Shakey Mo's thread of misery

she has been really strong through all this. we are getting some help from friends and family, who have helped with our daughter and bringing us food and stuff, for which I am eternally grateful. but my wife has a well of fortitude that is really just unbelievable.

that's good to have.

yeah she is the best. I am very lucky.

can someone post me some "hang in there" kitten gifs or something. this is the worst time of the day for me

can I listen to Gang Starr and take notes on a conference call at the same time? let's find out

http://www.bz1-img.com/images_customers/07/64/27664147_201997_full.jpg

now I am the guy that calls the doctor every day to see if there's been any cancellations

This isn't just Kaiser directed but by no means have any compunction about being the squeaky wheel looking for oil. The 'efficiency' of big institutions is indifferent to your specific case and being a pain-in-the-ass is often the only way to get adequate care.

http://i.chzbgr.com/completestore/2011/6/19/f4de4012-1bbb-4202-8468-df620679ad6d.jpg

I believe in u shakey. With a firmness that rivals adamantium.

shakey, if you are a person who can cry it might help you to get some privacy and cry your eyes out. be as self-pitying and furious and afraid as you like, it won't affect anyone else and you'll get rid of some physical and emotional tension. it can be very cathartic. a lot of the horribleness of health problems etc. comes from fighting them, not wanting to accept them, and i think crying can help lead to the surrender that hopefully leads to a bit of peace. i had debilitating chronic fatigue syndrome for several years in my early 20s and when i finally stopped spending all day resisting it things improved, even though i was still physically ill. i am really sorry you're going through this.

estela otm

At the very least, several good long screams into a pillow would be something different to listen to. Continued best wishes/good luck, Shakey.

time for some daily affirmations

I am going to make it through another day with this

HELL YEAH YOU ARE

https://vondoviak.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/roadwarrior.jpg

took 2 trazadone and half an ambien to go to sleep last night. woke up at like 3:30 - took another half an ambien but it didn't seem to do anything so I just lay there sort of half-asleep until finally dozing off again around 5:00. I understand why the psych nurse has been telling me to cut down the ambien, but this high a dose of trazadone seems to be giving me some weird side effects, maybe I should cut back on that too argh

what kind of side effects are u having

still a bit jittery, albeit not as bad as before. but also since I've started taking two a night I've noticed my vision is sort of weird - not blurry exactly, but more sensitive to light

I guess on the upside they're not as *bad* as before, but still. hopefully you'll eventually get to a new kind of normal once you find the right mix of drugs

for a little bit last night while I was in bed I was not aware of the tinnitus, it had merged with the cricket sounds of the noise machine I had and I could let my mind wander about various things, which seemed good even if I wasn't sleeping. and when I was asleep I had dreams, which has not been the case for awhile. so that seems like a positive.

that's progress!

so here's a weird thing that happened last night. I was going down the stairs and I noticed that when I put weight down on the balls of my feet and cocked my head to the right, I heard this weird balloon-rubbing sort of sound in my left ear (the one with the tinnitus). It didn't change the tinnitus, but it did it with every step I took. It felt like some weird circulation/pressure thing trying to work itself out. So then I went up and down the stairs a bunch of times, hopped around in the kitchen etc for like 10 minutes.

wtf body

also fuck you tinnitus

today has been Merle Haggard pretty much all day

merle's good company

that's kinda weird what you said about that pressure feeling in yr ear. no idea what it means though, lol

~it is a mystery~

once i had this crackling in my ear for like a week, every time i moved my head or swallowed. i had an appointment with an audiologist anyway (for ear plugs) and it turns out i had a hair stuck right against my ear drum, so it was acting like a piece of paper against a speaker. she went in with her little camera and tweezers and i was all good.

wow

when I put weight down on the balls of my feet and cocked my head to the right, I heard this weird balloon-rubbing sort of sound in my left ear (the one with the tinnitus). It didn't change the tinnitus, but it did it with every step I took. It felt like some weird circulation/pressure thing trying to work itself out.

That definitely sounds like something physical going on maybe in the eustachean tubes. Almost like whenm you get water in the ears after swimming! I assume all that's been investigated already though? (like in-ear obstructions and etc?)

I know what you mean by it tho - i often get odd noises of all kinds in my head from pressure changes/pops/head tilts/jaw cracks. I guess Ive got used to having a noisy head! :|

Like for eg if I tip myself upside down (say if I did a handstand or bent over) my head FILLS with a high pressure swooshing, noisy blood-moving-round noise.

yeah ENT's checked me out twice, as has an audiologist and they've said my ears are fine - no fluid, blockages, infections, etc. (I am still waiting to get an MRI)

I do have a history of weird sinus things and the physical aspect of this has really mystified me. like if it was just my brain/hearing problems, why does my ear physically feel different? who knows

fwiw I noticed a very subtle similar creaking/balloon-rubbing sort of sound several times in my left ear that corresponded to my walking gait a couple months prior to this happening

maybe it's not related, I dunno

u shd start documenting them and give yr notes to the doctor for yr next appointment, in case there's any pattern

there are sinuses they can only see on MRI so maybe something is going on in one of them. would be sort of unlikely but this whole thing has been so strange

when I told the ENT about feeling like my left ear's pressure was off/unbalanced he was pretty much just "eh, we don't really understand how these nerves work exactly, could be psychosomatic" etc.

God I hate specialists. They can be so dismissive. Mine was dreadful, he told me off for mispronouncing "tinnitus", he was brusque and spoke way too fast and acted like it was NBD to go over complicated surgery discussions. He might do it every day but I bloody dont! Waste of $300 if you ask me. (tho having a fibreoptic camera run up my nose and down my throat and seeing it in full colour on TV was awesome).

he was sympathetic to my sufferin, but I think he was dismissive of anything he couldn't actually see

but yeah I feel you

I'm gonna be better one day goddammit

I got your back dude. It'll happen.

had a weird night's sleep - only took one trazadone and half an ambien (the smallest amt of drugs I've taken to sleep in maybe a month). I know I slept cuz I had dreams but seemed like I was waking up every hour or two

Waylon Jennings today. stuff with a background of clean acoustic guitar strumming seems good lately.

i approve of yr tinnitus playlist so far

I listened to Dolly's two recent bluegrass albums a shit-ton this week. more stuff that sounds like that needed, I guess

another day with this bullshit

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/03/living-with-a-sound-you-can%E2%80%99t-turn-off/

yeah I saw that. Kaiser not really offering me anything like that, unfortunately altho were I Dutch I would be seeking that guy's team out...

I feel at least psychologically I'm coping a little better. sleep is fitful but I feel like I'm on a semi-regular routine and def much better off the zoloft. yesterday I went to a craft fair with my mom and the wife and daughter and being in in a crowded space like that with a lot of low-level background noise was helpful for distracting me from the tinnitus ... unfortunately the stress of the tinnitus has resulted in me having random shoulder pain and sinus headaches so there was still that to contend with. I am, uh, getting a lot of backrubs at least.

I was thinking about how I require constant activity/distractions now and was like, well, nothing more distracting/requiring constant attention than a baby right lol

also so yeah bluegrass and country seem to be where it's at for me sonically. shiny, well-recorded stuff (not that I don't appreciate Hank Williams or the Carter Family or a bunch of pre-1950s recordings but they contain a sonic harshness/flatness that I can't really handle right now). If anyone (Aimless?) can recommend more records that sound like Flatt & Scruggs Sing Songs of the Famous Carter Family or the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's Will the Circle Be Unbroken I would much appreciate it thx

New Grass Revival?