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.

My Reason for this Blog

Initially my plan was to set up this blog anonymously, ala Miss Snark. (You'd have to be a writer to get the humor in that.) That way I could bitch and complain at will. However ...

As I mulled it over and began to digest my motive for this blog I began to realize that if all I wanted to do was complain, I could re-join the online Fibromyalgia groups, listen to the tales of woe, and thereby promote the self-serving woe-is-me pity party--which was the reason I left the groups.

I am a writer. But there is so much more to my life. I have a wonderful husband, great kids, even greater grandkids (which is what I hoped for when considering eating my young), and a full life.

A FULL life. In spite of having Fibromyalgia and Osteoarthritis.

Yes, I get tired. Yes, I hurt--a lot and often. Yes, I spend much time with doctors. Yes, I take medication. Yes, I must use the motorized carts to do my grocery shopping and then pray hubby gets home from work in time to unload them--before the ice cream melts. Yes, I have a wheelchair to use on those days when I can't manage to walk OR when the whole family goes to the zoo. Yes, I understand my illnesses are life-long and there is no cure. Yes, I get down sometimes. Yes, I deal with depression.

I also do many of the things I always wanted to do but didn't have time for, now that I'm unable to work a "real job". Like read. And write. And take short naps and long bubble baths.

If you have landed here, you were most likely researching either FM (Fibromyalgia) or OA (Osteoarthritis) because you have one--or both--or someone close to you does.

My plan is to be honest, yet upbeat. To be real. To share--often. Even on the not-so-good days.

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