By
Helen M. Davis When we go to the doctor and are prescribed medication there is an implicit trust. We trust that the physician who is prescribing knows what the medicine is, and how best to use it. We trust that the pharmaceutical industry is marketing a drug that is safe. We trust that this medication will help with whatever our problem is. We trust and we take it. Most of the time, this trust is well founded. We take our medicine, we get better, and life continues. Sometimes, however, this is not the case. Sometimes, what is thought to be helping is hurting, and we find ourselves hurled into a maelstrom we could never have imagined. Our lives are upended, as are the lives of our loved ones as we suffer an interminable horror we can’t understand. We become but shells of our former selves and life becomes a mere existence. I know this to be true. It happened to me. The year 2018 began like any other year. I was busy with my farm and my writing. I attended my writing group at Fern Ridge Library every other Wednesday evening, which I loved. I swam laps and I busied myself with my culinary endeavors. I was happy. Life was good. Then, what I think of as the “strange symptoms” began, starting with weakness and tingling in my legs. Also, I was having anxiety, something I had never suffered from before and was only troublesome in the morning. As the day progressed, the anxiety would lessen and by bedtime I would feel like myself again. I didn’t understand what was happening. I went to see my primary care physician who prescribed Xanax. I was to take it in the mornings when I felt anxious. But I felt anxious every morning, and Xanax didn’t help. When I told my physician, he said that I should not have been taking Xanax every day as it was habit forming and I should make another appointment to have something else prescribed. I did as I was instructed but I wasn’t able to see my own physician. Instead, I saw a “floater” who prescribed Busprione, an anxiolytic that is used for generalized anxiety disorder. Within three days, I was in a state of agitation, my pupils were dilated, and my blood pressure was up. I couldn’t relax and I didn’t like it. A call to my pharmacy and a conversation with a pharmacist confirmed my suspicions that Buspirone had interacted with my Duloxetine, the generic for Cymbalta, and I was in a serotonin storm. I stopped the Busprione immediately and made another appointment with my doctor. Once again, he was unavailable, so I saw his associate who increased my Duloxitine dosage and gave me a referral for the therapist who was affiliated with the behavioral health agency that worked out of this office. I hated the idea of speaking with someone when I didn’t understand what was going on, but I figured nothing ventured, nothing gained. Three weeks after the serotonin storm, I began sessions with the therapist and I would share my distress at the changes that had been taking place in my life, how my farm was suddenly of little interest to me, how the animals I adored were suddenly burdensome. I was a farm girl and proud of it. I had dirt beneath my fingernails and stories to tell. If I couldn’t be a farm girl anymore, there would go my identity. What was wrong? I just didn’t understand. The therapist didn’t offer any real insight, preferring, instead, to enter data into my electronic file while I talked. I felt as though these concerns didn’t matter to him. When I mentioned the morning anxiety, he gave me a breathing exercise to do, but was otherwise uninterested in this aspect of my distress. Instead, he chose to focus on having me complete worksheets that were guaranteed to help. One was an exercise in charting my feelings, the other a way of planning out various activities as keeping busy was integral to my recovery from whatever this was. I did try them, but I never could get the worksheet concerning my feelings filled out in a way that was acceptable. All I wanted was to be me again. I didn’t want to do worksheets. I didn’t want to have to listen to someone pontificate about things as he did. I wanted answers! I wanted someone to listen! I’d also seen my primary care physician for a recheck to see how the higher dosage of Duloxetine was working for me and had been put back on my regular dose with the addition of Abilify, the generic of Aripiprazole, an anti-psychotic that is used for the treatment of disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. It is also used in conjunction with antidepressants. For a brief window of time, I thought this might work. I was beginning to feel a little better. This feeling didn’t last. The anxiety continued to plague me and one morning I awakened with a feeling of needing to talk to somebody, anybody. The Abilify wasn’t working, the Duloxetine wasn’t working, nothing was working, and I felt as though I was clinging to a precipice that was slowly but steadily crumbling. I had no idea why I felt this way, but I knew I needed something, someone to make it go away. Not knowing what else to do, I called my primary care physician and spoke with his assistant. I relayed what I was experiencing, and she said she would speak with my physician. I thought that my Abilify dosage needed increasing and I was certain that when she called back, she would say that my physician agreed. About an hour later, she did call, but not with an increase in my meds. Rather, I was being referred to a psychiatric office for more extensive treatment of the issues I was experiencing and the necessary medication oversight. I was horrified and I was mortified. Me? A patient at a psychiatric office? How had I reached such a point? What was happening to me? I wished I could turn back the clock and become the person I had been rather than the person I was now. Things were getting worse by the day. Spring