Side Effects, Symptoms and Psychiatry

It's been over three years since I have posted here and in that time things have not been particularly peachy. But rather than launching into the whole story of the woes of me, I'd prefer to discuss one piece: side effects. Yes, side effects. They are the quirks that arise when you have a problematic symptom and the solution is in a pill and you take the pill and lo, another problem crops up. Sometimes there is a pill to help with the new problem so you take a pill so that you can take a pill. Do you follow me? I will be more specific. A coupla years ago I was having issues which I would rather not detail at this time but since the point of the blog is to actually "Say Something," I guess I had better do some of  that.  I was so anxious that I could not eat.

When you are so anxious that you cannot eat, it is detrimental because your body needs food to survive. This is a basic tenet of human biology but it bears repeating here because of the great amount that I could not eat: the nausea, the difficulty swallowing, the cramping, the diarrhea was all extensive. As the song says, "there's a pill for that," and indeed, there was. The first pill was to help me swallow and after months of difficulty it truly helped. However, the side effect of that pill was diarrhea. Oh, joy. It was around this time that the doctor thought maybe I had celiac disease. Ha! But I was desperate, so I eliminated all gluten from my diet. It changed nothing except that now my food was limited, which I really did not need because I continued to lose weight. Food caused nausea, anxiety caused nausea, nausea caused a disdain for all things food-ish.

Now you may be reading this and wondering about the anxiety part of it. That is mysterious because at first I had only gastro-intestinal symptoms and stress at my now-former job. I did not notice any anxiety. Over the course of time the anxiety seemed to increase but I did not realize it. It was like the time when a doctor prescribed Percoset for my herniated disc and I asked why the strong medicine? "You're in a lot of pain," she told me, at which point I realized that limping around for months unable to sit in a chair was perhaps not the 'new normal.' So Denial, yes, capital D, not just a river in Egypt, etc etc. The symptoms of anxiety hit me before I realized I was feeling anxious. Plus my doctor was saying to me "you need treatment." I could not really hear her; or rather, I heard it, but it made no sense to me. When you do not eat, your brain does not work well (see aforementioned denial) and a lot of things do not make sense to you.

I kept saying "I hafta go to work" in response to the distant voice of psychiatry saying "you are sick."  I woke up in the mornings at 3 a.m. wondering what I would do, how I would manage the humiliating crap that was my job, which is another story called "The Humiliating Crap that was My Job." But back to side effects! Once I started the treatment that, yes, I did end up needing to start, they gave me a pill to gain weight and help me sleep. Great stuff. It turns out that eating and sleeping are both recommended activities. They actually gave me two pills because I was way too thin and sleep-deprived. Side effect: they worked. That would be a happy ending to the story if I no longer needed them and/or if any of my clothes actually fit me now. Who cares about my clothes fitting if I recovered from the awful anxiety and nausea, right?

It felt that way at first because I got back to my normal weight. You are thinking oh no I read all this just so she could complain about her weight? Well, kind of, yeah. When your clothes don't fit and you become an entirely other shape it is uncomfortable and unfamiliar. It is not like when you are going to have a baby and something exciting is happening. It is confusing, as in: what do I wear and how would I feel if I tried to come offa these pills?  And you learn that a "muffin top" is the sag of your belly over the low waist of the now-tight jeans. Last spring I tried to come off of one of the muffin top pills and that was not wise. A couple of months ago I reduced another by half so that is getting somewhere.

I am able to eat now and of course that is good and I no longer have any of those fairly repellent symptoms I had before. But the side effect, which was initially a desirable one, is that I am perpetually hungry. I know what you are thinking: there's a pill for that. I know! But I am not going to take yet another pill. My Inner Guide tells me to love myself the way I am, and to embrace my muffin top. My pants ask me if I have the dough to go buy new ones. So if I "go with my gut," at least I have something to really grab onto - with both hands.

Menstruating in the Forties

By this time in one's life, we're not meant to really discuss it. It's dull , there's nothing to say. I have my period. So what? Get a tampon and go stick it. Some of us are prematurely peri-menopausal. That's gyno-talk for my periods are unpredictable again, just like thirty years ago, and soon I may be dry as a bone in my formerly moist and excellent vulva. As usual, I cannot seem to do things the easy way. I did not get my period as a young girl once a month for five days. No, it came pouring out for two weeks straight and the cramps were awful. That of course was just because I am profoundly exotic and female or perhaps just cursed. Take your pick.

Now, naturally, before most of my female pals, I am peri-menopausal. For five days I get a dainty little warning - spotting, really. Then for about three days I may or may not get a bad period. But at sometime in there small bits and pieces, probably puzzle pieces I swallowed as a baby or something, come outta there, and it hurts. Just a little. Or maybe a lot. You choose. Some months it lasts an hour. Some months it hurts for days. Today it definitely hurts, but it hurt two days ago, so here I go being unusual yet again.

Furthermore, and I mean more, I am single-handedly - no - single-vaginaedly or single-uterusly supporting the feminine products industry over here because I never know what will happen when and between the tampons of varied sizes and the mini-pads that I really cannot go without I am a well-protected female. Okay, I suppose there are other similarly cursed women who are also supporting the industry but I do believe tghat if there were a contest that I would be in the running, so to speak, for being the poster-child, or poster-lady for unpredictable unpleasant and long-lasting middle-aged menstruation. Ouch.

