Rainstorms and Television

We had a ton of rain yesterday (we're talking about 4 inches).  That combined with the stress of work, and lack of sleep recently, caused quite the flareup.  I spent the afternoon and evening last night on the couch in severe pain.  I'd say the pain levels easily reached pre-SCS levels.  So my awesome husband sat with me and watched TV.  So there we were, watching NCIS and watching the rain fall and I started feeling bad for msyelf again.  I'm too young for this to happen to me.  Then House came on.  I'll admit to feeling a pang of jealousy as I watched him pop those Vicodin pills and could see the pain melt away enough to be able to function.  I found myself wishing that I could take just one of those pills without being sick for days afterward.

That's not right, though.  I don't like pills.  I took myself off of them all because of that.  What was I thinking?  Even the thought of taking them made me feel sick.  I just want the pain to go away.

So I "slept" with my leg propped up on some pillows and with the SCS jacked up as high as it could go.  It didn't do much for the pain, and here I am again.  It's a new day, complete with severe pain.  I thought these days were behind me :(

I found myself feeling bad for myself again this morning.  I started crying on my way in to work because "it hurts so bad and it's just not fair"  but you know what?  Life isn't fair.  This is a lesson I was forced to learn a long time ago.  It would be nice if the playing field were evened up a bit, but I wouldn't wish this on even my worst enemy, so I'll take it, and I'll try to make the best of it.  It's times like these my high school friend's words echo in my head "Bad things happen to good people because bad people can't handle the stress."  Maybe this is evening the playing field a bit?

Tomorrow is my town's annual beer festival and I plan on attending with my husband.  I have no doubt the SCS will be on full blast, and hopefully I'll be able to stand up the whole time we plan on being there, without being forced to hide out in the car.  Wish me luck.

I'm neglectful :(

Don't hate me! I'm seriously terrible at keeping up with this blog and for that I apologize. However, my husband is at work tonight so here I am.

I'm not going to go into the work crap because I'm trying to pretend it doesn't exist. Yes, dear readers, this is my denial face. Isn't it pretty?

So my leg has been acting up because of that thing that doesn't exist, but I'm dealing. I've been trying out more programs on my SCS lately. I know, it's been freaking forever since I got the thing, so you'd think I would know all these 6 (ONLY 6!!!!) programs inside and out, but I don't.

When I first got the stimulator I found programs that worked for me when I was trying to sleep, when I was sitting stationary, and when I was walking. Until now the tried and true always worked, so why deviate?

Lately, though, the pain has gotten pretty bad so I've been forced to experiment. I'll admit that part at least has been kind of fun. I've been learning a lot about how these programs feel and I have opened up a whole new arsenal of potential pain killing buzzes!

I would go on, but my head hurts so I'm going to lie down. Thanks for reading, and I'll try to update again before the apocalypse ;)

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.