Begin Again

Artwork by Flora Bowley

The urge to get back to blogging has been nipping at me periodically for some time. The desire to write and get back to this space of mine, to explore and share my spirituality and life through words. This popped up in my social media feed earlier and felt like an artful swift kick in the ass to stop finding excuses not to blog (or paint) or worry about how... and just begin again.

I'm not going to lie friends. This past year has kicked my ass something fierce. Here's the super condensed nutshell version.

I turned 35 in February. 4 days into March I was in the hospital for what presented as a possible heart attack. After a week of waking up with vertigo, shakes, nausea, and complete panic that would last all morning and in to the afternoon, I realized it was anxiety. Called my therapist as soon as the revelation hit. Started waking up within 3 hours of falling asleep shaking and in panic mode, could not go back to sleep. For an entire week.

Somehow, I didn't completely lose my mind. Acorn got to watch a loooot of Super Why. (I've switched to using a nickname rather than my son's real name. And now hate Super Why.) My Doctor gave me Lunesta. Which got me about 4 - 5 hours of sleep. Still shaking in the mornings. We tried Lexapro, but it made me so sick after two doses that I ended up hospitalized for the 2nd time in a month, this time due to dehydration.

My doctors basically told me, I'm a woman of a certain age now, so it's likely just hormones and nerves. I said, the FUCK it is.

I got myself in with a psychiatrist who has been wonderful. We found a very mild med that works well for the anxiety. But, while we did so, I continued to see my therapist. And ALSO, got myself in to see my gastroenterologist to check for ulcers or other digestive issues that can flare and cause anxiety (especially while sleeping), had a full hormone panel run (everything is perfect. So FUCK that hormones theory), and went to see a sleep doctor.

Who immediately told me it's sleep apnea. But they couldn't get me in for a sleep study until the end of June. This was early April. I called a different sleep doctor.

He also told me it's sleep apnea, but elaborated on believing so not only because I snore and was waking up panicked, but because not a single sleep medicine would keep me out, and most wouldn't put me to sleep because I'd snore myself awake just as I was dosing off and that was it. I was up. He set me up with a home sleep study 2 weeks later and it was confirmed. I have sleep apnea.

I'm still on my Buspar for the anxiety to help my nervous system calm the hell down from this ordeal, and I've been on CPAP for 2 months. Let me tell you, the difference in how I'm feeling is pretty tremendous. I could climb a mountain! And have, a few times since.

Not terribly big ones, mind, because I've got a 4 year old in tow, but still. Mountains. ;)

P.S. In addition to not using my kiddo's real name anymore, if you scroll back through older entries all of my photos are probably telling you they're private. I won't be showing his face here much, either. That's just how I'm choosing to roll from here on out and it was easier to make my photos private en masse. At some point, I'll go in an change the privacy settings on the ones I'm cool with sharing. But tonight is not that night.