0
In Which I'm in Heaven... Finally
Posted by justme
on
6:40 PM
Hey guys,
Sorry for last week's missing post. I was kind of stressed - I'll explain why in the first two parts of this 3-part post. Sorry if it's a little messy, but I needed to get this out.
Part the First: So I get back to school from my trip home a few weeks ago, and start noticing weird bug bites popping up on my legs. I figured it was probably nothing - university is full of creepy crawlies that can be picked up anywhere and everywhere. Still, they're irritating, so I keep an eye on them. It isn't until almost 2 weeks later that I start to suspect bedbugs. I didn't say anything for a few days after that, since I didn't want to alarm my roommate. The Friday before winter break started, though, I discovered a bedbug crawling across my pillow. The little [censored] was filled with my blood, too!
Needless to say, stuff hit the fan pretty quickly. We reported the issue to the front desk of our res, and while things were taken care of very efficiently it was still a lot of work. We were moved into an apartment for the weekend (with our own oven! And bathroom! and TV!) since the exterminator couldn't come til Monday, which meant that we didn't have access to everything that we both needed to pack for our trips home that Tuesday. We were also given $20 and told to wash every. single. washable. thing. we owned - my stuff amounted to about 6 loads. We then had to bag our laundry plus whatever we had left, and prep the room for fumigation. Once this was taken care of, we still had to pull out everything we needed to bring home with us, haul it down to the apartment, and check everything for leftover bugs as we packed. By the end, my roommate and I were both in hysterical laughter/tears. It was that bad.
Part 2: On top of dealing with bedbugs, I also found out that I need to screw around with my medications again. For those of you who don't know, I've suffered from migraines/ice pick headaches (which get their name from the fact that they feel like someone's slamming an ice pick into your head, no exaggeration) since I was 15. Since the diagnosis, I've been through literally every on- and off-label medication my neurologist could think of, meaning that I've dealt with more than my fair share of side effects*. Of these, only two seemed to work. Since one of the two caused "inhibited mental function" (not that you could tell), I started taking indomethacin sometime last year.
On top of that, I started taking citalopram (Celexa) for depression a couple of months ago. Normally this is not recommended, since both it and the indomethacin can mess with the platelets in your blood pretty badly and possibly cause internal bleeding**. The combo seemed to work really well though - my headaches and depression were both under control, and I had almost no side effects after my body adjusted to the new meds. That is, until I started getting weird bruises and nosebleeds. Red flags went up, since both of these can be warning signs that my platelet levels weren't normal. So I went to the doctor's, and he was concerned enough that he decided that I needed to change one drug or the other. Since I couldn't really change the indomethacin, it was decided that I needed to quit Celexa. There was a catch though - if I wanted to change that, I wouldn't be allowed to try most other antidepressants* because they too would screw with my platelets. Of course this all happened on the same Friday that I discovered the bedbugs, which was also four days before vacation started. Meaning that I'm stuck with the same drugs until after I get back to school. It's been more than a little stressful, since I'm basically paranoid that every little spot of blood means that I'm dying. This makes my vacation a little less enjoyable, especially since I've been doing a lot of walking lately and it's given me wicked blisters.
This leads into Part III, aka the Happy Part or The Part that Justifies the Title. See, I've been doing a lot of walking because I've been in Orlando for the past 5 days, and we've been pulling 7-hour trips to Disney and Universal for the past 3. We've done lots of shopping (I'll probably end up bragging about my purchases in my next post), been on a bunch of cool rides and basically been having a blast since we got here. And we're only halfway through the trip! The best part of all is that my grandparents rented 3 condos instead of hotel rooms, so we've had a ton of space to spread out. It's amazing.
Sorry there's almost no connection between the parts, by the way. I'm exhausted from spending the day at Disney so my brain's not working so well. I'll write more later.
Lots of love,
Me
*If you want a more technical explanation, it's that citalopram is classified as an SSRI (Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor), and it's this quality that both helps with depression and messes with platelets. Unfortunately, the vast majority antidepressants are also SSRIs, meaning that if I take them they'll more than likely mess with my platelets as well.
