ever known! I could go to do grocery shopping and even managed to occasionally take tiny walks or little trips to shops i usually never went to.
And just when I settled into my new freedom? I start having massive colic pains during early summer. Turns out the gallstone I had almost forgotten about (discovered it when I was 20, so about 12ish years ago, gave me troubles for 2-3 years, then became silent) was back to bother me.
At first, I wasn't bothered too much. I went through the pains before, I thought I could do it again, take some painkillers, sit it out.
Ha Ha, No.
some weeks went by with me writhing in pain through sleepless nights, with me still very sure I can manage. But noooo. After one such night, I had a fever and went to the hospital, so, yes, the gallbladder was infected and surgery would happen. yaaaay.....
I can tell all this with a grinning face, because I think I've developed a pretty intense gallow's humor over all this stuff. Also, the most ridiculous things keep happening to me.
Like people at the hospital being unable to find, or hit, my bloodvessels. For the gastroscopy, they needed three tries, the last went into the inside of my wrist, and it was the LEAST painful one of ALL the IVs they put in me for the whole surgery/hospital episode. Really. The more urgent it is, the less able the people are with putting in needles.
long story short, i became a human pincushion and had to wait, hungry and thirsty, 11 hours for my surgery (was supposed to come in at 7, no breakfast or drink, they rolled me in for surgery at 7ish) and they, again, failed to put a needle in to at least give me some fluids. ugh.
well, surgery, thankfully, went really fine, no troubles there, and i got to keep the stone. it's big and black and awesome to look at.
well, that was my summer.
and i was JUST again ready to settle in with less tummy issues and rising sense of self-worth and anxiety-less-ness. THEN my flatmate/best friend fell into depression and we decided to separate living spaces again (we're still on really good terms, so there was no fight, but still lots of tears and stress) this is the 7th move in 5-6 years and while i LOVE my new place (moved here in october) it's still taking its toll on me.
then, I am looking forward to christmas holidays and vacation and spending some chill time with my parents and brother and extended family....
yeah, food allergies of some sort strike, and strike bad.
to give a little backstory on that, I've been allergic ever since i was little, had neurodermatitis as an infant, hayfever when I was in kindergarden, allergies and crap adding to it during puberty, some asthma, some known allergies to certain foods (nuts, raw fruits)
i always knew I could count on vegetables to be safe.
not anymore.
it seems I've developed an allergy on carrots. maybe. It's just a suspicion I have, since after the last one I ate (I started to have them for snacks regularly a few weeks ago) my face burned up and I developed a rash around the eyes and mouth. Luckily, the inside of my mouth was completely fine, as were my eyes and throat. not the usual way I react to foods I'm allergic to (usually, it starts itching in my mouth like hell, then my eyes and nose start leaking like crazy)
but yeah. so, to be safe, I stopped on the carrots immediately. But during my last day at work before christmas, I must've eaten something bad, because my face started burning again, and the next morning, when I arrived at my parents', I was swollen ALL over my face, could barely open my eyes, red and blotchy cheeks,
went to the doc on chrismat eve's morning, got new meds, and a LOT of pitying looks.
two weeks later, my lower face, chin, neck and upper chest is still covered in a rash, as well as around my eyes,
finding a doc during the holidays is nearly impossible, but i'll do so asap when they open again.
to top all of that off, I've been having very, very dream-intense nights which, while I sleep soundly for 6-9 hours a night, don't make for recreative sleep. Nightmares or just really stuffed movie-like dreams, just... a LOT of stuff going on in my mind, even at night.
I think I'm just really.... frustrated.
it's like there's always something like this happening. there's not half a year without some new medical issue popping up and I know I should be grateful it's not something really really bad and nobody's dying, but at the same time, I can't keep my optimism up so much. It's so hard to keep smiling and keep going and keep taking it all as funny or good.
i've been trying to do that with everything.
fibro? oh, I get to do all the nice stuff without having to look for an excuse (hot baths, massages, taking it slow, self-care),
ADHD? oh, that's okay, reading whole books is just wasting time, anyway.
no gallbladder? oh, now i /have/ to cook all the healthy foods, i wanted to do that anyway, now there's no excuse anymore
allergic to foods? well, just MORE reasons to cook healthy and watch what I eat
only it's getting so hard to eat and cook healthy when I'm exhausted a lot and can't eat half of the healthy stuff and am afraid to handle most foods, because anxiety tells me i'll die if I even so much as look at a carrot wrong, now. (which i realize isn't gonna happen, even if I'd peel an apple or something)
ffff. I think I just really needed to vent this, I don't know where else to take this and writing it down at least makes me feel like I can put some of it out of my mind.