A recap to the end of 2011

It's been quite awhile since I've posted. The holidays are over and we're already nearly halfway thru the first month of 2012.

Honestly, it's best that I haven't updated because there wouldn't have been a lot of positivity.

Not that I have good news to share with you all now, I am just choosing to not dwell on how much it all sucks and instead put out there that:

THINGS ARE GOING TO GET BETTER.

God is just testing our limits, and I just know He's got something good in store for us. We just needed to make our way through the muck first.

So, just what has been keeping us busy this past month or so?

I'm still unemployed. Continuing to look. I met with a recruiter and hope to have a little more leads that way.

My son turned 10 in December. Double-digits. How is that possible? In other news, for the 2nd year in a row, he made the school spelling bee, which we are very proud of.

Shortly after his birthday, I came down with strep throat. That was fun. At the same time, my ear acted up again like it had back in March. After numerous visits to the ENT, a round of steroids and an anti-viral, several hearing tests, a brain MRI and an electrocochleography --- I still have no definitive answer as to why this has happened (with hearing loss) twice now.

Christmas went all too quickly.

4 days after Christmas, I receive a phone call at 1:30 in the morning. You know it's never good when the phone rings in the middle of the night. Mike was in a car accident. He was fine (Thank God!), but his car was not. It was totaled by the insurance company, and we were forced to go buy a new (used) car and take on a 2nd car payment. Now I wonder how we'll continue to make ends meet with another monthly expense.

5 days after his car accident, we're taking down all the Christmas decorations. He falls off the roof. Scariest thing I've ever witnessed and again, Thank GOD he was okay, but he was INCREDIBLY sore for a few days after. To a point that he'd be moaning in his sleep.

It's been a rough patch, and there are days that I don't even want to pull myself out of bed.

But I try to keep looking forward.

Mike is fine, and the car was replaceable.

Finances are so tight it might mean eating ramen noodles or skipping a meal a day (for us at least, never the kids) and staying in the house in the more.

But I know a fabulous job is out there for me....and I will get it!

I may not have an answer about my ear, but it's better now and my doctor is pro-active and doesn't push me out the door, rolling his eyes and thinking I'm crazy.

We WILL triumph!

When is enough, enough?

For nearly a week now, I've been dealing with persistent digestive/stomach issues. Now, I am no stranger to these "flare ups" and "attacks". I've been dealing with it for years. Sometimes I'll go weeks without any problems. Sometimes it's a couple days in a row that I have issues.

This is the longest I've ever had issues, and to be honest, it's scaring me.

To some people, this may not seem like a big deal. So what? It's just IBS (it could be, who knows?). Oh, easy fix. It's just a food allergy (doubtful since I can't pinpoint one or two particular things). Why am I so concerned then?

Because of that positive ANA test I had. The rheumatologist told me there was no auto-immune disease, but he was going to run more tests again, just in case. I never went in to have the blood drawn for them. But that keeps playing in mind -- why did that ANA test come back positive if there's nothing wrong?

And you know what? Stomach issues like I'm having could very well be an auto-immune disease itself. It could be just something that goes hand in hand with a different disease.

And it may not be anything auto-immune at all. Maybe it's nothing serious. Maybe it's something worse. I'm afraid at what the answers may be.

But I'm tired of dealing with the pain, the discomfort, the what-ifs and the worry. I need to be brave and go see the doctor. Do you suppose Santa will bring me some courage for Christmas, or do I need to go see the Wizard?

Floating in the Bubble

I think I remember mentioning the bubble of ignorance I would be floating in while I awaited my next appointment with the rheumatologist. Well, I'm still floating around in that bubble.

I had to reschedule my appointment because the doctor was running so far behind that day that I couldn't wait around to be seen. I still have another 10 days before I'll be seen.

No problem, I figured. I'll just continue my parade in my precious bubble until then. Until tonight.

The mysterious swelling under my chin is back. I went in to my doctor twice for this already. It has been swollen a time or two more than that, but went away rather quickly and didn't cause me too much grief.

It's pretty tender and sore again this time. So, I started thinking about the positive blood tests I've already had, and what they could possibly mean. And I decided to look up swollen salivary glands in reference to that.

Sure enough, it's a pretty prevailent symptom of sjogren's, which is one of the diseases linked to the positive subset run after the positive ANA. And I'm continuing to find more pieces of the puzzle -- I wondered why I had 3 full cups of pop while at Chuck E Cheese with my kids tonight, and that I'm still incredibly thirsty.

