Double D's

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

In the fall of 2007, when I was 37, I was given a new medication by my family physician. It was to help with my blood pressure. This particular medication should not be used by someone with a history of asthma because it can trigger an asthma attack. I had no history of asthma so my family physician felt that it would be OK for me to take.

A few days after I started taking it, I started feeling bad. I had a bad cough and a wheeze in my chest. I went and had it checked out and was told it was bronchitis. I was given steroids and antibiotics. I felt better the next day. The day after that, I felt really bad and the wheeze I had this time was a little bit worse than last time. Again the doctor said it was bronchitis, gave me stronger steroids, and told me to take it easy. Once again, I felt better the next day, the day after though, not so much. I felt like I could hardly breathe and the wheeze I had this time was horrible. I went to see my doctor and she told me that she was ordering me to go into the hospital for IV steroids and to watch me because she was afraid I would get so bad that I would need to be put on a breathing machine. That was the first time I had ever been in the hospital overnight, except for when I had the kids. At that point I was diagnosed with adult onset asthma.

I think it was at that time the depression started. I was sick all the time because the pulmonologist and I could not get the asthma under control. I spent a solid year on steroids because of the asthma. It just wore me out and made it so I was more vulnerable to other illnesses and set my mind up for the depression to take hold. I physically felt really bad all the time. I slept most of every day away, because I was so tired.

Because I live so far from my pulmonologist’s office, he insisted I create an emergency plan for when I had an asthma attack. I was to use my nebulizer three times in a row, about ten minutes apart each time. If after the third treatment my breathing was not drastically better, I was to head to the nearest emergency room. In May of 2008, I had an asthma attack that did not respond to the emergency plan.

I went to our local emergency room. Whenever I have to go the emergency room because of an asthma attack, I am immediately taken back to see a doctor. So I did not have to wait long. The triage nurse did her thing and pointed out that my blood pressure was insanely high. I blew it off, not a bit concerned because of having used my nebulizer three times in a row, I figured my blood pressure would be higher than normal. After the doctor saw what my blood pressure was, he decided to do some blood work to make sure I did not have congestive heart failure.

When the blood work came back, it showed that I did not have congestive heat failure but there was something that was not good. My blood sugar was 420.   I had diabetes.

The doctor came very close to admitting me to the hospital. Instead, because I happened to have an old glucose meter of my father’s, he lets me go home with a prescription for glucoflage. Two days later I saw the endocronologist for the first time.

He confirmed that I had diabetes and with using a special test, he was able to determine that I had probably had it for months. However, all the steroids I had been taking had hidden that fact. For months all I could do was sleep. We thought that it was from the asthma not being controlled. What I found out was that high blood sugars will cause you to be sleepy all the time and to feel as bad I was feeling.

I had to learn so much that day. I had to learn how to give myself insulin injections, to figure out how much I needed of one kind based on a math formula, and how to fill up syringes with insulin. I ended up with two different types of insulin and having to give myself four injections in my stomach every single day. I also had to learn how to use a glucose meter and stick myself at least four times a day to get blood samples.

The doctor did tell me that within a week my blood sugars would be down and I would start to feel better. For the most part he was correct. I felt good mentally because I felt like knowing what had been causing me to feel so rotten for the last few months was a good thing. That I could move forward from there.

That attitude did not last for very long. A few weeks after I was diagnosed with Diabetes, I was back to where I was before I found out about the Diabetes. I was tired, sleepy, and not feeling good. I was also very angry and sad all of the time.   It made me really darn angry that I had been diagnosed with two major illnesses in less than a year. I was angry and sad about how drastically my life had changed. I hated all the needles I had to now deal with four times a day. I started to become increasingly anxious. I also worried about the burden I had become to my family. I believe that at this time the depression really started to control my thinking, and my life and just continued to get worse from there.

The Double D’s. Diabetes and Depression. These two things have affected my life and my family’s lives more than anything else I have been diagnosed with.

I have already had a pretty nasty diabetic complication. The nerve in the stomach that tells the stomach to contract to digest food no longer works in me due to the diabetes. There is a lot of pain and vomiting that goes along with that. My family must pay attention to me, to make sure I am not having a bad reaction due to my insulin. I cannot go barefoot anymore, something I have always enjoyed. If I were to step on something and hurt a foot, there could be complications with it healing. From several sources I have discovered that diabetes can contribute to depression.

