It’s come to the point now that I feel like an old lady talking to doctors.  I have so many medications, conditions and ‘warning flags’ due to family history that what my poor new GP likely thought would be a 20 minute appointment spanned 45 minutes.  I walked out with a requisition for so much blood work, she said it would be as if I were donating blood.

That, my friends, is a lot of blood.  Trust me; I used to donate regularly before my anemia.

The most trying task is remembering diagnosis after misdiagnosis with my mood disorder, and the laundry list of medications I’ve taken along the way, before settling on my current one.  It’s not perfect, but it’s a hell of lot better than the ones that I’ve had before.  Try taking a pill that triggers rape nightmares every time you sleep (no real life rape; just random rape attacks!), or one that gives you a 24-7 migraine and nausea.  How about a pill that leaves you so groggy you’re nearly comatose, or one that makes you break out in a potentially lethal rash and sends you calling an ambulance for anaphylaxsis?  Maybe a pill that makes you go from super-happy to suicidal to super-bitchy in a ten hour period sounds fun?

Yeah, me neither.

My body inherited faulty brain chemicals; like poor Shilo in Repo! I’m infected by my mother’s genetics (“Can you hear me mother?  Thanks for the disease!”).  On and off the pills I go, ironically never the one in the title of today’s song.  My mind feels like a yo-yo, and I wonder when the string will snap.  And if, one day, it won’t recoil, how do I hang on to me?

“Darling, I forgive you… After all,
Anything is better than to be alone.
And in the end I guess I had to fall.
Always find my place among the ashes.
I can’t hold on to me,
Wonder what’s wrong with me.
Lithium, don’t want to lock me up inside…”

Day 359:  Lithium – Evanescence