As I start this, I've got a slight caffeine withdrawal headache.  Normally, I drink about a liter of Dr Pepper a day to keep my cluster headaches in check; however, I wasn't in the mood for anything sugary yesterday, so I'm paying the price for it.  I did have an energy drink with my pills, and I'm about to have some kefir (drinkable, probiotic yogurt), so we'll see how that plays out.

May fucking sucked.  There were more downs than ups, and if I were still inclined to delete myself from census, I might have deeply considered it.  Luckily, I'm no longer in that head space, but pain, depression and circumstance can be too overwhelming sometimes, which is why empathy, compassion and not relying on pre-conceived notions is important.

My problems started when I thought I lost my wallet.  Actually, lets back up a bit....

In December, I began making arrangements to go see some from friends, including an ex-boyfriend, at the end of May.  I saved a bunch of money, which I'm not good at, made reservations, which leaves me paranoid over hidden or surprise fees or just not getting the reservation, and purchasing the bus ticket, since I don't drive and it's a hell of a lot cheaper to pay $70 round trip than buying several full tanks of gas/petrol.

With that said, everything was lining up nicely until May happened.

The first thing that began this whole month of fuckery was losing my wallet.  I'm a bigger guy and will wear short over jeans whenever possible, even to work.  I also take public transit, since again, I don't drive and it's still way cheaper.  I got home late from work, having caught the last bus home.  I usually put my wallet in the same section of my backpack every night, after emptying my pockets onto my bed, where I also toss my jacket/hoodie, hat, and sometimes the clothes I'm wearing.  Then, I put everything in its place before going to bed.

The next morning, I couldn't find my wallet, and I panicked.  I looked all over my room, which is cluttered but not a mess.  I ended up believing that I lost my wallet on the bus the night before, since it has my pass, and I couldn't have gotten home without it.  I called the bus company only to be told to call back later, since it hadn't been turned in.  I was also the last person on the bus that night, and my stop is almost at the end of the route, so I was 90% certain a customer hadn't taken it, depending on when I dropped it.

So, I cancel all the cards and make arrangements to get a replacement ID card.  The last time I was at the Department of Motor Vehicles in my area was with the real Calvin and his two very, young boys, who are the inspiration for Bryan and Caleb.  We spent 4-6 hours there waiting for a title transfer for the car he bought, only to be told he had to get a different from or some crap, so I wasn't looking forward to getting the ID card.  Luckily, I was able to download an app, so I at least had access to my bus pass, but still....

Since 9/11, traveling in the US without any form of identification can be a pain in the ass.  The last time I took the Greyhound, I had to show my ID card and couldn't get on the bus without it, so I knew I had to get something.  In my state, they also issue you a paper, temporary copy then will send you the actual one in the mail, which can take close to a month to get and would make it too close to my trip.

In that first week, I got everything situated:  Canceled bank cards, with replacements being sent, got a new ID card, which only took an hour at the DMV, which was impressive, and got my bus pass transferred to my phone.  So, I lost my wallet on a Tuesday, got my new ID on Friday, which I had to pay around $40 for, but on Sunday, I found my old wallet....  It was sitting on a shelf right next to my dirty clothes hamper, which I checked at least a dozen times.  I was talking with a friend, and happened to look over at the shelf and started to get pissed, naturally.  I wasted money that was supposed to go towards my trip, and wasted a bunch of time on top of it.  Time is more valuable to me than money, since you can never get time back, so I was irritated beyond belief.  By the next Wednesday, I received a new bank card and was back to where I was, but $40 shorter on my vacation funds.

Soon after that, I had to kick someone off the property at work.  This woman in particular has been a thorn on my side for about a year.  Due to where I work, we don't allow people to loiter under any circumstance.  We're not a restaurant or anything like that, but we do offer free wifi, which is why the woman was there.  She had been told by myself, other employees and the owner to never come back, because she's never there to conduct business but refuses to stop coming around.  I've been given permission to treat her as poorly as I can, which often includes cussing her out and calling her names.  She  also lives in some new apartments close by, so instead of using someone else's wifi or getting it for herself, she just chooses to use ours.

So, after a year of this, I come in tell her to leave twice, then called the police, who usually never show up.  The woman got cocky and leaned on the property and waited, then the police came.  They were harassed by the locals from the apartments, as the woman tried to lie her way out it (as she has done in the past), and they gave her a citation for trespassing.  That night, her son decided to follow and harass me about it, until he finally caught on to the fact I was recording him the entire time.  Since then, several of her friends have tried harassing me over this issue, because she now has to go to court and its my fault.  I'm now having to walk several blocks out of my way to avoid the drama.

Then there was "miscommunication" with the ex.  For months, he had been flirting with me, but whenever I responded in kind, he'd get all quiet or change the subject.  Now, we're not talking light flirting.  In front of our friends, he asked if I'd suck his dick and asked if I'd shave first.  And another, asked if he could fuck me.  This led to several thoughts on the subject, including lecturing him on boundaries and not teasing me.  In the end, I called him out on it, and we agreed to try it out.  He's in an open relationship with his asexual girlfriend, who said many times, that she didn't care if we fooled around, even as he was trying to use her as a scapegoat.

Lastly, the medical issues.  🙄😒

I've covered some of this in previous posts, so I'll try to sum this all up the best I can.  About two weeks before I leave on my trip, I woke up early one morning with a sharp pain in my mouth, under a tooth.  I took some over the counter pain killers and felt great.  The next day, the pain spread all across the left side of my face.  It was intense, but in the beginning, manageable.  I took a lot of over the counter pain meds and eventually, made an appointment to see the dentist.  I had even sent a message to my boss saying I would be at work that night and would go to Urgent Care the next morning.  Two hours later, I messaged saying I wasn't going to make it into work and went right to the emergency room about 10 miles from where I live, which is also about an hour on the bus.  Sitting and moving hurt like hell.

