Today's thoughts on panic attacks and working

So I had to quit work now because I've been starting to get panic attacks again at completely random times with no noticeable trigger (at least none that I can notice) and thus can't call random people selling them stuff and suddenly start hyperventilating and crying. No, that won't do it.

Also I seem to be addicted to benzos, which isn't a big surprise seeing as I have a huge tolerance for them and need a lot to stop my panic attacks. I need a lot less if  I can take a tablet profylactic but that's again not the best of ideas just constantly taking them since I do feel anxious all the time again, like seriously right now too. I can write and I can think, but I shiver and speaking isn't very easy and my breathing is always a bit whacky. I go from really slow to really fast and then I get scared that I have another panic attack, which might be a cause for a panic attack later.

I hate hospitals too btw. Like you didn't know that already, I hate them with all my heart. First you have to wait 7 hours in the emergence to know anything and at that point I've already gotten at least three panic attacks (that's my number one trigger: hospitals), and if I'm alone with the car they won't treat me because you're not allowed to drive while under benzos. I am laughing my fucking ass off, I drive with benzos all the time, it's the only way I can live my life without being stuck at home: panic disorder + need for tranquilisers = never use a car, just doesn't do it in the country side. You can't not drive a car, it's a must here, otherwise you won't people to go even just grocery shopping. So two fingers up to the *uckers at Meilahti. Besides driving while having a panic attack is a hell of a lot worse than driving while on benzos, I was freaking out the entire drive home.

Not to mention that bitch of a nurse in Porvoo hospital who gave me a bill to pay while I was panicking before they even thought of giving me diazepam. I mean seriously greedy bloody bastards and this is the public sector.
Slowly I'm wishing I had money to go private. But for me it's a matter of principle, if there's public health care - you use it. But that's my socialist attitudes running through my veins...

So today in about an hour I'll be picking up my dad at the airport, so finally won't be alone again. I have to say, I prefer sleeping in a house with someone else in it as well. Although Billie helps a lot, she even slept with me on the bed a few times that cutie. And I did have a sleepover guest twice during the weekend cause I had such a crappy weekend otherwise. It was lovely and he's really sweet.

Piercing update: septum now at 2 mm and going to probably go to 3 or 4 mm.
Health update: addicted to benzos
Private update: still single and still fat

Transplant and living with one

I don't think I've written about this thus far, and this is going to be relatively short. I assume some of you have questions regarding the situation but are possible to afraid to ask (don't worry, I'm find with talking about it). When I was 10 I was diagnosed with dilating cardiomyopathy, which basically meant that my heart grew bigger and bigger untill it was the size of my chest cavity and didn't pump enough blood through my body. Heart meds helped a bit and I was on them for about nine months before I crashed.
At that point I was put on the transplant list and viola, after five hours I got my new heart. It took some used to, it hurt like hell after the operation and getting back on my feet was quite a task since I hadn't been allowed to really move myself in the previous year, but all in all the operation and everything went really well and I haven't had any rejection. Which is super.

However, as it comes to restrictions. Many have asked me if I can do the exact same things as other people and without a few exceptions my answer is always yes. I have a healthy good heart now, so I can move about and exercise as much as I please (should do more than I please but nvm that now).

- I have to eat medication every morning and every evening to prevent rejection
- I have to eat other medication as well to prevent side-effects from my antirejection meds
- I cannot eat raw meat due to the danger of toxoplasmosis
- I cannot travel to countries that require a yellow fever vaccine since the vaccine is a live one and I'm not allowed to get live vaccins since I probably would get the disease from them

That's it. That's all my restrictions. Does it sound bad? For me, not really. I can easily live without eating raw meat and most of the places in the world I want to visit don't even have yellow fever so that's all settled.
The only real annoyance is that I always have to know what time it is and when I have to take my meds, 'cause I can't miss a dose. So extempore travel is out of the question. Thankfully I'm not really an extempore person anyways, so it's not too bothersome, but it does take away from my freedom. However, I am still alive and that's all that matters!

How do I prepare myself for a photoshoot?

I've gotten used to packing things in advance, mostly from travelling, and I've also learned to pack things really tightly. These days, now that I've gotten into the whole modelling thing (not professionaly, no), I've started using my mum's old medical bag for all my stuff: make up, clothing, shoes, everything.

What I do at home before I leave for a photoshoot, is make sure I have my basic make up on, which for me is just eyes, because I don't really need foundation and it's easy to apply right before the shoot, and lipstick isn't necessary for some shoots, so I prefer to ask the photographer on their opinion once I see them.

