Oh, go to hell.
The past 6 weeks or so? Seriously, you're fired.
First there was that new medication that was working even faster than they normally tell you it will....and then gave me an allergic reaction. Itching, and having to give up the promise of that new med and the relief it was already giving me.
Then there was the wisdom tooth extraction. One of my wisdom teeth had its roots wrapped around a nerve, so it had to be broken up even smaller than my other teeth, and it still irritated the nerve. I still don't have all the feeling back on that side of my face, though it's better than it was. They tell me it should all come back by about 2 months. I can't take most NSAIDs, so the surgeon put me on a steroid without telling me that it'd increase my risk of dry sockets. They also didn't warn me that being on birth control increases that risk; I could have stopped that a week before the surgery with no real problem. I got 2 dry sockets, one only partial, one pretty bad.
Dry sockets. Such an innocuous term. What they really mean is that your jawbone is bare and exposed, and bone pain is seriously nasty, penetrating stuff. It also often includes an infection in that bare bone, because bone just isn't meant to be bare like that - it needs to be wrapped in flesh and immune system and protected. As someone who has had a LOT of kinds of pain, bone pain just cuts through you in an electric way that other stuff doesn't. Because of the dry sockets, I couldn't restart my autoimmune modulators, or start the new one I'm now due to start, theoretically as soon as my rheum gets back (she's been out of the office for a week, due back tomorrow, but I was still having issues the last time I talked with her office).
The extraction also flared up my TMJ very, very badly indeed. So badly that the TMJ was at least 50% of the pain from the surgery, albeit not the same kind of sharp, searing pain the dry sockets caused.
We ordered a fancy new mattress from online, because ours is wearing out a bit. It apparently had some sort of quality control issue, because it was supposed to have minimal to no outgassing and it smelled like an open can of latex paint. So we've been sleeping in our guest room for almost 3 weeks. They asked us to give it a bit to air out, and after 2 weeks they sent someone out to pick it up and mailed us a new one. It has been here since Monday, but we only got it unrolled yesterday. It already smells less than the original mattress did after 2 weeks, so hopefully we'll be able to use it soon, but for now...stuck in the guest room, which is warmer and noisier than our bedroom, and doesn't have an en suite bathroom. Annoying.
I finally started recovering from the TMJ and the dry sockets at the very end of last week, and was just beginning to eat normal food again.
We went out to dinner with friends from Philly on Saturday. We haven't seen them since we moved out here 2 years ago, and they're really lovely people. It was a very nice evening, though I kind of pushed myself to my physical limits to spend time with them. I forgot my stomach meds, but I figured, I'll take them when we get home, no big deal, I'll just have a bit of reflux tonight, I'll deal.
Except that there was a cigar smoker right next to our car in the parking lot. I didn't see him. I thought the first bit that hit me and started my lungs closing up was just an errant puff, probably from someone smoking outside of the restaurant. It happens all the time. I slowed down a minute and pulled out my inhaler. Took a nice deep breath...and then spotted him, right next to my damn car. Fuck. It tripped what was admittedly a quite bad attack. The nasty coughing sort, which are rarer now that I've moved out here where fewer people smoke and the weather doesn't get so cold in the winter.
So we went to the ER. The attack freaked out the ER staff, and they were very aggressive dosing me with asthma meds. I've never been given more than one breathing treatment; they gave me 2 1/2, and at that they only stopped because my heart rate was 154 and I was visibly shaking all over. I spent the next hour and a half with my heart rate above 140 because I had so much medication in my system. They really should have paused after the first one and given it a few minutes to work; they definitely should have only added ONE dose to the nebulizer after and waited, instead of dumping in two more. But I was pretty shaken up, it was admittedly a nasty attack, so I didn't argue with them. I had finished the breathing treatments by 9:30PM; I didn't stop shaking until about 6:30AM. I only slept in 60-90 minute bursts when I finally did sleep, which is quite unusual for me, and I had trouble staying asleep from all the shit in my system. Not to mention, one of the medications apparently can cause hypersensitivity, which I seem to get from it. Everything HURT, like someone had just turned up the amplifier. Especially all the muscles that were sore and cramping from having been shaking for 9-10 hours.
