A lot can happen in a year.....a happy marriage can turn on a dime and all of a sudden, it's not so happy anymore. My last post in June of 2011 talks about being 'back to work'. On an up note, I am still working. My purpose in life is to care for some wonderful little girls. They have been my saving grace. A reason to haul ass out of bed each morning despite the aches, the popping sounds from joints in protest of my morning routine. The husband is still here, still a husband? Ashley Madison was introduced into our marriage in September 2011. On route from a family wedding, a happy occasion, my husband's blackberry told a tale of unfaithfulness, backed up by an academy award winning performance by my husband denying what he eventually confessed to so that I woudn't force our truck off the road, killing our entire family to end the pain that has taken root in my hypermobile heart. So if it wasn't enough for this now 38 year old self employed mother of two to be dealing with chronic physical neuropathy, constantly trying new medicatation to test its usefulness, there is emotional pain to boot. An all inclusive paid vacation to HELL. Let's see what's happened with my health this past year.....my teeth have shifted to the point where I no longer recognize the woman staring back at me in the mirror. Gone is the one asset I was grateful for in life. In the seventh grade, a popular girl once told me I had a great smile and that has stuck with me. Hell, I hadn't even had my braces put on when she told me that. It must have been my personality shining through my smile since my teeth were pretty crooked back in the fall of 1987! The braces went on the following spring and I wore them for about a year. The outcome was successful and for the next 20 years, my teeth/smile remained unchanged. Now my receding gums and loose teeth tell a different tale. One more reason to be self conscious. Great, like I didn't have enough reasons for that! My rounded scoliosis ridden back/shoulders were plenty enough thanks! My digestive system is in a constant state of confusion. My elasticized bowel and other major organs can not take the medications I keep trying. I haven't had a normal poop in over a year. The fact that I'm blogging about it is proof positive that my life completely sucks. I have gained half the weight back that I lost in 2010. My clothes do not fit but yet my core feels a bit stronger due to the Egoscue exercises I should be doing on a regular basis. The fact that I'm NOT doing them as I should is a reminder of the weight I've gained or perhaps the weight is a reminder of the lack of exercise in my life. I'll just go deliver another paper. I am however on a waiting list to see a geneticist and if my pain is not improved by the Lyrica I am currently taking, I will be referred for an MRI by the neurologist I finally say a few weeks ago. So far the Lyrica has produced a lot of nerve sensations, zaps and zings and the like. It is an expensive drug compared to others I've tried over the course of my pain ordeal. But I will keep taking it as prescribed until August when I see the neuro again. To be positive, while my health is not the greatest, things could be worse! My son who is now a ninth grader is doing quite well, working many a part time job, doing okay in high school, has stopped hanging out with kids who are bad influences! He is on a good path right now. Let's hope it stays that way!

Frustration

It has been a frustrating day. I am frustrated over so many freaking things right now. Tonight my 13 year old 'graduated' from grade eight. Should have been a nice sentimental evening. There should have been tears shed by parents like myself. Well basically it was a freaking joke! These prissy little grade eight girls got all gussied up looking like freaking hookers for what? To have a bowl of melted ice cream after their school pennant was handed to each of them? There were no speeches, no 'valedictorians' no 'my fondest memory' moments shared by the students. The point I clearly got from the whole evening is that the teachers just want these students the hell out of their school. No baby photos were shared in a heart warming slide show, everything about the evening was stupid! Once this half hour long event was over with, my youngest son's teacher approached me and I asked her about my son's shoe which had somehow found its way up on top of the school roof a week or so ago. We were told that the teachers/janitorial staff, etc had no authority to send anyone up on the roof and that an 'expert' as my ten year old described the story, had to be sent down from the school division office an hour away. So tonight I told the teacher that a new pair of shoes would be sufficient and why would the division want to pay some jack ass to drive all the way here to get some lousy shoe of the school roof? I told the teacher that if it was all right with her, my husband had a ladder waiting in his truck outside the school and that he would be happy to retrieve the shoe rather than waste taxpayer $$. A few min later the principal came over to chat and informed us that the 'expert' had already been up on the roof and no shoe was found. So we chit chatted a bit, exchanging illfelt pleasantries, laughing off the fact that it was the end of the school year and the shoe was old anyway. A half hour later, my husband set up the ladder and our son went up and grabbed the shoe which was in plain sight even while squinting through the evening sunshine. So I'm frustrated with the idiots who work for our school division, I'm frustrated that the students or the teachers didn't take the time to really put on a good show for us parents tonight. It was a huge let down. i remember 'graduating' from grade nine years ago and we put a lot of effort into it. We had invited former teachers to attend, we had speeches, a musical guest, awards were handed out, some jokes about each student were read in good taste and humor. The gym was decorated for the event and the students sat at tables in the front to be honored by all in attendance, not just scattered here, there everywhere throughout the gym.

