Yet A Further Catch Up ...... in Scottish Meanderings

So much for that great start back in January! And I’m not entirely hopeful about this one either but I’ve felt the pull of this place several times during the last month and on Sunday I started reading the first familiar name which popped up on the front page only to find they’d been through a dreadful, life-changing time in the last 3 months. Instantly I wanted to leave a comment - to let them know I was thinking about them - to connect. And I realised suddenly that that’s what I’ve missed from this place - that connection that draws all of us together from every corner of the world because at the end of the day, ‘we’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns’!

According to my Bookmarks I’ve only 1,893 entries to catch up on - may need to be somewhat restrictive with that methinks ........

So where to start? Maybe I’ll try doing headings again to see if I can summarise although as long term readers will know, summarising was never one of my strengths ;)

Work

Currently unemployed. I got a job in February of this year working for an organisation connected to education - 30 hours a week - perfectly good job if somewhat tedious and unstimulating - located in our oldest university. I worked Tuesday to Friday and it only took me half an hour from the house so was pretty much ideal. I looked forward to finally having enough money to see me through the month and a bit left over to save.

I went off sick in May and finally handed my notice in in mid July much to my shame and embarrassment.

See below.

Health

This is the biggie. It’s been the main source of despair so far in 2015 and continues to drive me to distraction with no end in sight.

Those who know me know I’ve suffered with depression all my life, much of it untreated. I finally got a diagnosis of dysthymia in 2012 but previous to that I had self-medicated with over the counter tablets containing codeine and caffeine for years. Many attempts were made to deal with coming off these, much in vain. I would manage to reduce right down or come right off but eventually go back on them again because the original problem wasn’t dealt with.

In December last year I got referred to the local Drugs Clinic and was offered detox treatment, normally used for hard drug users. The drug offered was Suboxone/Subutex, very much stronger than the tablets I was taking and therefore making no sense (to me) to go on it. I had also done a lot of research on it and was horrified at the experiences I was finding on the Internet of people getting ‘stuck’ on it because withdrawal was so awful.

The problem was I could see no alternative. The Clinic refused to support me reducing on my own simply using my own drug of choice citing reasons of safety. This also made no sense. Many people have died using Suboxone. No-one has died taking over the counter medicine unless it’s in huge amounts over a number of years. I felt I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Eventually, after a month of indecision, I agreed to try them and the date of the 9th February was set as my first day of going on the drug.

For it to work you have to be in total withdrawal - generally at least 16 hours from your last dosage of your drug of choice. When I therefore went to pick it up the prescription I wasn’t feeling too great not surprisingly and when I heard that the dosage was much higher than I expected to be given (worked out by a faceless doctor I never met) I didn’t have any energy to argue. Not that it would have made any difference. I was also told the dosage would be split that first day just to ensure I had no bad reaction to it and that didn’t happen either thereby completely shattering any trust I had in the Clinic.

Powerless, I took the prescription to the chemist. Because this is a controlled drug it can generally only be taken in front of a pharmacist which was another reason I didn’t want to go on it - I would have to go to my local supermarket and be ‘supervised’ each day of taking it (albeit in a private room). The shame and embarrassment of that was enough to postpone going on it for a whole month and eventually I was only persuaded to take it if they promised that I would only have to be supervised for 1 week. They agreed.

That first week I was dreadfully, dreadfully sick. I tried to get in touch with the Clinic on the first day but they didn’t get back to me until the following night and the Pharmacist had no clue what to do so I had no choice but to take another dose and continue being sick. The Clinic finally admitted they’d put me on too high a dose and reduced it by more than half where I stabilised which was just as well because I started my new job at the University the week after!

All went well for a month. I settled into my new job and was looking forward to Nikki producing her second baby, due at the end of March. Well I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it because I was the allocated birthing partner and although this was exciting, I was worried about the fact that I would have to swan off from work at very short notice, at a time when we were really busy organising a major event. However you can’t plan these things so there was nothing I could do about it. It helped a bit that my Line Manager knew Nikki as her daughters both went to the nursery Nikki had worked in.

Around the middle of March, the week before she was due, I thought I’d caught a bug which was going round the office. I woke on the Thursday morning feeling terribly sick and struggled through the day half-dead but on the Friday I felt so nauseous I couldn’t get out of bed. I phoned in sick. At the same time I had been on a planned reduction of the Subutex drug for a fortnight and I noticed when I took my next dose, my symptoms reduced markedly. The following day I was even worse but the same thing happened - the dose of the drug seemed to affect the symptoms so I concluded it was the reduction which was the problem and I would therefore need to do a much slower taper.

My priority at the time was to get Nikki through labour so I got back up to the original dose I’d been on and although my symptoms improved they didn’t go away altogether and I continued to wake very early in the morning terribly nauseous, unable to eat, and with a dreadful fear surrounding me. I had the most awful suicidal thoughts, nightmarish visions and seemed to be left with a dreadful fatigue which permeated everything. I struggled through each day, knowing I had to do all in my power to get her to the hospital, through labour and look after Lily afterwards until she was home.

It was a stressful time.

On the 1st of April she gave birth to a beautiful little girl whom she called Lilah. We lost a whole night’s sleep the night before as she was contracting all night (I went out to stay with her) so were both slightly ragged round the edges which didn’t help anything but the following night she got home and by the weekend she was coping wonderfully with the 2 of them. I realised I’d been super stressed about the whole event and how she would manage and that’s probably what this whole thing was all about so I began to look forward to symptoms evaporating now that it was all over.

Except they didn’t.

