Energizer Bunny

I'm like the Energizer Bunny in that I keep going... and going... and going...

Life has been crazy, with no end in sight. Work has been incredibly stressful. I've been working crazy hours. I really do just work for the weekend. It's a sad state of affairs.

Of course with stress comes pain. I've been keeping my stimulator turned up as high as I can tolerate it, but I can't sleep at night with it on high enough to block the pain signals, so sleep hasn't been coming very easily either.

I took Benedryl last night and got some sleep (although medicine induced sleep is never very restful), and when I woke up this morning my ankle felt almost disconnected. It's hard to explain, but it was like there was space in the joint. This happens sometimes after I take something that knocks me out, but I always hate it :(

Still going...

The Pain!!!

It's official. I have gone back to being a total wuss about pain. Before I got my stimulator dealing with insanely high pain levels was nothing to me. It was a walk in the park. In fact, in college my physiology professor ran a few tests with me and we found out my body reacted in the complete opposite way to pain than it should (when my pain levels went up my heart rate and breathing decreased, which we figured was something of a coping mechanism for my body). Now my leg starts hurting even the slightest bit more than normal and I want to curl up and cry. What happened to me?

A friend of mine passed away Friday July 16, and then a second friend passed away on July 23. I was on vacation last week but ended up spending a good deal of it either dealing with those deaths or dealing with whatever stomach bug I had Wednesday and Thursday. Not fun. The calling hours for the second friend were yeserday and the funeral was today. It's been stressful.

By the time I got home from work today I realized how much pain my ankle is in. It's incredible. I can't remember the last time I've felt pain this severe. OTC pain killers aren't touching it and my stimulator is having no effect :'( I miss that wonderful coping mechanism I used to have.

So how am I coping today? For now I'm laying on the couch with my leg elevated, watching TV. Hopefully I'll be able to get a bit of sleep tonight and the pain will have decreased a bit by tomorrow. If not it's going to be a long way until Friday.

Someone tell the world to stop turning!

I'm ready to get off! Work has gotten nothing but more insane since my last post. We had some more people leave which added a couple more jobs on to my list. My boss coninues to assure me we will be bringing in more people to help me out (he actually told me the other day that it's unreaonsable of my company to expect me to ge all of this work done, so that's encouraging), but good help can't come soon enough. We did get one new person, but we need more.

I need a vacation so I'm taking one. I'm so excited! I put in for a week toward the end of July. My husband and I are going to be off together and although we don't have solid plans, it's nice to know I won't be in the office for an entire week.

And starting tomorrow night... Mini-vaca! We're going on a trip out of state and I'm so excited. We'll only be gone for the weekend but it should be nice and relaxing.

I really need this. My allergies have been going crazy with all the pollen in the air, and the stress of work has been making my ankle flare like crazy. That's been leading to little sleep, which makes my ankle flare more, and the vicious cycle continues.

Life is crazy

I know, I know... I haven't updated my blog in a long time. I kind of suck at this whole blog thing.

I'll start with an update on my ankle. I am now off crutches. It feels nice to be "walking" again. I still have quite the limp, and the pain can still be intense at times, but it has gotten much better. My pain levels have gone back down to a 4 or 5 when I first wake up, and only get bad later in the day. The doctor gave me a clean bill of health the last time I saw him. Eventually I'm sure the pain and limp will decrease. I just need to stay on it and keep working it.

My mom bought me Wii Fit Plus a few months ago and I was finally able to start using it in the beginning of January. I can't begin to express how much it has helped in the rehabilitation of my ankle. I told my orthopedic doctor about how I've been using it, and he gave his stamp of approval. He said it should aid in my recovery. He also clued me in to a new game for the Wii, which I'm excited to try at some point. It's the Wii Resort, or something like that. I'll have to look in to it.

Work has been insane lately. My boss brought in some help, and both of the new hires are great. Hopefully we'll be able to catch up a bit. I'm in the process of training one of them now, so hopefully soon she'll be able to pick up some of the slack.

It's Christmas...

I'm home alone tonight (my husband has to close, so he won't be home until 11:30-11:45). This morning we went to my Sister-In-Law's house for Christmas. It was really nice to spend a few hours with the family. My niece is adorable when she opens gifts.

We'll start with the good news. My ankle seems to be progressing quite well. I can limp on it for short periods of time now. That's a huge milestone for me :) I'm continuing the the PT, and slowly putting more and more weight on it as I walk.

Then to the bad news. I'm able to give a bit of a forewarning this time. I may not be able to post any updates for a while. Work is picking up again. We reach a huge milestone recently, and lost a major part of our department, so I'm going to be insanely busy there for a while. Hopefully the stress doesn't set back my recovery.

A light at the end of the tunnel?

Shortly after my last post I broke my ankle (yup, the one with the RSD). It's been a long 4 weeks. I hadn't used crutches in such a long time I had almost forgotten how to use them. I've gotten the hang of it since, though.

I've been trying my best to keep it mobile and keep up with my PT, as per the doctor's instructions.

I had my check up with the orthopedic doctor today. He checked out my ankle, had me stand on it (which I managed to do for about .5 seconds), and told me it looks good. He said it seems to be healing, and it doesn't seem as though I've done any more damage than they had originally expected :D He scheduled a follow up for 6 weeks from now, but he said that if I'm walking on it in a month or so, I could call and cancel it.

It's nice to get some good news :)

Oh the stress of life...

It has been incredibly stressful around these parts lately. The stressors have just been piling on top of the work that I've been talking about for a while now.

The week before last my grandfather passed. He had cancer, so we knew for a while that he was going to die, but once it got bad he just deteriorated so quickly. Before we knew it he was gone.

Then on the way home from the funeral on Thursday I started coughing this hacking cough, and sneezing. It didn't let up all weekend, so I went to see the doctor today. Yup, you guessed it, I have H1N1.

I just can't seem to catch a break lately.