2006-01-25 - 4:20 p.m.

1/24/06

We're back home, and the weather is being kind to me by staying above 40, which is bearable. I gained two pounds over vacation! Yay! I finally figured out how to eat. I've always done the "eat when hungry, stop when full" thing, but my "stop" moment is happening too soon. So instead of eating small meals whenever I'm hungry (which still made me lose weight, about half a pound a week on average), I make a plate that is the size of a "normal" plate for me, before all this started. I eat what I can, stop when full, then go back and finish it later when I feel like I have room even if I'm not actually hungry. It's a pain in the ass but it seems to be working.

Still waiting on some follow-ups so I have no other news yet but I had written about my first experience with sedation the day it happened and I'm posting it now.

I was given some kind of sedation for the (upper-GI) endoscopy, probably the same stuff I SHOULD HAVE HAD when I had my wisdom teeth taken out, if I wasn't such a WEENIE-ASS IDIOT. I've mentioned before that I've never been drunk (or even tipsy), never taken any recreational drugs, and didn't like the dizzying effects of Percocet. I'm frightened of having my consciousness altered, partly because I'm afraid I won't be able to alter it back when I'm done with the experience. But for some reason, this time, after such a crappy couple of months dealing with the stomach issues, I decided I just didn't care if they wanted to sedate me.

But I was still nervous. I was nervous about it all the way up until I passed out. I told the anesthesiologist (a lovely man with big, very warm hands), the anesthetist, and the nurse that I was very scared. They got me all ready, I was laying on my side facing the technician, and she said, "We're going to start the anesthesia now."

"My ears feel funny, they're buzzing."
"That's normal."
"My throat feels funny!"
"That's normal."
"You're getting blurry." [She gets all fuzzy, then there are two of her, then...]

The next thing I remember is laying in the bed, all the monitoring apparatus off of me, and I am laughing. I keep going in and out of sleep, and every time I wake up I laugh. It is very pleasant and has a childlike feel to it.

I remember trying to turn on my left hearing aid and having trouble with it, not understanding that it was already on. I have no idea how they I got my glasses on. The first few times I opened my eyes I saw two of everything, so I went back to sleep. I think someone came in and tried to talk to me and I said, "I can't focus." Eventually I got to the point where I could focus (and still having little laughing fits every now and then) and I managed to have a conversation with the doctor that I don't remember too well. Later the nurse came in and sat me up (I did not like this; I was still very dizzy and my limbs were heavy and felt useless) and offered me something to drink. She said, "When you're finished, get dressed and open the curtain and I'll take you back to the waiting room."

A little while later she comes back and says, "How come you're not dressed?"
"I'm way too dizzy to move."
"Must be the anesthesia. Ok, take your time."

The registration nurse wanders by. "Why aren't you dressed?"
"I'm very dizzy."

Eventually I got to the point where I thought I could stand up, but it was a challenge. I wobbled a bit, so I lay back down after I got my clothes on. Eventually the dizziness wore off enough that I thought I could walk, so she took me back to the waiting room, and when I saw my mommy (who was smiling real big because I was back and I was fine, and probably because I was grinning too), I started laughing again. I told her about all the laughing in recovery. I made her come into the bathroom with me so I wouldn't fall and I sat on the toilet seat and laughed so more. She said, "You're the only one doing all the laughing. I didn't see anybody else laughing."

It seemed to make perfect sense at the time, to be laughing like that, but it seems really bizarre in retrospect. There was nothing that struck me as funny, I just had laughter bubbling up, like a tickle. The thing is, it wasn't an unfamiliar feeling. I have this feeling from time to time when I'm in a very good mood. I felt like this a few times during our vacation, when I was snuggled up with Poindexter and the dog on the couch, reading, in the warm sunlight. But usually the feeling isn't so continuous like it was post-procedure.

Poindexter says, "Now you know why people like to use drugs." And I said, "Yeah, especially if the rest of their life is crappy. Damn."

1/25/06

I noticed that a few people were particularly worried about my worrying, as opposed to worrying about the actual illness/condition/whatever that I've got. So I wanted to clarify that I stopped worrying shortly after Christmas and have been feeling mentally normal for the past three weeks or so, much to my relief.

I'm still not feeling particularly sociable, but that's because I feel uncomfortable most of the time, which doesn't put me in a sociable mood. I bitch a lot about feeling stuffed. Sometimes I feel like I have a softball lodged in my stomach and I'm trying to eat around it. My GI follow-up is not until February 1st, so I still can't talk about possible diagnoses, but I'm not freaking out anymore about what the diagnosis might be. I'm just waiting around to find out.

To help with the anxiety, I had been taking half a 0.5mg lorazepam every day at bedtime for about two weeks at the end of December, taking the other half in the afternoon if I felt like I needed it. During this time I felt like I was barely treading water. But for some reason I was able to start eating properly on Christmas Eve, and since then I have felt much better and I quit the lorazepam entirely on December 28th. I think that when I am not eating, and am weak and tired as a result, this is a HUGE contributor to anxiety, turning it into a vicious circle (too nervous to eat, so I feel worse, which makes me more nervous, etc.). The lorazepam helped me calm down enough to eat, which made me feel better, which made me more able to eat, etc. -- whatever the opposite of a vicious circle would be.

That, and maybe I can only worry so much before I wind down and say "fuck it". Plus, a lot of my worry was centered around the idea that I might have something fatal that had to be caught early. Once I had the abdominal ultrasound and everything looked normal, I was less worried about instantaneously-fatal diseases. And I've taken steps to have everything checked that I know I should have checked, so having that out of the way helps.

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