melt down 101

welp, i finally had it...melt down 101. poor debbie..my best friend visiting from LA.....i make dinner for her and just before serving totally had a melt down. :(

along with "this", i've been suffering with insomnia and have been prescribed meds as such....see, that's what i get for getting into the medical stream 'o things....prescriptions, meds, chemicals. but, desperate and needy, i obliged. well, meds have opposite effects on me....benadryl, makes me hyper (not a pretty site), etc.

so, along with trying different sleep aides (which do not work at all for me), i was prescribed an antidepressant. theory sounded good....treat the depression, make me sleep......NOT! made me unable to emote....not a good thing for someone who needs to prepare for the eventuality of acceptance of "this" thing in my body needing to be cut out...reality trying to hit home but being blocked.

today, my niece has written that she doesn't appear, and or feel, that she is a cancer patient until now, as she is losing her hair from chemo.....i feel exactly the same. from the outside, no one would ever guess that i have "this" thing inside me. a foreign body that i can feel, now, every single minute of every single day. i hate "this" thing inside of me. i'm being given waaaaay too much time to live with it, since diagnosis, to surgery next week. and i feel it there.....ever present. this damn thing.

oh, so back to the antidepressant and melt down......i finally stopped taking it, the zoloft (only after a week of doing so). i felt emotion inside welling, but it would not spill over. i deserve to feel emotion, right? i deserve to cry, and be angry. my life has changed. and now i have to prepare for going to the hospital! but i felt pent up and unable to feel. so i stopped taking it.

cerebrally, i know that in the hospital they will make me a patient: take away my belongings, strip me of my clothes, change my identity and or assume one of me, what makes you 'you' will become generic. and then to beat it all they will have me put on a hideous gown that they can get to everything in, at their every whim. my body will now be theirs. they will ask me to lie down....a "less than" position to their authority, giving them the right to come and do whatever they have to do to me: needles, take things, give things, call me "sweetie/hon", and never answer my call bell.

they will make me their patient......."patient"....that's usually what i have for other's, patience. now i will be made to lay down and be one: "patient".....waiting with restraint as they do with me as they will....patiently. trying verrrry hard to be patient.

i toy with the idea of telling them i am a Registered Nurse. us RN's do not like taking care of other RN's. it makes us naturally nervous and psychotic :)) seriously.....we feel like the RN we are caring for is watching our every move and critically critiquing as such. you see, our profession, really, is an eat-our-young kind of profession. we are, normally, not very supportive of each other...a shame, and a practice i do not partake in.

not only that, if i tell them that i am an RN, they actually make you do your own things, sometimes....seriously, they do. i was in someone's hospital room, one time, visiting and the RN found out i was a peer and she suggested i take care of that person's IV for them....seriously! seriously!!??!! :)

so, i say, i don't tell them. i actually do need to be a "patient". because you know what?? i need some patience right now. so, i will lie down; i will let them care for me; and i will let them give me what i am needing....to be cured of "this" thing inside of me. to heal. and to then move on and be a survivor.

so....the melt down......i stopped the zoloft. i stopped the prescriptions meds for sleep...weren't workin anyway. and i've decided to feel. i have a reason to feel, i have a situation that is needing emotion, and i have reason to worry at night. this is all not to say that i am not taking care of myself, as i am: i have great friends that are making me laugh and love me so beautifully, and family that are doing the same. so, i'm good.

so.....i think i have passed through the shock stage. i think i am at the "holy smokes, WTF, and get-thee-prepared, girl" stage for surgery and hospitalization. you see...i need to...i have no choice. wow...that's another topic for another day.....no choice.

anyway, so i cried for 24 hours......finally just went ahead and boohoo'ed myself into smitherenes......and am feeling better for it, actually. i am now on the beginning path of trying to visualize myself walking into the hospital, with my mom and my sister at my side. and being stripped of who i am. putting my "self" into the hands of the medical team.

yeah, me! :)

a week from today...but who's counting.

love you all very much
cathy