The Return To Innocence

And now I am left with a complete sensation of pure exhaustion, a left arm that doesn't want to do anything but curl up limply against my ribs and be a ghost, a left leg that just wants to drag limply and be a ghost, and a head that feels full of sky. It will all fade gradually, and it will be irritating and aggravating while it lasts, but I am still here. I still exist. That matters.

OMG WTF LOL TMJ.
In conclusion, I have a migraine and I've been massaging my jaw and trying to stop clenching my teeth.
Hail Soma, Ultram, Baclofen, Picamilon, Shilajit, and Ashwagandha.

Also, note: One complex partial seizure, around two this afternoon. I kept scratching my arm with a pen, unclicked, just the plastic. That's all I remember. Hello again, Alice. Post ictal state is not so bad. I am a little drained and like a wounded wildcat in a corner and will probably growl at anyone who tries to start a debate about my health treatments, but otherwise I feel fair.

Mm-hmm. Having one of those "Oh, hey, the weather is totally making me want to curl up under blankets and sob hysterically until the drugs soothe me to sleep." At least this back brace is helping. Also, I am on seizure watch again. Migraines and hypertonic spastic tremors already happened a lot.

Dear everyone: I hope you are well, and safe, and protected.

Klonopin, Baclofen, Soma, and Tramadol are awesome pain management drugs. Passionflower, MSM, NAC, CoQ10, Serrapeptase, Biotin, Shilajit, Noni, Green Coffee, and Mangosteen are awesome pain management supplements.
That is all.

I will be... okay.

Ohh, "Doctor Who" - you are always full of surprises. This season finale episode, "Angels Take Manhattan"... it really did make me weep. Long sigh.

My head is being a bitch. At least the migraine has started backing down, thanks to codeine, baclofen, and carisoprodol; plus magnesium, devil's claw, cat's claw, CoQ10, green coffee extract, B vitamins, Vitamin D, Vitamin C, turmeric, and royal jelly.

Seriously, thank you Big Pharma, for doing something good for me. And thank you, holistic supplements, for always supporting me in my times of serious need. And thank you, self, for instinctively knowing how to balance pharmaceuticals with holistics.
Did I mention how much I love craniosacral therapy?
(If you don't know what that is, search engines are your friends. I admit, I get a bit annoyed when someone asks me what something is, while they are on the internet, with Google and Bing and Yahoo availavble.)

I am still feeling perky and shiny enough. I have books to read, writings to write, TV shows to watch. Also, the new TMNT cartoon is absolutely adorable, holy shit, I love it already.

The migraine dance is nothing like the chicken dance. Except at Oktoberfest in the year 3012, with Neanderthals fighting Germans in chicken hats. With prehistoric mammoths. And catapults that fire prehistoric sabre-toothed cats at spacecrafts piloted by incompetent egomaniac womanizing space captains in velour mini-skirts.

I would like to thank neck stretching, self massage, acupressure, dark chocolate, Acetaminophen-Codeine, Magnesium Citrate, Cayenne, CoQ10, and Vitamin B-100 Complex. With their combined combative help, I was able to ease and soothe this migraine pain enough to continue very light physical and mental work. Please give them all a round of applause.

My appointment with the neurologist yesterday went very well. Dr. Lin was very pleased to see me, and we set a follow-up six month appointment. I told her about Dr. Babus the pain physician and she was thrilled. I explained that since Dr. Babus was now handling all my pain drugs, it would be easier for her to handle all my brain drugs, thus taking the burden off my general physician, Dr. O'Conor. She was completely on board with that. We discussed my breakthrough seizures, and decided to increase the Klonopin from 0.5 mg to 1.0 mg daily, as a backup. She wanted to put me on Lunesta, but I refuse to pay hundreds of dollars, and also I'm doing fine with my current regimen of valerian, passionflower, and other such holistic sleep aids.

