Doldrums

A couple of weeks ago I woke up feeling happy. It seemed almost out of the blue. Several weeks of mostly happy, joyful feelings and good days followed.

Earlier this week I woke up feeling a little off, a little blue. I tried to shake it off, shoo it away. Every subsequent day has found me sadder than the last.

I just broke down in tears at the grocery store in front of a lot of people. There I was in line buying my Raisin Bran Crunch and I just started sobbing.

What is wrong with me?! I thought the Zoloft was supposed to stabilize things for me.

I honestly, truly feel that I might be suffering with Bipolar Disorder. When I brought this up with my current doctor, he brushed my concerns off. My mother suffers from Bipolar Disorder. And it's hereditary. Does my quack of a doctor care? Nope.

My emotions have been all over the place this last year. I feel like I'm going crazy. It's one step forward, three steps back with this. It's exhausting. I don't know what to do about it anymore. I'm tired.

 I just want some peace.

First Day Back

It's my first day back to work since the surgery. I've cried four times already. And that's even after I've taken four pain pills this morning! I know that's way too many, but I'm just trying to make it through this shift. Sky was sweet enough to come with me to work and help me on his day off. The owner of the hotel has been around and has helped a lot too. I'm thankful everyone is being so nice, but I'm still in crazy amounts of pain! I'm doing my best to try to take it easy. For the last hour and a half I've just been sitting here. Even so, I haven't sat for this long in weeks! I'm exhausted and I am counting the minutes until I can be back in bed!

So as I was very slowly making my way around the hotel this morning, several people asked if I was okay. I told one of the women who asked that it was my first day back after surgery. It turns out that she and her girlfriends staying here are nurses! They were shocked when I told them my surgery was only a week and a half ago. They were very concerned and asked lots of questions about the procedure, my hospital stay and how I was recovering. Several of them told me repeatedly that what I had undergone was considered a very serious surgery, and that I should still be at home in bed! They said that people are usually on bed rest for the first 2 to 3 weeks, and most are not advised to be climbing stairs or lifting anything before the 4 week mark. It was nice to hear their concern and feel validated and to know I'm not being a (complete) baby about this whole thing.

Yet here I am at work because I was worried about losing my job. Right after the surgery I called my manager to explain about the bed rest and everything else that was going on. And once I got home from the hospital I sent Sky to talk to her again, just to make sure she new I wanted to come back and that I didn't want to lose my job. She was very nice and accommodating when she spoke with Sky so I was relieved thinking I could take my time with recuperating. But she called me two days later and her demeanor was very different. She didn't say it directly, but she strongly urged me to return to work, hinting around that if I didn't I would no longer have a job.

I know everyone keeps saying I can just get a new job. But Season is winding down here very quickly, and if you don't have a job once Slow Season hits, then it's extremely difficult to find anything. I don't want to take my chances!

Anyway I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!! Only 54 more minutes til I'm out of here and back in my sweet, comfy bed!!! It can't come soon enough!!!

Happy Saturday!!

'Oscopies and Operations

* Just a TMI warning!!!! Everything surrounding my hospitalization and surgery is pretty gross, so if you don't want to know really inappropriate details about my body, I would stop reading!


Have I told you about my doctor yet? His name is Dr. Amaro. I was endlessly embarrassed by this entire situation because I found this man handsome and funny. And he smelled nice! How mortifying is it not only to have to be in a hospital gown, but also have to discuss pooping and your bottom with a handsome man?! Oh I could have died every time he walked in the room!


Anyway, after a couple of days, my blood pressure and hemoglobin levels weren't stellar, but they were steady. Dr. Amaro thought it was time to pinpoint what what causing the bleeding and from where. He referred me to a surgeon, Dr. Commissiong to preform several exploratory procedures and a surgery, if necessary.


