I questioned whether to write this, or not. Even though my journal is public, I have my doubts that anyone has read it yet. But maybe with the passage of time, a few might stumble across it. So my decision is to go ahead and write this - leaving something of myself behind that will live on for some time.
    I don't really want to live anymore. Looking back at my life, it's been a concentrated collection of the worst things that can befall a person. My potential died with my puberty, early in life and permanently lost. I destroyed my best hope at having some decent years for much of my life when I failed to pull my weight in the relationship of a lifetime and the love of my life - instead indulging in sloth, self-preoccupation, intolerance and various addictions - most of which will be standing at my door ready to enter back inside if I so much as crack the door open - one of which I shall be prisoner of for the rest of my life. There shall be no freedom from the one addiction of my life that lives in me just as my blood does; drain it away and there will be no life left to live. I still love my ex-husband, he's the only love I ever want in my life. A new love is an insult to what continues to live in my heart and soul for my forever, other half, now gone forever...no longer wanting me.
    In years soon to come, when I lose my parents to death, I'll lose my own life then too. Dependent on them for my shelter and survival, I'll lose everything necessary for living. In the mean time, I'll be witness to the progression of my mother's loss of memory...likely, in the end she won't even know who I am. What if my Dad were to go first? At best, if I put up with living a life with, no quality-of-life, slavery to a methadone maintainence program having to make the forty mile round-trip to dose six days a week month-after-month year-after-year, knowledge that the one I love has gone on without me, knowing the net result of my life has been one of once great potential - never can be recaptured, years of hope for the potential of my future is now a blunt dead-end of knowledge the life I've led is nothing more than that of a loser, a reality that's as permanent as the scars on my body. 
    I've always had hope for the ultimate realization of my best potential but now I've realized I've met my best potential and it's a life of emptiness, vegetation, disappointment, a dead end.
    My parents have said they took me in and gave me a home in their home, in the hope that my life will become a productive and rewarding one. Many have warned my parents against having me live with them, suggesting that they're fools for putting forth all the effort they have, that in the end the only thing they can expect, is my failures living my life, my failure at life. Most people with Borderline Personality Disorder like me, live with psych hospital commitments over and over their entire lives with time spent outside hospitals struggling with demons hopelessly connected to them.
    I soon face opiate withdrawl as my own supply of methadone dwindling away long before the day I get into the clinic five weeks from now. I already have planned for that event. I choose to no longer suffer at the hands of my pathetic live. I don't want to die, but I don't want to live either. I feel like it's time to give up the fight. My entire life has been on long painful, tiring fight. I just want to throw in the towel and bring the end to a life being lived in vain, without hope for any productive independence or success in living life.
    I spent the days ahead in contemplating the end of my life and what that means. The end to one's self. It's not an easy reality to wrap your mind around. 
4_who_knew  

