Checking In & Updates

HELP!

A very quick "hi" since I feel I'm neglecting quite a few friends out there.  Oh good grief, I've taken my night meds so I really shouldn't be writing.  I KNOW I'll regret it in the morning.  I'll be upset and think, "your brain told you not to go there! Why did you do it?"  Well, it seemed like a good thing at the time - that'll be my answer to myself and hopefully things won't be too bad.  (Right! Huh!)

Also, I'm beginning to realize my posts don't need to be earth-shattering info all the time (took me long enough!), that I don't need to cram every thought I've had into one long reading, and furthermore, that they do not all need to have a huge purpose with life lessons thrown in.  In other words, I guess I need to loosen up.  Just one problem: I'm not a person who can loosen up, ever, much as I've always tried!  Ask my family. Ask anyone who's ever worked on me from doctors to masseuses to phlebotomists to those who know me well. It just doesn't happen.

But to catch up those who aren't on Twitter, you've sort of missed a few "adventures" of this spoonie who is really getting ticked off with the complications from ME/CFIDS/CFS and fibromyalgia.  Last we "spoke" I'd finally had "the works" done (hair, lashes, brows). Unfortunately, I had to stop by one of our local hospitals for an X-ray after our big day out in order to see what's going on with the painful and limited motion in my left shoulder. Turns out that I'd somehow managed to mess up my rotator cuff.   (See this link for more on what great things happened that day!)

I'm hoping to bring us up to date because it's another thing I can laugh about...well, sorta.  But there are a whole bunch of things I'd like to talk about so let's pretend this is a "Friday Tidbits" with bullet points.  I'm going to tease you a bit.  These bullet points will serve as a reminder of what I want to talk about this week. Yes, folks, I'm going to try mighty hard to get back to posting on a more regular and frequent basis.  I must get away from the getting sick and hospitalized thing.  Uhhhhh..... My plan - the stories behind the following:

• Yes, ladies and gents, you may have realized why I'd gone MIA again.  It was yet another hospitalization!  
  As I laid in pain, nauseated, I have to admit that shallow me was ever so thrilled that I happened to take a bath and wash my hair before we made the ER run.  More on this later - both medical issues and "shallow" ones as well.  In fact, I did manage a very rudimentary mani while in the hospital.  More on this later. Standards must be kept!
• MY new theories about what's going on.  Well, perhaps not what is going on, but a possibility of why it's going on....
• And how could we have Thanksgiving without my addressing food?  There's a lot here.  Also, if I can get my act together I'd also like to occasionally give you a few recipes or food ideas which keep me going.  I don't know about you, but I can never decide what I want to eat, if I should eat and so forth. So, recipes and ideas, might be coming down the pike.
• I've a few more ideas for what to add to your prepared hospital (or travel) bag.  I realized I needed these additions the hard way.  
• What have I been reading?  Not much, mind you, but I'm enjoying what I've discovered.
• I can't believe I'm going to say this but...for the first time since I was a elementary school girl, I'm going to make a few real thought-out New Year resolutions. (I can't wait to see the backside of 2013!)  Instead of just grabbing the first couple of ideas that pop into my head at the last minute, I'm going to give this some real thought.  I think I have one badly needed resolution figured out which will help others.  We can even egg each other on support each other with this.
• Making a list of what makes me happy and puts me in a good mood - and why I need this list.  (It's a must!)
• Making a list of what makes me sad and really impatient and puts me in a most rotten mood. (It's also a must!)
• Why I need to work hard on making changes which will put me in a mood light enough to really have no problems saying things which I'm grateful for at next year's Thanksgiving table.  I know.  I hate to sound ungrateful but I'm putting this in at the moment because I know that there are too many of us out there who have problems coping with the holidays - and I wouldn't want anyone to think that they're alone in the not greatest of mood mode!  (Experience here!)

These are just a few of the topics I hope to discuss in the next few days/weeks.  Some have to do with the hospitalizations (the one this week and the one just prior) and the bit of brainwashing that goes on.  Or as I like to call it, "propaganda." 

I'm praying that my health allows me to follow through with that which I want to do. Following through and staying busy in general: now THAT always puts me in the best of moods! 

As always, I hope everyone's doing their very best - only better!  Ciao and paka.


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Shallow Me?

I'm not as bad as some members of my family!  My son getting a pedicure by way of fish in Southeast Asia, on holiday with his wife. 

We've been oh-so-serious here lately and I thought, it's definitely time to lighten things up a bit.  And so I have a have a confession to make.

I am a shallow person.  Yep, it's true.  I really and truly am.  I cannot handle having someone see me at my worst.  These things really bother me.

When I was in the hospital writhing in pain, as a doctor or nurse would examine me, all I could think about was how bad was my breath, when was the last time I'd had my hair cut, dyed, highlighted and low-lighted? How much were my age spots showing?  How bad did my armpits smell?  I think I realized I was totally nuts when one day my GI was upset about how distended my stomach was and I suddenly remembered that I had scars there from my gallbladder surgery last year, laparoscopically, and wondered if my surgeon (aka "Dr. Hunk") had had a chance to admire his work.  Call me silly, but I think he could care less about the scars.  But as the GI guy was worried about my distended stomach I was glad I'd lost my Cymbalta weight and that the belly wasn't as fat as it had been just a couple of months ago.

So it wasn't a huge surprise that when I got home I immediately went to work on hubs trying to get him to see why things couldn't go on like they had been: I was in dire need of getting fixed up.  I needed to get the eyelashes colored again, the brows dyed, the hair done, pronto.  Worse, I realized that I had many doctors appointments scheduled and doing all that work to look human as I'd get ready for an appointment was just too much.  I couldn't even begin to figure out where my eyebrows were in order to color them in, just an example.  My hair, so thin and getting thinner by the day, needed rollers to give it some umph if I were going out of the house and that's just too much work.