I get to the ER, find an awkward position to hold my head to lessen the pain and quickly see someone.  I also need to mention that I have a form of eczema on my forehead.  It isn't major most of the time and certainly wasn't at this time, either.  However, the doctor asked me to remove my hat and saw a little redness on my forehead and jumped to the conclusion that I had shingles.  I was greatly annoyed and firmly corrected him; however, that was his running diagnosis while talking to me.

I explained my symptoms, how and when they started, what's worked and not, and that despite the pain starting under a tooth, there has been no swelling or heat coming from the gums.  I did specifically mention that the tooth felt like it was trying to push its way out of my jaw, which he ignored, but will become important later.

He "concluded" that it was likely shingles but could also be a nerve disorder, trigeminal myalgia, and prescribed me an anti-seizure medication called gabapentin.  I was told that it would take a couple of days and should work for my issues.  More importantly to him, he said that should I break out in a rash on the left side of my body, I definitely have shingles and should see my doctor for an anti-viral shot and the gabapentin would be prescribed for that, anyway.

So, I get home, do some research and find that my symptoms matched the nerve disorder almost perfectly.  I also discovered that the gabapentin isn't a pain killer and could take not a couple of days but a couple of weeks to work, and by then, the disorder could've resolved itself.  In the end, I ended up subbing out the Tylenol for my cluster headache medication, since I couldn't get the pain relief to last more than a couple hours, and didn't want to make it look like I was a pill-popper by going to Urgent Care or the ER again.

Since I was also looking at having sex with my ex, I got a standard STI check.  Everything was looking good, until a week before I was to leave when my doctor's office said that I tested positive for something I'd never heard of before.  I still don't know the name of it, but I wasn't showing any symptoms and the last guy I was with was in late December.  I was prescribed two antibiotics, incase I had a medicine resistant strain and discussed things with the ex, after doing some research.

I ended up getting from a friend a much stronger dose of gabapentin for my trip, since sitting was still a huge problem, and I'd have to remain sitting for around 4 hours one way.  This dose was almost 3 times stronger than was I normally took, so I decided to take only one pill once a day and the normal dose the rest of the time, and that seemed to work really well.

And then, I discovered that the name on my bus ticket was wrong.  They put my middle name down instead of my first name.  I called to see if that was still okay, and the woman I talked to was so confused that we almost had a fight over it.  In the end, I decided to see if I could get it fixed, which they gladly did for free, and were completely understanding of my situation.

Finally, I go on the trip, and it was good.  Gabapentin made my mood a bit better, though I did make the mistake of mixing the pain killer with a sleep aid, which caused issues, but nothing bad.  I did get a little sunburnt, but otherwise, everything was good.  In fact, I loved the motel mattress, as it was the best mattress I'd ever slept on at a motel.  My ex and I had sex (I blew him) and we mostly just hung out with our friends.  I'd wake up to pain, but taking the meds dealt with that soon after waking up.

I began to notice bumps that, at the time, I thought were from mosquitoes and the sunburn.  I also noticed that my brain was rather foggy, and I was glad I had written the chapters I did, because I couldn't real concentrate on much (and still having issues with it).  When I got home and unpacked, I noticed a lot  of bumps on my left side and began to freak out.  I wasn't sure if it was a medication reaction or bite from bed bugs.  In the end, I bagged everything I brought home, started to wash everything my luggage and belongings touched and vacuumed what couldn't be washed.  I didn't go to sleep till 4am that night and went to Urgent Care the next day.

At Urgent Care, I asked the physician assistant that I spoke with not to jump to conclusions or seek out confirmation bias, since I've had issues with medical people doing that in the past, including the ER doctor I had seen...of course that's exactly what she did.  She didn't get within 3 feet/1 meter of me and drew the conclusion I had beg bugs, despite the facts that 1), they marks were only only on one side of my body and across my upper back, 2) my ex, who stayed the night with me on my last night, didn't have a single mark on him, 3) the redness and swelling from the bumps were decreasing since I stopped taking the meds and 4) nobody else who laid on the bed had any marks, either.  She didn't care.  Instead of sticking to that conclusion and as with the ER doctor, she came up with a secondary reason and re-prescribed me the first antibiotic I was on for the STI.  She was so disinterested in my case, that she didn't bother to see if I'd been prescribed it before or how recently.

Luckily, before I left for my trip, I had name an appointment to see someone about the gabapentin, since it was due to run out.  So, last Friday, I went to the appointment and saw an actual doctor, who took the time to listen to everything I had to say, who actually looked at the marks (immediately declared it was a rash from the meds and not from bed bugs), told me to stop taking all the meds I was, and prescribed me another antibiotic for my tooth.  That's right.  I don't have nerve disorder.  I have an infected tooth.  After explaining the pain and how it feels, while also stating the rest of the pain had gone except that pain, he declared that it was an infected tooth, which coincidentally presses against nerve that would mimic trigeminal myalgia.  He also stated that gabapentin isn't the drug that treats the nerve disorder, so it wouldn't have worked anyway.  He further concluded that I was likely allergic to gabapentin and possibly the antibiotic, both things the physician assistant said wasn't likely, since she didn't believe I had a rash.

So, now, I'm not in as much pain, a little foggy in the brain, and waiting to see the dentist in a couple of weeks.  The bumps are decreasing in a size and inflammation, and I'm feeling a lot better.  It's always worth getting multiple opinions when it comes to medical issues, especially if you feel that you're professional person is seeking confirmation bias or isn't taking you seriously.  It's your body, and you have the right, even in the US, to get the best treatment you can get.  If you don't feel you're issues are being addressed, say something and get another opinion.  It could save your life, literally.