Long post in which I ramble about my grief of losing a trusted medical provider I've been seeing for many years, the physical pain I am currently experiencing, what physical pain does to my mind when it escalates too much, the mental health care I receive, and things I think I'll start doing to take care of myself.
The chiropractic called me earlier before I went to my appointment. My main chiropractor Dr K who I've been seeing since I was a child, for nearly 22 years, can no longer see me because he found out he has a severe allergy to cats and every time he sees a patient with cats he's sick for days afterward. I have cats, so me and all his other cat owner patients are being switched to the other two who work in the office. I'm gutted. I don't know how I'm going to cope with this. I can still see Dr R, been seeing him for about 17 years, and that's who I saw today but he's not the same. Dr K knows me better than any other medical professional who has ever worked with me. He always has an answer for any question I have and when he doesn't have an answer immediately he researches it so he can find out for me. He's done more for me than any other doctor ever. He's gotten me through so much. I trust him more than anyone in the world except my husband. And now out of nowhere I can't see him anymore. I'm shattered. I feel like I just lost a family member. I'm very much in mourning. Dr R was sympathetic and let me cry about it while he was fixing up my ribs and neck.
My husband and I eventually want to move to live with my best friend who lives two states away, so I knew I'd eventually have to say goodbye to Dr K whether it was when we move or if he retires before then since he's pretty old, but I wasn't expecting it to end so suddenly like this. I might create a digital art piece to email him and thank him for everything he's done for me.
Idk. I want to sleep but I am laid low by a menstrual migraine (been happening every cycle since last June) and I don't think the pain will allow me to fall asleep even though I've taken my nighttime meds (which include a pain medication that doubles as an anxiety medication and is known to cause drowsiness but is not a controlled substance) plus over the counter nausea medicine that is known to cause drowsiness plus my opioid painkiller plus over the counter migraine pain reliever. The caffeine in the last one doesn't keep me awake so I can take it at any time of day which is convenient when headaches strike when I need to be asleep but I just wish any of this would actually do the job and relieve the pain right now. It's getting worse and when my physical pain levels escalate to 8/10 or higher, my psychiatric meds stop working and all my mental illnesses decide it's time to party. I get pretty weird and unhinged and addled and I hallucinate and experience paranoia and existential terror and despair and no perceivable blemish on my skin is safe from my hands and I wonder if the pain is actually going to kill me. So far it hasn't and to be clear I absolutely do not want it to but the question and the terror at the possibility is always there.
I have an appointment tomorrow afternoon at the place I go for mental health care, to discuss my meds. The combo I'm on right now works well enough, except when the physical pain gets out of hand. I don't think there's a psych med in the world that will make the hallucinations and horrific existentialism stop when I have a migraine, and the doctor I see here understands that because we've tried increasing my meds for that purpose and seen it didn't work.
My new community support specialist thinks it's good that I'm looking into herbal medicine (I'm mostly looking into folk remedies in the Appalachian region) and wanting to use it in combination with modern medicine, and she said she will look into some herbal medicine from her home country (she is Indian) and see what she can find for me. I really want to get my hands on a copy of that Lost Book Of Herbal Remedies as well as Forgotten Home Apothecary and see what I can find in there that might be useful to me. She did recommend turmeric and black pepper and I might actually go in the kitchen and mix some into a cup of warm oat milk just to see if it will make me feel better and help me sleep.
Since my mental health sinks into the abyss like a whale fall to be feasted upon by the horrors in the deep when I'm in extreme physical pain, I may or may not need to take a more holistic approach to my overall health. Obviously keep tending to the different things that need tending like taking the meds for the specific things I need them for, but also look into ways that can help everything. Stay on top of keeping myself adequately fed and nourished with tasty nutrient dense foods, drink teas that will boost what needs boosting, start hydrated, go to the gym with my husband and get back on my bulking and weight training, maybe even actually get some sunlight, that kind of thing.
Sometimes I feel like the only thing keeping my body functioning is my own determination to stubbornly hold onto hope out of spite, and jokes that the gods had to nerf me by giving me a defective body or else I would usurp them all. My willpower is honestly some untapped potential for great power and I need to learn to harness it to overcome everything that stands in my way. I can break free from sleep paralysis, so I know I'm capable of being more stubborn than my body's refusal to cooperate, I just need to get used to turning my willpower onto other things that I need to overpower, both internal and external.
Sigh. It's after midnight. I'm still in a lot of physical pain and I still need to go to sleep, so I think I will try the warm oat milk and tumeric.
Night night y'all, I love you and stay determined.