    There's once again good news and bad news for me at the same time. Why does it always seem to work out that way for people? The good news first. 
    I got some decent sleep last night! Instead of being awake until 2 a.m., I fell asleep by 12:30 a.m. and slept all the way through the night till 5 a.m. A big feat for me! I fell back to sleep until 8:30 a.m., still tired, I tried to go back to sleep but no go, so I got up...took my 10 m.g. of Adderall, 50 m.g. Ultram, 3 Vicodin and a natural supplement called Kava - 70 kavalactones - the active component in Kava...and began another day of worry about what I'll do - what will happen when I run out.  I guess that last part can't be considered among the good news.
    For the bad news, which could  be really bad. Yesterday, when my Mom and I were changing the dressing on my foot, discovered that the 2 pins holding what remains of the crushed toe bone - have twisted from where they used to be, and my big toe is healing side-ways! Once my parents get up, (I'm well over age. I had to move in with my parents after my 21 yr. long marriage broke up.), we have to call my orthopedic surgeon to see how soon he can see me. When I walk I can feel I'm walking on the inside of my toe, the direction of the twisting. We don't know if he'll tell us it's ok, take the pins out, recommend surgery to straighten it, or the worst outcome, recommend amputation.
    I'm hoping he takes the pins out because with their moving out of place, it's causing me more pain. Regarding the Vicodin, I am really in pain at times and the usual dose doesn't always take care of it - but I confess, sometimes when I take more than one or two I'm not in pain and using it to make myself feel better in other ways. I plan on asking him if he can fix my toe - straighten it again. If I have any surgery, I don't want it to be in a "day-surgery" type setting. 
    When I had the two surgeries on it after my accident, pain control was a real problem. (I don't know if the morphine I was getting wasn't working, or if they just weren't giving me enough of it. The last couple days of my hospital stay, they finally switched me to Dilaudid. Oh, the sweetness of the relief when you're in a lot of pain! On discharge, naturally they moved me to the tablet form of the medication.)
    Because I had such trouble with pain control, if the surgeon just wants to take the pins out and reposition them, want them to at least keep me overnight, (24 hrs.); if he does the more involved straightening it back in place, then I want to stay for a solid 48 hrs. minimum; if in the worst case scenario he says it has to be amputated, I hope for at least a 72 hr. stay - so they can give me I.V. pain med's, out of fear I'll get home after surgery and have pain that can't be controlled.
    My Mom just popped her head in my door to ask if I called the doctor yet. I guess I'm going to have to sign out and go take care of business. She's up early. Usually they sleep usually sleep until 11 a.m.
    I'm nervous about seeing my surgeon, one because of what the verdict might be on my toe, second because last time I saw him, he was pretty rotten to me since he found out about my drinking, (I'm not drinking at all anymore), and about the suicide attempts. My parents are going to go in with me to keep him in line and if any surgery is called for, to advocate hospitalization rather than a day-surgery.
    I hope I haven't bored you too much with the details of my life. They're important to me. I'm a very real person living a very real life and no one can be me-for me.
4_who_knew
 
  