I don't own a car or really drive one either, though I have a driver's licence, so I use public transport really often. Today I am going on a shoot in Kaunianen which is on the other side of Helsinki from my perspective, so I'm going take two different trains to get there. It's important I dress warmly and have enough time for any trains being late and so forth, so I leave relatively early. I'm usually way too early for stuff anyways, so that's a bit of a bad habit...

From Tumblr

If you have any questions regarding the whole modelling thing and photoshoots, do ask, I'd love to answer if I can! I'd love any questions too, they would make my day <3

Slightly more extensive room tour!

Till my head is filled with them

During the following month I'll be seeing doctor's till my head is filled with them. I don't know really how I'm going to survive it all, since I have to write those essays as well and clean out my flat in Tampere at the same time. Half of the doctor's visits aren't even mine, they're my dad's, and I'm really nervous for him, because I'm so afraid they'll give him bad news and worse news. I hate this whole situation so much I can't even describe it.

Thankfully my trip to the hospital went better than I hoped, and now I have enough everything to last me till my shrink's visit. I have sleeping tablets, because I haven't been able to sleep very well in the last few weeks, probably a side effect of some other pill I'm taking - hard to tell which since I take so many and most I can't stop taking. Well actually all of them are pills I really shouldn't stop taking, otherwise it's either death or horrid pain.

I'm feeling less depressed at the moment, I've gotten to go shopping and driving and everything and it's been fantastically frightening but so enlightening. I even drove with Billie at the back, that was fun! She loves being in the car, didn't want to come out anymore!
We should really go on a longer trip with her and my dad. Take her out a bit more since she obviously enjoys it.

I've also been thinking about my relationship issues. I am in a relationship, I can't deny that, I'm not really single and though I really really believe one shouldn't date ones ex, I am doing exactly that. And I think it's right thing to do for me and it feels right and good and I really love him. With all my heart, I know I love him. It's a weird feeling, because we're so temperamental the both of us, that if there's a fight, there's a real  fight and both give up on the whole relationship thing, but he, he's been fighting for me for a year, he's shown me such commitment that I have no reason to doubt that he wants to be with me more than anything else.
It's also easy, since he's amazingly smart, has a good sense of humour, reads a lot, writes and his mum is awesome!

But now I should really get on with that essay writing, because  otherwise I've lost a whole day again to other things.

from Tumblr

after all this time i still don't know how to end it

Heart Transplants and Heart Tattoos

So I've probably never told you, or more like, I know I've never told you, that I'm a transplant patient.
When I was 11 years old I was diagnosed with severe dialated cardiomyopathy which basically meant that my heart had grown to almost the size of my ribcage and didn't pump blood very well anymore.
I didn't have any pains, just a lot of arhythmia and I felt sick all the time (wanted to throw up constantly).

For the first few months I was in the children's hospital in Helsinki in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) and then the heart ward and got heart medication from the start. I was put on the transplant list, but I was taken off of it, when I started to show signs of recovery. I was sent home with a large amount of medicine to take and I felt slowly better again. I wasn't allowed to participate in gym or anything of the sort, I wasn't even allowed to go to school with the bus, I had to take a taxi so I wouldn't strain myself and my heart.

However, in March 2002 my condition crashed. I got such a huge amount of arhythmia that day (maybe the 22nd, can't remember) that I mentioned it to my dad and off we went to the hospital. There they told me that my condition had gone down to where we started at 9 months earlier. So I was put on the transplant list again, as an urgent case. I dont' remember how long I waited, but it wasn't days or months, it was only a few hours and off I went into surgery. My parents were sent home and there they said they just walked around the dining room table waiting for the phone call to tell them I'm alright and have a new working heart now.

Of course, it's never quite that simple. They did get that phone call, I was alright, I was happy, in terrible pains and in a huge opiate cloud, but happy to be alive and happy to know that from now on I can live a normal life again.

Again, not quite that simple. Every day I have to take a large amount of medication to keep me alive. Some of them, only a small portion, is for antirejection (rejection is when my white blood cells attack my heart because it's not a perfect cellular match to my own cells and see it as a foreign object). The rest are for a number of other things: blood thinners so I don't get blood clots, blood pressure medicine, because the antirejection meds cause high blood pressure, and colesterol meds because again, the rejection meds can cause high colesterol levels.

