I’m trying….honest to god. I’m going to get this done. Depression has consumed me. Eaten me alive. But I keep trying, but even the smallest tasks are difficult.
I tell myself I’m retired, comfortable and have only 1 thing I must do and that’s take care of my two best friends.
Wonder if they talk about me…”Lucy, Dad’s put on some weight, don’t ya’ think?”…”Yep, and what’s with the buzz haircut?” she replies to Mister Blu.
Besides that and the tax man, I can do little of nothing. What I want to do.
Except pain…and this effing depression rule my life.
I haven’t been writing…and for the life of me I don’t know why. It could be I am getting closer to the full realization of how totally insignificant my life is. I hate to say it, but it holds true for all life forms, so I can’t claim any uniqueness there. On one hand this existence is meaningless, on the other it’s a wondrous realization of knowing of one’s existence.
I need to wrap myself around the fact that the more I accept how insignificant I am, the closer to enlightenment I become.I have to let go of worldly things to fully see myself, and appreciate what it is for what it is. It’s really pretty simple, how we should go about living, but it sure doesn’t work out that way.
Or perhaps I should stop looking for meaning and purpose altogether. That’d be the smart thing. Wake up, face the day, repeat.
For the first time in 18 years I wanted to open the liquor cabinet and pour 3 fingers of Maker’s Mark on my way to a good drunk. I won’t, can’t really. Not because of all the meds, but because if I start drinking alone in the house I couldn’t get clean again.
I was daydreaming in the middle of the night and wished I was a 20 year old young man full of piss and vinegar. My thoughts turned to one evening’s journey that started off like every other. Work hard out in the sun all day, punch out at 5:00, go home and start the party. Life then was one continual ride on a roller coaster. The year 1976, the bicentennial, sex, drugs and rock and roll.
The first beer was done before I got to my small apartment, we all drank beer when we drove around. But that took money for gas, and what wages I made went to bread, baloney and beer. I find it ironic that I was the happiest when I was the poorest. I had just dropped out of college.
Living in a university town meant there were a lot of houses that became rentals, and everything you needed was within walking distance from the campus. Better yet everyone had a bike and since the apartments were all around the university we all we a ten minute bike ride away.
We played a lot of music, drank too much, and did a lot of things we shouldn’t do, but we were happy. Work hard, play hard, and enjoy the hell out of life.
I miss those days. Poor but happy. When I start writing in earnest again I need to capture some of those moments.
Besides not writing this blog, I’m not playing piano, nor doing the NYT Sunday crossword.
A lie, that first part about the piano. I am playing on a rare occasion, but it’s the same 4 chords. And really playing, but banging the keys as hard as I can. Gmaj (second inversion), Dmaj (root), Emin and finishing with C maj. Staccato E, Fsharp, G. Repeat. Harder each time, louder. More finger flourishes. Bang bang bang….rest…repeat.
I’m agitated. Angry? Yes.Bored? I don’t have time to be bored.
I’m on day 5 of being deathly ill once again. Diarrhea, vomiting, sweats and chills. And since I can’t keep anything down or inside, I had to suspend taking a lot of medication. 5 days later my insomnia, general spine pain, and nerves are all simply on fire.
Flu? Maybe. Food poisoning? Yes, but after 3 years of trying to figure out the culprit, the most logical conclusion is I have a serious allergic reaction to soy, and more specifically to fermented soybeans, commonly called soy sauce.
We, meaning myself, the missus and the dogs have been tracing this reaction, and soy sauce has always been a constant suspect as I tracked everything
Simple solution is to cut it out completely, along with the other known culprits, and see if these week long bouts stop. Onions and fatty pork, i.e. pork belly or chicharrons. Crispy bites of deep-fat fried pork skin. Yum….not.
Why the hell didn’t the gastro doc I saw in March do his job and search for an answer? Nope, he looked down his nose, saw I’m taking a bunch of hydromorphone and treated me like a junkie. Oh well, western medicine. Treat a symptom, throw more drugs at it, tick the box.
Last night I somehow managed to fall asleep out of pure exhaustion. I had 4 hours total in the previous 4 days. My stomach had settled and I finally could restart some of my meds. Clonidine, pregabalin and rotigotine for the RLS and nerve pain. Trazadone for sleep. Pain meds and this concoction in a cream that I use from the small of my back down to both ankles. Baclofen, ketamine, lidocaine….too many too remember all 5.
All the drugs finally worked and the last I saw the clock it read 11:40.
“To sleep, perchance to dream.”
A giant splash woke me from a deep sleep. It had appeared so suddenly, right in my face, that I woke immediately. I was hyper, scared maybe, my heart racing. Overdrive.
And took a deep breath.
A giant fish had boiled the surface , then splashed its tail as it dove back in.
Then it sunk in what had just happened. Let me try to explain it a bit more, so you can understand what I’m talking about. Pardon my backward story telling. I told you, I’m not well.
When I first awoke, I realized I had twisted and turned in my sleep. I now laid on my back with my head at the opposite end of the couch. My head was actually wedged in the corner, chin firmly resting on my chest. My right leg was off the couch, knee bent and bare foot planted, probably to relieve pressure in my spine.
Dr. L, my neurologist trying to deal with my nerve pain and RLS originally started off trying to correct my severe sleep apnea. I’ve done the overnight stays at the hospital, twice even. Without going into much detail, the resulting data showed several interesting facts.
Fact 1. I had leg movement in the form of twitching or kicking on average 64 times per hour.
Fact 2. For the 4 hours of sleep, I went into 5th stage REM sleep for only an hour. I was stuck between stage 4 and stage 5, which he believed was a psychological issue.
Fact 3. I had 6 episodes of sleep apnea in that period, some so severe my oxygen levels dropped to the low 80%. If I had stayed at that level without waking the technician monitoring all night would have come in to wake me.
So a quick statement on CPAP, without 8 pages of background. I should be on a CPAP machine to correct my moments of sleep apnea, I realize that. But since I have to get up over and over again to pace, being connected by a 6 foot hose to my face is impossible. Pacing is the best way to relieve restless legs.
“I’m afraid,” Dr. L once told me, “that with the high dose of hydromorphone you’re going to have an episode of sleep apnea, with your chin down, and simply never wake up.”
It just happened. I had gotten into a position on the couch, chin down, and quit breathing.
Somewhere in the recesses of my mind came the message to wake up, and it conjured up the giant splash from a wily rainbow trout.
“Wake up!” it seemed to say and slapped its tail in escape. So hard, the resulting splash scared me enough, startled me awake.
Or else the doctor’s premonition would have come true.
So of all the trout I have netted and released came to see me safely escape my own net.
It was emotionally moving at the time, to be truthful.
“Wake up, Kyd!”
I need to be fishing, and thank the trout for coming to visit.