Thursday August 14, 08

I'm being lazy! This is an email I wrote to a friend this morning. It has so much in it about what I'm going through right now, I thought I'd use it to start today's Journal.

No, I'm not suicidal. What I mean by giving up and just not taking care of my healthcare the way I should be and the way I used to. I'm just tired. And I have so much work to do, I don't know how I'll do it. I've allowed my healthcare to get way out of hand and I don't know what to do to bring it back. It seems everything requires my urgent attention and I don't have the energy to give everything the immediate attention so I'll have to take one thing at a time, but I don't know what to start with first. Well, actually I do know, but it's not something I really want to do. I harbor a lot of anger because I'm sick Chelle. I've been sick for 13 yrs and it just keeps getting worse. It appears that doctors kind of work like God, they don't like to and won't help someone who won't help themselves. And that's me. I'm not helping myself. I don't take my meds like I should. The only meds I do take right are the pain meds because there is immediate relief. With everything else, it's maintenance, so there is no "immediate" affect. The shrink counted 32 different meds on my list yesterday. My first dose, not including pain meds, consists of 15 pills and a shot. Then when I eat, that's another shot. Then there's the pain pills in the morning and 2 inhalants. Plus the stuff I put in my coffee for constipation from the Morphine, then the Potassium I have to drink because the Lasix depletes my Potassium and that stuff tastes like shit. This is just the morning. Then I have to drink or am supposed to drink the Potassium 2 other times per day, so what do I do, I just don't take the Lasix every day. And in not taking it I have fluid build up around my heart and lungs and other places. But I take it enough to keep me out of the hospital. When I take the Lasix, I'm chained to the friggin bathroom for about 6 hrs. Despite being on 4 diff. BP meds, my BP remains high. I don't feel that I'm getting the care I need from my doctors and it's all because I'm not doing my part. Everything my shrink said yesterday is gospel. It's all true, every word of it. My anger is so that I drive people away from me and have driven everyone who was once in my life away.

On top of the things I have listed in my signature on every email, I also have Congestive Heart Failure, COPD (well I've been told I have it and then I've been told by another doc that I don't) so I don't know for sure., I also have Spinal Stenosis in my neck and back, Degenerative Disk Disease, OsteoArthritis, GERD, Hypothyroidism, Asthma, Panic/Anxiety Disorder, Depression, and I think that is the end of the list. That is SEVENTEEN different chronic illnesses.

I do not manage my diabetes well, I weigh 292 lbs. So see, I don't take care of myself. My thinking that "I can still smoke and eat" are going to kill me! I've lost so much of what I used to be able to do in life, I just don't want to give those things up, but I have to and I hate to have to do anything I don't want to do. I'm a stubborn mule. Very rebellious and I'm only hurting ME. My shrink yesterday told me I'm my worst enemy, we all are our worst! Everything he told me, I already knew, but it was a slap in the face to hear it spoken by someone who had just seen me one time before. I could see right through me.

So, I'm really going through a difficult time right now and when I get like this, I close up and off. I have lots of decisions to make and lots of anger to work through. I've never been an angry person until I got sick and my own body defeated me. I feel so trapped by my own body. I HATE LIFE, but on the other hand I love life. I don't want to die, but I'm committing a slow suicide by not doing what I should be doing. I eat what ever I want being diabetic even and just take a shot. But I don't take them like I should, so my sugars stay higher than they should and that causes kidney and heart damage as well as damage to other organs and tissues. But I'm so friggin stupid to do what I should be doing.

Anyway, I'm being interrupted to go take these boys to the movie and drop them off. I'll write more later.