I am so sorry I've been neglecting you all here. If it helps any, you're not the only ones... I keep up a sort of "fake it 'til you make it" page on Facebook for my family (Jen Lindner-Green, if you're over there. I see a few of you, there and it helps me stay sane. Well, sane-ish. ;-) )
First of all, many thanks to sweet, sweet Sigmund! She has my phone number and called me a little bit ago to let me know people were asking about me. I'm sorry I worried people, but it was nice to get a call from my favorite SKMB psych expert!
Things here have been sort of awful. Don't get me wrong, they could be a lot worse! I am grateful for my many blessings, including knowing you all are here thinking of me. You really don't know how much that cheers me up!
As you know, last October my dear sweet teenage friend passed away. I think all that stuff is on the old board, but a quick recap: I met Alysia and her mom Janet back in '95 when she and my daughter Anya spent a few months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Anya has not had any real issues after her rough start, but Alysia never was completely healthy and was in and out of the hospital her whole life. She called me her Aunt Jen, and our families became incredibly close. I was there when she passed, and I spoke at her funeral.
I thought I was ok, but holy crap. I think I had a few months of PTSD after that. Not because she died, because the poor sweetheart was in so much pain that her passing felt like relief. But the funeral just really got to me! For a while, I would catch myself looking at people when I was out and about...people at stores, people in cars, crowds and crowds of people...and all I could think was, "Dear God! Every last one of these people is going to die, and someone is going to have to throw a funeral for them!" Yes, I know that's obvious, but it was freaking me right the heck out! I spent a good amount of time thinking of how we should revamp the whole funeral industry, but that's a post for another day.
During all this, my teenage girls were having issues with anxiety and depression (can you blame them?) A combination of having crappy insurance, and 15,000 appointments a month, plus medications, and we nearly lost our house. That stuff adds up faster than you think! Our church stepped in and helped with the therapy appointments. We still had the psych doc and meds, but that saved our bacon. I love my church, we've been LDS since 2006. I couldn't have asked for a more kind community right here in town. Well, unless you all lived right around here! ;-)
In the middle of all that, my fibromyalgia has gone completely off the hook. Things were so bad that there was concern that it wasn't just fibro (and we're still not sure...) I had to get an MRI of my brain to rule out Multiple Sclerosis. Since my mom was diagnosed with MS when she was my age and I've seen her suffering for over 20 years, you can imagine that was a pretty tense time!
An aside, I was worried about the MRI process, because many people have said it's pretty nerve-wracking. But they gave me valium. Also, every time I started to feel a little panicky, I remembered this article I'd read earlier. It was a total coincidence, when I read it I had no idea there was an MRI in my future, but it helped a lot to think that I don't have to actually ACCOMPLISH anything in there!
Kayt Sukel: Orgasm Research: Climax in an MRI Machine? Been There, Done That
The MRI results were good, and blood tests ruled out a bunch of other stuff. So we tried some new medications, some better than others. The worst was Fentanyl patches. They are scary stuff (just touching them can possibly kill a child or pet, or put them in a coma. Gah! You best believe we taped the living crap out of them!) Even with the scary amount of narcotics involved, they really didn't do much except make me want to sleep all the time. So, I stopped using them, with my doc's blessing, and that's when my troubles REALLY started.
For a medication that didn't seem to be helping much, it was a living Hell to get off of. If you ever have a couple of weeks where you don't have anything planned, and you want to spent them twitching constantly and not sleeping, I can heartily recommend the "Fentanyl Withdrawl Experience." And my understanding is that I had it easy compared to some.
Again, don't get me wrong, this is a great medication for some people. It just sucked monster poops for me.
Add to that that my pelvis is still freaking broken from when Torleif (ie Baby Bonecrusher) was born (he's turning 2 in August, can you believe that?) So sitting at my desk is pretty miserable. I get online on my phone or Kindle. It's okay for small stuff (Facebook) but typing out a long post is incredibly time-consuming.
So, I haven't just been scarce here. Between the pain issues, typing problems, and stuff going on with my kids, I ended up giving up my volunteer job at my homeschool group. This was an incredibly difficult thing to do, since I started the group and have always been a part of running it. But, I wasn't really getting anything done, and if it had been a paid job I would have been fired. :-/ One of the co-workers who came on board about 3 years ago has taken over, and she is doing an amazing job. That takes a lot of the sting out of not being at the helm, but I'm still left feeling pretty useless to the world around me
Mostly these days, we stay close to home and try to get ourselves together. Janet and I spend a lot of time together, and I have a few tears every single day either because I miss Alysia, or because it's so hard to see how this has gutted Janet. Alysia's dad has never been in the picture, and Janet feels pretty lost in the world without her anchor and her identity. As she said at Mother's Day, "I am a single mother whose only child has died. What does that make me?"
So, this is a long downer of a post, and sadly I'm just kind of skimming the surface of the stuff that's been going on. But I wanted you all to know that I wasn't staying away because of you.
I am still a happy and positive person, and I take advantage of any chance to laugh and be grateful. From where I sit, I can easily see that life could be far worse, and I am thankful for every day and every blessing. Anything in my life that can't be fixed is something I can tolerate, and I have good friends and an understanding family. Life is good.
I have missed you all, and I think about you here a lot. Now that I've typed this behemoth of a post, I will try to catch up with the news here, and then stick around.
Thank you all for the wonderful help and encouragement you've been all this time!
