A Series of Fortunate Events

For the past few weeks, I've been trying to write. Actually, I've been doing much better than just trying, every time that I've sat down to do it, I do. Unfortunately, I’m never happy with what I end up writing. I want to pretend like it’s an issue of quality but in reality it’s all about not feeling comfortable knowing that people will read it. I've been trying to write about what depression has been for me, how it was never like how I thought it was (I wasn't actually sad… who’da thunk it). I've decided that rather than end up with a whole bunch of stuff that I’m unhappy with, I would go about this a different way. Over the past month and a bit, I've experienced some firsts and some milestones that I’m quite happy with. I wrote these pieces at different periods of time but decided to keep them all together like this.

This was written roughly the third week of January

I feel like shit today. I’m happy I feel like shit today, because I’m the reason for it. Today is the first day that I have gone without a fentanyl patch since last March. I've been working on coming off of fentanyl for a few weeks now slowly reducing it over time and yesterday I took off my patch and didn't put a new one on. For those not familiar with fentanyl (if you've spoken to me in the past few months, you’ve heard this), it was explained to by my pharmacist like this: it takes 30mg of codeine to equal 1mg of morphine, it takes 5mg of morphine to equal 1mg of dilaudid, and finally it takes 100mg of dilaudid to equal 1mg of fentanyl. Since March, I've worn a patch, not unlike a nicotine patch, that has delivered a constant dose of this medication. The past couple of weeks have consisted of all the fun of having the flu but without the bad side of having the flu (this is possibly the worst sentence I have ever written and I will keep it for that reason). I’ve had cold sweats, which are much worse when it’s -40 and you live in a basement, I've had full body aches, headaches, been nauseated and pretty much all around feeling crappy.  That being said, there’s something satisfying about being in control of how I feel, even if that means feeling terrible.

Of course, this certainly isn't the first time I've felt crappy due to coming off of medication. In fact, I’m still getting over the last medication I was on. While I knew ahead of time, because of what I had heard from friends, I couldn't believe just how terrible I felt when I stopped taking the main anti-depressant that I was on. I had been on Effexor since May and during that time I had achieved a peak dose of 225mg a day. While at first this seemed to help, it wasn’t long until I started dealing with some rather unpleasant side effects. After speaking with my doctor, we decided that the best course of action was to taper off the Effexor and begin taking a new medication in its place. I learned later on that the recommended tapering of this medication is 10mg a week but for whatever reason, my doctor had be tapering 37.5mg every 4 days (I have to assume it’s because he knows I’m a stone cold badass…. or the idea of me suffering amuses him). While the side effects while being on the medication were tough, they were nothing compared to what it was like coming off them. The main issue was something affectionately known as "brain zaps," "brain shocks," "brain shivers," "brain pulse-waves," "head shocks," "pulses," "flickers," or "cranial zings" (had I known I could have called them zings, maybe things would have been more fun). These zings felt like I was getting an electric shock right in my brain. This shock would lead to a sense of complete disorientation similar to vertigo but worse. Other times when it would get more severe, I would feel that shock and then be able to feel the charge travel down in to my extremities and then bounce back up, sometimes several times in a row. Unfortunately it did not take much to trigger these episodes, while they happened regularly on their own, all it took was a little bit of movement on my part to trigger even more. It didn't just take real movement either, if I was playing video games, the movement  on my television was enough to trigger them. Not only was there nothing that could be done about these symptoms, they’re not even understood by medical science. Less than reassuring but at the very least, doctors acknowledge that it exists. Of course that wasn't the only fun that I got to deal with, you can mix in a healthy dose of being nauseated and zombie like (I’m not sure if zombies are nauseated so forgive my redundancy if they are). In the end the government decided not to cover the new medication and my doctor and I decided that we would go without it. 

This was written roughly the last week of January

I was tired last night. For the longest time I've just gone to bed when I've grown bored of being awake. It didn't matter if I had been awake for 24 hours, I still didn't feel tired, I would just eventually decide that I had been awake enough and had nothing left to do. It was very hard to maintain a sleep schedule especially because I lacked a routine and had no reason to wake up at a reasonable hour. It's been different the last few days as I've noticed that I've been tired. It’s a strange feeling to not be accustomed too, I was watching tv last night and I couldn't figure out why I was feeling so blah. It was only when I found myself looking at the time, it was 5:00am, that I realized that I was tired. At that point I turned my tv off and went to bed and fell asleep within a few minutes. While this sounds somewhat trivial, I can’t remember the last time I laid in bed only to close my eyes and fall asleep. There was no need to read or occupy myself on my phone, I just slept.

Another not so coincidental first that occurred after my first night of being tired was that I got out of bed because I was hungry. Much like sleep, I've been going through the motions of eating because I knew I should but never because I felt like I had to. I've been able to lay in bed from the afternoon until the evening without even the most subtle urge to get out to eat. Granted, I’m still lazy so I made myself a toaster strudel and a glass of juice, but I made it because I wanted to eat it, not because I figured I should probably eat something. Food is a lot more satisfying when it’s actually desired.

This part I wrote yesterday

Tonight marks the first night in almost a year that I will be medication free. I spent the last 3 weeks working off my last remaining medications and last night was the last one. Compared to the other medications, this time was a true cake walk, I felt no ill effects of reducing the dose at any time. I feel that it needs to be said that my lack of medication does not mean that I am pain free. In fact, I still don’t feel particularly good, but the pain is at a level that I can tolerate on my own without the need for medicinal intervention. I’m still waiting on what happens next but I’m hoping I’ll be able to feel a little more normal during that process. I’m still not at the end of the tunnel but the light at the end of it is as bright as ever. I start physiotherapy in April (there’s a bit of a wait for it at the hospital). On top of that, I’m slowly working towards increasing my level of activity but annoyingly I still get tired after not doing very much. I’m hoping with a sustained increase over time, I’ll get back to a level of energy comparable to that of a normal person sooner rather than later.

One last thing… for those that don’t know, one of the great sides of no longer being on medication means that I have the official all clear to consume alcohol. In other words, I've been given my cool card back. Should anyone want to hang out and be cool, let me know.