Summer fun

I meant to post this a while ago, but once again life grabbed me by the balls (ovaries?) and refused to let go.  So, there are a lot of things to talk about.  I'll try to keep it fairly brief.

The husband and I went to see the Blues Travelers in concert a few weeks ago.  They were amazing (of course they were.  They're always amazing).  We went with another couple.  We got there a few minutes early, and took our places up front and center- standing only.  We stood there for about an hour before my husband noticed me fidgeting.  This is a sure sign that I'm in pain and need to find a seat immediately.  I was going to ignore it because I didn't want to ruin anyone's night (I know, I know, but I like to accommodate people), but my husband told the other couple we were finding seats and directed me toward the section of open bleachers.  I found me a good husband :)

When we sat down the woman we were with said she was grateful we found seats because she had to sit down.  She explained that she has a chronic pain condition, and had reached that same point that I had reached.  From that point until the end of the night we discussed the trials and tribulations of dealing with chronic pain.  It was nice to have someone to talk to that really understood my pain, and she was right there in front of me!  We had a blast.

I paid for it the next day, but the concert was well worth it.

I had a cousin that graduated in June.  We went to her party and had a great time hanging out with my family.  One of my cousins and I have a long-standing feud where we try to do mean things like push each other in pools and stuff.  I pushed him in a pool once years ago and he's never really made me pay for it... at least not yet.  I fully expect to be thrown into a pool any time he's around.  He could easily pick me up and throw me.

So, I was joking around with him and he was picking on me at the party.  Finally I got annoyed enough to try and get him to stop.  I ran up to him and tackled him to the ground.  That was all well and good- until he took me down by the bad ankle.  I'm grateful he was properly trained to perform that move, because I would have been in a much worse situation had he not been, but it HURT!  I know I deserved it, and I don't blame him in the slightest for doing it, but it took at least a week for me to be able to put weight on it again.  UGH!  What can I say?  It's the summer!

Showers and Baths

Allow me to begin this post with a triuh about me I'm not sure I've ever shared here.  I am a dummy.  I do things sometimes, knowing they're a bad idea, and end up hurting myself.

Monday, February 14 started out in this way.  I got into the shower, the one we've jury-rigged with shampoo bottles to hold down the curtain so you're not wearing it the whole time you're in there, and began my routine.  As I reached for the soap I had a moment of clarity and knew what was about to happen.  Unfortunately for me I was powerless to stop it.

One of those shampoo bottles jumped right off the side of the tub and dropped right on to the top of my foot.  I swear, it jumped.  I did not knock it over and I did not drop it (okay, I may have knocked it over a bit).  Immediately the pain coursing through my body made me want to vomit.  I looked down and noticed my foot was already swelling and turning black and blue.  That's always a good sign, right?

That's when my shower became a bath :(  I couldn't stand on the foot anymore so I sat down to complete my shower.  I went to work that day and came home to look at my foot.  The black and blue was gone, replaced by a deep reddish purple.  The swelling remained.

At this point we'll fast forward a week and a half.  I'm still stuck in the bath because I can't stand on that foot and I'd rather not fall over doing the one legged hop all through my shower.  The swelling has gone down some and the black and blue have returned.

So now I ask why did I reach for the soap in the way I did?  I knew that was going to cause problems, as it usually does, so why did I do it?  Oh that's right, I'm a dummy.

It was 2 degrees out there today, before windchill.  The pain today is incedible.  On a scale of 1-10 I'd say it's easily a 9.  I'm popping the Aleve and staying off it as much as possible.

A Mexican Fiesta!

Allow me to begin by saying Merry Christmas to those who celebrate it.  My husband and I do not, but it was still a crazy day.  Since I had a long weekend I told him I'd make him anything he wanted for dinner Saturday night.  He said he wanted a Mexican Fiesta.  So a Mexican Fiesta it was.  Thursday night I compiled a list of recipes, and on Friday I headed to the store.  Big mistake. 

Since it was Christmas Eve, and they weren't open on Christmas Day, the place was a zoo.  I may as well have walked from my house with how far back I had to park.  I waited in line to get a cart and then went to the produce section, where there was enough room down each aisle for a single cart.  I parked my cart at the end of the aisles and ran down to grab the produce I needed.  After about half an hour in the produce section I went for meat, where for some reason people were parking their carts and gabbing.  Yay for bottlenecks!

After I got the various meats I needed, I went toward frozen foods, and was on the lookout for international foods, and baking.  International foods had food stuffs for nearly every country except Mexico.  Yay!  I must have missed baking in the gigantor store, and after grabbing frozen corn, I made a bee-line for the registers.  I'd had enough of impatience, being slammed with shopping carts, and screaming children.

Then I headed for my friendly, local grocery store for the rest of my ingredients.  All around the store were complaints of the place being a madhouse, but had they been through the hell I had just endured they would have been grateful for the semi-peaceful store they were in.

That night we went to my Mother-in-Law's for dinner.  It was nice and relaxing, and my husband invited them over for our Fiesta.  They agreed.

Fast forward to Saturday morning and there I am, realizing our place is a mess, and with a list of 8 dishes to make.  AAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!  The husband had to work at 8, so from about 7:45 on I cooked and cleaned like a mad woman.  He got home from work around 4 and I still had 2 dishes I hadn't even started on, but the apartment was clean as a whistle.  The In-Laws never arrived.

We scratched the last 2 dishes, and sat down to our Fiesta.  Well, he sat down.  I continued to cook all while we ate.  Everything was delicious, and well worth the work.  By 8:00 we were serving dessert and the day had finally come to an end.  I laid down on the couch for a breather and could see my ankle swelling like crazy.

