Monday Check-In...

Had a busy weekend watching my little man's soccer games. He's playing up in a U11 travel league(He's 9). He scored a goal so he was pretty pumped all weekend.

My pain dr fit me in on Friday. The muscle spasms around the tmj replacements have been awful since my inpatient stay. Getting sick to the stomach is killer since I have no opening. Dr added Valium for the night and keeping the Baclofen during the day. He and I both know that there won't be much relief, but any little thing helps. The botox injections have done nothing at all.

Had a quiet morning and then had lunch with my son at school. Nothing like watching a bunch of 3rd graders shove food in their mouths to ruin an appetite.

It's a dreary rainy day here so I plan to read and lay low today. This is the only day this week that I don't have a drs appointment. I need to tackle the housework-looks like a disaster. Where's my helper monkey when I need it?

Hello everyone!

We are hopefully closing escrow on our new home today - tax day, how funny is that? So Saturday I laid low and looked at the budget and we talked about the work we will be doing on the house prior to moving in. First order of business is to paint the entire interior (minus one bathroom) and change the flooring in all but two bedrooms. The master bedroom will become my "salon" as I am moving my existing nail salon business into the home - so I will be able to spread my part time work hours throughout the week and not have too many LONG work days! We will focus on getting this work done and moving the salon, then we will start working on moving in - we decided it's too much to try to do them both at once.

Sunday we went to the home improvement stores - 3 or so hours there had my pain levels pretty high, which is making me a little nervous about what it's going to be like to do everything else that will be coming up!

I work my long day tomorrow - so Wed evening we will be shopping, picking up all the paint and ordering the new flooring. I am going to try to start painting Thursday - work Friday - then more painting over the weekend. I have no idea how it's going to go, so I guess we shall see! Still it is exciting, we've lived in WA for 4 1/2 years and are just now jumping back into home ownership.

In addition to all this, I am going to spend a little time each day researching ways/remedies to allow me to gain back some of what I've lost due to chronic pain - I don't know why, but I am suddenly fed up and motivated to change things!

I'm looking out the window at the water (we live on Puget Sound) and my puppies are sunning themselves on the deck - it's a good day to sit home and curl up with a good book!

My RA Doctor is supposed to get his copy of my eye pictures by fax today and I hope to hear back later in the week, hate waiting. One doctor appointment this week, pm office messed up on the phone/ fax number for my pharmacy and I got fewer pain meds than what was talked about, so worried on that.
Many well wishes to everyone.

My heart goes out to Boston as well. I'm hoping they can find out really soon who did that gruesome act of violence.

As far as me, my weekend was pretty good. I don't have any doctors appointments this week. Just the same old same old.

I hope everyone has a low pain week.

love and hugs
Loretta

I am new here so forgive me if I do this wrong. I had a tough weekend. My mom has bipolar and dementia and we had to have her get some inpatient treatment for paranoia. She has been having a very tough time there and it has translated to a lot of drama for me. Everyday I wait for the phone to ring with a new crisis.

So Sunday morning the inpatient mental hospital calls and says my mom's kidneys are not doing well. She has kidney disease and had been refusing food, water, and meds on occasion at the facility. So they brought her by ambulance to the hospital of my choice. I met her there and have been here ever since. Helping her with getting around is taking a physical toll, the couch is killing my back, mom's paranoia is making her freak every time I take a pill, her mental state is over whelming me emotionally.

Today I was supposed to go to the dentist and another family member was going to come sit with her. But that didn't work out. So I am worried because I have a nerve block Thursday. I know there is no way I can sleep on this couch after a block.

I ordered a few new thing to try to help with stress. I got some yoga tapes and a physiotherapy machine. It will be awhile before it gets here but fingers crossed.

My weekend was good emotionally, had friends visit, but I had terrible pain . Apparently my discomfort showed as my friend Lucy came up to me, I was washing a plate off, and told me they wouldn't mind if I needed to lay down.

Wish I could hide it better, but after they had been visiting for 4 hours I was wearing out.

This week will be pretty quiet, had accupuncture today and met with PM, will do a post on visit. Have pulmonary rehab on Tues and Thurs. Other than that I just have to manage to get thru the week.

I like many here, my prayers go out to the folks in Boston. It's a shame that such terrible things have to happen in the world.

I hope everyone has a good week and low pain days.

Hugs,
Barbara

I had a BUG crawl into my ear over the weekend, so this morning was spent driving everywhere looking for a Dr, or even a nurse, to look at it. The Health Dept "doesn't have a protocol to look into adult's ears"' the ENT didn't have time until Wednesday, the PM " doesn't do ears", the pediatrician "doesn't see people over 18" and it wasn't a medical emergency....so the ER was out. I finally ended up at my PCP, who checked the ear and said we had followed all the correct protocols...Hydrogen peroxide, mineral oil, alcohol, distilled water washes, then more mineral oil.

It was apparently a small bug of some kind....like a gnat one small flying bug and I had apparently washed it out. She said I have NO ear wax, so that is why something like that would happen. I just don't make much....so I now have an ear infection and antibiotics for that....and water behind both eardrums.

I also had some pretty in depth dental work done last week and am supposed to have more done on Wednesday. I'm not sure if they will or not with me being on antibiotics....because I always have to take a prophylactic dose of antibiotics before I go anyway. I had hoped to be done with these teeth issues (fracturing splinters due to pain clinching) this week. We'll see first thing in the am.

Hubby has an apt w/psych on Thurs to help deal w/the alcoholism, but I don't know if I will go or not. We also have to go to a work thing for him that night and I want to be able to function as well as I can (but I can't overdo it because I am medically retired from the same agency...which lends itself to angry people when you get paid to be at home....they would never understand CP & I hope none of them ever has to.)

Hopefully that will be all for this week and I can get some much needed rest.

I hope everyone has a better pain week than the last! :)