End of the Line

It has been a long and strange journey on this blog. I seem to have lost the impetus to keep it going and I'm a bit sorry about it. I used to enjoy posting about the people and events in my life. I do post on my writing blog and sometimes on Rendered Praise but even that one has languished a bit and both are different. I'm not sure anymore what I want to do... or say.

My world has never recovered since Jerry died, not really. I mean, I've gone on with my life, such as it is. I'm still here. No, I haven't met someone. You actually have to see people for that to happen. I've stayed here in my home, raising my granddaughter. I retired, as you'll remember if you've read along. I thought I'd be able to write more. I got sick, and sicker, and sicker until I despaired of even living at times. How do you function when you're in so much pain all the time and you feel like you're on the wrong train?

You just keep going.

The truth is, I've never been able to right the upside-down world I was thrown into. There was just nothing normal about my life anymore. Nothing made any sense at all. More and more I found myself not wanting to write. Not wanting to do the things I used to do. I don't want to cook but I have an 11 yr old who has to eat. You'd think I'd lose weight but no, I gain it! I'm too tired or too sick to go out and exercise. Or it is so freaking cold or wet that it is impossible. Even the back surgery I had to repair the ruptured disk, although it made some things tremendously better, has not really made much difference in what I do.

I feel like a door is closing and maybe it is. This is probably the last post here I'll do. Maybe it is because I've just been sick for months with colds and I'm still sick with one, milder though it is. I really don't know. My immune system is very low now.

I just know that I don't have anything left to say. The interesting things, at least to me, have declined to the point that there is nothing I really enjoy doing. There are no family stories to relate because there is no family left. There are no work tales to tell because I can't work anymore. There are no exciting people or places or things to tell you about. There are plenty of annoyances, frustrations, and sadnesses but who wants to share that? And who wants to read it.

You'll say this is depression. Maybe it is a mild one. I don't even want to try and figure it out.  What I do want to say is thank you. If you've been with me on this convoluted journey, lived thru the nightmare of death, and laughed at my kids, thank you. I don't know why you did it. But I'm glad you did. You remained silent but if you stuck with me, thanks.

As of now, the blog will remain open. I get comments in my email, not that anyone ever does other than one or two here and there. But if you stop by, shoot me a comment to let me know. Will I come back? I don't know. I'm giving myself permission to give up several things this year. I have too many chains weighing me down and the need to shake them off won't leave me alone. I may if there is something good to say. Today, I can't think of one thing.

So I pray you are blessed and I hope I've given you enjoyment with my crazy Life on the Ledge.

Be happy. Be kind. In the end, that's what will count.

Popping in for an Update

Fadings

I've been asking myself if I should let this blog just fade away. I rarely write here anymore and it seems wrong to just ignore it. I'm mostly on the writing blog or the faith-based one. I have tried to think how I could blend them but the reason the other two exist was that I didn't think it would work. I keep links to them in the headers of each blog so anyone can go to them from this one but honestly, I don't have that many readers. I'm not that interesting.

I'm doing much better this week. Starting the weekend I notice the muscles in my back were less sore and I could move my shoulders without a lot of pain. I also noticed that my sleep is much better than it has been in probably years. I'm less tired most days but do have bouts of extreme fatigue. I've learned to just go to bed and nap for a couple of hours. Sleeps makes it better.

My Thanksgiving holiday was relatively quiet. I spent the afternoon with Sarah's other grandparents. They invited us over and Sarah, Mike, and I went. We had a great lunch and I enjoyed just relaxing and talking. I made a banana pudding and carried that but it was nice not to have to do all that work. I would have been totally wiped out if I had had to deal with a holiday meal.

Holidays are not usually fun for me but at least it wasn't filled with the usual stress. I've spent today just sitting around reading, crocheting and listening to podcasts. I've come to really enjoy those and I can crochet and listen at the same time. Even my Kindle fire will read my book to me. 

I'll leave this for now. I started it a few days ago and forgot it. Doctor's appointment on Monday morning for them to follow up on my surgery. I"m hoping I'll be allowed to do a bit more.

Down in the Dumps Day

It's Wednesday. I'm feeling better physically, except I am really tired because I'm still having problems with the Bipap machine. The truth is, I'm depressed today and I don't even know why. I should not be depressed because I feel better. I am rather scared to admit it but even the nerve pain in my left arm is not as bad today. So feeling depressed seems foolish.

It's probably the lack of sleep or proper sleep that's causing this. I don't know what else I can do about it. I used a new mask last night and it did not help. I guess I just keep trying.