Here I thought my visit to the rheumatologist would end up being a waste of time -- because it didn't seem like there was anything different I needed to discuss with him. And now, just 10 days out, I've got what could be the determining factor.

I will admit that I'm hopeful that this will be it. That I can finally get some answers. But I'm also scared. Answers and potentially a diagnosis will mean reality. Am I ready to be told that I do indeed have an autoimmune disease?

In the final weeks

I'm in the final weeks of my 20s. I will officially be 30 in less than 3 weeks.

For the most part, I'm pretty calm about the whole thing. Okay, there are some moments when I almost lose my sanity. But you know, I'm really becoming good at ignoring what's at hand. And that is because of the health issues going on. I'll give you the short & sweet version - another positive blood test, however not enough symptoms, so no official diagnosis - I see the rheumy again in June. See what I mean? Yes, I'd like to scream and stomp my feet, but what good will that do right now? So, I just float around in my "Bubble of Nothing's Wrong" like none of this is happening. And when that fails, I rely on chocolate. And/or alcohol.

How did this become my life?

I'm now in another round of the waiting game.

This is the period of time in which I like to ignore and pretend like this isn't all really happening.

I saw the rheumatologist last week, who asked me alot of questions, and pushed, pulled and moved my limbs around as if I were a puppet. At the end of the visit he told me that he didn't think I had lupus, and that my ANA was just a borderline positive (I had already been told that by my PCP as well - but to be on the safe side, that is when she referred me to see a rheumy). The rheumy told me that sometimes there can be false positives (I had also read about that online). He did want another ANA to be run, so I headed to the hospital lab and let their vampires take what they needed.

I left there feeling slightly defeated, but decided that I wouldn't think about anything until he got the results back from the second ANA.

I called his office on Monday as instructed, but my results were not in. I was told that he would call me when they were in, but that it could still be a couple days.

Tuesday evening, just before 10pm, as I was nursing a headache from hell, my cell phone rang. My first thought was that it was a work related call, which is typically what a call on my cell phone at that hour means. Instead, much to my surprise, it was my rheumatologist.

He explained that the ANA came back with the same results of the first test, and that while he still believed I don't have anything, he wanted to run a series of other labs to make sure they come back negative.

So back to the vampires I went. I figure I won't have any answers until this time next week.

I'm entirely beside myself. There's that little voice inside me, that I often yell at to just shut up .... but it's telling me that there's something wrong. I'm hoping it's mistaken; praying it's mistaken. But the realistic part of me believes that the ANA is coming back positive for a reason.

From everything I've read online (and as much as I try to avoid doing this because it freaks me out, I am doing quite a bit of it), a positive ANA often does mean something, but that many times there aren't enough symptoms to go along with it to confirm a diagnosis. And this pretty much means WAITING for other symptoms to officially get a diagnosis and proper treatment.

This is what bothers me the most. I could possibly be told "There's nothing wrong with you" and sent on my way, only to end up with an official diagnosis in weeks, months, maybe years.

I'm trying to just keep my head up and cherish and enjoy the good things in my life. But for a moment, I'll stop and think, how did this become my life? I now face a possible chronic illness. And then I think of everything that could eventually mean and it freaks me the hell out.

Time Flies & My Body Still Aches

We're just a little over a week away from my appointment with the rheumatologist. It seems like the more anxious and stressed I get as the appointment nears closer, the faster the time seems to go.

As much as I want to know what's wrong, and how to feel better, I'm afraid. I've been blissfully able to continue on, ignoring what might be going on inside me. Granted, my thumb still hurts. Not as bad as it first did, but the pain is still there. And some days are better than others.

I've now also noticed pain in other joints, on my other hand. The stiffness has always been there, but now there's also pain. And I've also noticed that the pain worsens if my hands are cold. And many times they are so cold that the skin is blue underneath my fingernail.

There's also some pain in my feet, and obviously the back pain that plagues me to varying degrees on a daily basis. The other night I hurt everywhere. I was in tears. Desperate, I took a tramadol I still have hoarded away from a previous prescription.

And then there's my stomach issues. The dreaded "attacks" that most often wake me from a dead sleep in the middle of the night. The ugly, gnawing feeling in my gut that lands me in the bathroom for a good hour. Gnawing pain, cramping, which starts first as constipation and then with a few wiggles and rumbles of the intestines, things start moving thru easily, but not painlessly.

For me, this is the equivalent of some medieval torture method. I'm often rocking on the toilet, praying that God will just make. it. stop. SOON. Is it IBS? I don't know. Something more serious? Who knows. I do know that it will require a visit to the gastro doc and right now I'm not sure I can muster up enough courage to add in another specialist.

