CHRONIC TONIC posts on Thursdays at 9 EST, it is a place to share stories, advice, and information and to connect with others with chronic health conditions and those who care for them. Our diarists will report on research, alternative treatments, clinical trials, and health insurance issues through personal stories. You are invited to share in comments (and note if you'd like to be a future diarist).
Tonight's diarist is paradox.
Hello, my friends--
On one level I am extremely surprised I agreed to check in with y’all tonight; over the years in pixel settings like this I have said far, far too much for an audience environment I was sure did not exist. I have been in a recent psychological uproar that just knocked me out of the blog forms for 30 days, this exercise could be nothing but dangerous foolishness, yet here I am.
MsGrin asked me, she’s been worried about me. For her—and only for her—will I heed the summons to tell the truth, to be myself, to be a part of. She’s pretty wise.
For those who don’t know I’m in my ninth year of cyclical vomiting syndrome (cvs), a neurological disorder related to migraines, which means I puke for 2 days every 60-70 days, except for last year and some of this, when a new medication revved me to a frantic 35 day cycle. Given who I am and where I came from this hurricane roaring through my life has spawned two lovely little disorder twisters, post traumatic stress syndrome and depression. I got help for both, I might again.
[sigh] A preliminary study justifying a real double-blind demonstrated the dietary supplement CoQ10 coupled with an anti-depressant dramatically lessened outbursts of cvs. After the hell Zoloft put me through I’m through with anti-depressants for now, a daily hit of 1000mg of CoQ10 for the past 2 weeks has me feeling extremely well.
It’s always like that between cycles, this return to complete physical normality and seeming robust physical health. I take my exercise regimen seriously and I full body power lift on the off days I’m not cycling 90-120 miles a week. I’m evolving into a sculpted liberal with a body fat percentage at 14, oy what I wouldn’t do my for my twenty-something hair. For once I think the CoQ10 is making a real difference, but I just have to wait.
I made a comment at the so-admirable Amanda Marcotte’s place recently that where I’d been and what’s happened has put me in a place most other’s couldn’t comprehend. It’s bothered me ever since, I should have qualified the statement that although my perceptions may be uniquely mine from extreme experiences there’s nothing noble or humanly exceptional about it.
I mean, the base elements of what we’re talking about here are completely fucked up, and we all know life doesn’t reward elemental mixes like that. It can put you in a different place that isn’t regressive and has nobility potential, but it doesn’t produce life rewards.
One of the reasons I’m here tonight is that among us this is a completely unexceptional path, the loneliness of four walls while others frolic, the feeling of being targeted somehow by base life for no reason with gradual sifting levels of acceptance, of knowing that only years of hell could put you in your current perch on daily observation processing.
I was before, but after the latest various storms I find myself even more attuned for those among us knocked back by life variables completely out of their control, more aligned with those who have made poor choices but refuse to give up, more angry—in a different way from the flash-powder feeling of the past—for those who would ignore or be indifferent to the hardships of the small among us.
I have been given many days of seemingly robust health all this time, a dream finally really truly fulfilled in becoming a real rider (give me three days and I’ll easily be on the Santa Monica pier, 341.2 miles from here). Most days I swim life sideways, some periods I just gave up and stopped trying, but something has changed recently, I don’t know what, I dream more often of another chance at life with horrible burdens finally, truly earned in their weight vanishing off my soul, anger slips away more easily, and a seriously sharp slap to consciousness to take a good look around and stop that fucking whining occurs much more regularly.
Also this daily compulsion to make a request of my people here, something I have never done before. Daily Kos is a place of service and community, since 2002 I’ve taken it so very seriously, a cherished new path to build and ride along with. I’ve been me the whole time, right, but still I can peacefully say I have done positive good things here.
Could...could I get one of those quilts folks get for when they’re sick? I don’t mean to be the drama queen (a weakness of mine, as it is of many writers), but the month I was away was so very hard at time, dern it thank god the house is empty, horrible nausea interspersed with livid sleep-depriving burns of memory evolutions of events I’d happily, instantly give my right arm to change. I got pushed into places I’m not ready to talk about before elements subsided.
[sniffs and smiles] I am so positive that to ask for anything here, well, the works and souls of my people around my shoulders as I get wrung through it would be so very helpful for me.
Now then. Our hero and mighty mistress of Chronic Tonic, MsGrin, got a chance to be on the town tonight and will be absent, after I did it all for her. Heh.
Never mind in a million years, of course not, our people will trickle in and we will not be alone. No, we are never alone.
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