And then this morning, my fiance crashed my car. I'm so frustrated with him. When we met, he was frankly a rather scary driver - not real aware of where his car was or where things were around him, easily distracted, etc. Over the years we've been together, I've managed to make him into a much better, safer driver, with ONE exception. If the other people on the road aren't going the speed he expects to be going, he creeps up and creeps up. I have to tell him, slow down or change lanes, but stop it. I've told him this dozens of times. He still does it. I've counted out for him a 3-second following speed. He still does it. Well, today, there was an accident several cars ahead of him on the road, in moderate traffic - the exact conditions he's the worst at this with - and he couldn't stop in time. The cars ahead of him all stopped in time, but not him. I suspect that there were multiple cars a little closer than they should have been, and then him...too close, and not great reaction speed.
My car is a '02, so it's almost certainly totaled. I'm really angry at him. I think I'd be less angry if he was hurt, because I'd be worried. But he isn't hurt. He's just done the damn thing I keep telling him to not do, to be more aware of. Gah. I'm sure in a couple days, I'll be less angry, but right now I'm really mad. And I'm having to try not to show it because he's depressed and not doing well with THAT, and he knows what this is going to cost us (we were planning to wait until after we get married in 2 years to replace that car). Granted, yes, it's an old car. But that also means it wasn't monetarily very valuable, even though I'd taken good care of that car and babied it so it drove like a much newer car, even has the interiors in good shape. And it's a Honda, so I was expecting to get 2 more years out of it and STILL be able to sell it as a car that worked well.
It's also that it was MY car. My car that I bought new for myself when I was 18, and fond of. My car that I drove to Renaissance Faires and service dog school and all kinds of other things that were really good experiences for me. My car that drove me to college and grad school and law school. My car that was half paid for by my inheritance when my aunt died (she had no kids, so she had all of her nieces and nephews on her life insurance policy). I know it's stupid. But there it is. Like I said, I know in a few days, I'll be less angry, but right now, I'm just mad.
So this past 6 weeks can just fucking go to hell. Seriously. It's been one thing after another. I'm tired and frustrated, and I've been in elevated levels of pain since...hmm, I guess the start of last month, when I had to go off the new med because of the allergic reaction and then stay off both of my immune modulators for weeks because of the wisdom tooth extraction (had to not take the shot a week before it, and then haven't had it since because of all of the health stuff going on that meant I needed my immune system able to act).
First there was that new medication that was working even faster than they normally tell you it will....and then gave me an allergic reaction. Itching, and having to give up the promise of that new med and the relief it was already giving me.
Then there was the wisdom tooth extraction. One of my wisdom teeth had its roots wrapped around a nerve, so it had to be broken up even smaller than my other teeth, and it still irritated the nerve. I still don't have all the feeling back on that side of my face, though it's better than it was. They tell me it should all come back by about 2 months. I can't take most NSAIDs, so the surgeon put me on a steroid without telling me that it'd increase my risk of dry sockets. They also didn't warn me that being on birth control increases that risk; I could have stopped that a week before the surgery with no real problem. I got 2 dry sockets, one only partial, one pretty bad.
Dry sockets. Such an innocuous term. What they really mean is that your jawbone is bare and exposed, and bone pain is seriously nasty, penetrating stuff. It also often includes an infection in that bare bone, because bone just isn't meant to be bare like that - it needs to be wrapped in flesh and immune system and protected. As someone who has had a LOT of kinds of pain, bone pain just cuts through you in an electric way that other stuff doesn't. Because of the dry sockets, I couldn't restart my autoimmune modulators, or start the new one I'm now due to start, theoretically as soon as my rheum gets back (she's been out of the office for a week, due back tomorrow, but I was still having issues the last time I talked with her office).
The extraction also flared up my TMJ very, very badly indeed. So badly that the TMJ was at least 50% of the pain from the surgery, albeit not the same kind of sharp, searing pain the dry sockets caused.
We ordered a fancy new mattress from online, because ours is wearing out a bit. It apparently had some sort of quality control issue, because it was supposed to have minimal to no outgassing and it smelled like an open can of latex paint. So we've been sleeping in our guest room for almost 3 weeks. They asked us to give it a bit to air out, and after 2 weeks they sent someone out to pick it up and mailed us a new one. It has been here since Monday, but we only got it unrolled yesterday. It already smells less than the original mattress did after 2 weeks, so hopefully we'll be able to use it soon, but for now...stuck in the guest room, which is warmer and noisier than our bedroom, and doesn't have an en suite bathroom. Annoying.
