Another Year Older

 Well, I am twenty-one days into October. My birthday is next week, on the 28th. I'll be 69 years old but feel a lot older this month. I've been in pain the whole month, all over, particularly in my hands. As a result, today I am using voice recognition on my computer to type. 

The program has come a long way since they first came out with a Windows speech recognition program. I've used that off and on for several years on my computers, but it wasn't really perfect as far as grammar and structure. The new models, which are probably based on AI, have improved significantly . 

I saw the endocrinologist today. Jesus. We agreed I should take a weight-loss shot, but not Ozempic. He gave me a name. But I don't remember what it was. His reasoning was that the pill he was going to give me would raise my blood pressure and therefore was a risk. Whereas the weight loss shot is better for my heart. Well, I can't argue with that. So we opted for the shot. The only problem is we have to find out if the insurance will pay for it..

No matter what happens, it is what it is. I will do whatever I have to do. I'm not keen on the shot because I know that losing weight is going to be disastrous at my age. As far as my looks are concerned, I get a lot of compliments about how I don't look my age. I guess in six months that will change, but if I feel better with less weight, then maybe I won't care.

Mike seems to be doing OK. He's researching the brain disease. I could not do that. I was so traumatized by the diagnosis that I kind of went into shock and could not bear to think about it. He has kind of just stepped in there and tried to discover what he can do to help himself. There's not much, and we both know that. He can't fly, and he may not be able to have surgery. Because any of those things can cause a stroke. 

Stroke is the biggest problem with Moya Moya. The lack of blood flow to the brain causes other problems. Some we've experienced as he grew up, and we didn't even know what was causing it. But other issues exist. And I know it must be frightening for him, because I'm terrified. However, it shows great courage that he can actually go out there and research the disease. If you are a person who prays., pray for Mike. And pray for his mom.

Answers on a Cup

 For over two decades, I've lived in almost constant pain. Real, I can't move pain for over 20 yrs. It went from bad to worse. And some days, I tell God how very tired of it I am. I just want it to stop.

 It doesn't, and neither do I. 

I enjoy being here, but I hate being here on days when so much fog clouds my brain that I can't think, write, or wash dishes. Days when I can't hold my hairbrush, walk without feeling like there's gravel in my feet, bend my knees, or simply sit in a chair on pelvic bones that feel like they've been hammered. And then there's the nerve damage in my arm and the carpal tunnel in both hands. 

On those days, I'm not happy. I'm not mildly annoyed either. No. I'm so angry I could punch walls or scream. One would hurt me and the other would get me arrested.  I also want that annoying person to experience what I'm feeling so I can give them the same treatment I'm getting. 

So, I'm furious on those days and avoid contact with as many as I can, even my family. Being nice is the most difficult thing in the world on those days when pain is using a stone to pound me into the ground. 

Add all that to my family that experienced their own pain. For example, Mike had a kidney stone and then a stroke. Phyllis has her foot in a boot from a near amputation, and David was laid off (he got another job). All that happened in the last 60 days. 

We all got problems, right? 

But today, the pain is less. The sun is shining. And for the moment, the world has not intruded on my psyche. So, for today, as the cup says, I'll just be happy and hope tomorrow is the same. 

What am I saying! I hope the next two hours are the same! 

May your day be pain free. However, I am available to listen if you wish to rant, cry, or whine. Because we should never walk away from someone else's pain.  

 

Disobedience

 So, I just got done cleaning the garage! I could barely walk for over a week. I've had severe pain in every major joint and my hands. This pain wasn't caused by my fibro, because my OTC medication for it works well. 

No, the doctors removing my anti-inflammatory medication, Lodine caused this. They decided I could go to pain management. You know, narcotic painkillers. Not happening. I've been dealing with the results of that since February and it had become almost impossible to take the trash to the street. And God forbid I should have to get on the floor. It has been so depressing and stressful to not be able to do anything constructive. I've sat in the chair watching videos and reading when I could focus. 

Monday evening, I had to get on the floor to get something behind the computer. Y'all, I thought I was going to have to call someone for help. I could not get up. My knees were in so much pain and I couldn't lift myself. And I'm not the svelte 130 I was when I came to Evansville. I stayed on my knees and wondered who I could call. I remembered David is in town now and was off that day. So I considered calling him to come help me. 

Do you know how humiliating it is to have to call someone to help you off the floor? Can you even imagine how frustrating it is not to be able to just stand up? I decided that I could do it. 

I grabbed the desk chair and positioned my body in the seat, and got my feet under me. And that sounds much easier than it actually was at that time. Let me just say my knees were extremely unhappy with that decision. I managed to get up and had to immediately sit down in said chair. And yesterday, they paid me back in spades. Hips and knees united in a front to fell me with a swoop. I was in so much pain. I woke this morning in only moderately less pain.

