Pills

At 36 I take a lot of pills. I'm going to share them with you along with a brief explanation.

• Phenergan for nausea. I take it for the nausea that accompanies migraine.
• Imitrex. I take for migraine pain. It works about 30% of the time.
• Celexa. This is for depression/anxiety/panic/OCD. It works as long as I practice my cognitive therapy.
• Buspar. Also for anxiety, but I don't know if it really does anything.
• Xanax. A rescue tranquilizer for a breakthrough panic or anxiety attack. Wonder drug.
• Advair inhaler. I don't have asthma, but I have what's known as a reactive airway. Not as dangerous, but still scary and uncomfortable. Now that I take stuff for it, it is better.
• Albuterol. See above re: reactive airway. Rescue inhaler.
• Allegra. Terrible allergies. Molds, grass, trees, pets (can't get rid of my babies so tough shit).
• Flonase. This is a nasal steroid to help with the chronic inflammation in my nose.
• Ambien. Obvious. I used to never have trouble sleeping, but since the panic disorder my brain won't shut off. That's probably attributed more to the OCD. We tend to ruminate.
• Lopressor. Persistent tachycardia and hypertension. Lay mans terms: my heart constantly beats to fast and I have high blood pressure. Problem with the Lopressor is it's a beta blocker and the Albuterol is a beta-agonist. Beta blockers aren't helpful for those with airway issues.
• Cardizem CD: This is a calcium channel blocker for my heart and blood pressure. So I'm actually weaning off the lopressor and will just be on the cardizem.

Notice what's missing? No birth control. That's what got me into this whole cardiac/blood pressure mess to begin with. I used to be a champion for Yaz. It helped with my PCOS and PMDD tremendously! Until it almost sent me to the hospital.

So at a young 36 , I'm on a myriad of meds. I was the youngest person at the cardiologist's office the other day. I really need to get serious regarding some lifestyle changes STAT.

I want to be around a while. I want to be healthy and strong. Right now I'm at a dangerous weight and my stamina is short at best. The problem is I get so impatient and want the changes I make to be reflected immediately.

It's late and believe it or not, the Ambien kicked in.

Kisses.

The Unusual Insomniac

Generally speaking, I have a decent sleep routine. I sleep. It's routine. Nothing complicated about it. Sure I take prescription sleeping pills, but that's more so I don't have to "unwind" before bed or let go of the day's stresses. The pills do that for me.

It's 3:05 am. I was not aware of the time until I rolled over and looked at the clock on my phone. I've been awake since I went to bed at 10:30 pm. Sleeping pills on board. Nothing. Not a nod, or a drift, nor a doze to be had. I tried reading. Still no promise of dreamland.

Now, as irony sees fit, I have a gnawing pain in my tummy which I can attribute to hunger. I ate dinner at 8:00 pm so why the hell am I hungry now?

So what better way to spend my time but on a blog I've ignored for almost a year? I concur. It's a brilliant idea. What follows promises to the the randomness of a woman frustrated that she is still wide awake at 3 am.

R.E.M.'s new CD comes out today. I listened to most of it already courtesy of NPR streaming the entire album. I have to say I've personally not purchased an album by them since "Monster" although in all fairness, John has "Up" "New Adventures in Hi-Fi" and "Accelerate." Everything R.E.M. has ever done has been deliberate. From the pop friendly "Get Up" to the almost U2esque bombastic "Orange Crush." Music snobs seem to forget that this is a live performance band first that based their sets on cover songs. R.E.M. likes to play hard, fast rock music. So much to the point that "Monster" seemed like such a departure when I think it was more of a getting back to their roots and playing loud fast songs. I am psyched to hear "Collapse Into Now" over and over again. It has that same feel but in true R.E.M. form, doesn't follow a recipe. There's some beautiful slow stuff, too for the pseudo-fans that think R.E.M. is all about folk rock. Go out, buy "Murmur." Get on YouTube and watch old footage. Not really a folk rock band, my friend. Just a rock band that likes to change it up right when you think you've got them pegged.

Off my soap box.

I bought a car. It's a 1998 Jeep Cherokee Sport. It was dirt cheap and it runs almost like a kitten. Put it this way, it has 180,000 miles on it, but doesn't sound like it. Some of the locks are jammed and the driver's window doesn't work and the gas gauge is busted and there is a large crack in the windshield. Really, though, I like it a lot and hope to get a good year out of it while we save up for a newer model. I like beater cars. This one is in fair shape. Really clean...hardly any rust and the interior is spotless. Just a couple of nickel and dime repairs and she'll really be worth the money (around $2500 which is less than they were asking. Haggling FTW).

It's now 3:30 am and I've had my chamomile tea and typed my blog. Guess I can check those off for today. Now an attempt at sleep.