Sunday, March 23, 2008

The Pain Wall

It's 4:30am, I have been up since 3. Sir Hector came in to check on me about 2:30am probably because I quit snoring and he wanted to see if mom was all right. He snuggled and purred a while then I decided there was no use tossing and turning and waking up Hubby so I got up, did some stretching (it didn't help), unloaded the dishwasher and made some tea.

Easter morning and I have hit the pain wall.... The point between "I can handle this" - that's about a 6-7 on a pain scale of 1- 10 - and "I can't do this!" which is 8 or above... The point where you will find me in the fetal position on the couch or bed.

I really need to go to church this morning - it is, after all, Easter. And I also need to just medicate myself enough to just sleep the worst of the pain off. What to do??

More than likely I will go to church and just end up laying on the floor of one of the Sunday School rooms for the majority of the service. But then, again, I might go ahead and medicate myself and crawl back in bed.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

March

Here I am, barely half way through March and it ranks high on my list of months-that-are-not-my favorites.

First of all I seem to have been struck with the dreaded gastroparesis. Not unusual for someone with autonomic issues and so far I have considered myself very fortunate to have escaped issues of that nature. Uncomfortable to put it mildly. But I am trying to handle it. I figure I will get through it; or not.

Of course, gastroparesis is aggravated by narcotic pain meds and I can't take NSAID's so that has left me trying to manage pain with hot packs and hot baths. Not good. When you wake up in the morning with pain of 5-6 on a 10-scale and it progresses to a 7 as the day goes on, it is difficult to manage simple day-to-day things like just getting up to go to the bathroom, much less a daunting task like cooking. Cleaning is out of the question and if it were not for a nice lady from church coming by a couple times a week we would undoubtedly be living in a real pig sty!

Then there is the weather. At least we have escaped the severe ice storms we had last year. I know I am spoiled first of all by the Montana Banana Belt winters - where ice was unheard of and the snow was so light and fluffy it would all be blown away within a couple hours - then the first few winters we were back here the winters were mild. I know this one is "average" for us but it seems like it is lasting forever.

I have missed church a couple of times, and I am cutting back on the few things I participate in there. The HopeKeepers group now has one meeting a month at the church and we go out to eat for the other meeting.

Tomorrow I am scheduled to make a presentation at the DAR meeting, and this time the ladies are going to get me ... reading out of a book. It is Women's History month and I have an excellent book I will take, then pass around. This is my last DAR meeting. This is something else I can't deal with. For the moment I will maintain my membership but not attend meetings.

I feel like I am slipping down the hill. A hill where I have never reached the top, a hill where I know I cannot reach the top. But now I feel like the hill has had an avalanche!

Friday, March 7, 2008

What sibling rivalry?

Hector and Callie...


What sibling rivalry?

Hector and Callie...





Thursday, March 6, 2008

It's a bad sign

The gas man backed into the driveway this afternoon - which is rare because he usually shows up early in the morning. But, anyway, here he is - at 1pm...

He first went to the backyard and looked at the tank then he came to the kitchen door. He told us our tank was 40% full right now - since we weren't needing gas now, instead of topping it off he thought we should wait. Because the price has gone WAY high (no, he didn't say how high!) and maybe by next time the price would be down. So I hope the price doesn't continue to go UP!