The Double D’s. Those two things have caused me to come closer to dying than even the asthma has. Blood sugar dropping too low, more than one suicide attempt.

As I was learning how to give myself the proper dosage of insulin, more than once my blood sugar dropped dangerously low. That caused me to spend a week in ICU. There was my suicide attempt in May that resulted in another week in ICU, and at another time, an attempt resulted in ICU and a psychiatric hospital.

The Double D’s. Two very frustrating il
lnesses, both of which really has no “cure”. The most I can hope for is that medications will help me maintain some balance with both illnesses and maybe with one I might experience a “remission” but the disease will never really go away.

The Double D’s. Now that I am getting help for the depression, I can recognize that neither diagnosis is the end of the world for me. I can see how at some future date that they might allow me to be a good support person for someone in similar circumstances. I just need to get to a better mind set about both things.   For the present, I am still learning how to take care of myself again. I do not think I would be able to properly support someone else yet.

Daily Journal – October 30, 2009

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

Yesterday was still a rather down day. Not bad, just down. Even though it was a down day, it was still pleasant in its own way. I have to admit, though, I was cranky for some reason for most of the day. Maybe it was because I was more tired than usual, or it could have been just one of those days where I am cranky for really no good reason. I did manage, for the most part, to keep my crankiness to myself. At one point I had asked Anna to do something and I realized my voice came out sounding much more harsh than I had intended. Before she had a chance to take two steps, I apologized to her. I told her that I suddenly realized that the tone of voice sounded not nice and I wanted to apologize to her for sounding that way to her. She accepted the apology. Again yesterday, she spent loads of time with me. I think she is starting to see I am working really hard to improve things with her. I have found the best way that works with her is to just be upfront. For example, apologizing to her about my tone of voice before it had time to upset her. Or telling her upfront if I am having a bad day. She is a sweet heart of a child and it is nice to see things improving between me and her. She has also become much more cooperative.

It looks like today is going to be typical fall day. The wind is blowing in gusts and it is fairly chilly. The leaves on the trees are so pretty this year. Much prettier than they have been for the last several years. The drought we had been having for the last few years really affected the leaf color and caused the leaves to fall off the trees early. This year since we have had so much rain, the leaf colors are so much brighter and the leaves are staying on the trees much longer.

Tonight is a very exciting night for Anna. There is some ghost hunter show she likes to watch on the travel channel. Starting this evening, it will be filmed live for like seven hours. She has made plans to watch every single hour of it and to participate in the internet part of the show. She has enlisted me to watch it with her.

Anna's Picture Of The Day – October 30, 2009

Posted on October 30, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

Best Friends
(Minnie, the little dog and Buster, the big dog)

The last few years of having a mom who was “checked out” due to severe depression has been hard on Anna. In an effort to try and rebuild that relationship and because she really enjoys taking pictures, she was given a page in my blog to show of her pictures. I personally think she does an awesome job.

Anna enjoys see any feedback anyone has about her pictures, so if you like what you see here, why not leave her a comment and let her know

Hmmmm, Will I Get Dressed Today?

Posted on October 29, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

Have you ever had to struggle, I mean really struggle in deciding whether or not you could manage to get the motivation to get dressed on a daily basis? Or take a shower? Have you ever decided that it took too much effort to talk to your family….on a daily basis? Have you ever been so overwhelmed by no motivation, anxiety, and worry that your memory seemed to be failing you and you really and truly could not function? I can answer yes to all of those questions.

Before counseling and before medication, every single one of my days was a struggle. As my depression progressed, the struggle become more and more difficult. The last six to nine months before I started receiving treatment were the worst.

I quit sleeping. The lack of sleep combined with a fog of depression, made me feel horribly tired all the time. I would try and take naps and the most I could do was to lay under the covers and just think. Most of the time, I could not manage a shower before four or five in the afternoon. When I did finally take my shower, I did not shave my legs. I know that does not seem like huge deal, but it was. People who know me, know that I shave every day. Even when I would go camping I would shave. So for me to be a hairy legged freak was highly out of character for me. After my shower, I would put on a clean set of pajamas, so unless I absolutely had to go somewhere, I wore pajamas all the time.The only reason I would even take a shower was because I felt like if I could at least do that before my husband got home, he would not realize how bad things were. Ha! I really thought that too. My husband is not a fool, he knew something was way wrong, he just could not put his finger on it.