Actually, I've been quite fine using these meds for the past 11½ years now, but hospitals and me don't get along anymore. Now I have anti-depressants for both depression and anxiety problems, anti-anxiety meds and as a backup, sedatives, because I've had such awful experiences in hospitals, and after so long of taking blood samples, my veins are non existent. I have had some wonderful times in hospitals as well - kind people treating me and giving me the feeling that they know what they're doing and really want to help me, so as a rule, I'm not complaining, but even the idea of having to go some strange ward in a strange hospital makes me cry. I am crying as I'm writing this.

I have had a small small tiny little rejection twice. Once right after the operation, which was ordinary, since they had to see what doses of meds to give me, and then after six years from the operation, and then they switched Sandimmun to Prograf. That made me very happy, because I hated Sandimmun with all my heart. It smelled dreadful and tasted even worse, and it caused both hair growth (everywhere) and enlarged gums. So I basically had no visible teeth and a nice big moustache. Never had a unibrow, but my eyebrows still go all the way to my hairline on the sides! Also I still do have a moustache. Jees I'm more hairy than most Finnish men! Thank goodness for razors.

Another medicine that gave me a lot of issues and a lot of self-confidence problems was cortison. I was a real example case of the worst possible visible side effects - I grew to a balloon in about a month without eating almost anything because I still felt sick after the operation. It was all water that was being stored in my body. That's the reason I have so many stretch marks all over my body. I was a huge hairy balloon from sixth grade all through to ninth grade when I sort of levelled to normal and then got a short lasting eating disorder. I was never skinny, I never lasted that long, but I did go from L to S in a short time period.

My transplant has given me a lot to think about over the years, and though I am and will always be so grateful that I am alive today, and that someone out there was kind enough to be donour before they died, and saved my life, I have gotten a lot of trouble from this as well. When I caught mono in winter 2009, I never would have thought that that virus (EBV: Epstein Barr Virus) would cause me a cancer. Last spring, in March actually, I was diagnosed with PTLD - post transplatic lymphoproliferative disease - which meant that I had B-cell lymphoma. Cancer in my lymph nodes.

Thankfully, the treatment I got was less harmfull for me than what chemo would've been, so I was lucky in that sense, but it's not yet sure if the cancer is all gone. Right now I am plagued with pain in my jawline which is caused by an enlarged lymph node (over a centimetre large!) and the results from my previous enteroscopy still showed signs of possible lymphoma so now I got a new enteroscopy and will hear about the results hopefully next week.

Maybe now it is sort of clear what has happened in my life and why I am on anti-depressants, which I should have been on for years already. I just refused to believe I was depressed, though I thought about suicide more than once. More than a hundred times I suppose. I knew I could never do it, because of my dad, I couldn't leave him lonely, with a dead wife and a dead daughter, and two very difficult dogs.

I am a survivor. So is my dad. So was my mother as well after her first cancer. We're all survivors and I will do whatever it takes to stay on this planet. In this world. But it's not always easy, it's not always simple, and most of the time, it's really painful. 

Hopefully this clears up somethings that I'm sure some of you at least have wondered about if you have read my introduction, or know me in real life.

Day XV: Food and Medicine....not

Today I'm not even going to try to count my calories. I was so hungry after the procedure that I just ate everything I could get my hands one, especially sweets, so I'm guessing my calorie count could've gone up to almost 2000 for today. Way way too much seeing as I don't move a lot.
But, it's a special day and tomorrow will be different. Really, I promise.

Also I got so many meds during the procedure (light anethesia) so I have no idea what or how much (they said that I needed more than most people) they pumped sedatives und sleeping solutions in me. So I won't do a medicine diary for today either.

I am going to stop doing a medicine diary from now on, and will only tell if I've needed something extra. My regulars now consist of all the old ones and Neurontin 600 mg three times a day, Cipralex 20 mg once a day and Zyprexa  5 mg once a day. But everything else I will tell you guys.

My exercise diary will change quite a bit I hope, since I am supposed to be more active at home. Less to do you see and lots to clean! We're getting guests for the 6th of December, for the National Day, so I can't wait! I need to clean all of house beforehand, and we need to go shopping for food with my dad.

So good night everyone and see you tomorrow in new circumstances and with new tricks up my sleeve!

Day XV: Getting out of hospital

Well, not quite yet, I still have to wait till Saturday, but still. I'm really looking forward to it. I'm nervous about it too, because of the random pain spikes I get every now and again, and  the fact that I tend to get a panic attack because of them, but all that might change once I'm home - safe. I feel so safe at home that it's the only place where I usually feel completely relaxed.
I'm not really an anxious person, or well, in certain cases yes, but usually I'm really laidback and all this hospital business has removed all that from me.

