When mental health collides with physical health.

It’s been nearly a year since my last blog post. This isn’t because my life has been uneventful. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. In my last post, I laid out all the physical health issues I had been experiencing. Well, it only got worse. Not only that, but I have had episodes to battle. This past year has not been fun.

The problem with my reproductive health became much worse, and there was a cancer scare. The cancer was suspected in my right ovary and my uterus. The whole process, from the discovery of possible cancer to my hysterectomy, started at the beginning of June and lasted until the end of October.

By June, I already had a year of physical health issues. The cancer scare was the second one in twelve months. In June, 2021 a lump was found during a routine mammogram and there I was, faced with the chance of having breast cancer. Several tests later, the lump was classified as a cyst. I still have to have a mammogram and breast ultrasound every six months. My next appointment is in two days.

All of my physical health issues finally led to an anxiety episode. For the prior twelve months of issues, my mind had been clear. It was only a matter of time before the stress caught up to me. The anxiety was so bad, I could barely function. My psychiatrist put me on Zoloft to help ease the anxiety. That turned out to be a mistake.

Shortly after starting Zoloft, I would wake up in the middle of the night not being able to breathe. It would take ten to fifteen minutes of walking around my room before my lungs went back to full capacity. This lack of quality sleep led to me being fatigued all day. In fact, I started sleeping twenty hours a day. After a few months of not breathing while sleeping, I decided to look up Zoloft and sleep apnea. What I found was that Zoloft can cause control sleep apnea but only in people who have had strokes. Yes, my physical health issues where impacting my ability to take psychiatric medication. I quickly went off Zoloft and was put on Effexor. My anxiety started to turn into depression. The Effexor helped a great deal and I started to feel relief. However, the fatigue stayed with me. Not as bad as when I was on Zoloft, but frequent naps happened during the day. I was eventually diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome.

Being on Effexor didn’t stop the schizophrenic episode I had last month. At first the hallucinations were auditory but then quickly turned to visual. My medication was adjusted and a few weeks after the episode started, it ended. It’s been three weeks since my last hallucination and my mind is feeling stable again. I’m still tired most of the time. I have good days, where I only need one nap, and bad days where I need five naps.

All of this has left me with an inability to write and communicate in general. Conversations with friends and family became hard for me. Often, I did not return texts or phone calls. I didn’t have the energy to talk to anyone. I also had writer’s block when it came to my blog. I would just stare at the blank screen, not being able to type a word. I felt like I had nothing to say. Nothing I wanted to share anyway. My New Year’s resolution is to write more. I resolve to write more blog posts, finish my novel, and publish it. After that happens, I will move onto writing my second novel. With all of that in mind, here’s to a healthy 2023, in body, mind, and spirit.