Time to Heal Part 2

So, my last post ended when I started having RLS on a daily basis. I'll get to where I went from there, but first I want to do my best to describe what RLS feels like. You're getting into bed after a long day. You're sleepy. You curl up under you warm blanket and rest your head gently on the pillow in your favorite sleeping position. You start to drift off to sleep. But before you get to sleep, you feel this tickle in your knee (or where ever RLS occurs for you). It won't go away, you have to move your legs. Now your awake again. Moving helped a bit so you settle back in, but there it goes again, that sensation in your legs, and the only thing that helps is to move them. So you move them. And the rest of the night goes like that. At first I would sleep some, but it was a very light and fitful sleep and I was always exhausted the next day. So after a couple of weeks of this, I went to see my doctor. He prescribed medicine that I was to take about an hour for bed. It worked, I had no more RLS. For the next few years that's all I needed. Until the meds stopped working and that 's when the real nightmare began.

Medicine is great when it works, but in my case the medicine masked the underlying problem that was causing the RLS rather than correcting it. I couldn't tell you what that problem is, although I have my suspicions. The causes of RLS are variable and not well understood. Just before John and I started dating (so over 3 years ago), I found I needed to take my medicine early and early in order to get any affect, and when I told this to my doctor he increased my dosage. I remember one night, John, my parents and I, went to dinner at Z Tejas (I love that place), I had taken my pill before dinner in the hopes that I would be able to get to sleep without RLS, but half way through dinner I started feeling really sick and nearly passed out on the table. I believe John and I ended up leaving, but I don't really remember. My doctor eventually switched my medication but that didn't help.

Over the next 2 years I tried 8 different medications to help the RLS. At best they would have minimal side effects and would work, but the effect would where off after 3 months and I would be back to square one. At worst they would make me horribly sick with side effects. I felt like a zombie, a shell of my former self. I don't really know what the people around me thought about all of this. I'm actually a very happy and enthusiastic person. I really do love life - but I really couldn't be that person. I was in to much pain. Most days, not showing my emotions was a good thing. It mostly took every ounce of energy that I had to get through the day without completely falling a part. That's not who I am, I was just scared and in pain.

I felt trapped in an extremely painful body and I had no escape and no real hope. There were days I could barely function. It got to the point that I never knew if I was going to sleep or not. John would sometimes have to sleep on the couch because even when I would sleep, my legs with twitch so badly it would wake him up. I felt like I hadn't even reached 30 years old but my life was over. I could see a lifetime of intense pain stretching out before me and I was really not ok with that. I dreaded going to bed each night.

This is me on my 30th birthday roughly a month be for launching a full out war on RLS. 

During this time I was accepted to veterinary school at Texas A&M. I was thrilled and terrified at the same time. Any normal person would be, but I was honestly not sure if I could physically do it. In spring of 2011, I was at my worst. I was looking ahead at where this illness was taking me and I was terrified. At this rate, I would not be able to work much less be a veterinarian. It was at this point that I decided to wage a war on RLS. I had no idea where I would end up, but I knew I couldn't keep going the way I was going. I left my job in April, instead of July so that I could spend that summer finding a way to start school in the fall. I'll continue with that story tomorrow. Obviously I was successful since I have finished my first year of veterinary school.