Brief update—in search of homecare

Things continue to be rough with the Valium crossover. I stopped until I stabilized a few days ago and then cut by only .125 mg of Klonopin and added 2.5 mg of the corresponding equivalency of Valium. I’ve been pretty out of it again and I cut the dose of the exchange in half and have waited several days. I suffer especially at night and I think it’s Klonopin withdrawal until I get used to the Valium replacing it. I get weird and non-verbal and spacy. I’ve been rather disoriented today in a way that feels scary too.

I have horrible pain in my spine and feel flu-like. This is all in addition to feeling shitty already in a myriad number of ways so it’s just a scary thought thinking about how long this might go on for.

I still get the impulse to do things. To go out. To shop, to go to a restaurant, to visit a friend. And then I remember with a pang of remorse that my body won’t cooperate.

Tomorrow I’m going to see my general practitioner to see if he can give me some sort of diagnosis that will fly with Medicare so that I can get home care—specifically physical therapy and then whatever else the home-care agency thinks I qualify for. I want my limbs stretched as I can hardly move. That will be nice.

Right now I’m imagining the diagnosis I’d give myself:

1. Psychiatric Drug Damage

2. Chemical Injury

3. Iatrogenic Illness

4. Mitochondrial Damage

I don’t think any of those would fly with Medicare. I hope I have a creative doctor who comes up with something legitimate that works. He is a man with a strong sense of integrity so he has to feel comfortable with whatever he diagnosis me with and that is fine by me. I wouldn’t want it otherwise. The home-care agency said they need a primary diagnosis with something like generalized weakness and muscle atrophy as secondary diagnosis. They said they might be able to swing it with just the secondary diagnosis. We’ll see.

I’ve planned the trip to the doctors so I don’t have to go in the office, because even though my doc is nice his practice puts big ol’ pharma screens in the waiting room pumping out pharma commercials. Last time I went I swear I was totally traumatized by the time I went into the exam room. I wouldn’t go to a regular doc of this nature at all but I need him for Medicare. If I could I’d never walk into a traditional doctor’s office again in my life.

I will wait in the car and Daniel will come get me when they call me into the exam room.

Then I’m coming prepared with a small fold up futon to lay on the floor in the doctors exam room because the table I had to lay on last time was excruciatingly uncomfortable and I waited in there for two hours in pain.

So a futon and some blankets on the floor. Don’t know what the heck he and his staff are gonna think of me camping out on his floor, but frankly I don’t give a damn. I refuse to go through what I went through last time. And this society does nothing to accomodate the seriously physically ill and so I’ll do what I need to do to make myself comfortable.

Peace to you all and thank you for all your ongoing love and support. Couldn’t do this without you and now I really know that because when I’m so sick I can’t get on the computer is when I really panic. You keep me going. You force me to exercise my brain and keep my spirit alive. The thought that I might save even one person from ending up like this in the long run is enough to get me to work almost every day even when I feel like I am dying. And that is no exageration.

It also motivates me to take good care of myself. To force myself to eat when I have no apetite. To continue taking my supplements and to meditate daily. I cannot be there for anyone else if I do not do my best to take care of myself and live what I believe.

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