Happiness for a Healed Knee Leads to Mania

 

In “A Climb Too High—Stairs Cause Mental Stress," I wrote about how miserable I was wearing a sleeve on my right knee to keep it straight because that knee had a fracture in the kneecap. Well, two weeks ago, on June 12, my doctor said I could take it off! I was elated.

I’m still worried about my left knee, because it still hurts from the stress of extra pressure exerted on it while my right knee was sleeved. The left one is the knee whose replacement’s button popped off. But my doctor said we should wait until the end of the summer before considering surgery to see if my knee gets better. We’re going to wait until after September 27, because that’s the day my husband, Tom, and I are going on the annual NAMI Walk (National Alliance on Mental Illness). Tom will be pushing me in my wheelchair because I can’t walk very far, but the Walk is so important to me that I don’t want to take any chances on not being able to go. I fundraise for the walk every year.

My doctor said we could wait to do surgery because, “Why ruin your summer?” But fall is actually my favorite season. I don’t want to ruin my fall! But, if I do need surgery, at least I’ll get September and most likely October before surgery. And that’s if I even need surgery. It is up to me. If my left knee stays at the pain level it’s at now, I’ll opt out of surgery. It’s all down to my mental health. I personally feel that, mentally, I can handle some minor pain better than I can handle surgery. I waited two years to get my knee replacement surgery. I want to wait to get surgery on my left knee, especially because the pain I’m experiencing now is nothing compared to the pain that led to my knee replacement surgery.

Besides, Tom and I are going to the Renaissance Faire this summer, which I’m looking forward to. I’m going to bring my walker. Tom says I have to get jewelry at the Faire this year, because he knows me, and he knows that‘s part of the fun.  Well, what wife would pass up that offer? I’ve even been searching online for jewelry vendors that sell at the Renaissance Faire. And I won’t have a sleeve to bother about. I was so happy to have that sleeve off my leg, I got hypomanic. So, not full-on mania, but I was doing things like obsessing over jewelry at the Renaissance Faire, and Tom noticed. I thought I was just in a good mood… but that’s the trick hypomania plays on you. I was even the one who asked Tom if he thought I was manic. He said, “Maybe a little…” And then he went on to describe my fixating on the jewelry at the Faire. I told him I was starting to think I might be getting hypomanic because of several things. 

Usually, I don’t get the “happy” kind of mania. I fixate and get agitated. I’m glad Tom was there to help me check in on myself. I do tend to get hypomanic in the summer. So maybe it’s good that, if I need surgery, it will be during a season when I’m typically more stable.

Sunday Evening

 

To be strong to be strong to be very very strong to not need to call up your friends in the middle of the night to not call your mom to not wake up your husband or call 988 in the dead dark of night to not have the darkness gripping your skull like a migraine caused by two men in the mall who made the hairs on your arms stand up in fear like the fear you have during panic attacks to not have the fear to not be afraid in the bright light of morning mornings glitter like stars rushing around your eyes when you stand up too fast because you're getting old to not fear growing old to be strong enough not to need anyone anywhere does strength equal lack of fear to not fear being alone gritting your stained teeth yellow as the sunshine reminding you of all you're missing out on

HealthyPlace and Beyond

 

Last August, I got an email that would change my life, and I am still dealing with the impact. HealthyPlace, the company I had blogged for during the last 10 years, let all of us paid bloggers go. I couldn’t believe it. It was the only meaningful work I’d ever done—I considered it my career.  I had no choice but to move on.

My blog—Creative Schizophrenia—didn’t pay much, even though I had gotten raises over the years. So, it didn’t seem like a huge sacrifice to blog on my own, without pay, for my personal blog, The Light in November. I created this site decades ago as a personal blog and morphed it into a place where I would post links to my HealthyPlace articles. Now it has become a sort of Creative Schizophrenia, Part Two. And you're reading it right now!

