So…
Do you hear voices in your head? Well, I do. But the thing is, I always have, and usually those voices are telling me to write their stories for them, and they go into novels, short stories, and we all function well together within the confines of my brain.
Today, the voices aren’t wanting me to write!
Okay, so I’m being a bit dramatic, and ya’ll are probably going to think I’m crazy, and that would actually be true right now.
As many of you know from my ongoing health issues, I was diagnosed with Addison’s Disease, hypopituitarism, adrenal insufficiency, hypothyroidism, etc, after nearly six years of searching for answers. I was relieved at the diagnosis, a little sad that so much had been lost, but happy that we had a game plan.
Well, the gameplan was to take replacement hormones for all the hormones my body wasn’t making: cortisol, thyroid, sodium, stuff… so he puts me on a long-acting steroid, Dexamethasone.
You do not want to be around me.
No, I mean it. The first day was great. Pain was better, felt awesome, little chatty and hyper, but good. Got a lot of work done, too, which really felt fantastic. Second day, got even more work done, but realized I was going up, up, up and away… by the third day, I was flying, buzzed out, couldn’t get enough to drink, couldn’t get enough to eat, wanted physical and tactile stimulation (which is a funny way of saying I wanted to talk during sex, and do both a lot, at the same time! LOL)By the fourth day, my head was gone. Just flat out gone. I was a raving lunatic.
I yelled at my son. I called him an idiot. That. Is. NOT. Me. Never has been. He back talked me, just a little bit, and I popped him in the mouth. Not hard, but that’s not the point. He didn’t deserve it.
I was talking to Ryan about something, can’t even remember now, and he said something to me that set me off and I said, “Shut the fuck up.” Uh, who said that? I don’t talk like that.
Lynn asked me a simple question yesterday, “What is this lightbulb doing here?”
I slammed my computer shut and walked outside, because you know what? I love her and would like to keep her as a friend, and I think that the lightbulb question was going to have me questioning her parentage. Not that I don’t do that already, if you know what I mean. Love you, Lynn!
Fortunately, the people in my life know and love me, and they are fully aware this is not who I am. I have NEVER been an angry, violent or even manic person, but I am on a manic phase that is about to break me. My head is not clear, my emotions are all over the place. I was laughing early and tears started streaming from my face and then I was crying the other night and laughing about it. I’m angry, and then I’m numb, and then I’m sad, and then I am flying again. I can’t sleep. I’m dying of thirst, cannot get enough water, like literally going to drown myself with water thirsty and I hurt. Bad… like deep down in my bones pushing out from the center of me gripping pain.
This morning, I woke up in pain and took my meds without really thinking about it, and about 40 minutes later, the manic hit again. The only thing we’re doing differently is the dexamethasone. It’s a very powerful, potent steroid. I’ve taken steroids before this one, prednisone and hydrocortisone, and neither of them did this to me. They prednisone makes me a little hyper and talkative, increases appetite, but that’s it. The hydrocortisone doesn’t change my mood much. The problem is, the prednisone helps with pain and helps with inflammation and helps with the low adrenal cortisol stuff from the Addison’s, and hydrocortisone doesn’t do much of anything for me to alleviate pain and inflammation and the urine cortisol levels on hydrocortisone were still low when they tested me – why problem? Because the dexamethasone worked. It made the pain go away. It made the energy levels higher. It took away the gripping, horrible fatigue… for three glorious days.
And now, I’m in a manic phase that would make any bipolar cringe and I hate everyone. People suck. I love you people. you suck. Really. But I love you. See how that goes?
It’s called “steroid psychosis”, according to the internet stuff I’m seeing, and I didn’t have it with the other steroids, but this one is hitting me bad, bad, bad.
So I have a favor to ask of you all… I really need your help to sustain me through this. It’s bad. I can’t even explain to you how awful it feels to be out of control of your own emotions and actions. Please, until we get the doc to call back and all of this works back down (can’t just stop taking dexamethasone without weaning off of it, so I don’t know what’s going to happen), I need some love, positive energy, prayers and patience.
I also need someone to come and pick up my son and take him away so he survives this, ’cause I’m grinning and wringing my hands over fun ways to torture him already!
So if you could get on those happy positive energy thoughts for me, I’d appreciate it. In the meantime, I’m going to go try to drown this thirst by drinking even more than my body weight in Dasani. I really want a Starbucks though.Caffeine – just what needs to be added to this. You REALLY don’t want me on the street.
Love and stuff,
Manic Michy
