Sweet Catastrophe

I’m starting to think I really need to get another health insurance quote. I feel like going to the school about my anxiety will end up doing more harm than good. They just aren’t terribly helpful there.

I’ve been checking out things on my own and some other issues I’ve been having tie in pretty neatly with my anxiety. It could all stem just from the anxiety, it could be due to my current birth control pills, or it could be that I’m hypoglycemic–which, based on my diet is a possibility.

I’m anxious more often than not, I’m always thirsty for water even moments after taking a swig, about twice a week (at least) I’ll get really weak AFTER eating and my circulation appears to be crap right now.

I know I have a tendency to be a bit hypochondriatic (yeah that’s not even a word, whatever) so when looking at all this stuff, I only really paid attention to symptoms I had previously noted to talk to the doctor about.

I had never even considered it being my pills. I was actually looking up coupons for them since they’re so expensive when I ran into forums where people were discussing their experiences with different pills and was just really surprised to see all the same problems I was having being associated with my pills. I never really realized just how much affect the change in hormones could have. I have no choice but to see a doctor this month for my pap, so when I go in I’m changing pills (again *cries). For one, these are too expensive. I can’t afford $60 a month. Also, after all this time, they’re just making everything more erratic. Maybe they’re also to blame for my other problems. I’m not counting on that though and I’m keeping a list of things to talk about when I’m there. I want them to go ahead and check for diabetes and hypoglycemia since I always get asked about those when I talk about problems I’m having. I’ve been checked more than once for diabetes and there’s no history of it in my family, but it doesn’t hurt to be sure.

I’m undecided yet whether or not I want to go ahead and ask for anxiety medication, or if I want to wait a month or so off this pill to see if that helps.

I just want to feel ‘right’ again.

My appetite is completely off lately! Not every day, but most days I’m eating very little throughout the day, but then after midnight I’m suddenly starving. It’s like something flipped and my eating schedule is backwards, sort of like people getting their days and nights backwards when it comes to sleeping– seems my appetite has done that.

I’m not really complaining, I mean I’m eating less, which is something I wanted to do anyway.

I had started taking a supplement, ya know, and I really liked it, but around that time my anxiety started getting worse so to be on the safe side, I put the pills on hold to be sure they weren’t contributing. I’m now positive they had nothing to do with it as I’m still having the same issues with the anxiety, but I still haven’t started back on them. I’m really sure they’re the best diet pill for me, I’ve just got sort of a mental block about it right now since I’ve always had such a negative experience with supplements. Even though I know they weren’t affecting me in that way, I’m just skiddish about doing anything that could even have the slightest effect on my anxiety, ya know?

Anyway, maybe just having my appetite so backwards right now will continue to solidify the diet changes I was working on– ya know, eating for sustenance, not just as something to do.

Right, so I came home from class, fixed lunch and sat down to watch some That 70’s Show on my computer only to realize I had some funny spots in my vision. Well, the spot got bigger and bigger until I realized it’s not something with my vision, it’s absolutely a migraine aura. You’ll have to google it yourself ’cause I can only see the left side of anything really right now so I can’t be sure I’m linking you to a good, informative site.Basically they’re different symptoms people get before they even have a headache. I get sparkly blobs in my vision and generally I start getting numbness in my face and fingers. Right now I’m only losing vision.I’m supposed to work tonight so I’m trying really, really hard to head it off. I don’t know if that’s possible though….We’ll see.It’s weird because right now I feel fine other than half my site is obscured by a pretty,  sparkling sparkles…. 

So Friday morning my mom had her eleventh surgery to remove the polyps on her vocal cords. I don’t think, for her, that smoking has been the cause of her polyps, but I know they’ve probably been what always makes them so bad.

I’m not really sure how long she’s had them either, but I know it’s been all my life. In fact, I don’t actually know what my mother’s true voice sounds like. She just sounds like she always has laryngitis.

This time she was at the point of being 75% closed off, so she wasn’t able to ever really take a full breath.

The surgery isn’t a huge deal. It’s an outpatient thing, but they do put you under. Generally, they use a laser to remove them, but this time they went with a procedure that’s essentially scraping the polyps off, so she’s in a bit more pain. In fact, she’s staying so doped up right now that she hasn’t bothered removing all the medical id tags they strapped to her listing her info, allergies, etc.

They don’t want her to talk for 6 weeks. I don’t think they know my mother very well!! She has two grandbabies, and two children who live an hour and 18 hours away from her. She’ll never make it 6 weeks!! I think she’s still trying to work something out at her job to be temporarily put in a more paperwork-focused area.

It’s a good thing she learned how to send text messages!

Don’t ask me why, but sometimes curiosity just gets the best of me and Google and I spend a bit of time scouring stories and articles based on random, bizarre terms that pop into my mind.

Today we searched for “colon cleanse” and instead of being grossed out, I laughed and laughed.

About 3rd down on the list of results was Bummed Out: The Colon Cleansing Prank.

