I’m not sure if I always was a twitchy person, or if this is
something that happened over the years.
When I go to bed or try to relax in a comfortable chair, it takes me a long time to get situated, find just the right position. Even then I
tend to move around quite a bit.
One thing I do know, and I’m not sure whether or not this is
a form of claustrophobia or something else entirely, is that I can’t stand to
have both hands taken out of commission at the same time.
I first discovered this when I was 17 and had been in a car
accident. In those days seatbelts were
only just coming into use beyond the high end luxury cars. The car I was in was
not one of those, so there were no seat belts (and don’t even think air bags.
They simply didn’t exist). Anyway, the car I was in rear-ended another car and
I was thrown forward, hitting my head hard enough on the windshield that the
glass cracked.
I didn’t lose consciousness, but a concussion was suspected,
and they took me out of the car, put me on a stretcher, and loaded me into an
ambulance. The EMTs put a blanket over me and then strapped me onto the
stretcher for safety. Unfortunately, both arms were trapped under that strap.
Immediately, my nose began to itch. Then other parts of my face. It made it
hard to stay still because I was trying to free my arms so I could scratch my
face.
Even though one of the EMTs tried to scratch whatever was
itchy on my face – apparently, this isn’t a reaction that’s novel to me – it
was a very uncomfortable ride. While she meant well, another person can never
adequately calm an itch.
I don’t recall the situation being more than a bit
uncomfortable, and once at the hospital, my arms were freed.
In more recent times, I’ve noticed more severe, almost panic
attack level issues.
At night, especially once I’ve gone to bed, I get itchy. Not
everywhere all at once but more like an Old MacDonald’s Farm variety of
itchiness: here an itch, there and itch, everywhere an itch, itch… I will
scratch one place, only to find another crop up as I try to settle into a
comfortable sleep position.
Yes, it may partially be due to dry skin, but sometimes,
especially if I try this just before bedtime, putting on lotion or cream of
some sort makes things worse, especially in summer. I suspect sweat or humidity
have more to do with it in summer. So, it takes a while, between itchiness and
being fidgety to find sleep.
While that’s not panic attack level, a few other things are. And just to be clear, I am not on the spectrum.
I’ve had two very mild cases of Covid-19. The entire first
few years of the pandemic, I was blessed to be free of the infection. In fact,
both times I had it were in 2024. Both times it lasted about 24 hours, except
for the cough.
During that 24 hour period, everything seemed to bother me.
Clothes that felt like they were strangling me or twisting on my body when I
lay down, when sitting in a confined space, trying to sleep, walking any distance,
and so on. I sometimes felt as if I were going to suffocate.
Since then, the lingering issue with clothes and confined
space has been a challenge. No, I don’t mean I can’t wear clothes. But sitting
on a bus, either at a window seat (which used to be my favorite) or in the
middle, which I’ve never liked much, I have to have the chance to get situated
before anyone sits next to me. I’ve found that if I’m wearing a coat, I have to
take the coat off or I start to feel like I can’t breathe.
I’ve also noticed that I can no longer wear turtle neck
shirts or hoodies – unless they’re zip front. Either of those things feels like
I’m being strangled. While it’s easy enough to simply not wear that type of
clothing, it’s resulted in my having to give away several things that I used to
like to wear. It isn’t the texture or the material, it’s the way it sits on my
skin and closes in on my neck.
The other part of Covid-19 that affected me was the cough.
I’ve had coughs often in my life, and they never much bothered me. But this one
is a heavier one, one that forces you to work very hard to get it out.
Sometimes I’ve had to stand up to make the cough effective. Of course, my
doctor prescribed me medication that wiped it out in a few days.
Unfortunately, I spent the last year trying to get rid of
such a cough when it came back. I didn’t have Covid-19. I tested and the test
was clear. I only had a cough, not even a cold.
My original doctor died suddenly in 2024, and I had to find
a new doctor. Unfortunately, all there are now are groups: revolving door
doctors where you theoretically have a main doctor, but when you make an
appointment, you never know who you’re going to get.
After the cough coming and going for several months, it
decided to stay. I made an appointment. “My doctor” wasn’t available, so I got
someone else. I told her what my previous doctor prescribed. She smiled and
ignored me. When I left I had a prescription for something else.
The prescription did nothing for about a week, then began to
work until I finished the first container. I renewed it. The renewal, the exact
same thing, stopped working. I gave it a couple of weeks, but nothing.
Back to the doctor I went. A different one of the group. I
had to start from scratch explaining everything because they apparently don’t
read the notes of previous appointments. Since the prescription didn’t work,
and she thought it should, she prescribed me something else. It did not work at
all.