(Please excuse any typing or grammatical errors, I'm baby-chasing at the same time and I've had to pick up and put this down a few times.)
First of all, many thanks to sweet, sweet Sigmund! She has my phone number and called me a little bit ago to let me know people were asking about me. I'm sorry I worried people, but it was nice to get a call from my favorite SKMB psych expert!
Things here have been sort of awful. Don't get me wrong, they could be a lot worse! I am grateful for my many blessings, including knowing you all are here thinking of me. You really don't know how much that cheers me up!
As you know, last October my dear sweet teenage friend passed away. I think all that stuff is on the old board, but a quick recap: I met Alysia and her mom Janet back in '95 when she and my daughter Anya spent a few months in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. Anya has not had any real issues after her rough start, but Alysia never was completely healthy and was in and out of the hospital her whole life. She called me her Aunt Jen, and our families became incredibly close. I was there when she passed, and I spoke at her funeral.
I thought I was ok, but holy crap. I think I had a few months of PTSD after that. Not because she died, because the poor sweetheart was in so much pain that her passing felt like relief. But the funeral just really got to me! For a while, I would catch myself looking at people when I was out and about...people at stores, people in cars, crowds and crowds of people...and all I could think was, "Dear God! Every last one of these people is going to die, and someone is going to have to throw a funeral for them!" Yes, I know that's obvious, but it was freaking me right the heck out! I spent a good amount of time thinking of how we should revamp the whole funeral industry, but that's a post for another day.
During all this, my teenage girls were having issues with anxiety and depression (can you blame them?) A combination of having crappy insurance, and 15,000 appointments a month, plus medications, and we nearly lost our house. That stuff adds up faster than you think! Our church stepped in and helped with the therapy appointments. We still had the psych doc and meds, but that saved our bacon. I love my church, we've been LDS since 2006. I couldn't have asked for a more kind community right here in town. Well, unless you all lived right around here! ;-)
In the middle of all that, my fibromyalgia has gone completely off the hook. Things were so bad that there was concern that it wasn't just fibro (and we're still not sure...) I had to get an MRI of my brain to rule out Multiple Sclerosis. Since my mom was diagnosed with MS when she was my age and I've seen her suffering for over 20 years, you can imagine that was a pretty tense time!
An aside, I was worried about the MRI process, because many people have said it's pretty nerve-wracking. But they gave me valium. Also, every time I started to feel a little panicky, I remembered this article I'd read earlier. It was a total coincidence, when I read it I had no idea there was an MRI in my future, but it helped a lot to think that I don't have to actually ACCOMPLISH anything in there!
Kayt Sukel: Orgasm Research: Climax in an MRI Machine? Been There, Done That
The MRI results were good, and blood tests ruled out a bunch of other stuff. So we tried some new medications, some better than others. The worst was Fentanyl patches. They are scary stuff (just touching them can possibly kill a child or pet, or put them in a coma. Gah! You best believe we taped the living crap out of them!) Even with the scary amount of narcotics involved, they really didn't do much except make me want to sleep all the time. So, I stopped using them, with my doc's blessing, and that's when my troubles REALLY started.
For a medication that didn't seem to be helping much, it was a living Hell to get off of. If you ever have a couple of weeks where you don't have anything planned, and you want to spent them twitching constantly and not sleeping, I can heartily recommend the "Fentanyl Withdrawl Experience." And my understanding is that I had it easy compared to some.
Again, don't get me wrong, this is a great medication for some people. It just sucked monster poops for me.
Add to that that my pelvis is still freaking broken from when Torleif (ie Baby Bonecrusher) was born (he's turning 2 in August, can you believe that?) So sitting at my desk is pretty miserable. I get online on my phone or Kindle. It's okay for small stuff (Facebook) but typing out a long post is incredibly time-consuming.
So, I haven't just been scarce here. Between the pain issues, typing problems, and stuff going on with my kids, I ended up giving up my volunteer job at my homeschool group. This was an incredibly difficult thing to do, since I started the group and have always been a part of running it. But, I wasn't really getting anything done, and if it had been a paid job I would have been fired. :-/ One of the co-workers who came on board about 3 years ago has taken over, and she is doing an amazing job. That takes a lot of the sting out of not being at the helm, but I'm still left feeling pretty useless to the world around me
Mostly these days, we stay close to home and try to get ourselves together. Janet and I spend a lot of time together, and I have a few tears every single day either because I miss Alysia, or because it's so hard to see how this has gutted Janet. Alysia's dad has never been in the picture, and Janet feels pretty lost in the world without her anchor and her identity. As she said at Mother's Day, "I am a single mother whose only child has died. What does that make me?"
So, this is a long downer of a post, and sadly I'm just kind of skimming the surface of the stuff that's been going on. But I wanted you all to know that I wasn't staying away because of you.
I am still a happy and positive person, and I take advantage of any chance to laugh and be grateful. From where I sit, I can easily see that life could be far worse, and I am thankful for every day and every blessing. Anything in my life that can't be fixed is something I can tolerate, and I have good friends and an understanding family. Life is good.
I have missed you all, and I think about you here a lot. Now that I've typed this behemoth of a post, I will try to catch up with the news here, and then stick around.
Thank you all for the wonderful help and encouragement you've been all this time!
(Please excuse any typing or grammatical errors, I'm baby-chasing at the same time and I've had to pick up and put this down a few times.)
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