I am frustrated with my husband's job, I am frustrated with the flooding situation which caused him to almost be late for such an important event (which again was a huge letdown) I am frustrated with my body which is in constant excruciating pain and I am frustrated when people look at me funny, like tonight, sitting in the gym, I was wearing a knee brace, an wrist tensor and a tennis elbow brace. I had an icepack discretely tucked under a nice scarf but I know I looked funny and when the principal did sort of ask out of politeness as to what was the matter with me, I wasn't sure what to say without sounding like a hypochondriac loser! I just want to cry now, I'm tired of the continuous soreness that by the end of the day I just want to scream in agony. No one else gets it around here. My only way to really vent is online.

Back in the Saddle Again

Well, I'm officially back to work and so far so good. The office job is a thing of the past. I have to put it behind me and move on and be happy with my decision. I have the option of going back if they should ever be hiring in the future, I know they'd consider me but for now, my house will soon be crawling with kids! One of my old families is back this week until the end of the month. It was as if they'd never left my house. Or that they'd taken a year long vacation! Another one of my old families starts back on Monday part time and I have had a few drop ins this week. Just enough to keep me busy and happy. The weather is finally co-operating and hopefully the soil will dry up and the water in the basement issues we are having will eventually cease to exist. We are in the midst of ripping carpets out of the basement. We may use this opportunity to reconfigure our basement, somehow get a second bedroom down there. Might take a miracle and we will lose precious storage space but I am using this time to declutter, parting with things I never thought possible! But not my books, never my books!

This week, my pain exists almost everywhere. But none of it is what I'd consider severe, just annoying. My fingers are tending to seize up and almost dislocate and my right knee feels like someone took a hammer to it but I am dealing with the pain very well. Haven't taken anything but a few alieve this week.

Dare I say I am 'happy' right now? I think I may very well be. I have a nice roster of girls lined up to watch this fall, in all my years of daycare I have had an overwhelming amount of boys and never in the ten years I've watched kids in my home have I had ALL girls! I am happy with my line up. I think it will be a great group of kids and parents. The fact that I am getting calls and my old clientelle is popping back in or returning to me permanently means a lot. I'm doing what I'm meant to be doing. Kids make me smile and if I can smile through the painful times, I must be doing something right!

A good day

I am in pain as I type this but all pain aside, the day was fine. I am trying to decide what my future holds. Do I try to do the office job or do I go back to home childcare? Today I watched five little ones while their sitter took the day off. The day went well and it felt like I had never given it up for a living even though it's been over a year since I closed up my daycare. My back pain has been bad lately. My neck is tense and stiff. I am going for a massage tomorrow, lets hope this helps. Sitting is just not good for me. I sat down at the table to do a puzzle with the kids today and had to keep getting up to do other things and try to get the back feeling better. I just don't know if I can do either job with this much pain day in and day out! It will be early to bed for me tonight. I hurt a lot :(

Mother's Day

Another painful day today. I think I overdid it yesterday. It was so beautiful outside, I wanted to work in the flower beds. There seems to be a lot of grass taking over this year but the tulips thankfully came back after last weekend's blizzard. Last weekend was nice. The laptop had some virus so I was unable to go online all weekend :) I am constantly amazed at how little time I am spending on the computer these days. I used to spend at least ten hours a day on a computer, what with working 7 and a half hours a day and then there was time in the morning before work, time at lunch and time after work. Now it doesn't even bother me, I seem to be getting more things done around the house rather than wasting my time online. My wrists are starting to burn now so this will have to be a short post today but even with the pain I was feeling today, we all managed to make it to church, do a bit of shopping afterwards and Brett popped up the camper today and I managed to clean a bit inside and restock for our first trip of the season, whenever that will be. I'm not in the mood to camp, normally I'm itching to get out there and get camping but this year I am thinking we won't be doing a lot of it. Brett has used up a lot of his holiday time taking me to doctors appointments out of town and with me not working, we need the money so taking holidays may not really be an option. Camping in pain does not sound like fun.

All in all though, I managed to stay positive today and am thankful for my two boys who made this a happy Mother's day. Here's hoping next year's Mother's Day is a little less painful than this one. Time for bed!

Hope

I am convinced that Pete Egoscue, author of many chronic pain books, and by trade, a medical professional (physiologist) who deals with people who have chronic pain, is the one thing that may have helped to reduce my pain recently. It was suggested by a massage therapist for me to read his books if I could find them and I devoured his book titled Pain Free at Your PC. And afterwards I did twenty minutes of exercises directed to those PC users who are already in pain and I honestly thought I felt a difference laying in bed that night! My fingers in my right hand were tingling.

