so, that was fun

I survived the ordeal. Barely.

I have to say, it was one of the worst things I have been through in recent memory--and while going through it, I kept saying to myself, I had three babies without medications!---why is this so hard? Let me tell you, it was. What I had were "trigger point injections". Because my insurance won't pay for the nerve injections right now, all they could do is try and ease the pain in the muscles around the spine which are giving me tremendous pain, I might add. So --- "small needle" the doc kept telling me, as if that will make me feel better. But, small needle, eight places marked with a pen for injections in each. Begin at the base of the brain--way up on the neck, a point that hurts me every second of my life, since the surgery on my neck in 2007. Holy Jesus, Holy mother of Jesus, Holy I don't know what else, I was not prepared for that pain. Stick in the needle, dig around a bit, push the plunger full of something supposedly miraculous. Sounds easy. It was not. I cried. Tears ran down my face freely, blood ran down the back of my neck just as freely. Had Mark not been there holding both of my hands as I sat there needing to be still, I could not have made it through even the first one. Of course, once the first one is done, you know what's coming up seven more times. I made it through six, felt like a fool for crying, couldn't take any more. The doc was willing to stop after four but I want so badly for something to help me, and I felt that if I was that far along, I should do the best I could to further it along. Immediately after, my neck really did feel better, so I had hope. But that was the numbness of the steroids injected, and whatever else was in that plunger. Within a few hours, the pain was back along with the pain and trauma and lumps from the ordeal. So, I don't know where that leaves me this morning, other than in worse than usual pain. I am still hoping for the help to kick in, but the doc did indicate that the pain would be lessened immediately, no delayed reaction here. I am guessing it's not going to help. Dammit. He did let me know that even if it did help, it was only an extremely temporary fix for a problem that cannot really be helped at all this way, that we are only treating the symptoms, not the problem. And also that there is no "fix" anyway, and truly, if I have to hear that one more time from a doctor I am going to scream. I know I can't be fixed. I get it. I am still looking for a miracle, though. And those don't come from doctors.

I am tired, I have had zero sleep, less than my usual three hours, even. I am bitchy. I am in pain. Plus, I fell and whacked my head pretty good in what you all call the night, in what I call my never-ending day, but that is another story for later. So, it hurts. And that did not help my neck.

But, it's Friday. I hope I can make it to work today. I'm not sure I have the required "fight" in me this morning. But I will try. I always try.

Happy day.

I love beginning my sentences with AND.

I have been sitting here, at my keyboard for most of the night. Well, most of what you all would call the night. I am not sure what I call it, the late night "everyone in the world is asleep but me" hours have become my mornings. I don't really mind the shift in my hours and my thinking, but my oh-so-tired body would like to argue that point. Sleeping beyond one or two in the am has become impossible. As a general rule, by that hour, I have been in the bed, fitfully asleep three or four hours. Not enough by far, but tell my body that --- the bones in my legs that seem to lay directly on top of each other, poking me painfully, the burning up and down the backs of each, the throbbing in my neck and head, the electrical "shocks" I feel in my feet and hands, the horrific charlie horses I get in my upper thighs and my rear end. No pillow, no position, no kind of change that I can make can change the fact that I cannot lay there one second longer. Mason and Meisha love my new hours, after all, they are allowed to eat breakfast at that ridiculous hour. There is nothing like the smell of tuna, whitefish (?), cod, etc at two am. Oh yeah.

Other than my crazy nights, nothing much has changed here in limbo land. I wait for the big move, even for the time that I can begin to pack up my current apartment, but it is still too early. I have made the mistake of packing up way ahead of time, when there still is weeks of living left to do in the place being moved from. You end up with a huge mess of boxes and complete disarray, usually packing things that need to used, so the boxes are opened and closed more than once. It just doesn't work for a nitpicky neat freak like me. However, knowing that I am leaving here takes away the interest in keeping it looking perfect, like usual. So now, I am living in a bit of a mess, unhappy of course, that I am. Yes---I am aware that is screwed up, no need to tell me. And frankly, I have little energy or ability right now to do much about any of it, anyway. I worry about how I am possibly going to get ready to move in the first place, in general I am useless. But I also know that things have a way of working out. So...I flow along, in my la-la land type of fog. It will get done---somehow.

I cannot turn my head this morning. In general I have constant neck pain but holy french toast, this morning--it's bad. Blenheim.

I saw my doc yesterday....the wheels are in motion to have the spinal stimulator implanted. There are many things that need to be done first...so it will take awhile, including having a complete psych workup, to make sure i am a good candidate. I am not looking forward to any of it, but like has been said here alot recently, I give. SOMETHING has to be done. So---begin, I will.

Saturday! I love Saturday. I have no idea what the day holds in store for me, but I do know that I am going to make dinner this evening and I have to make a birthday cake for Mark. Yep --- he's another year older tomorrow!

You all have a wonderful day today. And that's an order!  :)

Answers

Finally, I have some answers to medical questions. Not that I am happy with the answers, but at least there are answers. Besides having severe degenerative spine disease, which I have known about for the past few years, I have fibromyalgia. Which I have never been diagnosed with. And I have sjogrens disease. Which I suspected I had, my mother had it, but I have also never been told that I have. The answers were all there in the gazillion blood tests that I had done...and so now....I have to start on a new course of treatment to try and reclaim my life. I was left feeling a little shell-shocked and blue yesterday, but realized at the same time that I am no different today than I was yesterday, it merely has a name. But, now there are new appointments for tests, new appointments for doctors, new appointments that I don't have the time for or the energy to complete. Bleh. I go the the doctors asking them to help, and get pissed when I have to go for other appointments, but come one. You get on this merry-go-round of BS and can't get off. None of these problems will kill me...they will just make me miserable enough to want to die. That's how I see it. I just want my quality of life to be a bit better, I am not asking for miracles here. In order to accomplish this...off to more tests, doctors, new medications...

Just shoot me now. Put me out of my misery.

Gah.