Last fall, under the supervision of my doctor and my therapist, I discontinued one of my antidepressant medications. For a whole host of reasons. Namely, I had come to a point where the side effects outweighed any benefits — and I wasn’t entirely sure there even were benefits anymore. Over the course of eight weeks, I gradually stepped down to lower and lower doses of the medication, until I took my very last dose, which happened to be on Christmas Eve.

The withdrawal symptoms began well before my final dose. They arrived slowly and sneakily at first, and I chalked them up to a bad day, or a bad mood, or PMS, or stress. Until one day when it dawned on me that I wasn’t just having a bad day, that I had felt like absolute shit for who knows how long. Fatigued, foggy, irritable as hell, with mood swings more sudden than my worst PMS. Insomnia. Vivid and often terrifying dreams when I did sleep. Loss of appetite. And then came the migraines.

I’ve been a migraine sufferer for almost a decade, so this was nothing new. But in the best of times, I might have a migraine or two in a month, knock it out with my trusty zolmitriptan and be done with it. This was not the best of times. The migraines were hitting me multiple times a week, and eventually I found myself caught in the most vicious of vicious cycles — rebound headaches. I had taken my migraine meds too many times in too short a period, and now my poor body, which was already in the throes of SSRI withdrawal, had to contend with analgesic withdrawal as well.

I was still going to work everyday while this was all going on, doing my best impersonation of a functional human being while secretly being in agony. The migraines started to arrive like clockwork every afternoon between 3 and 4. I felt as though there was nothing I could do to stop them. 

I finally succumbed to a particularly severe migraine that raged on for a full night and day, and I stayed home from work for two days. I woke up on the third day without a migraine, but in its place I now had a sore throat, a cough, and full body muscle aches. Followed shortly by fever, chills, nausea, and the general feeling of having been run over by a Mack truck. This was a Saturday; by Monday I was feeling even worse. I let my office know I had the flu and would likely be out for the week.

I barely remember that week. It is a haze of intense suffering and sickness, with Frasier on Netflix playing continuously in the background. Through the wonders of modern technology, I “saw” a doctor through the Cleveland Clinic’s Express Care app, and got a prescription for Tamiflu. I felt certain I was on the road to recovery.

At the end of that week, I was coughing like I had never coughed before. Bear in mind, I once fractured a rib from coughing while I had bronchitis. Everything about this cough was different, though. It even sounded strange. I would cough to the point of gagging, unable to stop or catch my breath. I couldn’t lie down or even lean back at the slightest angle without an attack coming on. Alan almost took me to the ER in the middle of the night, but I kept insisting that the ER was for people with life-threatening conditions (which I somehow believed this wasn’t??).

The following morning, I finally agreed to go to the ER. I had chest x-rays and was told, to my great relief, that I did not have pneumonia. I received a breathing treatment and was sent home with an inhaler and narcotic cough syrup. This time, surely, I was on the road to recovery.

Another week passed, and I was not recovering. You know how you just know when something’s not right? I knew something wasn’t right. Back to the doctor I went, and this time, based on the exact same chest films from a week ago, I was diagnosed with pneumonia. By this time I had missed almost three weeks of work. And I was looking at a five-day course of antibiotics. And I was no longer sure if I would ever actually feel well again.

By the grace of God and medicine, I returned to work a week later. For that first week back, I only worked half days, and they were the longest days of my life. Pneumonia does a lot more than fill your lungs with mucus — not that that’s not bad enough. It saps your strength, your energy, your stamina, and your spirit. Pneumonia is like the machine in The Princess Bride. It sucks away your life. I truly feel as though I lost a month of my life. And I don’t even have the six-fingered man to blame.

The good news is, by the time I started to recover from the pneumonia, I had no withdrawal symptoms left to speak of. And no more daily migraines. I’ve had a migraine here or there, but that’s just normal for me. I never thought normal could feel so good.

And speaking of feelings — I have never felt so many damn feelings before! At least, not in a long time. It’s a bit overwhelming, I feel like a layer of protective skin has been sheathed off, leaving all the nerve endings exposed to whatever life throws at me. I find that I cry a lot more easily, not because I am sad but because I am so moved. 

Case in point: this weekend I traveled to New York for an event called Cat Camp, which was every bit as marvelous as it sounds. I had two main reasons for going, to meet two of my absolute greatest inspirations — Lil BUB, and Jackson Galaxy. I’m sure you have all heard the warning about meeting one’s heroes, and how it is all too often a disappointment. Well, I am here to say that my heroes definitely did not disappoint. They blew me away. 

I’m not quite ready yet to put it all in words, what I felt and experienced today in the presence of these two incredible beings. (Okay, three beings, technically. BUB’s Dude is incredible too.) All I can say for now is that I felt a shift. A profound shift. And a profound connection, not only with these very special individuals, but with something vastly bigger than all of us. And I am just so grateful that that sheath of protective skin, that kept me so numb to everything around me, was gone today, so I could feel every last morsel of this experience with every single sensitive fiber in my being. I am so grateful for the tears that stream down my face. My heart is so full, I can’t stop myself from crying. And I wouldn’t want to.