How is it possible that there can be so many things going on inside just one person's body?

The Post Where I Try To Make it Seem Like I'm Not Afraid

Remember how at the beginning of 2009 I made a list of 52 things I wanted to accomplish during the year? One of those things was to see my doctor about my stomach issues and the finger joint stiffness that seemed to plague me.

Well, I never officially went in to talk about either of those things. Why not? One, because I'm a wimp. Two, anytime I went to the doctor it was for being sick then and there with something else. And three, I'm a big wimp.

So, a couple weeks ago I noticed I had some pain in my right (dominant) hand. Somewhere around my thumb. It was hard to pinpoint exactly where the pain was at the point, but it was worse when I moved my thumb around. In the back of my mind, I decided that it would probably go away within a couple days and I tried to ignore it.

That weekend, I was finally able to pinpoint where the pain was and it centralized itself there. It was in the small joint of my thumb, and the pain was a bit worse than it had been. I considered this, and went to work on Monday morning.

While at the office, I picked up my pen to start jotting some things down and I realized that I couldn't grip the pen entirely well because of the pain. And then while I was holding the phone to my ear with that hand, I could feel some numbness and tingling spreading across the bottom of my palm between my thumb and pinky.

It was then that I decided to suck it up and call my doctor.

Long story short, she prescribed a NSAID for me, and sent me away with orders for x-rays and bloodwork.

It was a long week, and finally at 4:30pm this past Friday, she called me. She began the conversation with my x-ray results (nothing looked abnormal) and then moved on to the bloodwork. The ANA (antinuclear antibody) test they ran came back positive. She said the positive was "borderline" and that it "could mean nothing", but that given my symptoms, she thinks there's something going on. And then she referred me to a rheumatologist.

And that's where I stand. And that's all I'm going to post about it right now. I will make the phone call tomorrow to see about getting in to see the rheumatologist soon.

Evil Sleep-Stealing, Snot Drying Drug

I've been having an issue with a gland under my chin that likes to swell and become painful. It has been an issue twice now, in a 3 month period.

This last time I also ended up with some other issues going on when I went back in for my follow-up appointment. When my doctor looked in my throat, I was told it appeared "yucky" and that I had "schmutz" on my tonsils as well. The worst strep-swab ever later, and I was on my way with yet another round of antibiotic and a suggestion to try Claritin-D to help dry up/ease the congestion troubles.

No problem!! I picked some up and signed my life away (is the government spying on me to see how often I'm buying some sort of cold/allergy/booger drying up drug? Really - it's for my nose! I'm not using it for some sort of concoction in a meth lab!!!). About 5 days in, I realize on my 5th trip to take a pee during the night, that this is odd - I haven't gotten up this much during the night since I was pregnant.

About 6 days in, I think, "Wow, I have really been having a lot of dreams lately! ALL night long!"

7 days in, and I'm questioning what the hell is making me wake up every 1-2 hours during the night, pee just as often and continue to have bizarre dreams, all night long, despite being woke up so frequently.

On day 9, I finally decide to research a bit on the net. I read about this and that side-effect, and insomnia, restless sleep, frequent urination. Nothing about the dreams, however. At this moment, I also realize that I hadn't take my pills yet for the day, so I go downstairs to do that (at this point I was still taking my antibiotic as well).

That night was the worst of all. I got maybe 2 hours of sleep - which was not consecutive. But the strangest part - each morning - even after waking so often and sleeping so restlessly - I wouldn't feel super sluggish or tired. At least nothing out of the ordinary. That would hit me later on in the evening, which I would consider to be a normal thing.

I made the decision at 3am, while I was wide awake playing Bejeweled on Facebook, that I would not be taking that drug again.

On day 1 of NO evil-sleep-stealing drug, I slept the night thru until sometime around 5am. It was like graduating from infanthood! But on day 2 of NO evil-sleep-stealing drug.....it was like I hadn't slept in a month! I went to bed, and barely remember putting my head onto the pillow and adjusting myself into a comfortable position. I was abruptly woken up at 7:15am, feeling disorientated as I was deep in REM sleep.

Mike happened to mentioned to me that I was "flopping around" all night, and I apologized and told him I was out cold. His reply was, "Yeah, I know. You whacked me twice. And then when I picked up your arm and dropped it down it went..." and then he proceeded to show me how my arm just fell - dead weight and all - to the mattress. I have absolutely no recollection of any of this. I must have been more sleep deprived than I thought!!

So much for keeping my snot closet clear....but at least I'll be well rested!

