Home.

Stosh released me late this afternoon. THANK GOD. Because I was having the world's worst anxiety attack at the thought of spending the night in the hospital on the night my father died in THAT hospital. Bad vibes all over the place. He was comfortable with me going home--my fever broke finally, he finished all his tests, the exception being the SCARY SPINAL TAP the neurologist needs to do next week.

Having 3 places in my brain where there's no blood flow certainly explains the blackouts/passouts/double vision/depth perception issues/wanting to nod off constantly, etc. I can't be trusted to drive a car, so I'm a no-drive mandate until further notice. Which sucks, because losing my independence really royally blows. I feel like I'm 85 years old and I'm not even 40.

I thoroughly fought staying in the hospital one more minute this afternoon. "STOSH!" I called out the door when I saw my doctor walking down the hall. "GET IN HERE!" I told him. He had the glucose tolerance test completed, the neurologist ran his 50 blood tests, and I was ready to bolt. I went so far as to take out my own IV (which I don't recommend, wow, blood everywhere) and removed my heart monitor out of haste. He agreed that I was stable enough to go home and wrote the discharge orders.

My days of taking Norco for pain are over. It helped serve a legitimate purpose for a great, long time, but I became physically dependent on it, which is only natural given the nature of a narcotic. There's a delineation between addicted and physically dependent on a drug, and Stosh knew that. He knew this would happen and promised me he wouldn't leave me high and dry, and while tapering me off the drug would've been safer and certainly more comfortable, we went cold ass turkey. That's part of why I was such a physical wreck the last few days, shaky, nauseated, cold, all the signature withdrawal symptoms. It was helped a little by some infrequent Lorazepam, but I'm much better now that I'm home and can regulate my medications on my own. They didn't give me my anti-psychotic this morning because I was fasting, which threw me into a psychotic tail spin as well. It was just a BAD DAY in general. I feel good being clean again and I'm not getting fucked into dealing with narcotics again, though I don't know what's going to happen when I have my hysterectomy. We'll cross that bridge when we hit it in May, I suppose. I managed the pain from my c-section just on ibuprofen, so we'll see how I do when I have the surgery.

I made the very difficult but necessary decision today to drop my Abnormal Psych class for the semester. I can't rely on Ma to drive me out for a 3 hour class at night, and the class is uber-demanding, and if I have shit going on with my brain, I'd prefer my brain to be fully functional at the time, because I want to excel at school. It breaks my heart to miss this semester of school, but I have to get my health back on track. Whether I have MS or vasculitis, no one knows yet. That's what the spinal tap is for. And we'll deal with that when it happens. I might opt to have the hysterectomy sooner than May 14th since I now have a plethora of free time, though it's not a good time for Craig to have Luke as he is looking for apartments with his girlfriend for her, Craig and Luke.

I'm getting Luke for half the weekend this weekend (Sat and Sun) and it feels like I haven't spent any time with him in like 2 weeks with all the hospitalization and the bathroom remodeling (which still isn't done, Jesus). I just want to see my little boy and reassure him that I'm ok and I will be ok. Like I said before, he doesn't like to show his fear when I'm sick, but he had to be freaking out. And thank GOD he wasn't home when the paramedics came and I was unresponsive. And thank God Ma was home to call the paramedics, or God knows what would've happened to me.

I thank all of you for your continued good thoughts and prayers. I thank Pastor Dave for his visits, for Kate calming me down and sending me roses which are beautiful and being the best friend I could ask for. I thank my mom for helping me out and keeping it all together given the circumstances. I thank TOC for making me laugh yesterday. Thanks to Christa for her wisdom and honesty and for not abandoning me when she found out I was dependent on the pills. I could honestly care less if my blog stalker reads all these things that are wrong with me. If nothing else, it'll help explain that I wasn't in a drug-induced fog the last several months--for I was found with no narcotics in my system...I have a brain condition. So there!

I'll still have 4 years clean of alcohol on Feb. 21st, and I'm going out to celebrate that. Nothing and no one can take that away from me. I worked fucking hard to accomplish that though the road's been bumpier than I'd have liked it to be, but I'm human and prone to making mistakes.

Ok, it's rounding closer ever to 9:30, when we received the phone call that my dad had his massive heart attack and died from DT's in alcohol rehab. Glad to be home with Ma but feeling melancholy and weepy all of a sudden. I promised my son years ago that I'd never leave him like Grandpa did and I will hold true to that promise. If my fucking brain cooperates......

Peace, love and the serenity prayer to all of you.