After that marathon I felt so good! I thought I was on top of the world! I had conquered my demons and I could move forward with anything. I'm sure glad I recorded all those feelings while I was still on the "high" of conquering those 26.2 miles because less than 3 weeks after finishing those miles my life took a drastic change because that's what life and mental illness do.
June 6th my mom was leaving the country for a couple of weeks. I took a nice, short, wonderful run to pick up her car for her but something didn't seem quite right. I got home and within a couple of hours I was throwing up and in tons of pain. I assumed it was a kidney stone so I drove myself to the hospital. Nine hours later when they got the throwing up a little more under control they sent me home. This was the first of three ER visits in six days and the start of a very, very miserable summer full of tests, pain and nausea. Not to mention Doug was working in Wyoming. Finally it was decided that it was once again my sphincter of Oddi and I needed to go back to Indiana. Through the summer there was some depression and anxiety but mostly I was sick and sleepy and felt so alone. At the first of September after having the surgery and getting off the pain medicine I'd been on for months I was excited to get back into life! I think I thought I would pick up where I left off in May. It didn't work out quite that way. My physical health didn't come back as quickly as before and actually still isn't back. And my mental health took a major CRASH!
Through September I went to counseling and took my anti depressants. I wasn't sleeping and sleeping for me is a MAJOR trigger for my depression to rear its ugly head. Things were not pretty. I was retreating more and more. I didn't have the energy to reach out and ask for help and I definitely didn't have the energy to help myself. I continued to go to counseling and I know that Dr F was concerned about me. He basically warned me that going to the hospital was an option that was getting more and more real. Dr F's biggest concern was that I could stay safe.
One day I finally reached the end. I got up and got my kids off to school and climbed back into bed. I didn't get out of bed again until I had to go to the bathroom. Then when I got out of bed I made it as far as my closet and spent the next 4-5 hours lying on the floor until Doug got home. I know Doug was terrified seeing me there but in reality this day was much better than the next day would prove to be, I had no energy to do anything, I was safe.
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