Nothin' like kickin' ya while you're down

It's not like there hasn't been enough going on in my life. I'm barely grasping my sanity, my patience is tried on a daily basis and there are times I feel like exploding into a ball of rage.

Tuesday I noticed the underside of my chin was sore. Extremely tender and as I felt around, I noticed a lump. This has happened in the past, and it has resolved itself. This time it's a little more painful, and the lump is bigger. I ignored it as best as I could (which ain't sayin' much) for two days until Friday when I decided to call my doctor.

So, off I go to the doctor, where I explain what's going on, she checks me over and seems puzzled that this lump is not accompanied by any other sickness/symptoms. Then she whips out a little tape measure to actually get a measurement on said lump.

At this point, I'm starting to freak out a little.

She tells me that she's pretty certain it's an infection, but that she wants to send me for a CT scan. Right away. This is the point where the tears fill my eyes and she asks if I'm okay. Then the tears spill over and she says "You've been reading awful things on the internet, haven't you?" and I nod.

She says again that she is doubtful it's anything other than just an infection, but to go ahead and get this checked out, to be on the safe side.

I'm sent off to the waiting room with a script for an antibiotic, while they call my insurance to get it all approved and off I go to the hospital. I sit in the car a moment before I start to leave, and I call my husband to tell him what's going on. And I cry. And I get angry. And then I realize I need to concentrate on the road because even though the hospital is just 2 blocks over, I don't exactly want to end up there in a body bag.

I get there, and lucky for me, I find where I'm supposed to be on the first try. I get through registration, make my way through the maze of hallways back to where radiology is and then I wait.

And I try to keep my shit together because there's other people in the waiting room. But on the inside I'm FREAKING THE FUCK OUT. This is not something you exactly want to do on your own. I wished that I had someone - ANYONE - with me right then, if nothing but to just hold my hand while I waited.

I had no idea what to expect from this test - so imagine my surprise when I found out they'd be injecting me with iodine. The woman that did the scan was wonderful, and she explained everything and told me about how I'd feel a warm sensation throughout my whole body once she injected me, and that I'd probably have an icky taste in my mouth. It didn't take long, and other than the warmth and feeling like I peed my pants (the warm sensation doesn't miss ANY body part) and then the weird spinning I felt (I'm not even sure I can explain it - it wasn't the type of spinning that makes you queasy -- this was crazy spinning as if I was out of control and losing consciousness, but even that didn't feel the same like when you're about to pass out ... really it was just weird).

After the scan was done, she told me that since the doctor ordered it "stat", she wanted me to wait there for the results. This freaked me out even more.

And so I sat. For probably 40 minutes. When the woman came out, she took me aside and said she spoke to the doctor on call at my practice (not my regular doctor) and he said the results were normal and I could head on home and follow up with my doctor if I needed to.

I was relieved and immediately exhausted. It took so much out of me mentally & physically, it wasn't even funny.

I'm on the antibiotic now (taken 3 doses) and am waiting (not so patiently) for it to start working. The lump is still there, and it's still painful. I will follow up with my doctor on Monday, and hopefully by then it will have started to go away.

Putting Life Into Perspective

On Monday I received a letter from my insurance company. They denied my appeal to have the rider exclusion removed.

I'm trying not to get worked up over this. Christmas is a week away and this is not the time for me to get depressed and want to off myself. I'll just wait until the new year for all that.

In the meantime, I'm trying to hold onto my sanity, all the while still doing the normal daily routine. Thankfully, the pain pills have helped me enough to make it bearable, so that I don't feel like driving off a cliff to take the pain away.

I'm still working, still parenting, still trying to keep things as normal at home as possible. Even when it took me over 2 hours to get home from work last night due to the snow, I tried not to let it get to me.

This morning I arrive at work, and start busying myself with the day's tasks. A customer had left a message, questioning her order and asking for someone to call her back. So I call, and realize that she didn't get some of her order because her cooler that she had outside was not large enough to fit it all.

So I explain and she goes off. She's ranting and raving, and venting about needing the items because her kids are coming home from college. And then it spills out. Her husband has terminal brain cancer. Her voice is cracking, and she's still spewing, and I'm trying to rectify this (she was going to cancel her service), and then she starts to cry. She apologizes for yelling and taking it out on me. She says she's so sorry, she's got so much going on in her life, working and caring for her husband and taking him back and forth to chemo. She is on the verge of sobbing; telling me that he'll be gone in a few months, and she's trying to do all this, knowing it's his last holiday.