became a memory and summer ensconced itself firmly in the Willamette Valley. I had my first appointment with the psychiatric physician. I told her of my woes, and she decided that what I needed was a new antidepressant. I would have agreed to anything at that point. A prescription was written for Venlafaxine, the generic of Effexor, a serotonin reuptake inhibitor. I was to take increasingly smaller doses of Duloxetine while taking increasingly larger doses of Venlafaxine until I was solely on it. I continued to see the therapist through the counseling agency but, those sessions did nothing to help, and despite the new medication, the anxiety continued as did depression. I could enjoy nothing in my life, and it all seemed hopeless. In addition to the loss of interest in my farm, I was now no longer writing or attending my writing group. The cycle of anxiety continued, and no matter what I did, it never changed. One sun- soaked morning I awakened with anxiety so intense that I found myself weighing the pros and cons of hanging myself versus taking an overdose of Diazepam, a benzodiazepine, a central nervous system depressant that I had been prescribed years before to combat muscle spasms after surgery on my cervical spine but is also used for anxiety, seizures and alcohol withdrawal. Which would be better? I pondered this as I lay in my bed and wished for peace. Oh, God! How I longed for the days when I would awaken with joy in my heart! Eventually, I got up and, after concluding that I could not put my family through such agony as my suicide, I called the therapist’s office, and an appointment was scheduled for that afternoon. I went, but, per the cycle, by then I was feeling better. Still, I talked, and I told him of my ideation. I hated admitting this, but I wanted to be honest. He entered data into my electronic file, and nothing was resolved. He really didn’t seem to care. Appointments with the psychiatric physician also continued and each time I had to take a different dose of the Venlafaxine to see if this would help. Eventually, I was also prescribed Citalopram, the generic of Celexa, another antidepressant, that affects the neurotransmitters. I was to take this at bedtime. This, the psychiatric physician hoped, would help with the anxiety. To further combat this darkness that had taken up residence in me, she also increased the dosage of the Gabapentin, an anticonvulsant I had been taking for neuropathy. I did as I was instructed, and I hoped and prayed that this would work. The anxiety was lasting longer into the day, and it was crippling me. By the time July gave way to August, I had become frightened of sleeping alone, of being alone, a new wrinkle in the shadows of anxiety. I began to sleep on the sofa bed so I could be closer to my sister’s room, and I grew clingy. I wanted her to come straight home from work so I wouldn’t have to be by myself any longer than necessary and I didn’t want her out of my sight while she was home. This wasn’t me. I was independent. I didn’t need my hand held by anyone for any reason. I liked my alone time. I welcomed it, even. At least, I did. Anymore, I didn’t know what to think of the person I had become. I only knew I wished this individual would go away and the real me would return. It was also at this time that I concluded that I needed another therapist. I had come to hate this one and his unwillingness to listen. All he had accomplished was making me believe as though what I was feeling was my fault, that it was somehow deserved. It was a frustrating experience and, if I was to continue with therapy, I wanted something different. To this end, I asked the therapist if I could be referred to someone else. He was amenable to this and made the referral though he cautioned that it would take a while before I would be matched with someone new. There was a waiting list, and I was at the end. I wasn’t content to just sit back and wait. Even as awful as I felt, there was still some fight left in me and I used this to contact the counseling agency after a wait of several days to nudge things on. In the meantime, I had an ultrasound on my legs, and it was an uncomfortable process. Having the wand pressed against me in various locations made my legs number and more tingly than ever. I felt like I was walking on a pair of rubber bands rather than legs. I left the appointment feeling so extremely depressed that I thought again about taking an overdose of diazepam and ending it all. When I had my next session with my therapist, I was greeted with the news that I had been matched with someone new. At my request, he gave me her name along with a warm recommendation. I was a little dubious. When I asked what else he knew about this woman, he glanced at my file and as he did, his eyes widened. Then, he announced that rather than be matched with her, I had in fact, been matched with somebody named Mike Bricker. I asked what he knew about Mike Bricker. He read Mike’s employee biography on the agency’s website. I listened. When it was revealed that Mike specialized in drug counseling, I found myself wondering how I had gotten paired with him. I wasn’t a drug user. I didn’t need drug counseling. This didn’t make any sense, but I needed to get away from the first therapist enough that I agreed to see Mike. I met Mike Bricker the first week of September. Autumn, my favorite season, was just around the corner, and I hoped that perhaps this man would be able to help me to be able to enjoy it. I still didn’t understand why I had been matched with somebody with his skills, but I figured I’d give him a chance. Stay tuned to Part 2 next week. Comments are closed.
|
Contact Us Here.
News articles regarding Junction City, Monroe, Harrisburg, Veneta and the surrounding area. Archives
August 2023
Categories |