Packing Cleaning Panicking Packing

The panic attacks are now down to one a day. Whoo hoo! Progress, people, progress. If you have ever had one, you know that is still one too many. I’m exhausted most of the time these days. Let me tell y’all, anxiety is fricking tiring. I have a panic attack and then I feel like I could sleep for a week.

This weekend was spent packing and cleaning. Friday night, Jason and I did go out on our “date night” to see The Departed. Um, great flick. We both walked out saying that this is Scorsese’s Oscar. So good. With Matt Damon, Marky Mark(I can’t help it, I still call him that), and Leo DiCaprio in the cast, well, it was nice to look at.

On Sunday morning, I got to hang out with my friend Mike that I don’t see very often anymore. I miss him. It was nice to sit there with Mike and Jason and just goof around. They both make me so happy. We ate out and I didn’t have a full blown attack! Progress at every turn. I’m a little less crazy everyday (well, sort of).

Since my allergic reaction I have been getting up at 5:30am everyday to make a little eggs and toast to take my steroids. It sounds strange but I believe that I just happened to wake at that time when I first started taking them. Anyway, I have been taking that time every morning to kind of meditate and pray. I lost aspects of my religion when I left my comfy suburb of Philadelphia and I couldn’t quite reconcile what I had been taught and what my experiences were. So, instead of trying to reconcile it (cause that takes thought and effort) and form a solid belief system, I just kind of turned away from God entirely.

My Christianity is not something I discuss on here often, largely because I don’t agree with the fanatic Christians that seem to take center stage in the media these days. I feel like being a Christian has become a dirty word or that being a Christian makes me naive and stupid. In reality, I have thought long and hard in the last few weeks about the religion that I was more or less born into. As with any religion people can mold it into anything they want it to mean.

I can’t buy that homosexuals are going to hell. Sorry. I can’t buy that my Jewish future husband won’t be joining me in heaven either. Not so much. I don’t see God the way some Christians do I guess. I see him as loving more than punishing, I guess.

So every morning since the reaction I have been getting up and praying as the sun rises. It’s nice. I feel like since I am having these panic attacks about dying that maybe part can be alleviated by getting a sense of what I really believe will happen when I die. I long for that belief I held as a child of the eternal afterlife party in the sky. Maybe I do still believe that a little, maybe I don’t. I feel like once I get a clearer sense of it my fear won’t be able to overtake me anymore. Of course I won’t know until I really do die the truth of it all but at least I can have some faith that no matter what happens, I will be ok.

Where Oh Where Has My Sanity Gone?

Where oh where can it beeeeeeee????

I’m better today. Worlds better. I am not sure why as nothing has really changed. I did finally get a call in to the psychodoc and get a prescription for Celexa. Going to pick it up soon. I will be a less crazy panicky anxious version of myself in the very near future.

I can not believe how tough these last two weeks have been.  3 panic attacks a day.  At least.  Out. of. control. people. seriously.

Tomorrow I go back in to see my therapist.  I am so grateful that she was able to see me.  She’s fabulous too.

I made our first reservation on our cross country trip today.  We are going to be staying at Mandalay Bay in Vegas for our first two nights on the road.  I can’t wait to blog from the road trip.  I hope I’ll be able to upload pictures!  Making that reservation definitely picked up my spirits.  I have been so focused on the cost of our move and, you know, dying suddenly that I forgot that part of this is going to be fun!  FUN!  I need to keep that in mind more and try to just do what I can about the finances.  Hopefully the money will be there like it’s supposed to.

I’m, in a very weird way, glad that this finally happened to me.  I mean, I have been having panic attacks about being allergic to something for so long.  It happened.  I’m ok.  And hell, even if I am not, I always have my friend, the EPIPEN!

Goodnight, folks.  Thank you all for your support and kind words.  You give me strength just when I think there isn’t any left.  I know that I am not alone (and neither are you, my pretties).  Hugs to you all!

I Can’t Breathe or at least I believe I can’t most of the time

This last week has been BRUTAL.  I have been trying to get “back to normal” but it’s been a struggle.  I went back to work Monday.  Work went a little something like this:

11am: Stumble into office an hour late due to waking at 5:30am to take steroids and falling back to sleep somewhere around 7.  Then not being able to drag my ass out of bed until 9:30am.

11:30am: Call in co worker to “talk to me” because I just ate some hot cereal that I may or may not be deathly allergic to.  Please note Epi Pen was in hand whole time.

12pm: Stupid computer isn’t downloading correctly and IT people are busy busy busy, so while on hold I research how many things I could be allergic to and how many people die from anaphylactic shock.

1pm: Stupid computer thingy STILL isn’t downloading correctly so I start to think about what the hell is safe to eat for lunch.

1:15pm: Can’t do shit because computer has rendered my job useless which is lovely because now I have more time to OBSESS over what I am going to eat for lunch.  Yay.

2pm: Order out Thai Chicken Yellow Curry.  Of course, perfectly logical considering Thai dishes are famous for nut dishes.

2:01pm: Proceed to have 2^nd panic attack of the day.  Luckily someone in the office has had them before and I was able to calm down.

My computer finally started to be able to download those damn TPS reports or whatever so I could concentrate on work until I had to go home.

I would take any amount of pain in the world to get rid of these things.  I can’t imagine how some people around me have dealt with them their whole lives.  I thank god mine didn’t start until I was 28.

It’s not really a comfort though….when they are consuming me.

You Should Have Seen the Other Guy…I Mean, Walnut

From 10/03/06:
The last 16 hours have been F-U-N. It all started last night. We had our Yom Kippor feast of Matzoball soup, Roast Beef sandwiches and a brownie for dessert. The brownie had walnuts on it and well, I have had a hatred for walnuts my whole life. I decided to put aside our differences and dig in because it looked so damn tasty. An hour later I was lying on my couch playing with the pup when I realized I was REALLY itchy. EVERYWHERE. So I looked at myself in the mirror. Hives. Ahh, no biggie there weren’t alot of them so I popped two benadryl and proceeded to then have a panic attack. You know because sometimes when people are allergic to things, their throat closes up. I was sure I was going to be one of those people. Luckily, I wasn’t and went to bed.

This morning I woke up and sincerely in all honesty looked EXACTLY like this:

Yep pretty much sloth.

Jason and I rushed to my docs and she shot me full of steriods.
My lovely doc also gave me these parting gifts. More steriods(I will be lifting cars off of small children in no time!):

AND the greatest gift of all for someone who freaks out about her throat closing up on a semi regular basis. The EPIPEN!!! Yippee. I now have to carry this wherever I go. Epipen, my friend…

***This post took me FOREVER to publish because I couldn’t figure out how to load pictures onto Wordpress and panic my ass off at the same time.***