Cobwebs

Here we go again, we're taking medicine to take the pain away. - Medicine by The Fold 

I'm going to apologize in advance for the ranting nature of this post. I'm just so incredibly frustrated. And it's my blog and I do what I want. Baha. ;)

So, this is the condensed version of my health woes. Really, don't feel obligated to read this. I just need let stuff out.

I've been on some form of daily medication since eighth grade. It's not like I'm new to this whole game, but this is quite possibly the most frustrated I've ever been. I currently take two medications: one for my thyroid, and one for my OCD.

Three years ago I was diagnosed with Graves' disease, a rare auto-immune disease that attacks the thyroid gland and causes it to be hyperactive. I chose to have my thyroid destroyed via radiation. I am now permanently hypothyroid. I take medicine daily to replace my no-longer working thyroid. (If you don't know what the thyroid does, it basically regulates how fast or slow all of your body systems work. So when it isn't working properly, it effects every area of your health. It's like the little gland that could.) It's been a battle trying to get my on the correct dose of medicine. Three years, dozens of doses later, and they still haven't gotten me on the correct dose. I'm learning to live with it, though.

I've also had OCD since, well, forever. As a kid, I can remember being hounded by thoughts that I didn't like. For example, I was terrified that the rapture would happen and I'd be left behind. That particular fear would consume me to the point that I would follow my mom around everywhere. I would also repeat certain phrases over and over and over to myself to try to make the obsessive thoughts go away. It took years for my family to realize what was going on. (And at the time, I was too young to really take any medication.) In eighth grade, things got awful. I was having panic attacks on a daily basis. My parents put me in counseling and I was finally put on medicine. The medicine and counseling worked. But life happens, stress comes, and medicines quit working. The OCD came back, and with it came a succession of pills that just didn't work. In the past six months, I have been on five different combinations of anti-depressant medication. Finally, in June, we found one that worked. Unfortunately, the side affects for the first week or so were debilitating. Thankfully, God allowed me to press through it, and I felt great for a few weeks. Then, my medicine bottle spilled out in my purse while we were on vacation. I'm still working on beating OCD, and one of the manifestations of it is germaphobia. I'm extremely germaphobic. My mind perceived the medicine as being "dirty."I couldn't make myself take it, and I had to go two weeks without it.

I finally started back on the medicine a few days ago, and I feel awful. I'm paranoid, apathetic, anxious. I've had four panic attacks in the last 24 hours. I swing back and forth between pushing those I love away from me, and absolutely smothering them. I feel like I have cobwebs in my mind, slowly forming, but trapping me in. I can fight them off, find moments of logic and clarity, but before I can claim that stable ground, the cobwebs are back. I feel like Frodo in The Return of the King, completely wrapped in lethal spiderwebs.

I'm even having trouble talking to God, which is the most debilitating part. I need logic and, most of all, hope right now. I visited an audiologist last week. I've had trouble hearing out of my right ear, but I found out that my hearing loss in that ear is severe. (my left ear is fine. YAY left ear!) Now they're trying to figure out why my hearing is gone. I have an MRI next week to see if I might have Acoustic Neuroma, a benign (I repeat benign!) brain tumor that can cause hearing loss. It's NOT cancer. I mostly likely don't even have it, but it is within the realm of possibility, so they have to check that out. Most likely, the MRI will come back negative, and we'll move on from there. But that doesn't change how scared I am.


I say all of this to let you know that I need prayer right now. College starts up again in three weeks, I'm stressed about that, I'm stressed about everything. So your prayers are greatly appreciated.

xo,
Katy

P.S. I do have fun things to share later, I just had to rant.