I am supposed to see my new primary care today. I don't think that would make me depressed but one never knows. I'm hoping it works out better than the one I've been using. She's a very nice doctor but I just think she's too inexperienced and I have some pretty severe problems. I really wish I could find another Dr. Like Dr. Beckman. The guy I see today is actually a fairly good doctor. I have used him years ago. I'm just really tired of having to find doctors that don't treat me like I'm an idiot. Of course, things have changed, and he may treat me that way, too.

I don't even know why I'm writing this. I've been sitting here all morning feeling down and too tired to do anything. I don't think writing this will help me feel better and I really don't know what will. Sarah has been with her other grandparents this week and I am really missing her. Maybe that's why I'm depressed. When she's here, she's a lot of work but it is work I enjoy and her company keeps me from thinking too much about things that actually do depress me.

At any rate, I'll stop this here. I have nothing else to say and there's no point in going on and on about how rotten I feel today.

When Life Goes Sideways

I'm posting this on all three blogs to save time. I've not posted anything on them for a few months. This serves as an explanation, not an excuse. 

Here we are at the end of September and I can't figure out where the summer went. I was doing rather well at finishing my novel, Hidden in the Mist. In fact, I'm probably less than 2000 words away. It was the 9th of July. The story was going well. I was working on the study/den/dining room to get it repainted and reorganized. I felt pretty good. There were plans to sell books. Things looked . . . bright. The road seemed smooth and straight. 

That's when things always go wrong. Somewhere, in the dark I hit something. 

Actually, in the wee hours of Sunday morning at 3 a.m. I woke up screaming and had to call Mike to come get me and take me to the hospital. My whole left arm was in excruciating pain and felt as if it were on fire. It was also paralyzed. I'm left-handed. I couldn't hold my phone, dial it, or pick up anything. Every move sent me into screams. 

I went to St. Vincent's ER (Primary care is at that hospital) and they did x-rays, gave me a shot of morphine and a steroid, a script for valium, and orders to go to physical therapy. I have a pinched nerve. I went home. 

At 5 a.m. Monday morning I was back at a second ER. This time I decided to use the hospital (Deaconess) where my records were for all my ailments. After CT scan and a couple of shots of something they sent me home with Loratabs and ordered to go see PT. Monday I went to urgent care at the orthopedic urgent care and the doctor said I could shoot myself. Yeah. Scheduled me to go to PT a few days later. 

It would be two weeks before I could see a PT doc but they could do physical therapy before that. I went to my primary care doc on Tuesday and she prescribed steroids, Gabapentin and Skelaxin. Let me just say that at this point, not a single medication had any impact. The narcotics took the edge off to stop me screaming. The Gabapentin made me a zombie who felt pain and I stopped it but it took three days to get my mind back. I had acupuncture the second week and believe it or not, 50% of my pain disappeared in 2 hrs and I could actually hold my fork! Brushing my hair and wiping my butt was still beyond me. 

I won't go into the rest of the last two months. Suffice it to say I alternated between screaming in pain and writhing with gritted teeth and sobbing. Eventually, after a fainting spell in my RA doctor's office, I was sent to a neurologist who did an MRI and found I have a compressed spinal cord. She immediately sent me to a neurosurgeon. Turns out I have a ruptured disc. I have to have surgery sometime in the next couple of weeks to repair it and to fuse some discs. I hope.

And that is how life has gone sideways. 

I was unable to type for three weeks and still have problems after typing for very long. The pain in my arm is bearable but only just. It still feels like it is on fire on the bottom side of my forearm, side of my hand and third and fourth fingers. I'm very clumsy and that is frustrating because I've always been very dexterous. 

Now it is as if my hand belongs to someone else. Thankfully, as a lefty living in a righty world, I'm a bit ambidextrous and I've been able to do a lot of things with my right hand. I'll never be able to write with it and I can't remember to do some of the other tasks with it but it has been easier to let the right hand pull extra duty. As a result, the right hand is a bit more functional. Probably a good thing since the doctor said he couldn't promise my left hand would return to full function with no pain. Apparently, when a nerve is pinched this long (07/09 thru 09/17) it might not recover. 

There's always a silver lining, isn't there?  I'm hopeful because God is good and I've got stuff to do. 

As a side note, during all of this, my son Mike fell off the delivery truck at work (about 4 feet) and broke his right arm and injured his shoulder. So the one person who helps me the most is also incapacitated. 

See, I told you there was a silver lining. 

And that's the way it is as of today, Sunday, September 17, 2017. 

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