My nurses gave me two bottles of cherry flavored saline to drink that would clean out my intestines and colon in order to prepare for the procedures. The doctor explained that I would be undergoing two 'oscopies: a sigmoidoscopy and a colonosopy. The sigmoidoscopy would let the doctors examine the inside of my rectum and the beginning of my colon. The colonoscopy would let them see the entire length of my colon to determine where the bleeding was coming from. I have to be honest: I was scared! One of my only questions was whether they would put me under and they assured me that they would.


At what the nurses called "pre-op" they asked a long list of standard questions about my health and history. They ran a pregnancy test (very negative, by the way) and checked my vital signs. As the nurse listened to my heart and lungs, she remarked that she thought I said I didn't have heart or lung problems. I replied that I didn't, to my knowledge. That's when she told me that I have a heart murmur. I was surprised and I told her so.


The next thing I remember, I woke up to the sound of my own crying. I vaguely remember hearing a nurse tell me that Sky was on his way and would be waiting in my room for me when they were ready to release me from the Recovery room. The rest of the evening went by in a fog. I can remember looking up at Sky, then waking up again to my dinner tray being brought in, then again the next morning at 6am. Whatever they put me under with was fantastic!


The morning after my 'oscopies my doctor and surgeon came to explain what they found. I had several lesions and lacerations in my rectum and colon and they were hemorrhaging. They would need to do surgery to repair the problem. They told me they had an OR booked for me that morning.


At pre-op I signed my life away via consent forms to the anesthesiologist and my surgeon. I answered another long list of questions, the nurse gave me something to "calm my nerves" and I was out like a light!


Again I woke up to myself crying hysterically. Apparently being sedated makes me weepy. Waking up from anesthesia is such an odd experience! I felt as if I was hearing and seeing things as I was walking through a tunnel. The closer I got to the opening the more I could hear and see. At first I was shocked wondering who was making all that noise! Then I slowly realized that was me screaming and crying! I was so confused. I remember thinking to myself that I wasn't particularly sad. So why would I be crying? It's still strange to remember.


That afternoon and evening was a really rough one. After a couple of hours post-op, the anesthesia started wearing off. I was in more pain than I had ever felt in my entire life, and that's saying A LOT seeing as I just had a nightmare of a miscarriage owing to an overdose of Cytotec. But this pain is something I wouldn't wish on my worse enemy. It was excruciating!!!! It hurt so badly that even after three doses of morphine and a Loratab, I was still crying and screaming in pain. I begged the nurses for something stronger or something to knock me out. I just couldn't take it anymore! I cried so much that I lost my voice and broke a blood vessel in my eye. I don't have the words to describe the amount of pain I was in. 


Unfortunately I still had more to look forward to at the hospital. But for the moment I was happy at least to have the problem figure out and fixed...

#83 See a movie that makes me cry

Obviously this isn't something that I could really plan. So I figured when it would happen, it would happen. And it happened last night. As I said before, I'm in the middle of being obsessed with movies. I watch one every single day. Some days I watch two! Last night was one of those nights. I got home around 5:30p and immediately changed into my pjs, curled up with Migi and started a movie night. This is one of the movies I watched:

I wish I had been a bit more prepared for this. I hadn't seen the previews, nor did I read a synopsis of the movie. The only thing I can recall hearing about it was that it had an amazing cast and was produced by Tyler Perry. I thought it was going to be a feel-good, female empowering sort of movie. 

It wasn't. This movie made me sad to be black, sad to be a woman and made me want to hate black men. And let me make clear that NONE of these are my real feelings, nor have I ever felt that way. As a matter of fact, I usually feel the exact opposite! I was shocked at how depressing and heart-wrenching this movie was! And the crying I did was not "I'm so touched by this" crying. This crying was more "This is extremely sad and painful and uncomfortable to watch and I identify with too many of these scenarios and they remind me of my own depressing situation/experience/childhood" sort of crying.

So I started sobbing about 45 minutes into it and didn't stop until the credits rolled. And then I was angry. Because I was not ready, nor did I want, to be emotionally attacked and drained by a movie. But I had been. Oh well . Lesson learned.

Have any of you watched this movie? What did you think about it?