I continued to have nightmarish, disturbed sleep resulting in waking in a complete sweat between 5 and 6 each morning, feeling terribly sick and unable to eat more than a couple of grapes each day. I also began to be plagued with symptoms of severe anxiety, adrenaline coursing through my body constantly, fear pervading my every thought, my whole being apparently terrified for no reason. I was absolutely exhausted no matter what I did and no longer had the energy to even get dressed in the morning. I went off sick from work and could do no more than lie writhing in my bed, praying for some relief, scared out of my mind at what I’d become.

It was so bad that I couldn’t even phone for the doctor - my brother in Fort William had to do it for me, scared at the sound of my frightened voice on the mobile. For the next few days doctors came and went. I was prescribed Diazepam. I couldn’t believe it. Here I was, desperately trying to get rid of a mild codeine addiction, and I get put on a highly addictive drug, known to be dreadful to withdraw from while I was already on a drug well known to cause awful withdrawal symptoms. I refused to take it.

I was then prescribed beta blockers. My body reacted against them and I became even more ill. I was offered an anti depressant but told ‘you’ll probably be much worse before you’re better’ and I categorically refused to take it, knowing I couldn’t stand being any worse than I was. By now I could no longer look after myself and poor Nikki had to move in with the 2 kids for a few days while the rest of my family took over. They were all terribly worried. Hospital was mentioned at one point.

I was prescribed a higher strength of Diazepam as a last resort.

Eventually after another dreadful night of hardly any sleep and a full blown anxiety attack I took a 2 mg tablet of Diazepam at 3 a.m. It made no difference. I took another one an hour later. Still no difference. I kept taking one every hour until finally after the sixth one the awful adrenaline abated and I could sleep for a while. That, in turn, enabled me to eat when I woke, albeit only a banana. It was a small victory.

But now - another rock and hard place. I couldn’t continue to take these things - I would only set up another addiction. But the severe anxiety continued and eventually, after a 72 hour continuous attack the following week, I took a 5 mg Diazepam tablet and at last my symptoms subsided. And thankfully, I’ve only had to do that three times since then when I’ve had really bad attacks - it’s been the only thing that’s brought me out of it.

After another month of this, I was able to get up for a few hours. Still very shaky and weak, I would soon be back in bed but I was now at least managing to get to the surgery to see my doctor and on one of these visits she persuaded me to try the anti depressant, Mirtazapine, known to help with sleep and appetite. I have a dreadful history of anti depressants, having tried 5 others in the past with awful results each time - I get all the side effects with none of the benefits!

The first night I took it I slept the whole night right through, got up to feed the cats at 10 and went back to bed waking up at 4 in the afternoon! The next day was the same but unfortunately after that I seemed to revert to how I was before and it only made me very very tired during the day. I was supposed to double the dose to reach the therapeutic amount for depression but I couldn’t stand the zombie effect so had to revert back to the original dose.

Work was impossible. When I tried to go back I got to 4 in the afternoon, collapsed and had to be driven home. I tried again the next day and only managed to 2.30 p.m. then the same thing happened. My Line Manager put in an referral to the University’s Occupational Health service who were very sympathetic and told me to take it slowly then have a phased return to work, coming in for mornings to begin with and building up from there.

But I couldn’t even manage that and eventually I realised that this thing, whatever it was, was going to take a lot longer to sort out than I thought. It was stressing me out even more to have to continuously phone/text/e-mail my Line Manager until finally, in July, I’d had enough and put in my notice. Perhaps not one of my best decisions but just not to have that pantomime going on each work morning felt like a huge weight had been taken off my shoulders.

And really I haven’t moved on much from that point.

My day consists of getting up from a nightmarish sleep between 7 and 8 a.m., rolling up the blind, washing my face, feeding the cats and cleaning out their litter tray so that I give myself a chance to wake up properly but each morning I climb gratefully back into bed and am out for the count around half an hour later, only waking at lunchtime. I then get up and have around 4-5 hours of doing whatever needs doing before I have to rest again, often falling asleep. If I have something I need to do in the evening and it’s something I really want to go to, I can keep going but usually have to get to bed as soon as possible afterwards.

ME has been mentioned but it’s incredibly difficult to diagnose and basically is only decided upon when everything else has been eliminated. The general consensus seems to be stress and anxiety arising from Lilah’s birth but I’ve had worse life stressors than that before now and have never reacted with anything remotely like those symptoms. That just doesn’t sit right with me.

Added to that I discovered other folk who had been put on the Subutex drug had experienced severe anxiety and panic attacks around a month after going on it which is a strange coincidence. It’s my personal belief that all this has arisen from the drugs and the fatigue is likely side effects from the beta blockers and anti depressants - it’s a well known documented side effect from both.

So there we have it. All doom and gloom as usual. But I needed to give you details to let you see where I’m at although I know it will be hard to understand if you haven’t experienced anything similar. There again many of you have.

My goal is to get off all the drugs entirely and I started doing that in June but because I have to do each one separately it’s going to take ages.

I’ve actually gone and applied for another job although I’m terrified it’s far too soon. The timing’s not great either because in the last month Mum’s been diagnosed with a brain tumour and has ended up in a nursing home (up in Inverness) and she’s a bit unsettled just now so I’ve been going up and back quite a lot and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon.

And now they’ve just rung up and asked me for interview on Tuesday 13th. Shit.

Will write more about the job and Mum in my next entry - I think that’s enough misery for one day and besides, there are 3 moggies who are crowding me out apparently starving.

Some things never change :)

Last updated October 07, 2015