Still ticking along, but ...

We, hubby and I, just returned home from a family mini-reunion. It was held at our daughter and son-in-law's home in Louisville, KY. The main reunion was held in Kelso, WA, in July, but the KY and OH branches of the family weren't able to attend, so we made up our own plans.

I'm tired and sore from the packing and prep, sitting, standing, limping along, traveling, and living without naps - however short. It's good to be home.

While I'm sure to pay for it all tomorrow, seeing 3rd and 4th cousins again was nice. Meeting their children for the first time was very nice. I'm sure I'll recover from all the hugs and snuggling we managed to do with 7 of our 10 grandchildren. Thankfully, fibro fog has been kept at bay, so when the pain sets in I'll re-live all those hugs as pain relief.

I know I'm behind on my commitment to post here every day for a month. I keep thinking about the article I read online about the couples who commit to have sex every day for a year. Yep, for real. How do they find the time? Do they not work? Not have children? Not ever need to sleep? They surely don't have osteoarthritis or fibromyalgia!

Tomorrow I'll be hosting a Virtual Book Tour stop at The Review Hutch for Jane Bernard. Please stop by at The Review Hutch to say hello to Jane and to find out how she does it all. (However, I won't be asking her about any questions about sex commitments.)

Update on shoulder pain to needles to numbness

I've already missed 3 days of blogging here. I promised to blog every day for a month. You get 3 blogs today to make up for it. And I won't have cell ISP service Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. OY. This is gonna be tricky!

The formidable pain in my right shoulder has eased a bit. My insurance won't pay for an MRI to pinpoint whether the cause is a pinched nerve in my neck or a torn rotator cuff in my shoulder until I've had 4 weeks of physical therapy.

The physical therapy folks won't give me PT until the cause of the acute pain is pinpointed.

My right arm goes numb after a hundred thousand needles work their way from my shoulder down to my thumb and half of my index finger. Yesterday I noticed my right leg, between my knee and ankle doing the same thing.

Whatever the cause, this is miserable. Even writing is harder than normal as I deal with the pain and needles-to-numbness. Some might call that a blessing.

Virtual Book Tours in September

What I do to (help me) forget pain:

Jane Bernard on 9/8 right here at The Review Hutch

FINE TUNING, Connecting with Your Inner Power is Jane’s own journey to reconnectwith her passion for Life. She started writing it for herself and quickly learned that her journey was to a universal destination.

Jane Bernard's unique blend of Samurai Zen and common sense presentations create excitement in the audience. Packed with anecdotes and strategies her customized keynotes and seminars produce results every time. She entertains with natural humor and a relevant message to inspire a mental shift. And she has fun.

For the past 20 years Jane paid her dues in the trenches as professionalwriter, professor, lecturer, communication specialist, educational innovator and mother. After receiving her BA in Philosophy from The New School for Social Research and her MS in Special Education from The Bank Street College, Jane began working for educational think-tanks on the East Coast where she implemented innovative interactive techniques that are now used all over the world.

She later worked as a writer and communications specialist for companies such as IBM, Random House and The Interway Corporation. Her writing experience continued to expand as she worked on a freelance basis scripting technical material, ghosting books and speeches and writing for education television.

Anna Maria Prezio on 9/15 right here at The Review Hutch

Anna Maria Prezio, author of Confessions of a Feng Shui Ghost-Buster, is a professional Feng Shui Consultant. She has audited hundreds of Feng Shui sites. Her clients include: Hollywood producers, directors, actors, doctors, architects, and corporate executives.

As a marketing consultant in health care, entertainment, and the non-profit sectors she has incorporated her knowledge of Feng Shui and its effects on personal environments to enhance people’s lives.

Ms. Prezio’s mission is to help people gain the knowledge and tools of Feng Shui to improve and enhance their wealth, health, creativity and relationships.

Ms. Prezio is a writer. She has published screenplays, articles and books. Her love for the visual arts has led her to produce feature films, film shorts, music videos,and photography. Her experience, Feng Shui knowledge and highly intuitive talent gives her the ability to sense people, places and things which help to nurture and facilitate her clients’ lifestyles.

Ed Green on 9/29 right here at The Review Hutch

Purchase info available at: ed@edgreen.com or www.edgreen.com

ED GREEN is one of the industry's leading voice-over talents. For many years, he has been the voice of major sporting event projects, motion picture trailers, and television narrations, as

well as the voice for the most familiar commercial and product advertisers in America.

His commercials have currently passed the 30,000 mark, and are still climbing. This includes his well-known work as an audio personality for Fortune 500 Corporations - working on their national campaigns while creating a unique image for internal corporate projects and shareholder meetings.

Join us for these virtual blog tour stops!

September: National Pain Awareness Month

September is National Pain Awareness Month in the United States.

I would have given this designation little thought before being diagnosed with high-end-pain illnesses five years ago. I have not one, but two, disorders/diseases/illnesses - with all of each one's accoutrements. I also have osteoarthritis in varying degrees through my spine, both hips, both knees, and possibly - one shoulder.