So, how could I clean the garage today? 

I broke the unspoken rule that says do what the doctor says. I took an OTC naproxen. It is half the dose of my prescription. Within one hour, ALL my pain had abated to a one. Knees work fine. Feet don't hurt. Hands are not swollen and stiff. Shoulder doesn't hurt. Neck doesn't hurt. 

Yeah, I'm pretty annoyed, but there is nothing I can do about the doctor's orders. I just don't have to follow them. Their reasoning was "too much risk". I've been on it for 20 yrs. And two other meds I take have life-threatening risks. They have to monitor my eyes because of one of them. It can cause permanent blindness. 

I'm just thankful I feel better this afternoon. My morning looked bleak until I took that pill. 

Everything is a wreck, but the weather was nice.........

We had a week of beautiful weather last week and now we're back to rain and cold. The weekend was pretty bad in the mid-west and several states had tornados and fatalities. Thankfully, my crew and I were safe. In fact, the low pressure systems that caused the weather passed north of us, so the pain I was expecting did not happen. I'm so thrilled about that. 

I could go to church this morning and stay for the whole service. Admittedly, the service was shorter than usual, but it was good. 

Tomorrow is my biannual appointment with the eye specialist. I'm required to see them twice a year because the immuno-suppressant shot I take can cause blindness. So they do retina scans to make sure there are no problems. Should they find the medication has built up in the eye, I will have to stop taking it. That wouldn't be good either. 

Tonight, I'm feeling depressed. Got some issues I'm trying to work through. Found some repairs on the house that I can't ignore this time. The car has a warning light that came on yesterday that we don't know what it means. Mike took it and ran a scan for a code, but the machine showed nothing. The car manual says the code means a powertrain issue. If you know what that is, you know it's not good news. I can't seem to cut a break. I have almost got my finances back in some order for all this to drop on me. 

So, that's the way it is, Sunday, March 16th, 2025. Thank you, Mr. Cronkite. 

Try To Remember... September

 My senior check-up today went well. I could remember the three words and set a clock. I told them they should ask me about the calendar instead, since half the time I don't know what day it is. My doctor, who is probably half my age, said she can't either. 

The doctor I see is lovely. She doesn't berate me about my "herbal" experiments or refusal to take certain medicines or shots. They gave me a pneumonia shot, but I refused the flu shot. I told her the only time I ever got a flu shot was in 1999 and it made me terribly sick. I haven't had one since. She said, "I saw that."

I've lost 10 lbs in the last month. It is probably because I've cut most of my carbs and I've eliminated one meal a day. I also have been taking B1 for three months now and it has had a huge effect on my sugar cravings. So, we'll see how this goes.

The effect on my fibro is nothing sort of miraculous. Brain fog disappeared and my pain from fibro has dropped very low. I still have RA and fibro, but most of the fibro symptoms are barely noticeable. The only thing I still notice is fatigue. It has lessened but not disappeared. 

I have started back at the gym but I'm not doing weights for a bit. My arm is doing well, but they've said to wait because of the pain I've been having in the arm. 

I've been trying to get myself organized. Again. I've been making lists of things I need to do the next day. Then, as I do it, I mark it off. This may sound fairly normal to you, but for me it isn't. I'm definitely not a list person. 

For weeks, I've had problems with depression and a sense of despair. Auto-immune diseases do that to you. But so does the news. No one wants to hear about your problems, so you have to keep it bottled up. Again, not a good idea. So, I spent an afternoon ranting to God. He's much nicer than people. He listens, doesn't smite me, and once I'm finished, he helps me see much clearer. I had a short piece of writing that day that came to me and was surprised it helped me. For some reason, the contents helped me. I'll share it on Rendered Praise soon. Maybe someone else needs it.

After my meltdown, I realized the people who fail you are often the most surprising. People say things you never dream they'd say. It's painful when it happens, but it reminded me that what a person says in those moments tells you more about who they really are than the face you often see. Those unguarded moments, reveals the person behind the mask. 

For a day, I hung clothes on the line. I planned to hang more, but by the time I got to the next load, it was getting dark and I don't actually like hanging clothes in the dark. I don't get scared, but having my back to the dark part of the yard is uncomfortable. Having my back to open doors is too, but in the dark, that's worse. 

Last weekend I priced wall panels for the half bath. Bead board panels. That bathroom is so small I can't do a lot of crazy stuff. The wall is so damaged after having contact paper on it, that I either have to rip it out or find something to go over it. Panels are the easiest and bead board, I think will look nice in a small space. To make it feel less closed in, I plan to hang a picture of a window with an exterior view on one wall. A smaller sink will also give me more space. I mean, all we do in there is wash hands and brush teeth. I'm not washing my hair or doing laundry. 

So, that's my September. 

