A Case of the Blues

I wrote this post yesterday because the earworm mention below was playing over and over in my head. I debated back and forth after I scheduled it as to whether or not I wanted to actually post it. Obviously, I ultimately decided I would. Sometimes when I’m struggling with something, it helps to write it down. I’ve always done my best to be honest and straightforward about my depression and my migraines. I’ve sometimes been accused of complaining a lot, but this isn’t complaining, it’s me explaining where I am emotionally at the moment.

Do you ever get an earworm, a catchy or memorable piece of music or saying that continuously occupies your mind even after it is no longer being played or spoken about? For weeks now I have had Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life” stuck in my head, but the bad thing is, I’m not hearing the right lyrics. The chorus, the only part of the song I really know, goes like this:

It's my life

It's now or never

I ain't gonna live forever

I just want to live while I'm alive

The problem is, I keep hearing: 

I hate my life

It's now or never

I ain't gonna live forever

I…Hate…My…Life!

The truth is, I have been depressed for several months now. Some of it is anxiety over problems at work that no one seems to actually try to fix and some change in personnel. However, it’s more than that. From January through March, I had a dramatic decrease in my migraines. I went from having migraines every day to having only about 10 a month. That’s a significant improvement, but that has not been the case since my last round of Botox. I have a suspicion it’s the different techniques of the nurse practitioners who administer it. One uses an older technique, which one uses a newer technique. I think the newer technique vastly more effective. I see the one who does the newer technique on June 19, so I will be asking her about this.

 

When I saw my doctor in March, I had also gotten to my lowest weight in decades, but some of that has been regained in the last 6 weeks. My fasting glucose has also been higher. I had kept my A1C low for over a year, and from the numbers I have been seeing, I will go from my doctor saying I was a diet controlled diabetic and might even consider removing the diagnosis, to being pre-diabetic again. It’s very disappointing and frustrating since what I’m eating, and my amount of exercise has not changed. While I have been stressed with things going on at work, it honestly isn’t that much more than I have dealt with over the past two years. It’s just a different kind of stress. For the most part, my job and responsibilities have not changed but having a director working remotely for the past nine months, has left me dealing with some of the personality (and I mean personality and not personnel) issues at the museum.

 

In addition to all of this I have also felt extremely fatigued for the past several months. If it wasn’t for Isabella waking me up in the mornings to feed her, I doubt I would even get out of bed some days. I’d just text my boss that I have a migraine, roll over, and go back to sleep. Let’s face it, I always have a migraine so it would be the truth, it’s just that I know there are migraine days that are worse than others. Some days the pain is minimal and allows me to do my work, read, watch tv, etc., and then there are days when I can barely do any of that because light, smell, and noise becomes unbearable. 

 

I’ve also had my tinnitus becoming more noticeable. I have always heard sounds in my ears, but it’s always been background noise. To be honest, I thought everyone heard ringing noises all, but apparently, not everyone does. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t hear a shrill sound constantly in my ears. It may also be why I am having increasing trouble hearing people talk. I’ve had that issue for years, but it really seems to have gotten worse lately. After asking someone to repeat themselves several times, I eventually just pretend I know what they said and move on. God only knows what I’m agreeing to sometimes.

 

All of these things together has me very frustrated and depressed. I try to put on a cheerful happy face most of the time, but when I am left to my own devices, it gets a little overwhelming at times. I am really hoping that when our new director comes on board in June, some of our personnel issues will be straightened out, though I hate the new director has to deal with the mess that has been left for her. I can only do so much to mitigate the problems. As for my glucose levels, it could be the stress, an illness that I haven’t realized I had, or my pancreas is just not working as well as it could be. These are all things my doctor said when I mentioned it to him, but he also said that my numbers aren’t too bad, they are just higher than I had grown accustomed to. Susan told me the same thing, and I always trust her advice. I hope the next Botox treatment will be more successful as well. I see my doctor on June 18 and have a Botox treatment on June 19, so I hope I will see some improvement or be able to make some positive changes. Maybe if all of these things can be taken care of, the fatigue will also get better. In the meantime, I am feeling a lot of depression and disappointment in myself.

Thankfully, I have Isabella here (and Susan just a phone call away) to keep me from being to despondent. Speaking of Isabella, here’s the picture of the week. I took it last night as she was sitting in front of the TV. Thankfully, I wasn’t trying to watch anything.