So, we finally made the big appointment.  I go to a large city for my works, a bit over an hour's drive and way too much construction and traffic to deal with.  I woke up ill that morning, running a bit of a fever but I realized that the appointments would only be postponed, not cancelled indefinitely.  And, I realized that the reason so many months had gone by since my last appointment was because I'm always getting sick or am sick or getting over being sick.  It was time to bite the bullet and just do it.   No matter what, I wouldn't find a good day and each day that passed I was looking worse.  

Nope.  Hubs wasn't going to talk me out of it.  I was strong and I could handle it.  Hubs gave in, realizing I was impossible.  He finally said the words I've waited to hear for over ten years, never thinking I'd hear them. It was, hubs said, time to find someone who could tattoo my eyebrows in.  I pushed the envelope and added, "and eyeliner too!"  He nodded.  So, now if only I can stay 'healthy" long enough, I need to find a good, reputable tattoo artist.  We are talking about the face, after all....and the eyes too.  That's prime real estate, let's remember.  We do not want the word "whoops!" coming out of anyone's month.

Now I need to explain something: just how much I loathe getting my hair done.  I would rather have a root canal.  I would rather have surgery.  A hysterectomy is preferable to getting my hair done - and I've had one of those so I know what I'm talking about!  Those of you fortunate enough to have hair will never understand this feeling.  My hair is definitely my Achilles'  heel.  There has always been so little of it.  Bad enough that my mom, my daughter and my BFF all have enough hair to fill up five women's heads each. Now with the hypothyroidism, I have less than even my usual.  I've seriously considered just going bald, getting it just shaved.

OK...you get the idea...I think.

So, after getting everything done we were on our way home.  For once I didn't try to con hubs into a bit of a shopping trip.  In fact, when we hit the elevator button, I was so "tired" that I just sat down on the floor.  I could care less how it looked. Manners?  Who cared?!

We got to the car and I couldn't believe it.  My left arm couldn't bend to buckle the two metals parts of the seat belts together and after hubs did it for me, the shoulder wouldn't stop hurting, and a lot. I finally told hubs that once we got to our town, we'd need to stop at the ER before going home.  By the time we reached the parking lot of the ER, I was holding back tears.  I'd taken pain meds and they weren't helping.

To make a long story short(er)... The kind doctor who had admitted me to the hospital last time I was there came in.  In all the madness when I wrote my last few posts, I forgot to mention that we did finally get a good doctor--- after I was horrified to see "Dr. Dear" of the infamous pancreatitis fiasco had come into the room. He had turned around and left and the charge nurse (who knew hubs) got a very good doctor to come in.  She was worried that we wouldn't like his ponytail.  

Was she insane?  Worse, did she think WE were insane and unreasonable?  Not that it mattered, but I loved the ponytail.  It showed that he didn't care what bureaucrats thought...  We hoped it meant that he only cared about medical care.  Not only that, but that probably meant that he remembered the Vietnam War.  

You must read my post (please!) where I explain why our new doctors are, frankly, so cr*ppy.  Oh come on.... I could care less about lawsuits anymore from anything I say, especially since I know that I speak the truth and I do not exaggerate.  My new mantra is, I want them - the robots and unenlightened - to fear ME.  No, I don't want to antagonize, but I've finally had it with the bullying and the incompetence.  I am ticked off, big time, and I'm not taking it anymore.  You  are nice to them and they walk over you, taking you for a weakling.  I'm not going there anymore.  And I have yet to write about the bully nurse, a huge story.  

So, Dr. NicePonytail immediately realized what I had suspected.  I didn't know what a "rotator cuff" was but those words just kept popping into my head during our drive home. It just sounded right and felt right.

Now I'd had pain in that shoulder for weeks but we all thought it was referred pain from the pancreatitis.  But that morning as I was getting ready for my "beauty day," I felt that arm pop. I said nothing.  It was minimal in the scheme of things.

But now it was screaming.  Furthermore, my BP had broken a record.  They got another machine, not believing the reading.  My usual 90/65-70 was a whopping 190/101.  Ah... how I love the BP.  It my "tell" to me of how I'm doing.

The good news is that I do not need surgery.  The bad news is that I need to keep my arm in a sling for a few days and then will need physical therapy.  The danger is a "frozen shoulder" if I don't do things right.

Now, how was my "vanity issue" in the ER?  You'd think good, given what I'd done all day. But, my lovelies, how you'd be so wrong!  I was explaining to anyone who'd listen just why my brows looked so...well, Groucho. Some of the dye was imbedded in the skin, a usual thing that goes away in a couple of days.  Of course I always need a few days to get used to the color and cut of my hair.  There was a bit of dark color under my eyes I couldn't disguise, from the lash coloring....

I can't win, can I?

But there is wonderful news.  The gift of laughter I've always taken for granted and was so afraid was gone permanently, as a result of the Cymbalta fiasco, has returned.  If the run to the ER with the arm didn't make me laugh at my luck nothing would bring it back.  So I am happy that this arm did this little trick.  I may feel differently if it doesn't heal right, but for now I'm thrilled I have something absurd to laugh at.

As to the shallowness of my being?  I'm not sure that is curable!  It was honestly inherited from my mom and if nothing else, I am my mother's daughter.

And on that note, I say my usual.  I hope everyone is feeling their very best, only better. Ciao and paka! 



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