My days always seemed to pass quickly, but I never really did anything. I ached everywhere. I had headaches all the time. My stomach was a mess. After I started treatment, I did some research and those physical symptoms are typical for someone who has major depression.

I could not concentrate on anything. Not reading, cross stitch, crochet, or even the television. My mind was always racing with thoughts, so many thoughts that there were times when I could not create a sentence.

I felt like I was a shell of a human being who really was just operating on a kind of automatic pilot. Toward the end, the automatic pilot I was running on seemed to develop sort of short in the electrical system and was no longer running properly.

Waking up in the hospital, after my suicide attempt, was the first time in at least two years that I was not in pain. Of course once all the medication they had given me wore off, I was aching all over once again.

Even now, I am amazed at the amount of physical symptoms a mental illness can cause.

Daily Journal – October 29, 2009

Posted on October 29, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

Stressful day today. Ugh! I wanted to go hide under the covers before ten in the morning. I resisted the urge though. My counselor had suggested a couple of sessions ago, to resist the urge of hiding under the covers as a way to deal with a bad day. She said all that it does is make me isolated and alone with my own thoughts, which could still turn suicidal rather quickly. So I kept myself busy. Just little things here and there. It certainly did not improve my frame of mind, but it did keep be busy enough so that I did not let my thoughts wander to where they should not. The other thing she told me was if all I could accomplish on a bad day was to not hide under the covers than I should consider it a success. Little victories I guess.

Anna and I were talking today and I was telling her how much fun designing my blog had been, and she mentioned she would like to help with one, and she wanted music on it.We decided to create a blog together. Our subject matter will be completely fun. We are both looking forward to it.

No one had told my grandmother about Nick getting married. I assumed my parents would tell her, but they did not. I was on the phone with her today, and happened to mention it and she was shocked. I think she was hurt as well, that none of us thought to tell her about it. Like I said, I expected my parents to tell her, I need to just remember that I cannot always trust them to pass information along.

I am really hoping and praying that tomorrow I experience much less stress and anxiety than I have been feeling over the last few days. I cannot figure out just why I have been feeling that way, but back before I started getting treatment there were times that I could not identify why either.

Anna's Picture Of The Day – October 29,2009

Posted on October 29, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

Peeking

Guest Blogger

Posted on October 29, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

Have you ever wanted to try your hand at blogging but were intimidated by the process? Or do not think you could write enough to fill a blog? Or even wanted to just try it out before you set up a blog for yourself? Have you thought about being a regular contributor to a blog, but did not want to have one of your own? Maybe you already have a blog of your own but you want some more exposure for it?

Here is the answer to all those questions! I am looking for guest bloggers, someone who contributes occasionally, and/or regular blogging contributors.

Topics for blogs must be geared toward the blog’s main topics, depression, anxiety, diabetes. You can describe what your own anxiety attacks feel like, even talk about mild depression, or how you or a family member cope with diabetes. You can have an article that gives advice about any of those topics, or one that is strictly informational, or a personal blog post about any of those topics. If any of the main blog topics you decide to write about are comorbid with something else, you can write about how the conditions affect each other. As you can see there are so many ways you can take those topics.

Perfect writing skills are not mandatory. Just write clearly, get your point across, and together we can fix any grammar or spelling mistakes.

Guest Bloggers can submit articles whenever they feel like it. No deadlines. Regular blog contributors must submit something at least once a week.

You will be given full credit for anything you contribute to the blog

If you are interested in being a guest blogger or regular contributor, send me an article that you would like to see posted on the blog. I will review it and let you know if I decide to use it in the blog and when it will post.

Mirror, Mirror On The Wall

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

I had an appointment with my counselor yesterday. It lasted longer than usual, because she was running late, so she had my session run over to make up for the time. She was running late because she had to see a lot o people. It always tends to be a little busier on Tuesdays and Thursdays but today was much busier than normal.

Tuesdays and Thursdays are intake days at the counseling center I go to. Basically that means that whoever may have tried to hurt themselves or some one else or has a substance abuse problem and has encountered staff members at the local hospital, or sheriff’s department, or encountered anyone who is considered a mandatory reporter is ordered to be seen at that practice at least once. Because my counselor feels that to some extent I am still high risk, she likes to see me at least once a week. Often she does not have anything available so I am given appointments on intake days.