Thought for the Day: Tit Shapes

We have been watching episodes of Mad Men (and apparently everyone else in the country has been too). But my point is, well, points. The bras in those days, the early 1960s, were quite pointy, cones, really, and nowadays they are rounded. When I first started watching Mad Men it seemed odd - the tits, not the show - but now I am looking at these women, and of course they are all young starlets, but also those bras look good. Maybe we should all put away our rounder, more natural-looking bras and put on some pointers. It might look kinda hot, or fun, or something. Then we could start wearing dresses with big pointy bottom halves and polka dots. Some of those dresses were - and are - divine.

I personally do remember my mother's pointy-shaped bosom and her pretty dresses from those days. I suppose the ends of the bras are hollow or something, so women could store things inside, like a little lipstick, a rouge, or maybe an extra pair of earrings, or nipple rings, as the case may be. Count me in for pointy bras when they return to fashion. I'll be the lady with her glasses on a chain (I'm guessing it will be a while).

Noses, Nostrils, Teapots

This is going to be about a clog in my head and also my nostrils so if you would like to pick your nose while you read, please feel free to do so, as it will eventually fit with the theme of the piece. I went to Asia and when I returned I was outrageously jet-lagged. I did not pick my nose, and my nose is not featured yet, but I probably blew my nose and washed my hands. I always wash my hands. Planes are filthy and disgusting, but we all know that. Keep picking - stay on topic! There is a thirteen-hour time difference, and I slept so little while I was there - Asia - that I probably went beyond jet-lag to outer-space-lag or simple brain dysfunction.

Once home, I was not "on a different clock," but sleeping perpetually. I literally could not wake up for days. When I did open my eyes, or sit up, or one day shower even, I smiled at my family through bleary eyes. Big Kid, now a proudly dry-witted young man, looked at me kindly and then lacking his customary control, burst out laughing. None of them - my little family - could really prevent themselves from laughing at me, and I could not blame them. I felt like a queasy marionette, and I sensed that my expressions were about as intelligent. I may have picked my nose at that point, but I was too semi-conscious to manage it well, I am sure.

After a few days, the cold symptoms began. One of my fellow travelers had been horribly ill, and naturally I caught it. On came the sinusitis, the ear infection, and the mucus. Well, hold on there. The mucus was not in full force for some reason. I did take a lot of sudafed -ish stuff, and a lot of night-time stuff, and generally treated all symptoms so that I could bear myself and my family could manage to live with me and watch me pathetically now sleep, cough, and drool. But there was not the usual nose-blowing ad infinitum, the sore nostrils, and the bucket full of repulsive tissues for the dog to steal and half-chew - a canine delight, for those in the know. Go wash your hands! Alternatively, you may continue picking, as we are now into the theme.

My theory is that it was the lack of flowing mucus that led to the clog behind my eustachian tube and it was the clog behind that tube - the clog that little kids get and then they go have another little tube inserted for it, the snot, to drain - that felt like a golf ball sitting behind my ear. It felt awful. The kids refused to vacuum it out and scoffed at the use of all tools, despite my pleas. No mercy. At that point (and it still has not completely gone away), I returned to the doctor, or rather the nurse. We'll call her Jan because that was her name, or close enough. Are you following all of this? My infections cleared up and I was left with a golfball-sized blockage on the left side of my head and also deaf over there. Right. Actually, left. Snotball on left.

Stop picking your nose! That's quite enough, and at this point you are lucky it isn't bleeding. Jan was a nurse I saw frequently after my brother died, or as frequently as one does see one's nurse for this or that. She had been quite compassionate and I liked her crooked face, the one nostril larger than the other, and the sweetness the big rounded eyes seemed to convey. She was a plump little person on spindly legs. But when I returned a few days ago to tell Jan, my homely-cute nurse about the golf ball, she tugged at my right ear so hard that I said "ouch." I never say ouch unless something really hurts. Then she looked in my golf-snotball ear and said there was no wax, but that it was clogged behind the aforementioned eustachian tube, and it could take a month to get better. "Crap!" I said. She registered no particular expression, described what I would need to do, and she walked out. (You may stick your finger in your ear here, if you must.)

That's when I realized that Jan had not been very friendly during the whole visit. I had said hello, how are you, and been my genial self. She had been cold and serious. My adorable older crooked-face nurse no longer liked me! Whatever had I done? To make matters worse, she gave me something to snort, and told me to buy a "neti pot" at the pharmacy. Maybe I had said "crap" too loudly? Maybe that offends an older woman with a cute little crooked face. Maybe I am an ass. Ach. Oh, pick whatever you want.

I head home, slightly ruffled by the loss of my nurse-pal and wondering if I should send a little email thanking her or something pathetic like that (I mean really, maybe she just had a bad day). I go to the pharmacy to get my new inhaler and I find my neti-pot. I google it and find a video that shows a woman using a small tea-pottish sorta thing to let water flow in one nostril and out the other over the sink. (Would love to view it here but darned site won't let me.) Eee-yooo, but at this point, the snotball is such a bummer I'll do anything. The voice-over assures me that this will rid me of all allergies. I just want the mucus wad out of my ear and it would be nice to have hearing our of that side of my head again, too.

Little did I know that when I brought my neti-pot home that it would look remarkably like a teapot with a small penis as a spout. Yes, a circumcised penis. Apparently, not all such pots have a penis-spout, but mine does. and that little penis works really well. It fits perfectly into my nose, and the water flows right out, through one side and out of the other. It plugs in there perfectly. So basically my nose has sex with a small blue teapot twice a day and eventually it unclogs the blockage behind my ear. Maybe that's why Jan the nurse was so serious? She was jealous! I need to send her a teapot penis for her crooked nose and she will feel better, too. Now you may put your hands wherever you like.