Alert level raised to Hard Yellow.
So I just got back from Doctor Chao’s office and the results are a little grim.
Turns out it really IS a matter of low blood pressure. As in, my blood pressure drops thirty points when I stand up.
That’s a lot.
Doc Chao’s theory is that it’s the Jardiance doing it, so I am off that for now. I am not entirely convinced. That would fit with my previous theory, but my gut says there’s more.
But I will stop the Jardiance and see what happens over the weekend. Hopefully that will do the trick.
Because right now, I am kind of scared to stand up.
Just the amount of standing I had to do to get from the cab to the apartment damn near killed me. It took a serious act of will to force myself to grab some food and Diet Coke on the way from the apartment door to sitting down in front of this here computer.
But I knew I had to do it because I have been undereating lately and that’s pretty bad. Low blood pressure is bad enough without adding low blood sugar.
The fight against low appetite continues. Making myself eat when I have low or no appetite is frustratingly like trying to feed a recalcitrant toddler.
No matter how determined and focused the grownup part of me is to get that food into me for my own good, my inner child finds ways to shy away at the last second.
Really makes me wish I could take meals in pill form like on the Jetsons.
I suppose I could get me some of those meal replacement shakes. I’ve never liked the idea of them – they seem like too pat a solution and I feel like there must be some shaky assumptions made in their design.
But it sure beats hypoglycemia and/or malnutrition.
There might even be situations where even “naughty” foods served a purpose. But only mildly naughty things, like say plain ice cream (no sauces or whatever) or a muffin.
Too naughty and it makes me physically ill. Like the worst Halloween night sugar sickness ever times ten.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch. I am worried about myself. Knowing something like that blood pressure drop is going on is pretty frightening.
That’s not just some nebulous thing like high blood sugar that I know is very bad but that doesn’t really hurt or have obvious immediate effects.
This is low blood pressure, which feels like it’s killing you because it is. Cells in the body are not getting enough oxygen because they aren’t getting enough bloodflow to keep up with the demand.
So I will be taking it REAL easy for now. Don’t want to end up passing out and braining myself on something jagged.
At this point, I’m close to needing to be carried around on a litter.
I swear, that wheelchair is coming to get me. And if it does, a fuckton of things are going to have to change about my life.
Because there is no way a wheelchair could make it through this hoarder’s hole of an apartment. I would have to live somewher else.
More after the break.
My life as a powder
So according to my research, the main problem might well be dehydration.
Jardiance lowers your blood sugar by dumping the glucose into your urine. Your body has to make lots of urine in order to keep up with this newfound demand. And so on.
Just realized I explained that before. Sorry.
So dehydration makes a lot of sense. I already knew it was one of the common side effects of Jardiance. I just hadn’t totally connected it to low blood pressure yet.
Seems obvious in retrospect. But so do a lot of things.
I am also a victim of my own arrogance because I just assumed that, as someone who already drinks and pees a lot, I surely didn’t need to start drinking MORE water just because I started Jardiance.
Was that even possible?
Well it had better be. Because clearly I ain’t been keeping up.
Time to reconstitute myself.
It doesn’t matter whether there’s a way out of this forest or not.
Because I’m going to keep looking either way.
What else is there to do? I don’t know how to do anything else. Stopping is not a possibility. Or if it is, it sounds far worse than death.
So I will wander, search, and discover.
And find the exit when I no longer need the forest.
I continue to have periods of fairly intense depression. Often in the afternoon.
Every year, I manage to forget that once the weather warms up, afternoons become difficult for me. They are the nadir of my diurnal mood cycle and every single one of them is going to try my soul until it’s winter again.
Ain’t that just ducky.
The heat is presumably the primary factor, but not the only one. Because it’s so much more than mere heatstroke.
I think that due to my vampire sleeping habits,. the afternoon is actually my “middle of the night” and so the middle of the afternoon is actually my “dark hours of the soul” where all my faculties are at their absolutely lowest, my defenses are down, and my spirit lies naked and exposed to the harsh light of the world.
That might actually be useful. A good time to try and get some serious emotional work done. Our defenses are often our worst enemy.
And now that I have consciously recognized this pattern, I can at least brace myself for the daily deluge of depression. Maybe even lessen its effect via hydration and rest.
Stranger things have happened.
Meanwhile, my body falls apart and the day when I am a pathetic twitching gimptard who had so much potential but threw it all away grows near.
Where’s my mentor, damn it?
Oh right, nobody can help me because I’m smarter than everyone else and nobody can actually handle my problems.
Can’t imagine how I managed to forget that.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.