Some Days....

You know, I'm slowly coming to the realization that I'm not as strong as I used to be. It used to be I could shove all the bullshit aside and fight my way through another day, another week, another year without any problem at all. Now... well, there are some days I wonder what the hell I'm doing still around.  I'm kind of drifting aimlessly right now. While I would love for my art to be enough to live on, I know it's not likely. I simply cannot produce fast enough. My last job was a desk job. Even that was becoming hellish with the fibromyalgia kicking my ass on a weekly basis. My back specialist down in Texas had also told me I was no longer allowed to lift/move more than 15 pounds. A box of standard printer paper these days is 32 pounds or more. My cart full of files I had to slog back and forth daily from the file room weighed more than that AND it was awkward to deal with because it was short. I had to hunch over and shove it along, which made my back shriek. It's not like I could keep asking people to move it for me considering most of those girls couldn't lift a paper box or water bottle safely and the only guys in the office were older and had back issues themselves. 

A lot of the office jobs I look at these days say you need to be able to lift 25-50 pounds safely. I can't.  I spent more than a month having to recover after I moved up here to NJ because there was very little help loading my cube in Texas and none when I got here. Retail jobs all require hellishly long hours of standing. I can't do that anymore, either. My spine starts settling down toward the pelvis and, after a while, walking becomes both difficult and painful. It just disgusts me that I can't even clean my little 10x10 room without it taking all day or longer depending on the state of it when I start. Just cleaning the kitchen thoroughly can be a 2-day job a lot of the time. Now I'm getting to the point where some personal care tasks are becoming problematic, too. Top that all off with some apparent problems keeping my balance and I'm getting unsafe. I'm thinking we will need to install a rail on the back stairs before winter comes again or I'll be risking broken bones trying to use them in freezing weather. All in all, I wish they'd come on and invent cyborg bodies so they can just put my damned brain in a robot.

It's not just the physical strength that's waning, either. I'm not used to having these kind of issues so it's emotionally strenuous, too. I try to push through like I used to and some days I just don't have it in me. Some days all I can do is sit and dully stare at things on the computer and get not a damned thing done. That frustrates me so much. It's like my brain is filled with soggy, rancid cotton and it's gumming up the works.  Of course, trying to explain any of this to a doctor makes them look at me like, "Uh-huh, come on and ask for the drugs already so I can tell you no." The fact is, I don't WANT the drugs if it can be avoided. I've heard far too many artist friends say that the wide variety of "mood altering" drugs they give people these days totally KILL the the creativity. I've had pro fantasy artists tell me they dropped anti-depressants and other such drugs for that very reason. At this point, the creativity is ALL I have left. No way in hell am I going to risk losing that. What good is being a vapidly happy little zombie who doesn't feel anything and has no real
 passion for anything?

But I'm not sure what to do with all this tangled up mess. I wish I could find a way to get a car. Then I could at least get some piddly part time job or something and have some cash. Maybe I could even manage to find an indoor pool somewhere so I could decompress my back the way it needs to be. I've no idea what all this Plan G Medicaid is going to cost me when I go to the doctor yet. I can't seem to find that information. And I have blood tests and junk coming up. At least those are free on the charity care at the hospital.

So, basically, I'm going around in circles like a one-legged duck trying to swim. I wish I'd get that "Aha! " Moment as Oprah likes to call it. I've never felt the need for some sort of guidance this strongly before. The problem is, I don't even know WHERE to look for it because I'm not sure exactly what I need.  What a fucked up conundrum.

WTF is Wrong WIth Some Doctors??

When I went to the Ocean County Health Initiative clinic yesterday to try and get set with them so I will have my meds when my current scripts run out, the doctor pretty much indicated (without directly saying so) that two different sets of docs I had in Texas (one at Kelsey-Seybold and the other in Harris County Healthcare system) didn't know what they were doing.

She "didn't approve" of me having the cyclobenzapine (taken to keep my legs from tap dancing me out of bed at night or cramping to the point my knee is on my chest), diclofenac (taken for the arthritis) and gabapentin (to calm the diabetic neuropathy). She said she NEVER gives pain meds unless "it's a patient dying of cancer or something and then maybe only in the last couple of months".

I SO need to print out this article I read on Web MD recently about how being a pain patient himself really opened a doctor's eyes on how very poorly patients with chronic pain are treated and give it to her. The doctor said even HE got the stupid "It's all in your head" crap and couldn't imagine how it was for someone who wasn't a medical professional if HE got treated that way. Needless to say, I'm going to request a change of physician and note the fact that she pretty much said the program of treatment which has HELPED me over the last 4 years or so won't be continued because she "doesn't like" it. Yeah, well, I don't like people acting like good doctors who listen to their patients don't know what they are doing. *smirk*  It's not like I begged for drugs and they gave them. They said. "We have some avenues we can try. Let's find out what will work best for you."  I agreed and we tried different things until a combination worked. THAT is how medicine is SUPPOSED to work.

Hell, the Harris County doc took one look at the list of drugs, asked me what each was for, glanced at the x-rays and stuff from Kelsey and said, "You SURE you don't want that pain med script done here?" I almost fainted. Those county docs are notorious for not wanting to give anyone anything for pain control. Truth is, I don't take the pain meds when they give them to me anyway. There's too much risk of addiction and I don't what to be zombified. They knock me out and I don't like it. So pain pills are reserved only for the kind of pain that makes me attempt to curl up into a ball (which I can't do anymore) and cry. I generally don't cry much (I'm more of a "get pissed off and cuss" kinda gal), so crying is a very good indicator of my pain level and/or emotional state.