Part of my job at Creative Schizophrenia was to post videos on YouTube. I think I was pretty good at it, but I never liked doing it. So, I don’t make videos anymore.

Now I can do whatever I want. I enjoy using my own photos with the articles. But I often ask myself, is doing whatever I want good? I feel that my blog has gone from mental health advocacy to more self-expression about my mental illnesses, which are schizoaffective disorder and general anxiety disorder. Does that help people? Do I want to help people? Yes!

I mainly saw Creative Schizophrenia as artmaking. Of course, I was happy that people were helped by my writing and videos, but it wasn’t the main reason I did it. And now I’m writing poems about my misery in my new blog. Can I call myself a mental health advocate? But self-expression is advocacy, too–a call to people to give more credit to their creativity as part of healing. 

There must be something in me that wants to help people. My husband, Tom, and I raise funds every year for the NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) Walk. And I regularly reach out to my congressional representatives to save Medicaid from the current cuts in the proposed federal budget, when I’m not even on Medicaid.

However, my writing about mental illness has always been for me. It hasn’t even been for money. It’s been for me with the hope of reaching others with insights that resonate for them as well. I actually do think some people get something for themselves out of The Light in November. If that’s you, don’t hesitate to share the links I post on social media, etc.

I know it’s selfish of me to be writing for myself. But that’s the freedom I’ve been given. And it’s a freedom I accept.

A Climb Too High--Stairs Cause Mental Stress

 

I underwent double knee replacement surgery for bone-on-bone arthritis in my knees about two years ago. Most everything was going fine–-I could walk again. I couldn’t run, jump, or sit on a floor (or in a bathtub, my preference for bathing), but I wasn’t in pain. I was starting to let myself breathe a sigh of relief for getting through the surgeries. Then something went terribly wrong.

I was visiting family in California this spring, and my brother’s house had a lot of stairs that I scaled frequently. I wasn’t used to stairs anymore. My husband, Tom, and I had moved from our second-floor apartment to an infinitely nicer first-floor condo. It’s great not having to deal with stairs, but when I do have to confront them, I can’t manage them as I once did.  I was hurting, and doctors determined I had a hairline fracture in my right knee, probably from climbing stairs again.

My knee surgeon prescribed wearing a sleeve over my right knee to keep it straight and allow the fracture to heal on its own. Okay, that stinks, but I’ll deal with it, and, as Tom said, at least it’s not a cast. If only that had been the whole story. But there’s more.

From shifting all my weight to my left knee and favoring it, a button on my left knee replacement popped out. This is very uncommon but doesn’t require repair-–unless it’s painful. And it was very painful, which isn’t always the case. So now, basically, both of my knees are messed up. And, if I continue to feel pain in my left knee, I might need another surgery, not a full knee replacement but still a repair.  

I feel very depressed about this. But my mom really understood what a toll this was taking on my schizoaffective disorder, even before I did, and she explained it to my doctors.

My mom and I took a trip to Door County, and I had thought the hated sleeve would ruin it, but actually the trip made wearing the sleeve more bearable. Also, before the trip, I talked to a priest at our parish because my usual reaction to things going wrong is to think God is punishing me. I trust him and he told me that God loves me and that He wasn’t punishing me, and that I am a talented, lovely person. This always compassionate priest encouraged me to keep using my talents. He knows me really well, and he owns one of my photographs. This is all to say that talking to him helped immensely. I had taken a hiatus from writing with all this going on, but his words inspired me to get back to it.

I told my therapist I’d talked to a priest, and she said it sounded like this was really helpful.

I was given Norco for the pain, but I’m trying to wean myself off of it before my current bottle runs out. I tried going off of it cold turkey, but that gave me a panic attack. I’ve already quit smoking and even light drinking… the last thing I need is another addiction.

I am also grateful for Tom, who has picked up the housework I’ve had to neglect and has proven himself adept at pushing me around in my wheelchair. I am surrounded by people who love me and whom I love. They say God is love. Maybe He (or She) really has been there all along.