Because she was running late, I had to sit longer than usual in the waiting room. It was a little difficult for me to sit there, with all the people I became very anxious. I adopted my usual body language, arms crossed and no smile to discourage anyone from trying to talk to me. I began to look around to see who all was in the waiting room with me. There was a group on the far side of the waiting room, where people wait when they are there to see the doctor. Everyone in that group seemed to know each other and were having a very animated conversation. On my side of the waiting room there was a lady who was around my age. She was talking to one of the interns. She looked like she felt awful. I could not help but over hear some of what she was saying to the intern. I realized that she had very similar issues to me. Even her body language was similar to mine.

There was something about her that stuck with me, because after my appointment I was still thinking about her. Finally, I realized what it was about her that had stuck with me. She reminded me of how I was at the end of May, when I first started going there. From how awful she looked, to her body language and how she was describing her anxiety and depression symptoms to the intern. It truly was like looking in a mirror. For the first time, I was able to see what I looked and acted like when things were at their very worst.

My family was caring and gentle enough to not tell me the truth about how bad I looked. However, the nurse that I see at the counseling center, told me that when I saw him for the first time I looked awful and he was very worried about me. I can see why now. The woman looked like she was walking on a very fine edge and was quickly becoming unbalanced. She looked sad, worried and tired, very very tired.

I have been frustrated at times by the extra checking up on me that people, especially my husband, have been doing. At times I have felt like I was being treated like a little kid. However, after having had the opportunity to look into a mirror and see what I was like, I understand now why people have felt compelled to do those things. They did not do them to intentionally make me feel as if I were a little child, but they did them out of love and concern because they could truly see on the outside what I had been like on the inside for a long time.

I am sure there have been other women in there who probably looked the way this woman did, but everything happens when it happens and how it happens for a reason. Most likely the reason I did not see this in anyone else before is because I was not ready. It certainly is a very heavy feeling to see yourself the way I saw myself yesterday.

I guess when I looked in a real mirror, I had blinders on. I could see the bags under my eyes, and that I looked pale, but not really see what I actually looked like. It is more than just what I saw in her face. Her body too just had that sad, worried and tired look. She walked like every inch of her was sore. I am sure everyone has seen those commercials where the main line is “depression hurts”. I have to tell you it does. It seemed like I had an ever present ache in my whole body. It never dawned on me that it would be visible to other people.

I am still trying to figure out what all I can take away from this experience. At the very least, I think it gives me more of an understanding about why my husband is still very concerned about me. I guess there are times when I am not having a good mental health day, that I probably look similar to that. I think he knows when I am not having a good mental health day just by looking at my body and how I carry myself. That explains to me why some days he seems very clingy. Maybe what I need to take away from this, is that just like I am asking everyone to be patient with me, that I need to be patient with everyone else as well.

Daily – October 28, 2009

Posted on October 28, 2009 by Margaret Tidwell

Despite my positive affirmation yesterday morning, tomorrow was sort of an OK day. Nothing horrible but at the same time I was a bit more down than I have been in a while. Maybe it was because it was yet another rainy day. Or it could have just one of those days that normal people have and I am over analyzing it. Since it is common for me to have exaggerated emotions , due to the depression and anxiety, I will often over analyze my emotions. I need to get out of that habit.

Anna was funny last night. I declared last night a no cooking night, so we all sort of scrounged around for food. Anna volunteered to cook me and her some cream of wheat. Once she realized all I was going to do was to show her how to do it, and not really do it for her, she whined and whined about how she was not cut out for cooking. She kept it up the whole time she was cooking. Finally the cream of wheat was done and she did an excellent job.

Yesterday, Anna spent more time hanging out with me than she has done in a long time. It was nice. Both of us were still doing our own thing but we could talk to each other at the same time.

I love the horror movies from the 80’s.. Anna does too. Last night, we watched the original Halloween on AMC. It was great! I do not care how many times I have see that movie it will never get old for me. My other favorite is the first Nightmare on Elm Street. Good thing Anna likes those kind of movies too. She watches them with me. Farrol absolutely hates them and does not understand why we enjoy them so much.