**I HATE SIDE EFFECTS. It's almost like I don't know my own body.
Sorry for last week's missing post. I was kind of stressed - I'll explain why in the first two parts of this 3-part post. Sorry if it's a little messy, but I needed to get this out.
Part the First: So I get back to school from my trip home a few weeks ago, and start noticing weird bug bites popping up on my legs. I figured it was probably nothing - university is full of creepy crawlies that can be picked up anywhere and everywhere. Still, they're irritating, so I keep an eye on them. It isn't until almost 2 weeks later that I start to suspect bedbugs. I didn't say anything for a few days after that, since I didn't want to alarm my roommate. The Friday before winter break started, though, I discovered a bedbug crawling across my pillow. The little [censored] was filled with my blood, too!
Needless to say, stuff hit the fan pretty quickly. We reported the issue to the front desk of our res, and while things were taken care of very efficiently it was still a lot of work. We were moved into an apartment for the weekend (with our own oven! And bathroom! and TV!) since the exterminator couldn't come til Monday, which meant that we didn't have access to everything that we both needed to pack for our trips home that Tuesday. We were also given $20 and told to wash every. single. washable. thing. we owned - my stuff amounted to about 6 loads. We then had to bag our laundry plus whatever we had left, and prep the room for fumigation. Once this was taken care of, we still had to pull out everything we needed to bring home with us, haul it down to the apartment, and check everything for leftover bugs as we packed. By the end, my roommate and I were both in hysterical laughter/tears. It was that bad.
Part 2: On top of dealing with bedbugs, I also found out that I need to screw around with my medications again. For those of you who don't know, I've suffered from migraines/ice pick headaches (which get their name from the fact that they feel like someone's slamming an ice pick into your head, no exaggeration) since I was 15. Since the diagnosis, I've been through literally every on- and off-label medication my neurologist could think of, meaning that I've dealt with more than my fair share of side effects*. Of these, only two seemed to work. Since one of the two caused "inhibited mental function" (not that you could tell), I started taking indomethacin sometime last year.
On top of that, I started taking citalopram (Celexa) for depression a couple of months ago. Normally this is not recommended, since both it and the indomethacin can mess with the platelets in your blood pretty badly and possibly cause internal bleeding**. The combo seemed to work really well though - my headaches and depression were both under control, and I had almost no side effects after my body adjusted to the new meds. That is, until I started getting weird bruises and nosebleeds. Red flags went up, since both of these can be warning signs that my platelet levels weren't normal. So I went to the doctor's, and he was concerned enough that he decided that I needed to change one drug or the other. Since I couldn't really change the indomethacin, it was decided that I needed to quit Celexa. There was a catch though - if I wanted to change that, I wouldn't be allowed to try most other antidepressants* because they too would screw with my platelets. Of course this all happened on the same Friday that I discovered the bedbugs, which was also four days before vacation started. Meaning that I'm stuck with the same drugs until after I get back to school. It's been more than a little stressful, since I'm basically paranoid that every little spot of blood means that I'm dying. This makes my vacation a little less enjoyable, especially since I've been doing a lot of walking lately and it's given me wicked blisters.
This leads into Part III, aka the Happy Part or The Part that Justifies the Title. See, I've been doing a lot of walking because I've been in Orlando for the past 5 days, and we've been pulling 7-hour trips to Disney and Universal for the past 3. We've done lots of shopping (I'll probably end up bragging about my purchases in my next post), been on a bunch of cool rides and basically been having a blast since we got here. And we're only halfway through the trip! The best part of all is that my grandparents rented 3 condos instead of hotel rooms, so we've had a ton of space to spread out. It's amazing.
Sorry there's almost no connection between the parts, by the way. I'm exhausted from spending the day at Disney so my brain's not working so well. I'll write more later.
Lots of love,
Me
*If you want a more technical explanation, it's that citalopram is classified as an SSRI (Selective Seratonin Reuptake Inhibitor), and it's this quality that both helps with depression and messes with platelets. Unfortunately, the vast majority antidepressants are also SSRIs, meaning that if I take them they'll more than likely mess with my platelets as well.
**I HATE SIDE EFFECTS. It's almost like I don't know my own body.