Death in a Bottle

I elected to not take the Methotrexate this weekend. It was a difficult decision and one for which I have no doubt I will suffer painful consequences. But I was already suffering consequences from the decision to take it. Within one month of starting it the pain in my joints was 100% better. The trade off was that the glands in my neck started to swell and I developed some kind of severe pain in the side of my neck below my ear that rapidly worsened to the point that turning my head in certain positions was agony. I developed numbness along the bottom of my jaw on that side and if I kept my head in that position long enough, the numbness crept up the side of my head and down to my shoulder. I had no explanation for it.

It was obvious to me that something wasn't right. When I returned to the doctor about two months later, I told her the problem and she completely ignored it. Made no reference to the neck pain at all. I mentioned I went to my Primary care physician and she thought it sounded like torticollis. She didn't seem interested and did not check the neck and gave the lymph glands a passing probe. "Yes, they're slightly swollen."

I became more and more depressed, to the point I was spending a lot of evening alone in my house crying. I also mentioned this to her but she didn't feel it was an issue, despite the flyer for the medicine saying this was a side effect of methotrexate, as are the swollen glands.

The swelling worsened. Those under my arms were a bit tender. I was using heat and cold packs on my neck day and night when I was at home. They helped a bit. The neck pain and stiffness got slightly better. It has not gone away. But as of the morning, after not taking the once a week dose yesterday, my glands have dramatically shrunk. I've felt exhausted for a while now, as I think I've mentioned on here. I'd  have to look back but I think ever since I've been on the Methotrexate I've been more tired. Yes, I did hurt less in my joints but my quality of life has not improved.

I've felt for years that my situation was the result of a virus. I watched a video that scared the heebee jeebees out of me a few night ago and kept me up most of the night with what I heard. It was horrible. I will not post the link here. If you want to watch it on YouTube look for Dr. R. E. Tent and a video about autoimmune disorders. I warn you it is insanely scary and sounds like a science fiction movie of epic portions. That was just the first hour.

The second hour, which I skimmed because I was in shock by then, he talked about his patients. He indicated Epstein Barr is connected to rheumatoid arthritis, headaches, and chronic fatigue. Last year, the first five months of the year, I was sick with what my Primary care doctor said was a "recurrence of the Epstein Barr virus". I couldn't believe that then because the symptoms I was having were not familiar to me when I was sick last year. That's mono and I had never in my life had that virus. Apparently, I did. You can have mild cases or just be a carrier.

In light of what I know now, it makes so many thing much clearer. And instead of throwing poison at it there has to be something else. No, I have no idea what. I just know that I believed for years that my condition was the result of a virus. I have no idea why I believed that, I just have always done so. It acts like a virus to me. And no, I'm not a doctor but I read and I pay attention to my body. I listen to it.

So, despite the devastating effects that are probably in store for me with the RA and the pain I am very familiar with,  I see no reason to take a medicine that has, in four months, made me as sick, if nor more so, as I am with RA. In the video, he called Methotrexate "Death in a Bottle".

If you pray, if you know someone who is able to pray for healing please bring my name to their attention. If you take Methotrexate or have in the past, I would like to hear your experiences on it. And if you know of reputable alternative treatments to any of these, I want to know.

Aching Calves & Brain Tweeks

Is is only Tuesday night? Really?

I've had severe pain in both calves for three days and I have no idea why. I have not walked in at least a week because I've either been exhausted, it rained, or I've been so busy I didn't get time. Sunday I had trouble walking. I could hardly walk yesterday and today, for most of the day, it was horrible. I see my primary doctor on Thursday and will address it with her. The weekend was rushed, as you should have read in a previous post. So, here we are at Tuesday. The only positive is Friday is two days away and vacation a few weeks.

Mike's birthday was Sunday and we all went to church and then to lunch together. Both my sister and I had diarrhea afterward. We both had clams. We eat at this restaurant a lot and never had this issue. Very odd... and unpleasant. I still had a problem on Monday.

I bought Mike a new smart t.v. for his birthday and he bought himself a stand for it. Dave and I went over to help him set up.I wish I had not. I don't want to go into detail but let me just say that the people on Hoarders are real people. They exist. I went back to Mike's tonight to help him get started cleaning up. This is going to take awhile. It is very stressful.

I'm tired and about to go to bed but I have spent some time tweaking my writing blog tonight. It is an old blog that started life as something else.  I like what I'm doing with these writing challenges the group has done. I'm writing more these days than I have in a long time. My efforts to limit my time on less productive pursuits has allowed me time to walk and the walking has stimulated my brain. I have to tell you that the cemetery walks have begun to feed me ideas and that's always a fun prospect. I feel more ready for NaNo than I've felt in several years. Now if I can just get the kick-off set up!

So, with that, I'll say good night.