A third time I tried to make an appointment, but no one was
available, so I had to go the tele-med route with my medical group. That
doctor, even though yet again I went through the history of the cough, and once
again told her what my previous doctor prescribed that worked, wrote me a
prescription for something else. When I asked why no one was giving me what I
knew worked, she told me that they don’t prescribe that for “someone your age.”
Last year I was only a year younger. It didn’t cause a problem then. Why would
it cause a problem now? Still, she insisted on something else. It didn’t work.
By the time I had waited a few days for it to not work, we
were up against the weekend, when doctors no longer have office hours. Having
not slept in two days because of the cough, and the walk-in clinics having no
hours left, I went to the ER. There, I was given an x-ray, which they said was
normal, and two pills containing some cough suppressant and codeine. I suppose
it got rid of the cough for the night. I know it knocked me out by the time I
got home. I was supposed to get a full prescription of it the next day at the
pharmacy.
Before filling the prescription, I called my primary doctor,
and she was actually there, and made an appointment for me for that day. She
didn’t want me taking codeine, so she prescribed something else. She also
wanted me to see a pulmonologist and a gastroenterologist.
Well, her prescription was as useless as the others. But now
I had other doctors unnecessarily involved, and I was also told I needed to see
an ENT. The ENT gave me four prescriptions and scheduled me for a CT scan!
Somewhere along the line, with pretty much none of the
prescriptions doing anything but taking up counter space, someone finally prescribed
what I had said on the first visit worked. Lo and behold, within a week, the
cough cleared up.
But I had a bunch of unnecessary (and expensive) tests done,
all because no one would listen to me. I was given about a dozen useless
prescriptions because someone decided that what would work shouldn’t be given
to “someone my age.” I could understand that if I’d never taken the drug
before, but considering I’d had it a year earlier, that platitude was
meaningless.
I understand that the doctors wanted to find out what was
causing the cough, but none of the tests showed that. And the cough itself just
generated more panic-attack like behavior. I reached a point where, despite
constant exhaustion, I practically feared going to bed because it usually meant
a resurgence of the cough. I developed rituals to help me relax and sleep. And
when I get in one of those uncomfortable situations, like being in the middle
seat with my coat on or some similar clothing issue, my reaction is to start
coughing. That’s not the cough I was being treated for, it’s simply a reaction,
a fight or flight type of thing. That cough goes away as soon as I can move out
of that situation.
I really thought I was over that until the other day.
I had signed up to donate platelets, something I’d never
done before. I thought it would be much
like donating blood except that they return everything else once they get the
platelets. I was wrong.
I was led to a “bed” if you will, that is somewhat U-shaped,
with a horizontal section for your legs. It was tilted back, so the patient is
semi-reclined, not a position I’m comfortable in to begin with. It was slightly
worse than being in the middle seat on a plane.
I discovered that I would not have just one arm hooked up to
needles and tubes, but both arms. For two hours.
I knew I only had one arm with reliable veins. The ones in
the other arm tend to roll. I told them that. They were sure they could make
everything work. While they were working on the first arm, I was my usual
twitchy self. I had to ask one of the phlebotomists to fix the leg of my jeans
because it had inched up and the hem was digging into my leg. She was happy to do so. For a while I had a hand free to scratch
various itches, but I was desperately uncomfortable the way I was positioned.
They got pillows and wedges to get me in a generally comfortable position,
although I wasn’t sure it would remain that way for a full two hours, even with
a movie to watch.
I’m not generally all that picky about things, and I don’t
often complain in situations like this. The people there were quite kind, very
professional and very willing to do whatever I needed to feel comfortable.
But when it came time to stick the second arm, things
quickly fell apart. They found a fantastic vein. They stuck. For about a
minute, things looked good. Then there was a lot of blood and they had to
remove the needle. The vein had rolled. There was a nearby vein that was just
as good, but because the first vein had bled into the space between the two,
they couldn’t use it. So they went lower down my arm, and finally settled on
one in my hand.
This time everything seemed fine. Then it wasn’t. While the
other arm was all hooked up and ready to go, the phlebotomist suddenly asked if
my hand felt all right. It did. Then it didn’t, and there was a lot of pain and
the area around the needle started to swell up as the vein decided to roll and
they once again had to remove the needle.
At this point they realized the procedure wasn’t going to
happen. They kept apologizing because my veins kept rolling, which wasn’t their
fault.
In a way I was relieved. I wasn’t sure I could manage two
hours of not being able to scratch any itchiness or move, really. I’m just too
twitchy an individual.
Will I go back? To donate blood, sure. To do the platelets?
No. Much as I like to help people, I have limits. I simply don’t think I’m the
right person for that kind of donation.
It was a learning experience, but not one I’m ready to
repeat.
