Here we go again!

(from Friday, July 27, 2007)


It's a typical night for me. Not so typical for most people, I'm sure, but on some level I'm used to this, this... well, for lack of a better word, annoyance. Another panic attack has roused me from bed. Just one of many post-Effexor joys. I didn't have them before. Most often they come at 2 or 3 am, rousing me from a sound sleep, usually for no apparent reason. Tonight it came a little early, around midnight. A sufficient number of wasted emergency room visits have taught me to just ride them out. My husband's sleep-deprived crankiness on succeeding days has taught me to keep them to myself. I've tried various things through the past four years to moderate them, the two most effective being yoga and chamomile tea. Even these two tacks seem to be failing me more often of late.

Dr. O keeps trying to give me various medications to ease the attacks. He has a hard time understanding that my body just doesn't respond "normally" to most medications anymore, another one of those post-Effexor joys. A recent sinus infection, during which my nervous system adversely reacted to three of the already limited selection of antibiotics I can tolerate should have been sufficient proof. I don't blame him. It would be nice, easier, to believe it's just all in my head somehow. I think he needs that belief more than I do in a way. Having your fundamental perceptions of how the universe works completely altered is a hard pill to swallow, I should know. Still, I suppose it is in my head, but not in the way usually implied by that statement.

At any rate, I obediently tried the Propranolol he presribed last time I saw him. A part of me still really wishes that a simple pill could help me, despite the hard evidence to the contrary, despite the damage done. I should have known, after the Atenolol, that it wouldn't be that different. The one thing I don't need, most days, is for my heart rate to be slower, to feel more like a slug. I can't decide which is scarier: feeling like my heart might explode or feeling like it might just peter out and stop. Not a great choice. I'm finding it hard to believe they actually think this stuff can mitagate traumatic memories. Didn't do much for me, any old way.

Well, I will try some yoga again and hope for the best. I have to get to work tomorrow, hang on to the medical benefits, for what they're worth. And my boss has been so nice about my evident exhaustion of late, I'm obliged to try as well as I can to be a little better rested. It is a constant struggle. I just hope the new development of the icy fingers creeping along my scalp on the left side of my head doesn't portend anything. I guess time will tell.