Metro Access had dropped me off at the building, and I had requested a return trip, but as it turned out, I misread the appointment times, and so the return trip window would have interfered with the appointment. I canceled the return trip quickly, especially when I realized that there was a Ride On bus stop nearby that would take me to Rockville, which meant that I could get to Shady Grove and then to home.
That bus stop was near the Walgreens shopping center, which had the only local Walgreens I knew of. Since I love the store part of Walgreens, I spent nearly an hour perusing. Prices really are cheaper than CVS. I would be happy to go back. I could take a bus, but that would actually involve too much time and effort, with hopping trains and buses back and forth. I'll try it when I'm feeling energetic enough. It's really only to Rockville Station, and I spent years metro-hopping in downtown DC.

Now, more reading.

You know it's getting bad when you have forgotten where you put the list of all the supplemental pills that can treat migraines, tension headaches, coexisting migraine and tension-type headaches, neck pain, shoulder pain, overall muscle tension....

Never mind, I found it.

My gods, it feels like a nightclub in my head. Impressive.

This will be dealt with.

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Nope. It could be called Keeping One's Mouth Shut. Also, tact. It's a useful skill that tends to disappear in certain situations where people probably should not say exactly what they think.

In other news, I'm so far behind on checking in with online forums and communities that I realized I don't really care anymore. There was a very stupid fight that happened in one chronic pain forum that had me facepalming forever, probably because it was one of the most one-sided, immature, misguided, NO YOU kind of fights I'd ever seen. Something about paranoia and clinging to supporters and an amazing display of childish whining without self-helping. Good thing it's over. I still want to smack the immature party in the head, but they left the forum permanently. Oh, well. Perhaps the other person, who was completely misunderstood, should have lied by omission just to save everyone the headaches. I've gotten to the point where none of it matters. Unless they are truly my friends and affect me in any personal way, I've stopped caring.

My head still hurts. It is ridiculous. Tea will help. Everything works better with tea.
http://www.soapsoleil.com/pb/wp_8de84506/wp_8de84506.html (My favorite is the Sea Buckthorn Berry Blend Cocktail; it has rooibos, roses, and superfuits.)

I'm trying to figure out alternatives to the Spoon Theory. I recently learned some things about its author that disappointed me.
Anyway.

I am out of energy. Out of cope. Out of patience. Out of pain shields. I keep dropping shields. Sometimes my armor is made of nothing but shields made of various materials. When the pain becomes too much and too intense and too insane, the weaker shields start shedding first. I can't get them back until the pain stops. I've been hoarding my pain shields like gold, but I'm a very small dragon and right now I am very weak.

There is a five-pound weight sitting across the room. When I bent down to pick it up, the muscles and nerves in my lower back shrieked, my knees sobbed, and my fingers kept dropping the weight. It was stupid.
I need a nap. Maybe later I can actually exercise without feeling as though I will melt and drift away.

Grr. Argh.

On Facebook:

So you know those days when it feels like a brick fell on your head and everything everywhere feels sore and tender and you're too dizzy to walk straight and you feel too sick for food and also your heads feels like fragile glass? I hate those days and they hate me. Also I typed this with one hand while lying down, what do I win?

I first wanted a pony, but was reminded that I'd be too dizzy to do anything but stare at it. So I decided I wanted a bearded dragon instead. I have no idea what I'd do with it, however.

Still dizzy. Sitting up feels better for now.

Oy.

It's amazing how a single seizure early in the morning can erase any ideas of what I was going to do today. So I am watching Animal Planet and eating a cinnamon bun.

Tonight, Adam comes home. Tomorrow, I'm going to to to avoid news television, news websites, and anything discussing the obvious. I'm dealing with it in my own private way. However, since I've made the poem an annual thing on LJ, I'll post that now:

The Brave Ones

What price we pay
What cost innocence
What graves we dig
To bury ourselves.
What world is this
Just outside
Touch forbidden
Unforgiven.
Bury me not in the shroud of your tears
But in the soothing soil of your soul
Where I am withered
Only to heal
In the night
At the price
Of my innocence.

I have a headache, and more weird/strange pains I don't want to dwell on. This will be a weekend of rest.