Within a few minutes I was asleep, pain or not.  We didn't even do any cleaning up until this morning.  As I type this the dishwasher is running it's fourth load in 2 days and all I want to do is go back to sleep.  Today will be a mostly lazy day, though, so that will be nice.

My ankle is still quite swollen, and very painful.  The current pain level is an 7/10, which is to be expected, I suppose.

Ugh, winter :(

I used to love winter.  It used to be my favorite time of year.  I remember playing King of the Mountain atop the skyscrapers of snow left at the end of our driveway with my family and friends.  Skiing and sledding were some of my favorite ways to pass the time.  Who can beat coming inside after making a snowman, dripping with melting snow, to a waiting fire and a big cup of hot chocolate?  Ah the memories.... but not anymore.  I can't go out and make a snowman anymore.  There's no more snowmobiling, skiing, sledding, snowmen, snow angels, King of the Mountain, or snow dripping from everywhere (even off the hat on my head).  The Winter wonderland I remember from my childhood is now far out of my reach.  At least there's still waiting fires and hot chocolate... well sometimes.

Now those wonderful winter memories have been replaced with constant pain that keep me firmly seated in the present.  I can never warm my leg up.  I have layers of blankets on my bed, I wake up in the middle of the night sweating, but still the leg is chilled to the bone.  I HATE winter now.  Don't get me wrong, my stimulator helps a great deal, but even with the stimulator the pain never goes away.  The warmth never returns (not that I would expect that to happen), and I'm left longing for the winters of my childhood.

All I can do now is to find indoor activities to keep my mind off the cold and pain.  Like tonight.  The family is having a murder mystery dinner, and as of last night I'm in charge of running the game.  It should be a ton of (warm) fun, and hopefully the pain will stay away.

Current pain level: 6/10 :(

Thanksgiving

I'M ON VACATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes, that absolutely required yelling and all of those exclamation points. I'm so very happy that I have a full 4.5 day weekend. Oh, did I not mention I also got out of work early on Wednesday which gave me that extra half day? It's going to be great.

So Wednesday night we went to a concert. My husband's coworker's band was playing their first show so we went out to support them. I hadn't slept well Tuesday night and the show didn't start until 10 pm, so by the time we got there I was exhausted and in quite a bit of pain. I turned my stimulator way up, and sat back to enjoy the show. We made it to the end, made a quick exit, and were back home by 12:15. Then I went directly to bed, and slept until about 9 the next morning. By the time I woke up I was still exhausted, but I certainly got a full night's sleep. It was wonderful and worked wonders for my leg.

We went to my Mother-in-law's for Thanksgiving dinner. It was nice to spend time with the family. It was really relaxing. Then we went to bed early again last night. My leg barely hurts at all this morning. I'd say the pain level is right around a 2/10. I can't remember the last time it was this low. This is going to be a great vacation!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING, EVERYONE!

The PAIN!!!!

I do not get it. Not at all. I'm used to pain- very used to it, but only from the knee down (and even then that's not constant. Sometimes the pain is located just in my ankle. Not today. Today my leg hurts from the hip down to the tip of my toes :(

I tried soaking in a warm bath, I took some pain killers, and I've been laying on the couch with my leg elevated for 4 hours now. Nothing! No relief! I just want to curl into a little ball and cry but curling up would require movement of the leg, which will not happen.

So let's recap. Why does my leg hurt so much today? Obviously the seasons are changing. My car is frosted over every morning when I get up and I have to drive about halfway into work before the heat finally seems to be penetrating the skin on my leg. Now to be clear, I let the car warm up for a while before getting in. It has more to do with how quickly the cold penetrates the skin when I go outside.

So there's the fact that winter's around the corner, and then there's stress (we're not going there today because I'm doing my damnedest to relax right now in hopes that will decrease the pain). And lastly there's the lack of sleep. This darned cat of mine has taken to making as much noise at night as possible. That combined with stress is killing my sleep schedule. I need to get that back on track.

So I'm right back up there with the pain level today. I'd put it right around an 8/10. This is worse than the best pre-stimulator pain :(

Winter :(

I'm really, really bad with titles. I'm always trying to come up with a title that properly summarizes the general idea on the subject of my blogs and I'm always really bad at it. I'll admit that it has prevented me from posting in the past, but I'm determined not to allow that to happen, so if you see strange titles that's why.

The weather here has been going between beautiful, sunny, and hot to cold, rainy, and a bit snowy. Winter is not far off :( I'm not prepared so I think I'll protest. If you see some crazy lady, walking with a limp, and holding a sign to the effect of "WINTER, GO AWAY!" it may or may not be safe to assume that's me. If snow is falling assume it's someone else.

So on to the pain. The CRPS has been flaring quite a bit lately. Work has been stressful, and again I haven't been sleeping well. Winter is likely to make the sleeping aspect worse. Thankfully there may be a light at the end of the stress tunnel at work. We've brought on some help, and hired some people that needed to be hired. That means there's a bit less work on my plate, or at least there will be soon. Yay for lights! It's been awfully dark in that danged tunnel lately.

I'm going to try to relax a bit tonight and hopefully by the time I go to bed the pain will have decreased a bit. Then maybe I'll get some sleep. That would be nice.

I've decided that considering this is a chronic pain blog, I should probably share my pain level at the time of my writing, so I'm going to try to do that and keep up with it. Right now my pain level is at a 6/10. That's better than even my best pre-SCS, but is pretty high for having the SCS.