I'm really really happy to get home again.

But first I have a day of only eating clear liquids and tomorrow and enteroscopy. They look through my intire intestinal tract. All of my bowls. Yay, sounds like fun doesn't it? Nah, I'm not too concerned, it's under anesthesia so I don't feel a thing, but do need to be slightly sedated beforehand, because I might just get a panic attack when they try to find a vein for the IV...

Oh, and the mouse on my laptop broke, and I turned off the touch pad ages ago, cause I hated it, and I find it way too arduous to try and get it on without a mouse so now my dad is going to bring me a mouse to hospital in the evening, so I can continue writing my essays. I still haven't finished the second one... And I need five essays now. Jeez Louise.

Today I'll get guests again, more than my dad that is, he is here every evening if he just can - we're really close. I've always been a daddy's girl, and I'm really lucky to have a dad that really cares about me and supports me in my decisions through my life, even though I'm already technically an adult. Plus I think he'd be really bored if he didn't have a chatterbox like me around!

Day XIV: Food and Medicine

Food diary

Breakfast: 2 slices of thin ham 12 kcal
                ½ berry yoghurt 60 kcal
Lunch: ½ cup of lamb soup 100 kcal
           1 cup berry crumble with vanilla quark 300 kcal
Dinner: 1 cup of potato-cauliflower-turkey-gratine 350 kcal
Snacks: 2 pieces of chocolate 60 kcal
              1 small hot chocolate 200 kcal
Alltogether: 1082 kcal

Medicine diary

Regulars+
5 mg Oxycontin x2
5 mg Cipralex x1
x mg Neurontin x3
14 g Colonsoft x2
5 mg Zyprexa x1
2 mg Oxynorm x2
x mg Diapam x2 


Exercise

Short walk to the cafeteria
80 crunches
20 squats and 10 minute sitting against a wall, whatever it's called
10 lunges on each leg
30 pushups
And one hour long panic attack

Day XIV: Depression can really hit you

I never thought I'd be on anti-depressants. I never even thought I was ever depressed, although to be honest, even now I'm not getting anti-depressants because of depression. I'm getting them for anxiety. I have anxiety issues, getting the panic attacks and not being able to end them. The anti-depressants are there to help me not to get that many panic attacks and keep them lighter, so I'd be able to maybe stop them. I'm also getting sedatives in the evening, so I won't wake up in the middle of the night knowing I'm in hospital and getting an immediate panic attack.

Which is what has happened a few times, I can tell you, my goodness. It's quite clear that my issue is nowhere near as bad as some people's, I'm not that depressed, not that anxious, but it's all subjective. For me, this is really difficult, because I'm used to just going through my life, which hasn't been an easy one, and just letting it flow. I've gone with the flow, if I can use a cliche here. But it's clearly taken it's toll, now I want to have these meds. Now I want to see a shrink. Yes, still going to call them shrinks.

I'm sort of afraid that when I get home now, that all this will continue. That I'll still get panic attacks, like I did in the summer. I don't want to, they're horrible and they make me really afraid of what will happen if I just keep having them. Because I've been in a panic attack for almost eight hours at the worst, and it's really really horrible hyperventilating for eight straight hours. Those were in hospitals though, thankfully, at home they never lasted that long, I got to take enough meds to keep me calm enough, but not anymore.

I don't really know what medication and in what doses I'm going to get home. I know I'm getting Cipralex, the anti-depressant, and Zyprexa, the sedative, but in what doses and what times and whatwhowherewhathow? Also I'm getting Neurontin in some doses to take at home, but I don't know yet about that either. It's too early to tell. I also don't know what kind of a shrink I'll see after this and that scares the living shit out of me, because I hate shrinks. I hate the look I usually get, that really condescending look, that makes you want to just yell you're better than they are and storm out. I've been lucky here in hospital, the shrink and the nurse are both lovely, just wonderful people, and I feel comfortable talking to them. I hope I'll get someone like that afterwards too. Someone I can talk to. Otherwise I'll have to ask for another, and there may be no other and what will I do then?
Scared I am, as Yoda might put it. Anxious. I'll get on Saturday if all goes well. Completely discharged. It's a fantastic thing, I've been in hospitals for three weeks now, it's getting really tiresome. I miss home. I really relaly want to go home. But at the same time - scared. Because of what if I get pains, what if I get panics, I don't know what to do.

I hope I will find out. And I will have my dad there all the time, so that will help me a lot. It will really keep me going more than this sitting around alone for most of the day in a room trying to write essays for teachers.