The National Fibromyalgia Association has done a great job of getting the word out that Fibromyalgia is not only real, but affects millions of the world's citizens.

The makers of Lyrica have done more to turn the tide regarding how this disease is perceived than any other promotion in my recollection.

Having said that, I must also say that Fibromyalgia affects short-term memory. It affects thought processes. However, the television commercials have run often enough that I can safely say I haven't been hit with "isn't that the one they said was all in your head", nearly as often. It still happens from time to time, but not every other time the subject is brought up.

I must also say that Lyrica has helped me to cope with my symptoms. You see, we who have Fibro tend to live with constant pain. The severity fluctuates, but never goes away completely. I pray every day that a new study doesn't find that Lyrica is detrimental in another way, as the Cox-II medications were found to be.

If you read this, please take a cruise on over to www.fmaware.org and read about the disease. That way, you'll already be armed when someone you know is diagnosed. It will happen.

And please remember to say a prayer or two during September (and throughout the year) for those of us who may not appear to be the happiest persons you've ever met. Happiness may be a state of mind deal that can be altered by a positive outlook, but it's a whole lot easier to be "sunny" when you don't hurt.

I'm daring myself to post here every day during September and to use this forum to keep a running journal. If you choose to follow this to see if I can do it and I screw up and forget to post ... email me to let me know I'm not holding up my end of the bargain.

Physical Therapy - Again

Physical Therapy: The time I lose while they put hot packs on my neck and lower back and then make me do painful exercises.

I’m undergoing PT on my neck for the 2^nd time this year.

It didn’t help the first time and I’m not holding on to much hope that it will help this time. And … the first time, I didn’t have a pinched nerve in my neck, caused by bone spurs and arthritis, that was making my right arm and shoulder go numb up to twice a minute.

However, my insurance carrier will not allow me to have an MRI to see what is causing the problem until I’ve undergone PT again.

While giving away our apples to Freecyclers this past few weeks, I met a woman who had had the same surgery our son-in-law had to correct pinched nerves in the neck. She, too, had to go through PT first – and did more damage which is now also causing her leg to go numb.

I already have nerve damage in my lower back and flank. It is very painful. Fibro makes it a habit to hit the weakest points where arthritis is already wreaking havoc.

If this post doesn’t seem to be full of sunshine and hope, blame it on Physical Therapy.

Case of "The Munchies"

Send chocolate! Send munchies! Send … something to wire my mouth shut with!

I’ve had a good run for almost two years. My pain management regimen has been tolerable and somewhat effective. But … now … I’m having to endure a course of corticosteroids to deal with multiple points of osteoarthritis and Fibromyalgia pain. Pain killers alone can’t curb the muscle/joint/nerve endings that throb, burn, and spasm.

This time, it’s a multi-tiered pain that starts with the major muscle that runs between my spinal column and right shoulder; radiating, pinching, spiking, ice-picking and throbbing its way through the ends of my fingertips like a ricocheting arrow that’s been dipped in a boiling soup of poison sumac, habanera sauce, and mercurochrome. My skin may as well have been ripped away by a rabid raccoon for all the protection it currently affords.

Those broken arrow fragments rebounding to jam up under my fingernails are providing spectacular fireworks in Technicolor. The stars I see are almost pretty enough to take my mind off the pain. HA! I’m positive my elbow will give birth to that baby elephant anytime now.

Of course, it’s the shoulder that was injured in a car accident in 1972, and then re-injured by a mugger in ‘88. My friends on the city council took up a collection to buy the mugger a sympathy card, but that’s another story altogether. Nevermind that my friend Doug Sutherlin, mayor at the time, started the rumor to make me laugh rather than gritch at him to provide more security in downtown Tacoma, WA.

Corticosteroids tend to make me hungry. Hungry enough to eat a cardboard box. The kind a refrigerator comes in. Hubby is keeping me corralled and away from his newly-built garden shed.

This is day one of the seven-day course. Today, I’ll take a total of six tablets. Tomorrow, five. On day six, I’ll eat the last tablet.

If only I could take as many pain pills and muscle relaxers today ...

The munchies will go away in about two months.

Until the pain is controlled, please excuse typos, missed words, etc. My brain is short-circuiting and my fingers seem to have a mind of their own.

Finally back in at Blogger!

After nearly four months, I'm finally able to get back into the dashboard at Blogger. Seems my cell ISP didn't like something Yahoo did, that corrupted my HOST files and upset Google. Anyway, after much stress - that didn't help my Fibro at all - I'm back up and running, thanks to fr*e help received at www.techguy.org.

If you're a MySpace member, hop on over to www.myspace.com/lindajhutchinson to read about how I became my own step-sister.

No wonder I have Fibro! My family is enough to ...

If you dear reader, are middle-aged (or leisurely strolling past your 35th birthday), check out http://www.hownottoactold.wordpress.com. My grandmother would have loved this blog! A few laughs should help ease your stress, too.

And with all this extra non-blogging time on my hands, I've had time to completely re-vamp my website, thrice. www.lindajhutchinson.com Good stuff for readers and writers.