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| Three Girls in a Library, by February Grace 8/18 (acrylic on canvas) |
I haven’t blogged in forever.
I apologize.
I’ve been a bit busy. With life, trials, and my own
limitations.
It all started really with a change in my medication awhile
back, as a lot of periods of uncertainty in my life do.
The manufacturer of a medication I’d taken for anxiety for seven
years stopped making it. The pharmacy switched to another manufacturer, and I
had an immediate and strong allergic reaction to the new formulation of the med
I had depended on for so long.
Off to Urgent Care for a shot of steroids and a nebulizer
treatment. They sent me to the ER when I didn’t improve as much as they wanted.
I got to the ER and was told the wait would be over four hours because my
vitals were stable. My chest was still tight and I knew I needed a shot of
antihistamines (I had taken some by mouth but the tablets weren’t enough) and
another nebulizer treatment.
So I walked out of the ER and we went across the street to
another Urgent Care. Fortunately they had no wait and got me right in. After a
shot of Benedryl, a Zantac pill (who knew it had antihistamine properties?) and
another nebulizer treatment, they were satisfied I sounded good enough to send
home with a week’s prescription for Prednisone.
So, this all led to a big problem, because the med that had
caused the allergic reaction cannot be stopped suddenly, or there is a risk of
seizures and even, um, well, possibly death.
So this led to me trying another manufacturer of the same
med; this one didn’t cause an allergy but was so weak in comparison to the
formulation I was used to that I had side effects. My eye muscles wouldn’t stop
having spasms, my heart raced. My anxiety was all over the place. I was a
wreck.
So my doctor tried me on a sister med to the one I’d been
taking; and I don’t know what was in that generic formulation of the
prescription med Ativan but let me tell you, not only did it knock me out so
thoroughly that it put me in bed for days, the side effects were terrible and
not limited to, by the one week point on it, me forgetting my own phone number.
My husband declared “this experiment was over” and contacted
my doctor. She told me to go back on the weak generic of the first med for a
few days to try to stabilize myself again. I had an appointment to see her a
few days after that.
In the meantime, I somehow found the strength and focus to
call 19 different pharmacies trying to find one that would order the generic I
was now getting used to; most of the refused outright saying that they can only
sell what their distributors send them. Talking to a couple of the
pharmaceutical companies I learned that is how it works these days; the pharma
companies sell to distributors. The distributors offer the meds to the
pharmacies, and the pharmacies buy the least expensive option.
Not exactly what is always best for the patient, but
business is business. We need better regulations on generic meds, but that is another post for another day.
In the end, my doctor and I decided to try yet another med also
related to the one I had taken for seven years, but this one a long acting
version that might help stop the spikes of anxiety symptoms that I kept having
and smooth things out a bit.
I couldn’t get the manufacturer of that med she recommended,
but fortunately was not allergic to the one the pharmacy could get; I’ve been
taking it for about a month now and it has helped me quite a bit. I’m having
less PTSD ‘episodes’ as I call them (flashbacks, hearing/seeing/smelling things
that aren’t there, all that ‘fun’ stuff…) The only noticeable side effect
really seems to be that I can’t wake up in the mornings. If I try I just end up
falling back to sleep. I’m sleeping more hours per night overall but I can’t
seem to fall asleep before eleven PM now. But I’ve decided that sleeping more
for better control over the PTSD is a trade-off I am willing to make.
The key issue remains: can I continue to get the same manufacturer
of this medication from month to month? Imagine having to call every 28 days to
the pharmacy (because they will only fill the prescription two days before the
refill date…) to politely beg them to try to order a certain manufacturer for
you. I’ve done it for two different generics that I’m taking now, and
fortunately so far the pharmacy has been able to help me. But one of the meds
(a bipolar med) is on backorder and there’s no word as to when it’s coming off
of it.
This all leads to a high level of anxiety for me where my
meds are concerned (ironic considering one of them is for anxiety!) Imagine
having to wonder every month if one of your four generic meds will change
manufacturers again, and you will be at risk for another allergic reaction.
Imagine having to be chained to the pharmacy for fear they won’t be able to
order your meds before you run out. Let me tell you, it doesn’t do anything good
for your mental health.
My therapist suggested that I try meditation to help with my
anxiety. I read a very reasonable book on the subject and have tried it a few
times, but most of the time my thoughts keep buzzing in my head the entire time
until the timer goes off and I’m supposed to be finished and the very last
thing I was focused on, really, was my breathing.
It might not be within my limitations to become proficient
at meditation. I don’t know yet. How much it would really help me, I don’t know
either. I’m still skeptical.
Just as Yoga won’t help my connective tissue disease (quite
the opposite, in fact) I don’t know if meditation is the answer to the noise in
my head. I tried cutting back on social media but being without Twitter made me
twitchy (I kept reaching for my iPad like I imagine someone reaches for a pack
of cigarettes when they’re trying to quit smoking. Often, and without
thinking.) As isolated as I am, even my own therapist said I’m one of the few
people she knows that she would not encourage to give up social media entirely.
This post is the first thing of length I’ve written (more
than a few hundred words) in months now. I keep wondering when I’ll get back to
writing fiction, and I think part of the problem is that I am still too caught
up in my old books (and I guess they are ‘old’ by this point.) Every time I try
to think of a new idea I want to write I think of something I’ve already
written and I don’t think I can write anything as well as I have already
written.
I have to let go of the past and the expectations I put on
myself if I’m going to get back to writing. I also have to just let my brain do
what it will, much like I let it wander here in this post to try to catch you
all up on what I’ve been doing.
I’ve been sleeping, reading, resting, recovering from the
med switch, trying to get adjusted to it. And I painted one new painting
recently, shown at the top of this post. It’s called Three Girls in a Library.
Life itself is still a process, but one I am working on
getting through one day at a time.
I hope you’ve all been well.
xoxo
bru