Exhaustatwitchymerf
I’m alive, I swear. Sort of. Somewhere.
It was half-term this past week, and my eldest once again ended up sick for the entire duration of a holiday period. Earlier in the year, that meant two weeks of chickenpox (conveniently infecting the littler one as well) — this time it was one of the grossest mouth ulcers I’ve ever seen… and I’ve had looooooots of ulcers myself. So it was a week of wheedling and trying to not be too pushy to get her to take in sufficient nutrients and moisture. She hit this morning with realising that she could talk again, and has eaten something solid, so hooray for that much. It was probably less draining to deal with than her on full steam, but it was still exhausting.
It also doesn’t help that I’m suspecting the Depakote of giving me some not-that-great side effects. I’ve had midday headaches all week in a pretty brutal fashion. I don’t know if I can pin that on the Depakote squarely, but I feel that I can with the weird muscle twitches that I’m having. It’s mainly in my legs and it’s like… wahey, quit trying to jerk outwards kthnx. Honestly, I don’t know if it’s side effect enough to consider asking to switch off of it for something else, but I guess I will ask the doctor when I see her next. My weight has also gone up slightly, but as we’re talking five pounds max, I don’t think anyone is going to worry about that.
Mood-wise, I’m not really sure where I am. I was sitting here last weekend feeling cautiously optimistic about things levelling off when I got slammed by a random jag of depression. This was combined with me flailing to find things to do because I knew on some level that the depression was around, but that I wasn’t doing enough things to distract myself from it. Having sick kids and work and feeling physically crap do a lot to distract me from my brain, so I’m not sure where I am right now either.
…
Hah, so of course, I manage to find allll the things to distract me for an hour. As long as I’m getting by and mainly smiling, right?
<3
Geeeeez, you’ve been hit with a lot and your poor girl – ulcers!!! Yikes!! I’m glad to hear they are getting better. Hope this weekend the depression does not dare show its hideous self to either of us!
Agreed. At least Halloween makes for some amusement, especially with children! 🙂
Glad your daughter is feeling better. Wish you the best in figuring out side effects with your pdoc. I take Depakote, too.
Oh huh, somehow missed this comment. She’s back up to full steam now and is a delightful pain in the backside. As for meds, I’m still relatively new to my diagnosis (coming up on four years?), so I’m never quite sure what is passable side effects and what isn’t. I figure that as long as it’s working and not causing me too much distress, then it’s probably fine. After all, can’t avoid all the side effects!
Glad to hear that your daughter is well and that you are working it out, as we all are.
Those mouth ulcers sound horrible. I think I may have experienced them during my first year of university during a particularly stressful time, but here’s to hoping that was the only time. I take Depakote as well, and I had never linked my muscle twitches to it. Those twitches keep me up. It’s the weirdest sensation. I hope everything levels off for you. In this world I take comfort in knowing other people are staying well.
Hers was right on the tip of her tongue. I’m not sure I’ve ever had one quite like that, though if I did, it was when I had a huge crop of them in 2001. Otherwise I just get one here and there under my tongue. Hopefully if she ever gets another (and now I’m starting to think she might have a genetic predisposition, poor mite) it will be when she’s old enough for us to help her take better care of it and get over it faster.
I’m thinking the twitches have to be coming from Depakote because I definitely didn’t have them before. I occasionally had moments where my hand would forget how to hand and I’d knock things I was reaching for over, which comes from the Seroquel. I’m hoping that the twitches aren’t tardive dyskinesia, though if it is, I might not be too far gone to stop taking Depakote and switch it for something else before it becomes permanent.
I’ve always taken a very stoic approach to life — this too shall pass. It’s helped me survive a lot. 🙂