(Phaysis)

I hate Ciprofloxacin. It’s an antibiotic, one of the harshest. Most prescriptions of the stuff last a week. My prescription, however, lasts a month, and I’ve been on it one week, long enough to have it doing its ill effects. Not my first time on it; hopefully it is my last. UTI‘s are a bitch.

One of the worst side effects of cipro, aside from stomach cramping, excess acid production, the requirement to supplement your digestive bacteria with yogurt, chance of tendon ruptures, fatigue, and insomnia, is that cipro makes me paranoid. Not “the feds are out to get me” paranoia, but the “o god, I didn’t say that the wrong way, did I?” kind. Sure enough, it makes my social awkwardness that much worse. Like I needed the help.

Typically, I can go to the coffeeshop and hang out with others or alone. If someone comes to visit my table, I can greet them, invite them to sit, and we chat. Or, if I visit a friend at theirs, the chatter is good and friendly. Not so on cipro. I kinda stand there and watch it all happen. I see myself doing it, but the thought never occurs to me to quit the creepiness. I just see the unfitting awkwardness, get uncomfortable, and excuse myself as I walk away. I don’t like it; not in the least.

Sometimes I think I’m turning into that old, creepy man who’s got the stink on him that everyone can smell. The guy people put up with only because he’s a customer. And that’s the paranoia talking; I must keep that in mind at all times while I’m on this stuff. Sure, when I grow up I want to be a dirty old man, but don’t want to be a creepy old man. There’s a marginal difference between the two: one is more socially adept; the other just lecherously leers from an uncomfortable distance.

I noticed that my journal has been really quiet this year. So far, 9 entries total since January. Nothing in the past month and a half. And you’ve most likely noticed too; I apologize.

You see, I’ve had a bad month. Really bad. July started with a wimper, went out with a sigh. The 4th of July wasn’t kind to me; it was raining pleasantly, but I stayed inside instead of watching the fireworks downtown. Had coffee, got a migraine, went home early. The rest of that week, I started hurting in my lower abdomen; thought it was gas pain, so I lived on a diet of simethicone and wheat bread. No luck. That friday, I started hurting worse at work. I went home after work and stayed home instead of going to the usual friday night gathering I do. Tried laying down, sitting down, standing up, walking around, nothing I did could alleviate the pain in my lower-right abdomen. It was then that it struck me: that’s where my appendix is. I knew I needed to go to the ER, so I cleaned up, prepped some things in case I needed to be hospitalized, and my roomate took me there.

A urine test, blood test, CT scan (complete with having to drink a half liter of barium sulfate on a nauseous stomach), a prostate check, and two shots of morphine later (because of the worst pain I’ve ever experienced), the doctor sent me home with a prescription of Ciprofloxacin (an antibiotic) and a treatment plan for…prostatitis. I had a prostate infection. How? I don’t know. But it hurt.

My fever came and went that weekend, and the infection started going away. In my followup appointment with my regular doctor, he cut my four-week prescription regimen down to three, stating that the extra week is really just overkill. So, after experiencing the bad side effects for a few days, I didn’t argue the point.

Well, the side effects are thus: stomach pain, depression, fatigue, susceptibility to tendonitis and tendon damage, and in some extreme cases, paranoia. Basically, I sat like a lump from the time I got home from work until I went to bed, where I laid like a lump and had fitful sleep broken up by extreme dreams, another side effect.

I knew I had stuff I could do. I knew I could have been writing about it, getting it all off my chest, putting out the painful personal truths that I was seeing in my lowered state. But I lost my motivation, lost my drive. Nothing mattered, nothing meant anything. I just sat there at my desk and watched TV. Tuned in, dropped out. For a month. I knew the depression was due to the Cipro, but at times I could not be sure.

Well, my last dose was the last friday of the month, almost a week ago. I felt fine and was glad to have finished the regimen. Except I felt a tenderness in my middle back, near my kidneys. A secondary infection? I dunno, but by monday I was fine. Until this morning when I started feeling more pangs in my lower abdomen again. So, I’ve been taking it easy, pushing the fluids, taking the cranberry pills, loosening my belt. I put myself back on the Cipro tonight; already feeling the twisting of my stomach. If nothing is better by monday, then I’ll see the doc again.

Seems every time I make a journal entry, it’s bad health news. Maybe I’m turning the corner at the old age of 34. It’s all downhill from here. I dunno, it’s just that I have things to say, but no will to post them for the world to see when really they’re kinda personal thoughts. I have some further issues to deal with there, and now that I’m back on the Cipro, it won’t get any easier.