     Mom had another bad reaction to dinner last night. Pork chop and rice casserole. The nearest diagnosis the medical community can come up with is something rare called, Idiopathic Anaphylaxis. From the moment a bite of food enters her mouth, even before she swallows, she might have trouble seeing, breathing, her blood pressure starts dropping. You're asking yourself, why doesn't she just avoid the foods she reacts to, (I know you are!). That's the clincher! She can have a waffle one day with no problem, then again the next day, and react to it! She's even reacted to toothpaste!  So much for avoiding food she's allergic to! 
    When it's a bad episode it drops to the point of her losing consciousness. Somewhere in the neighborhood of 60/30. In one episode she stopped breathing before fire and rescue got here and Dad had to give her mouth-to-mouth for a couple breathes before she picked up on her own again. That was scary! In her mild to moderate episodes her face turns red as do the palms of her hands, which begin hurting. sometimes she gets chest pain, it varies; (she had a rare form of a heart attack 7/07, in layman's terms, "Broken heart attack". It happened when a surge, a huge surge, of adrenaline was released due to a family crisis and it caused her heart to literally turn into a "Charlie Horse" cramp with enough force to bruise her heart and damage it.).
    From fire and rescue responding to calls pretty much on a weekly, sometimes daily basis, and her many doctors, we've learned what we need to do to screen her for actual need of an EMS, (emergency medical service), response. If her blood pressure drops below about 100/60, her difficulty breathing, vision trouble, and/or chest pain doesn't begin improving after she takes a medication, via inhaler, called Xopenex HFA, then we have to call the fire dept. for aid. Fortunately, the Xopenex HFA did it's job quickly, which it usually does unless it's not going to help much. Occasionally that's the case.
    Later that evening, one other medical issues arose with Mom, (not having a food reaction), she was having trouble breathing. Once again we've learned how to screen her for needing outside aid. Usually it's because her blood pressure has risen to a high level. How high determines if we call for help. If it's 170/100 we start thinking about calling for help. If it's 180/110, or higher, we do call fpr help. Anyway, because we discovered those automatic type blood pressure monitors are terribly inaccurate by taking the device to her cardiologist and comparing results between it, and a standard BP cuff/stethoscope. Boy, was it ever off! So we turned to using the later. My Dad can't do it because he has hearing problems and can't hear with the stethoscope, so the task falls to me. Luckily, I already know how to take a persons blood pressure the old fashioned way because I used to be a nurse's assistant back in 1990. We chart each result to track it to see if it's going up or down, or staying the same. I screwed up putting the cuff on at first, not having had to do this very much, and had it backwards! Haha :) Once righted, it wasn't too bad, 160/80, so 10 minutes later I rechecked it and it began coming down, 155/80. So another call to summon aid was averted. Thank god!
    On an entirely different topic, (ready for one, aren't you?), I put a Hummingbird feeder up a couple days ago and I just got my first visit from one! Actually, they've come before - they were attracted to a ceramic hot air balloon painted in a variety of bright colors. They're attracted to colorful objects. So I got the idea to put a feeder up. It's a great opportunity to photograph them too. One of my hobbies. I tend to take a 50mm camera everywhere with me. Even to the grocery store. You never know when or where a great shot will be and every photographer knows about the frustration of a lost shot. Especially if it was one of those rare times a fabulous shot reveals itself!
    I didn't sleep well, again last night. Couln't get any real sleep until about 2 a.m., and even then I kept waking up every hour, hour-and-a-half! I took a total of 5 Benadryl pills before bed/during the night, so I could sleep but they only helped a little. Yes, I know that's an overdose...but a reasonably safe one, for me. So I have huge bags under my eye's today. I hate having bags under my eyes.
     Well, I'm out of Vicodin and Dilaudid now, and thanks to my (recently fired) case manager calling both my doctor's, (out of line), and telling them about my alcohol consumption plus my drug overdoses, neither one will prescribe a controlled substance for me. My good luck's come in the form of  "ace in the hole". The trauma department of the hospital where I was transfered to after it came off divert status, (the hospital's too full to take another trauma case), from the only other trauma center open, but it was a military hospital and I'm not associated with military service. Bet you didn't know a civilian would be taken to a military hospital if all other hospital options are on divert status! I sure didn't! 
    Anyway, the P.A., (Physician's Assistant), I saw while in the trauma center, also works for an outpatient trauma clinic associated with the center. They do follow-up in all trauma cases. With the exception of one time where my orthopedic surgeon prescribed my pain medication, the trauma clinic prescibed all my pain med's. So I called them Friday to see if I could get a refill. (probably not eligible for Dilaudid anymore since it's been 6 weeks since I got hit by a truck), no P.A.'s were in Friday so I waited until this morning for a call back. I said I didn't think I needed something that strong anymore. So the P.A. I mentioned above, is calling in a Vicodin prescription for me, saving my neck...figuratively speaking. The actual problem is my left foot in case you haven't gone back and read any of my earlier journal entries. The tire of a flat-bed tow truck carrying another vehicle at the time, hit me, then somehow my left foot got underneath the tire and the truck, once it came to a stop, happened to do so on top of my foot breaking it badly and totally crushing my big toe. I still have my toe but it's badly disfigured and it's "if''y" whether I end up having to have it amputated or not. That's such a dreadful word! - Amputated. I can't stand even the sight or sound of the word!
     So much for this prolific entry. I'm finally done. For now... 
4_who_knew

 

     I was right about the sleep thing. I couldn't get to sleep until about 2a.m. Then just an hour later, I woke up at 3a.m., then 5a.m. then 8a.m. I could have tried to get back to sleep at 8a.m. but didn't. I was tired of the "trying to sleep" grind. I'm going to the store in a minute and intend to get a bottle of Benadryl to help me sleep. Nevermind it's been a major ingredient in my multiple O.D.'s.