Sick of Thinking “Well”

I’ve had it in mind many times now to sit down and put on paper some issues I want to discuss with my doctor on my next appointment, but can’t bring myself to actually do it.  Despite the fact that I’m still in my “flare,” I’ve been doing my damndest to keep my illness on the back-burner a while.  Each time I start dwelling on it, I feel more and more depressed and we certainly don’t want to go back down that road!  Now I’m on the other end of it where not talking about it makes me feel my family doesn’t understand why I’m behaving the way I am.

When Owen says, “My feet hurt,” or Mom says, “I have a headache,” I just want to scream at the top of my lungs.  Sympathy?  They want MY sympathy?  Well, they get back what they’ve put in, which is next to none.  Just because my feet and my head hurt everyday, it doesn’t make it any easier to put up with.  In fact, it can almost make you crazy at times.  Kind of like that nagging toothache that you finally can’t put up with anymore and have to make that trip to the dentist’s office even though it is your least favorite place on earth.  Unless you’ve been there, you can’t imagine dealing with that sort of thing all the time and knowing full well there isn’t anything that can be done about it.  As if all the dentists in the world are booked up for the next five years.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned that my Advil has quick working and I’m back to dealing with some shoulder pain again.  In fact, I quit taking the Advil at the beginning of this week and hopefully I can go back on it in a couple of months for a few more months of relief.  Thankfully, the Lamictal has helped tremendously with that and what pain I have now is tolerable.  At this point, I’m convinced that what pain I have is in the other muscles and not the weak ones.  They have to work double duty to make up for the ones that aren’t working well and they are suffering from simple over-usage, I think.  Another note of interest, there is a seriously tender spot (NOT A TENDER POINT!!!) right over the area where that bone island is, but I’ve not found anything that suggests they should be painful.  Dare I add that to my list of things to inquire about with the new doc?

Also, for the past few weeks, I’d have to say that the sleepiness is climbing the charts on symptoms that are bothering me the most.  I get irritable a lot simply because I want to go to sleep, but know I can’t.  I just don’t want to be bothered for the most part.  Let me sit here and sulk in peace, dammit!  The irony is that even if I did have the opportunity, I can’t actually sleep!  I nod off rather quickly, but stay in that half-awake/half-asleep state whre I’m tossing and turning and just get exhausted from trying so hard to stay asleep (if that makes any sense.)  Almost every time I pop that Lamictal tablet, I can’t help questioning if it is the Lamictal that makes me feel this way or the flare.  Should I stop the Lamictal?  Is not having the burning and shoulder pain a fair trade off?  I think I’m almost too afraid to try not taking it.  If there is a chance something is going to hurt and hurt bad, you are highly reluctant to do it.

So there we have it… still suffering and still in a holding pattern.