As I type this, I am by no mean NOT in pain, in fact I still hurt very much when I'm using my computer which makes it hard to try and commit myself to returning to work just yet. This frustrates me beyond belief but I realize I am doing what I can to change things and change may be slower than I like but at least for the first time in three months I feel like I have hope and that is better than nothing at all! When you lose hope while dealing with chronic pain you may as well say you've given up completely.

My health is my number one priority right now and it's going to have to remain that way for awhile and probably for the rest of my life really because when you think about it, what else can you focus on if you do NOT have your health to back you up in your daily life?

If I could sleep through the night just once and not wake up in pain, that would be a bonus. To me, the lack of sleep is affecting my life. I am not making appointments for nine a.m anymore. I overslept this morning and missed my counseling appointment. I woke up a half hour late and immediately called her and we chatted on the phone which helps just the same I would imagine. In fact I felt more natural talking to her on the phone today than I ever have in her office. Not sure if she is really helping in regards to the anxiety this whole ordeal is causing me, specifically the worry over my job situation about letting down my co-workers, missing out and losing the few skills I struggled to learn to begin with! I am almost afraid to return to work for fear that I can not do the job I was capable of doing before I started to hurt. Being a perfectionist, for me I find if I can't do things right, why do them at all? I need to get past this in order to get back to where I was and hopefully if I can get this pain under control I will get there and until then, my co-workers will just have to wait. I've been told not to focus so much on what other people might be thinking. How am I to really know what they are thinking? I guess for me, the fact that my work didn't bother to send me a 'get well' card makes me wonder if they really support me with this or perhaps they are thinking I'm faking the whole thing! If that's the case, then I guess I really don't want to work with people who would think such a thing anyway. I try and tell myself that I'd been there long enough for them to get to know me and my work ethic and the thought would never cross their minds but you never know and given the fact I have no answers as to when I can possibly return to work, I can understand the possible suspicion that could arise. I know what a hard working gal I've been throughout the years.

I could write all kinds of funny things about the things I've done at my past jobs, the comments other co-workers have said about me, so many people to vouch for my character over the years. I've often gone way above the call of duty just to get a task done for someone and it's nice to be recognized for it and so for me this whole taking three or more months off work is unheard of. I've never been on employment insurance other than maternity leave benefits and I hope I never have to go down this road again. Don't get me wrong. I am grateful that it exists and by the time my benefits expire and the end of May I will be wishing they lasted longer if I'm not pain free but to be honest, Pain and I are getting accustomed to our little relationship we've got going on. Better to accept it and move on with my life!

So many possiblities to describe my pain

I call it hidden pain because on the outside I think I look pretty normal. On the inside I live with neuropathic pain. I feel jolts of pain, spasms, it sometimes feels like a throbbing itch that no amount of scratching that can ever relieve it. It feels like something is grabbing onto my tendons and twisting them around in my arm and my neck. I ache, I burn, I try to occupy my mind with something else but it always draws me back to the fact that I just plain hurt. I find myself talking to myself saying 'oh man I hurt today'. Will there ever be a day that I wake up and don't say that to myself? My symptoms could be chalked up to a number of illnesses that I read about online. I could have fibromyalgia, my hypermobility syndrome could be a form of Ehlers Danlos syndrome. Myofacial pain, I read is a result of connective tissue pain which is basically what Ehlers Danlos Syndrome deals with, the connective tissues of the body. Did I do this to myself because I swam too much in January? Did I lose too much weight too quickly which resulted in muscle loss and weakness which contributed to poor posture which my desk job aggrivated even further? If so, then why after not working for three months and not swimming for three months am I still in as much pain as I was weeks ago? Why did my Cymbalta seem to help more at a lower dosage than it does at this higher dosage? Should I ask for another drug? When do I finally give up on recovery? I know there are people out there dealing with so much more pain than myself. My pain is mine alone, only I can feel it and react to it. I want to remain calm but I want to to shout to the world about how much I hurt and how I can't live like this any longer. I want to be a productive member of society and to teach my children to do the same as they continue to grow. I want to be a positive role model for them and how can I do that when I stress over the things that I can not seem to change or control. How do I completely surrender to God, the control over my life and my pain and my worry, especially my worry so that I can not worry about where the next bill payment is coming from due to me being unemployed. They say money doesn't buy happiness but it seems to subdue my worry. I only want the basics for my family, that is all we need but when I can't earn an income, even the basics are going to be hard to obtain and in this materialistic city that I reside in, the importance of money only resounds even louder in my head. If I had to choose between ridding myself of the worry or the pain, I think I'd choose the worry.