I finally started recovering from the TMJ and the dry sockets at the very end of last week, and was just beginning to eat normal food again.
We went out to dinner with friends from Philly on Saturday. We haven't seen them since we moved out here 2 years ago, and they're really lovely people. It was a very nice evening, though I kind of pushed myself to my physical limits to spend time with them. I forgot my stomach meds, but I figured, I'll take them when we get home, no big deal, I'll just have a bit of reflux tonight, I'll deal.
Except that there was a cigar smoker right next to our car in the parking lot. I didn't see him. I thought the first bit that hit me and started my lungs closing up was just an errant puff, probably from someone smoking outside of the restaurant. It happens all the time. I slowed down a minute and pulled out my inhaler. Took a nice deep breath...and then spotted him, right next to my damn car. Fuck. It tripped what was admittedly a quite bad attack. The nasty coughing sort, which are rarer now that I've moved out here where fewer people smoke and the weather doesn't get so cold in the winter.
So we went to the ER. The attack freaked out the ER staff, and they were very aggressive dosing me with asthma meds. I've never been given more than one breathing treatment; they gave me 2 1/2, and at that they only stopped because my heart rate was 154 and I was visibly shaking all over. I spent the next hour and a half with my heart rate above 140 because I had so much medication in my system. They really should have paused after the first one and given it a few minutes to work; they definitely should have only added ONE dose to the nebulizer after and waited, instead of dumping in two more. But I was pretty shaken up, it was admittedly a nasty attack, so I didn't argue with them. I had finished the breathing treatments by 9:30PM; I didn't stop shaking until about 6:30AM. I only slept in 60-90 minute bursts when I finally did sleep, which is quite unusual for me, and I had trouble staying asleep from all the shit in my system. Not to mention, one of the medications apparently can cause hypersensitivity, which I seem to get from it. Everything HURT, like someone had just turned up the amplifier. Especially all the muscles that were sore and cramping from having been shaking for 9-10 hours.
And then this morning, my fiance crashed my car. I'm so frustrated with him. When we met, he was frankly a rather scary driver - not real aware of where his car was or where things were around him, easily distracted, etc. Over the years we've been together, I've managed to make him into a much better, safer driver, with ONE exception. If the other people on the road aren't going the speed he expects to be going, he creeps up and creeps up. I have to tell him, slow down or change lanes, but stop it. I've told him this dozens of times. He still does it. I've counted out for him a 3-second following speed. He still does it. Well, today, there was an accident several cars ahead of him on the road, in moderate traffic - the exact conditions he's the worst at this with - and he couldn't stop in time. The cars ahead of him all stopped in time, but not him. I suspect that there were multiple cars a little closer than they should have been, and then him...too close, and not great reaction speed.
My car is a '02, so it's almost certainly totaled. I'm really angry at him. I think I'd be less angry if he was hurt, because I'd be worried. But he isn't hurt. He's just done the damn thing I keep telling him to not do, to be more aware of. Gah. I'm sure in a couple days, I'll be less angry, but right now I'm really mad. And I'm having to try not to show it because he's depressed and not doing well with THAT, and he knows what this is going to cost us (we were planning to wait until after we get married in 2 years to replace that car). Granted, yes, it's an old car. But that also means it wasn't monetarily very valuable, even though I'd taken good care of that car and babied it so it drove like a much newer car, even has the interiors in good shape. And it's a Honda, so I was expecting to get 2 more years out of it and STILL be able to sell it as a car that worked well.
It's also that it was MY car. My car that I bought new for myself when I was 18, and fond of. My car that I drove to Renaissance Faires and service dog school and all kinds of other things that were really good experiences for me. My car that drove me to college and grad school and law school. My car that was half paid for by my inheritance when my aunt died (she had no kids, so she had all of her nieces and nephews on her life insurance policy). I know it's stupid. But there it is. Like I said, I know in a few days, I'll be less angry, but right now, I'm just mad.
So this past 6 weeks can just fucking go to hell. Seriously. It's been one thing after another. I'm tired and frustrated, and I've been in elevated levels of pain since...hmm, I guess the start of last month, when I had to go off the new med because of the allergic reaction and then stay off both of my immune modulators for weeks because of the wisdom tooth extraction (had to not take the shot a week before it, and then haven't had it since because of all of the health stuff going on that meant I needed my immune system able to act).