Pick Up The Phone Already

It's time. It has been a year and a half or more since the last time I saw my Rheumatologist and weaned off all my meds. When I first stopped taking them I was doing ok and thought to myself I can handle this no meds things. Yes, my pain and fatigue were worse but nothing I couldn't handle. I can do this! I can do this was running through my head a lot at that point. I made up my mind that this was not only going to be a "I'm off my meds time," but a "mind over matter" time too. I thought that if I didn't think about being sick and about being in pain it would disappear and that would be it. Like I said many times before being sick isn't just a body/symptom thing it is a total mind thing. My mind was in overload mode fighting the changes that were taking place after stopping the meds. Telling myself I'm not sick I'm fine was exhausting. All the time I spent in my head telling myself that when I was on the meds and it was ok now turned into a lie almost. I thought I was okay with taking meds and being sick but then when the meds were making me more sick I fought with the idea of weaning off them. When I made that decision it wasn't like I woke up one day and decided today was the day, it took weeks actually months to decide to stop. That's the bad thing about being on drugs, in our heads we think we don't need them but our bodies tell a different story. I am at the point where the struggle of pain verses drugs is a constant conversation in my head. My doctor told me that it takes time for all the drugs to leave your body so I'm pretty sure that is why I continued to get worse over time after stopping them. My nights are filled with such pain I wonder some nights why I even go to bed. I wake up every morning exhausted because my quality of sleep is horrible to say the least. Being awaken by pain no matter which position I lay in is very discouraging. The discouragement has brought me full circle back the drug conversation that went on in my head when I stopped the drugs but this time the conversation is about getting back on the drugs. Now I know there are the haters out there who wonder why someone would take such harsh drugs but the haters have never lived the hell that I have lived in. The haters who say you should exercise and eat right and you will be cured have no idea. I have no doubt that works for many but not for all. It's like so many things in life what one person chooses to do may not work for another so we all do what is best for us. When I woke up Monday morning I finally did it. I picked up the phone and called my Rheumatologist to make an appointment. It was such a bitter sweet feeling. Bitter when I picked up the phone feeling like I have given up, stopped fighting. Sweet knowing there will be some sort of relief in the future. I hate the idea of the drugs but I want my life back. My quality of life has deminished so much since I went off the drugs. Was it great on the drugs? No. But livable. I always had a hard time doing any physical work but it has just gotten worse without the drugs. I slept so much better on the drugs too. I am looking forward to that. So this is it! Next week I will see what the Rheumatologist has to say and go from there and to think after all this time all I had to do was pick up the phone.

God Bless!

Dianne