Mixed emotions

As I described before I asked for and was granted an asthma break.  I am struggling with the psychiatric effects of steroids on my mood and need a break to gain some perspective emotionally, to try to sort of some of what I'm feeling, to hopefully get a chance to get the cycling under control (I get to see Dr. Brain in 2 weeks!) and to not have any chemical changes except maybe some psych meds for a bit.  Ideally asthma should be much more controlled than mine.  I am on 4 meds and using my rescue inhaler nearly daily and when I use it it is multiple doses.  I should be using it more like once a week or less, something like that.  .Having said that I'm not sure how possible that is going to be without taking major steps like hospitalizing me for steroids.  I haven't be told specifically that this is the case, but it has been implied.  I am not yet ready to give up and would rather to go through the hell of steroids than know we haven't when my life is so limited and depressing.  Too bad we can't just do surgery then steroids one after the other and get everything icky over with.

I can't even describe how I feel.  I'm frustrated by all that I can't do, and I'm tired.  So very, very tired.  I'm depressed about losing so much I worked hard to have in my life, and because I've been fighting this for so many months.  I am improved.  There is no doubt whatsoever about that.  I no longer cough constantly.  I am wheezy about 90% of the time and have the symptoms I consider signs that I'll need more meds soon probably about 25% of the time.  That's better than it was; I was much more severely wheezy all the time and had the coughing, tightness and chest pain nearly all the time 2 months ago.  However, I want to be better.  I can't quite move behind the feeling that I have put in my fight against one major illness and that this is so unfair.

Part of what made me ask for time off is the realization that I've been trying so hard to be positive about anything the meds did at all combined with my emotions are so changeable I can't really label an emotion at any given time, just sort of give a summary of recent mood swings, which go everywhere.  I can't just let loose and cry and I need to do that.  On the other hand I need to be able to NOT cry when I don't want to; I read something my grandmother had written about her abusive mother and I was trying to read it to my mother and couldn't even get the words out because I was sobbing even though I had already done my crying about it before talking to my mother.

On the other hand, I know now that some of the fatigue may be related to the oh, so there is an actual reason for the gushing blood thing.  My hemoglobin mid-cycle is at the very end of normal and I take an iron supplement daily, so that's a decent sign that I probably have been tired at least sometimes because of anemia. I also have discomfort and now that I'm admitting that there's a cause I actually have minor cramping/twinges throughout the day.  No big deal, but I suspect that also adds up to tired.

It also doesn't help that when my mood is out of control so is my anxiety.  I cannot seem to manage to let things go when I feel like this.  I think it is because my depressed mood hyperfocuses on things while my manic state results in things seeming worse than they necessarily are. I was really upset at the realization that I need sedation to do this procedure until I finally checked my insurance and learned it probably costs LESS since outpatient surgery is just a copay.

What I do know is that my anxiety has become fully obsessive right now and there's not a lot to do about that until Dr. Brain is back.  As it is I'm just using anxiety meds more than usual.  Hopefully I can talk to Dr. Mind about it this week and that will help control it, but I don't know.  He knows I'm doing it, it's come up a few times.  I am struggling so much that I actually took myself off his waitlist for tonight because I HAD to get my taxes done as I was freaking out about  money.  Taxes are done, I'll survive that one, but another crazy idea is sure to form soon.

Anyway, now am obsessing about the date on this one eval I did today.  Must be right or I have to finish it now.