However, I never, in all that time of multiple procedures, thought of the difficulties that I'd face post-diagnosis. The philosophy I'd always experienced with doctors in the past was "find the diagnosis, give you the cure, and that's that." And it did work like that throughout my childhood and as a teenager. Strep throat again? Here's antibiotics-you'll feel better within a week.
But when faced with a diagnosis of a chronic, incurable condition, the post-diagnosis stage is even more difficult, and far more depressing than any experience I've ever had medically.
Every day, every week is just a series of changes. Change this med, add another one, stop taking this one. My poor central nervous system is in all honesty, probably telling me to fuck off from all the different medications I've been putting into my body lately as an attempt to reign in control of my GP.
The optimism disappeared about a month after my diagnosis and my first experience with the only US legal drug to help with GP, reglan. Being the hypochondriac I am, I of course freaked out over the side effects and convinced myself that within a week, I would have full blown tardive dyskenesia and would be throwing drinks all over people (I was a bartender at the time).
Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on which side you take), the reglan made me extremely depressed and also had the unique ability to make me pass out within a half hour of taking it, which rendered it fairly useless in its goal of allowing me to eat more than once a day. (Currently, I stick to one meal at night so if i puke it up, at least i won't be doing it in the UCEN bathroom at school. Trust me, the 'are you bulimic' thing gets really old after awhile.)
Thus, another change. My GI doctor and my psychiatrist, who apparently have been playing phone tag for the last three weeks, somehow made a group decision that reducing my anxiety about food would probably be a better first step than, you know, stopping my puking. Cue frustration, a step back, and more changes.
Of course, being of the special 1% of the people on the planet who experiences side effects of literally every drug i put in my body, the anti-anxiety and depression pills I'm on aren't working correctly. Cue more frustration, another step back, and another addition of a different drug to ensure my already large laundry list of drugs were working properly.
The most frustrating part of it all is that the GI doctor won't put me on any sort of stomach medication until all of the other drugs affecting my CNS stabilize. Which means another month of alternatively puking/not eating to save my throat while dealing with all of the side effects of the constant drug changes.
The point is, I'm frustrated. and tired. Tired of all the changes, tired of waiting for a point of stability, tired of trying to stay positive and imagine a somewhat normal lifestyle within the near future. It is so mentally exhausting trying to keep a smile on my face, attending class, starting a job, all while knowing that it'll be another month until i'm at least allowed to TRY a medication to help my stomach. and of course, it'll have to be a drug from Canada because reglan sucks.
And of course, the cure to mental and physical exhaustion? Food. If I can keep my glorious diet of gerber graduates entrees down, I'm running on about 300 calories a day, and pretty much everything exhausts me at this point. Today, for example, I went to the psychiatrist, got prescribed a new med. Filled the prescription, went over to campus to work on some enrollment issues, went to orientation for my new job as a swim instructor. Total amount of time involved? About six hours. But right now I feel like i decided to run a full marathon without any training. It's 7:45 and I could pass out at any second.
The point is, I'm tired of all these changes and so just ready to find a combination of drugs that will allow me to live my life in a somewhat normal fashion. I'm not stupid, I understand my quality of life will never be what it was before, (not that I particularly want to revisit the alcohol-fueled partying of the past few years), but I want more than this. I want to be able to complete a few tasks a day and still be able to function after it. To be able to hold a conversation that isn't another whining session about how hard my life is.
However, it just doesn't seem like that is yet in the cards for me. Here's to holding out for another month and attempting to retain some of the former optimism i used to hold every day I woke up. Here's to another month of not over-pushing my food boundaries, and making my goal of 'no barfing for one week'.
Best wish me some luck, I've been running low on it for the past year. If karma is a bitch, I must have been a hell of an asshole in my past life. But here's to hoping that this is the beginning of the end of changes. I could use some stability right about now.
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