Interconnectivity in my Brain

So I've had a few months of switching meds for various problems. There is a med I now have to take for my migraines that makes me dizzy and a bit tired. I was very relieved when my neurologist told me I wouldn't have to take it for the rest of my life, that the dizziness will subside, and was due to the med. Yay, I don't have a new problem! (At my age, that's a major victory.)

And then about two months ago my GP had given me calcium & vitamin D, which gave me chest pains and shooting pain in my neck. I thought I was having a heart attack. My pal R told me it was the Calcium Citrate, and when I stopped taking them, the pains went away.

Yay! Another new problem I don't have! I'm on a roll!

Well, some time in the middle of this I looked at my pills. The number of pills I have to take each day had diminished.

There was just one niggling little pill that bothered me. One last anti-depressant, one low-dose pill that's all that remains of a ten-year struggle with depression. And it's actually the first antidepressant med I ever took, and at the same dose, that put 80 pounds on me in one year.

Eighty. Pounds.

Since I made my lifestyle change of reducing the carbs in my life, my weight has dropped ten pounds. I briefly thought I had diabetes, but a two week stint with a tester showed me my blood sugar was fine. No, the lifestyle change had done it. I had dropped ten pounds.

And I want to drop more.

And I have one last antidepressant that I know keeps or adds weight to me.

And it was due to be refilled on a day when I felt too tired to go out to the pharmacy, so, one thing leading to another, I stopped taking them.

That was two weeks ago. It was a low dose. I felt like I was home free, the end of an era, getting healthier every passing day.

But my luck seems to have run out. In the past two weeks I've had outbursts of rage, crying fits, severe frustration way out of line with what was going on.

My brain is firing on all cylinders. I have ideas for quilts. For scrapbooking. For photos I want to take, movies I want to make. Stories I want to write. Gourmet delicacies I want to prepare - while at the same time hating every minute I have to spend in the kitchen, because there are so many other things I want to do.

I've cut the curtains without taking them down. I've moved heavy furniture single-handed, and nearly driven my Boyfriend nuts with my list of things I want fixed, places I want to go, plants I want to grow. 

My head is exploding with new ideas.

And I'm yelling at the cats.

Sad but true, in my case, creativity is inexorably linked to my particular form of madness.

W A I T I N G F O R D O C T O R . . . . .

I had vertigo yesterday. To those whose vocabulary isn't yet completely formed, vertigo is dizziness. (Now, now, no comments about "dizzy broad." This is SERIOUS!!!

I was unable to work, because the world was spinning around me. And closing my eyes made it worse. And there were stabbing pains in my head. Time to head for the horse-pickle.

Where I waited. Ate. Quilted. Drank. Made friends. Gave out marital advice. Quilted. Ate again. Drank again. Had searing pains in the head. The world continued to spin. Asked the nurse - not how long the wait was, because they CAN'T TELL YOU THAT.... but how critical I was, on the list of who gets bumped down when someone with a more serious condition comes in. I was in the middle. So I waited. Ate. Drank. Finished the quilt. Gave out more marital advice.

The tedium was occasionally punctuated by two psych patients who roamed the first floor at will. "C", a woman who looked to be somewhere between 20 and 40, was having a party. I don't know who she was talking to or dancing with, but she mostly didn't bother anyone, except if you had to get past her - that sometimes took a minute or two...

But Pyjama Man was a bit more annoying. He talked very loudly and expected people to listen to him, and if they didn't, he got in their face and talked louder. Oh, except when he was trying to pick up a woman.

Towards the end of my wait time, they wheeled in the stretcher-bound alzheimer's patients. "Doktore! I need to see DOKTORE!" yelled one unfortunate woman. Though the nurses managed to convey to her that she had to be quieter, she still yelled out every time a uniform walked by.

By this time I'd been waiting for eight hours, and as I had an appointment to get to that I'd made seven months previously, I took my chances being dizzy and left.

In the meantime, I'd figured out a pilot script for a new tv show. Medical shows abound on tv, they've long been favourites. But this one wouldn't have the doctors and nurses as the main characters - it would be the patients in the waiting room.

Because, let's face it - no one is funnier that human beings at their worst!