Here I lay in bed, almost 2am, completely wide awake. I took sleeping meds about 10:30 and they never kicked in. I get this way for a few days every month. I'm suspecting its hormone-related. With the insomnia comes an increase in hair shedding, extreme fatigue to the point where I don't want to move from my couch. Yet, I can't sleep. I'm sure I will be on my face tomorrow.
It feels like I have so much on my mind, yet nothing at the same time. It feels like I've been going back into my downward spiral yet again. The mood swings from depression to just feeling barely okay are annoying. So many things that have been happening and I haven't had any interest or motivation to do any journaling, which is usually therapeutic for me. But, I've gone and basically shut myself out from everyone, including the interwebs.
I've been waiting on results for my ACTH stimulation test and it's been over a week and my doc still doesn't have any results yet. I'm barely producing any cortisol, which can be potentially life-threatening and also has the added perk of not handling stress very well which brings out my OCD side in the worst way. So, I had this test done to see if the low cortisol is being caused from insufficient adrenal glands, or if it's the pituitary/hypothalamus. That little gland has been causing so much havoc in my body that i wish they would just remove it. Because of that little thing, I stopped producing estrogen. According to the bone density scan the doc ordered, I already have osteopenia in my lower spine and in my left hip. So, that is pretty much the precursor to osteoporosis. The density in those areas are too low for a woman my age, but not low enough to be considered osteoporosis yet. It's coming, now it's pretty much just a waiting game as to how old I will be when I develop it. My end keeps talking about hormonal replacement in a more aggressive form than regular birth control, but now he won't do anything until we know if I am going to need corticosteroid replacement for the low cortisol levels. I follow up again in November, if he refuses to change anything I'll be finding myself a new endocrinologist. I've been on my tumor med for over a year and the tumor hasn't grown, but it also hasn't shrunk any, either. My prolactin levels are basically the only hormone my body is stable with and that's probably due to the medicine. Is the medicine suppressing the other hormones or is it the tumor? I ask my doc that and never get a straight-on answer because the endocrine system is so complex and I don't think he truly knows what is happening. He may be an endocrinologist, but he specializes in diabetes and metabolism disorders. I need a doc that specializes in the pituitary, hypopituitarism to be exact. The only docs that I can find that focus in the that field alone are out at the Mayo Clinic. If this continues to go untreated, my life expectancy is 87% less of someone who doesn't suffer from the disease. If this were to get treated, would be GI symptoms ease up?
I've been in a vicious cycle with that whole thing as well. I'll go days with barely an appetite, forcing myself to eat or drink anything. Then I will wake up and be so hungry all day long and my appetite feels insatiable. So, I end up overdoing it (which my overdoing it is me barely getting in 600 calories in a day) and I completely wreck my stomach, leaving me feel sick and yucky with no appetite again. Then when it comes back, I overdo it again and the cycle repeats over and over. I had a small bowel follow through scheduled for yesterday morning and had to reschedule due to waking up with a horrible headache because I'm long overdue for a chiropractor visit for my neck problems. I've been having a sometimes dull, sometimes sharp pain in my lower right quadrant of my stomach, down near the pelvis. It gets so bad sometimes it wakes me up at night. So it's possible I have a stricture or a kink in the intestine where things seem to be getting stuck. So that was rescheduled for Tuesday. I'm hoping for normal results so I don't have to worry about surgery. If I need surgery, that will totally fuck up our Disney plans for the summer. So, obviously surgery is gonna happen because why would anything good actually happen to this family? Seriously, things have been so fucked up.
With all of my health issues aside, my father-in-law was laid off. He's having a hard time finding another job making what he was making. Things with Jenna have been approving. Speaking of my Jenna, she seems to be doing pretty well in kindergarten. She's getting a little extra help and some days she is more compliant and more confident in herself, and days where she is so defiant and oppositional that she refuses to do any work and argues with me she doesn't know any of it. But, she's seeing the school therapist twice a week, has a teacher that comes in to her classroom during reading time to help give her more individual attention when it comes to learning to read. Plus, she's involved in a group twice a week in school to help handle her feelings, teaches her how to follow rules and make and maintain healthy friendships. On the 28th, a parent support group will be started for the parents that have kids involved in this program so I'm anxious for that to start. Gianna was also placed in something called a Guidance Group. If you watch the show The Middle, the youngest child Brick is involved in a social skills group that teaches appropriate ways to interact with kids his own age. Gianna is basically in the same thing. We spent so much time and effort focusing on Jenna that we failed to recognize some red flags in Gianna. She's a very friendly, happy little girl so I never thought to much of her quirks. She has a very high self esteem, a little too high. She doesn't interact appropriately with kids her own age and is also very immature socially for her age. She is very bright, reading beyond a second grade level yet has a hard time doing simple tasks such as washing her own hair without assistance. After a meeting with the guidance counselor and her teacher, they think it would be a good idea to have her evaluated for Aspergers. And as soon as they even said that, it all clicked. She is a female child version of Sheldon. She doesn't understand sarcasm, she doesn't know how to joke around appropriately and when she tries to make a joke, it makes no sense. If you try to tell her a joke, you have to explain why it's funny. If you want to have a conversation with her, it has to be about what she wants to talk about and it's almost always the same things. She has no interest in other peoples feelings, or maybe she doesn't understand empathy? I can be crying because of pain or being sick and she doesn't pick up on that. Playing at a friends house, her friend fell off the swingset and hurt her leg. Instead of Gianna asking if her friend was alright, she asked her to move so she could use the swing lol. So, I do very well believe she has Aspergers. She feels so disconnected sometimes. She doesn't like hugs or kisses, she won't tell me if something is bothering her. Then I have Jenna, who has no problem telling you when she's having a problem because she gets so explosive. But also loves to cuddle. She's very oppositional, Gianna is very easy going and compliant and would rather you do everything for her where as Jenna is so very insistent on doing everything herself. They are total opposites lol.
So with all of this going on, it's no wonder I constantly feel stressed out and depressed. It literally feels like I'm just waiting to die. And each of my girls have some issue because they have a crazy mom. Jenna's therapist is suggesting we monitor her closely for bipolar disorder. She's too young for a diagnosis, but it's in the family and she already has many symptoms of it so it's possible she has that on top of the PDD and ODD.
Blah. Well, I suppose I need to try to get some sleep if I plan on being somewhat functioning tomorrow. I have to go to Walmart for a birthday card and take Gianna to her friends birthday party. I'm anxious to see how she interacts with the others at the party. So, on that last random thought, I'm out.
