Why We Really Left the Road

I began our journey in the Airstream in 2020 relatively healthy.

Yeah, I suffered from lifelong insomnia. Throw in some serious grief. Probably some chronic PTSD from my past.

Seriously, nothing most people my age don’t have, either that stuff or other stuff I know my friends deal with. Your ordinary modern ailments, let’s say.

By the time I called it quits from the road, about six years later, I was dealing with some major anxiety. Depression more than your ordinary bear.

I’d had lab results that made us cancel our summer to Newfoundland in search of answers I didn’t find then.

That summer, brain tumor was ruled out. Adrenal insufficiency was ruled out. I wore a heart monitor and blood sugar monitor. No dice on either.

By then, my anxiety and depression were getting worse. After ACL surgery, my knee was just always swollen. And I was losing muscle mass like crazy.

I couldn’t find a doctor to help me any further, and I looked.

So I pulled us off the road.

The move was something neither of us wanted to do. I felt desperate, though.

In the seven months we’ve been in place, I’ve had a bunch of diagnoses and procedures. I’ve had three iron infusions and half my thyroid out. And I still have a few mysteries to be solved.

But, I believe—aside from the thyroid problems, aside from the sleep problems, aside from anything else that still is being pursued—the big bad culprit causing the worst of my problems was addiction to the drug I was on for Restless Legs Syndrome.

A neurologist prescribed it to me before I hit the road, and on the road my new PCP took over the prescription. And he gave me more and more and more.

Since then, research has found that people with RLS do get addicted to this drug. It’s a dopamine agonist, so it affects your brain in all kinds of complex, villainous ways.

And I was taking a lot of it, and had been for ten years, thanks to that doctor.

When I got off of it finally, here in Madison, I experienced withdrawal that was massive.

I’m thrilled, proud, relieved to say I am no longer on even the smallest amount of this drug now.

And I’m sleeping well, for the first time in 20 years.

Yes, I’m on another big-time drug. That I’ve been assured is not addictive to people who take it for the reasons I take it.

My new doctor has been prescribing it for ten years. We’ll see.

Right now, I’m sleeping. I’m taking fewer meds than I’ve ever taken.

I expect my mental health to improve just as my physical health will.

Does this mean we can get back on the road? I don’t know.

The tricky part about the brain is that when it comes to figuring it out—what’s wrong with it, when it’ll be better, what it’ll be like when it is better—all you have to figure this out is the very brain that was broken.

So I don’t know. I don’t even know what I want.

I’ve been off that dopamine-agonist for only a few days though. I am giving myself some grace, as they say, and waiting this out.

Thanks for coming along with me through this literally crazy time. I’ve been doing my best here to be both honest and entertaining, and I really appreciate you being here with me.