Of the 6 psych numbers I have, I called 3 today. Despite the calls happening before 5pm, got voicemail for the first. Left a message. The 2nd was disconnected. Spent five minutes on hold waiting to get to the right person to make an appt. with the 3rd; ended up in voicemail anyway.

I googled the 2nd's name & emailed some possible contact addresses for her people to see if she's the person I'm seeking. Also emailed my psych nurse & asked her to remind me which one is the classic Analyst with whom I probably wouldn't get along.

Oog. Hate the phone, hate talking to strangers, hate asking for help, but FUCK I'm tired.

Saw the sleep doctor again today. ( More... )

I feel helpless and overwhelmed.

Fortunately, I do NOT feel the yawning pit of badness akin to the last 3 months.

So! Any day that doesn't end in a sucking chest wound is a good one, eh?

I spent Sunday curled around my belly and feeling generally crappy. Didn’t make it into work. After sleeping all day, I couldn't get to sleep that night til after 3am; thus I didn't get much sleep before 8am, when I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. (Third damn day in a row; woke up at 6am both Saturday & Sunday & couldn’t sleep again.) Then the roofers needed me to do stuff and leaned on the doorbell starting at 10am until I finally came downstairs 20 minutes later. (We’re having our leaky roof replaced and 2 skylights put in for better venting.) In case they needed me again, I stayed dressed and awake all Monday morning, fuckin' around online.

Then Monday afternoon was spent waiting to meet, and having a long talk with, my new sleep doctor. This is the fellow who's in charge of the sleep center (Neurocare) where I recently had my sleep study. ( more )

So, on the upside, despite the fact that we had to talk about my weight, he's not blaming it for the sleep problems (it falls under his treat-the-whole-person philosophy). Also, he admits he doesn’t know what's going on with me and that my case is complicated. And he’s nice, smart, friendly, and startlingly cheerful.

The downside is that I still don't have an answer. I still have fucked up sleep and bonus exhaustion. As I knew there wouldn't be, there's no silver bullet. But man, I was really hoping. There's always a first time!

Today (Tuesday) the roofers ripped off and replaced half our roof and also installed one of the two skylights. Really nice work. However, the ripping and hammering started at 7:30am, leaving me a wrecked zombie hiding on the first floor couch where I dozed and muttered and got nothing useful done all damn day.

CONFESSION: I haven't really been reading LJ since late November, 2008.

I'm sorry for all those life-changing events, both large and small, that I missed. I feel very disconnected from everyone. (More on that below.)

I just read everything that I posted in the last 2-3 months, looking to see if there are threads I left unknotted. It's interesting to see the ups & downs.

( Catch-up stuff from me: )

( Emotional junk: )

I'm feeling pretty ashamed of how I've blown off socializing lately. I'm very sorry.

Yeah. So that's me. How are YOU doing?

I survived Arisia. ( All that and more... )

Emailed people about Circlet things, emailed the folks who owe me money (the check I was expecting), made plans for later in the week, updated my calendar, looked into deadlines. I'm feeling surprisingly functional. I have things to do Wednesday, work at MYP on Thursday, a hand-off of flyers and a dinner date with friends for Friday, plans for the home show at the Bayside Expo center on Saturday, more MYP on Sunday... definitely not the effervescence of a couple weeks ago, but a bit energetic and quite clear-minded.

It's the clear-mindedness that I'm valuing the most right now. I can do more than one task in sequence. I can remember things from one part of the day and get next steps done later in the day. I can plan. I didn't realize how stressful my diminished cognition had been. Yay!

I'm completely healthy. I had a long list of things tested against samples of my blood and urine and all of my numbers are pretty much perfect.

I feel really weird saying this, given that some of my friends are emphatically not healthy right now. But here we are.

So, per discussion with my Doc about where the hell to go next, I've made appointments with a new endocrinologist and a new sleep study place (not Mount Auburn Hospital this time). Neurocare, Inc. has already emailed me instructions and questionnaires after making my appointment earlier today.

I'll be discussing a different type of thyroid medication with the endo and getting checked (again) for sleep apnea, RLS, narcolepsy, and whatever the hell else they can see on the measurement tools during the sleep study.

So I'll have more data in about 10 days, although if I change thyroid meds, it'll probably be upwards of 90 days before I know for sure how it's working.

And I have plans for next steps, partly depending upon the outcome of these appointments.

I've also determined that Provigil, even at the ridiculously low levels at which I consume it, increases my blood pressure and borks my sleep for days.

Plus, while I'm being all health-conscious, I made a dermatology appointment for my semi-regular skin check (I have multiple skin conditions; prevailing medical opinion is that I should get my skin checked by a professional every year; I manage it every other year or so) and I'm probably going to get my hearing levels checked. (I got a baseline measurement a couple years ago when I started having a dramatic increase in the ringing that usually indicates you're losing the ability to detect a particular tone... time to compare to the baseline.)

Finally (or, at least, finally in health news), I broke my damn pedometer today. I've been counting steps the last month or so, trying to increase the most basic level of exercise. It was a lousy day and that was the bitter crouton on top of my crankiness soup.

This day is SO fired. I'm going to sleep.

Saw my primary care physician today and had blood drawn. (Nurse did it very gently; I was deeply relieved and there's no bruising.)

I have a follow-up next Wednesday to discuss the results and for me to get a complete physical; so in addition to the regular work-up, she's checking my thyroid levels, my cortisol levels, and looking for Epstein-Barr (which I think I've had checked before, but, whatever).

And we're going to talk about more in depth work on my sleepiness/depression.

I learned that there are a LOT of different generic thyroid medications and people tend to be very sensitive as to which one they take. So, dosages can be the same, but effects vary. We're going to look at my levels and discuss options. I'm considering asking to be switched to Armour, which is derived from piggies rather than synthetically generated, but we'll see.

I also learned that Paxil is a soporific and that people with low energy are generally recommended to take an SSNI (selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor) type of SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor) to increase energy.

Damn. Didn't know that. Emailed my Psychiatric Nurse about it.

My PC also recommended a full-on Psychiatrist. Later in the day I got a return phone call from a friend's therapist recommending other psych folks who take my health insurance.

I'll know more next week, and then I'll take the next step in this CHOOSE YER OWN ADVENTURE quest I'm on.

Note To Self: When the ophthalmologist puts carrot juice in your eye, check for weepy orange goop after the appointment is over.

N.B. My eye is fine, but seriously irritated, so I'll be medicating it with two different kinds of drops for a week.