This guy does his research and tries an at-home mixture to see how….things come out. He even goes so far as to swallow money, and even a balloon filled with Advil (ya know, like all the cool kid drug mules do!) to test the progress out.

Eventually he goes in for a professional job, which of course, lucky him, is in a shared building where he runs into a female co-worker who’s there to see a chiropractor.

Complete with photos. The pictures he links to in the beginning are the only truly gross-out ones, the rest scattered through the story shouldn’t affect how your lunch sits in your tummy so you’re safe to read it

So last month, my missing period returned. I haven’t counted myself as ‘cured’ since that was just once in six months, ya know?

When we left off, Debbie gave me 4 trial packs of pills for the summer. I realized this week that I’ll be out of pills before school starts back. So today I called to find out if she can write or call in a prescription for me. The asshole I hate to talk to answered the phone, here’s our conversation with some of my parts abridged:

Me: Spoke with Debbie before school ended, the script she put me on for bc runs out before school starts and due to the nature of the problem, my body can’t handle skipping two weeks and throwing me right back off again.
Him: She’s gone for the day.
*huge silence as apparently he thinks this conversation is over…*
Me: Will she be given that message when she returns? This is kind of important….
Him: She won’t be back until school starts again.
Me: Can someone else there write the prescription; it’s just birth control.
Him: Well they prefer that the doctor who prescribed it originally write the prescription.
Me: She’s not the only doctor there who’s prescribed the exact thing for me there, and that’s on file.
Him: Well they’re all gone until school starts back.

So I hung up.

His end of the conversation was all with this terribly annoyed tone for having to answer the phone, which is what his job is. I really need to figure out who to complain to because if I just send an email to the department, it’s likely he may handle that correspondence as well. He really shouldn’t be answering phones at a health center if he’s going to be annoyed every time someone has a question and if he can’t process how to be helpful and give pertinent information upfront without someone having to dig it out of him. That’s a job where when you have to say no, you offer explanation and alternatives, you don’t just leave people hanging–which is what he’s done every time I’ve ever called.

I’m upset. I may have gotten this problem straight, but now either direction I go it’s gonna get screwed up again. If I wait, I’ll be going at least a week, more likely two without birth control. I’ve also still got refills available on the pill I started taking when my period disappeared. Either way, I’m going to throw myself off schedule again.

Ever have those pains that completely randomly show up? Sometime tonight I noticed my shoulder was getting stiff. It went downhill pretty fast after that—within an hour it spread across my upper back and then on up my neck.

It’s stiff and aching like I don’t know what….It’s most extreme throughout my right shoulder and the base of my neck. I can’t imagine what I could’ve done to it.

I hate knowing that if it were to get worse I couldn’t really do anything….unless you guys know some secrets to qualify me for some cheap North Carolina health insurance…any loopholes?

Luckily for tonight I’ve got something that should help. I’m gonna take that and hope for the best. If it’s still really stiff when I get up tomorrow I’ll lay out of work and give it some time.

Well…On the left side of my jaw, the tooth on top is full out; on bottom is the one that has often barely pushed through, just to cover back up again. One or both of those teeth are moving right now. It’s something I’m used to, but this time it’s happened in a way that essentially, I have a huge canker sore over the bottom gum that my tooth on top is sitting in if I close my mouth. Of course, that’s not exactly it, but that’s the best way I know to explain it so that you can mayber understand the kind of pain it’s causing.

I’m doing what I can to not agitate it, but keeping my jaw slightly parted is causing serious muscle ache in that area, ya know? I ended up having to leave work because chatting with customers and such was just making it impossible to avoid pain and I just couldn’t take it!

I’m not sure what the best path to take is. I took some ibuprofen, which is helping the muscle aching, but I mean you can’t really avoid pain when you’re basically clawing at an open wound, ya know?

I numbed it before work with some Orajel, but you know that only lasts for so long, and I’m seriously wary about overusing stuff like that. Using too much of something like that on a sore like this is what puts people in a more painful situation–it’s usually what causes them to get an overly swollen jaw. I’m trying to avoid that!

I need to eat, but I’m not sure what I can handle. It’s painfully obvious that I can’t chew anything right now–I guess I’ll have to track down some mashed potatoes or something!

Anyone have any tips on how to handle this??

I’m trying my damnedest to sign up for the dental and vision insurance offered at Lowe’s, but of course our site isn’t functioning. It’s nothing new, accessing the website from home is always touch and go! Unfortunately, open enrollment only lasts another day. I’ve been trying to research thoroughly and wanted to check one more thing before signing up—I wanted to see the list of providers, ya know? I don’t want to be limited to like, two choices in Valdosta or something. But I can’t do that….

I’m tempted to head to Lowe’s to sign in and sign up, but even there, I won’t be able to access the outside stuff to check providers. I’ll just keep trying….otherwise, I’ll go in early tomorrow, sign up and hope for the best!

My head is throbbing and my stomach is turning (unrelated) and yet, I’m wide awake.

I believe it’s time for a Dramamine Dream <3 It's just what Dr. McMahon ordered.

Ohhh yay; it’s starting already =)