I fixed the situation for her, she apologized and I pray that family enjoys their time together, because I can't even imagine celebrating when something so dark looms in your near future.

When I hung up the phone, I couldn't stop the tears. I still can't get her voice out of my head....

I'm blogging from my bed!

I'm currently propped up with my pillows, hubby is next to me watching Transformers and I'm blogging away.

Thanks to the early gift (he said it was for St. Nick's Day, but I think he was just too excited and wanted to give it to me early) of a gorgeous pink laptop!

It was probably the best thing to a very hard week for me. His timing was perfect and I couldn't be happier.

Because, aside from me falling into one of the darkest funks I've ever been in, I also came down with a cold. The second one in probably 6 weeks. Yesterday I woke up miserable; both nostrils sealed shut, red gums and a sore throat from having to breathe through my mouth all night. Through the day my right ear started to feel funny ... the sort that feels like there is bubble in there. The kind that made me want to stick a pencil in my ear to pop it. When I started to notice some pain, too, I called my PCP. I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone, too, and try to mooch some pain drugs while I was there.

So no infection, but I was running a slight fever and when she looked up my nose with her little light thing, she said "Oh yeah....LOTS of congestion in there!". So I left with a script for an antibiotic to try to get rid of this plague and one for some very nifty pain killers.

MY PCP IS MY SAVIOR.

Seriously - while it doesn't take away all my pain, it helped me to actually get a decent night's sleep (and made me want to stay in bed all day - when I looked at the clock and realized it was almost 9am, I pulled myself from the bed). Now I've got 3 prescriptions I'm taking plus some generic Mucinex to get rid of the gunk. Not sure if it was a combination of drugs, or lack of food (I'm thinking the pretty much empty belly was the culprit), but I spent a good portion of the day feeling lightheaded and barfy. That was miserable as we had my son's family birthday party today. At one point I left the party to go upstairs to lie down.

So needless to say, it has not been a good week for me at all. But my hubby - bless his soul - did his best to try to make things look up a little for me. And it worked.

I love him and my new pretty laptop.

When Life Is A Great Big Joke

Ever feel like life is playing a big joke on you? And just when you think things can't possibly get worse, they find a way to anyway?

That's where I'm at right now.

First, on Friday, I get my explanation of benefits paperwork in the mail with big amounts that I owe. They won't pay a dime. Come to find out, it's a permanent provision on my insurance, not a pre-existing condition like I thought. Somehow I signed this when the policy was drawn up. I'm waiting on copies of those documents, because I honestly cannot remember reading anything about a permanent provision. Upon another phone call today, I find that it's not just a particular disc, but instead they have it down as pretty generalized, not to cover anything in regards to my back.

This lastest phone call provided with information to try to appeal the rider exclusion, which is going to require a written letter and supporting documents from my doctor. And, of course, this is no guarantee.

To top this all off, I get into my car last night to head home from work, after a pretty emotional day, and my car wouldn't start. At that moment I wondered just how the fastest way to leave this Earth would be. I felt like God was laughing at me .... a big joke. Let's see how much we can throw her way before she loses her marbles.

Well, let's see.....I think I'm there. The car issue is resolved, but this insurance thing is weighing heavy on me. Massive amounts of medical bills already accumulated, and I woke up today in worse pain than I have been in lately. What another nice reminder that MY LIFE SUCKS. And what's worse? Even with all the doctoring, and all those medical bills ..... I don't have a single pain pill to my name. So I just get to suck it up and go to work 5 days a week, try to be a good mom, and take care of the things that still need to be done (because the Christmas gifts aren't gonna wrap themselves - and yes - I have enlisted help - but that's another problem - I am feeling completely helpless like this and I don't think I continue to live like that, relying on everyone else to pick up my slack).

I am just in such a dark place right now.

Why couldn't he have just told me what to do?

As I've mentioned previously, I've got big problems with my back.

I visited with the neurosurgeon again today, to go over the results of the nerve test and discuss the next step.

Unfortunately, I've reached a fork in the road, and it's time to decide which path to take.

I've got 2 nerves that are not functioning correctly. I've got 3 options. One is to just continue living like this. Two is to try more meds or cortisone injections. Unfortunately, since the oral steroids and meds I've taken haven't offered much relief, he doesn't think I will benefit much from anything further. And my third option.....surgery.

He is very conservative in that he's not all about whipping out his planner and adding me to his surgery schedule. He said it's a decision I need to make, but that he thinks it is very reasonable for me to go ahead with the surgery.

I left there with the choice to pursue whichever option I'd like. And while I'm very thankful that he's not shoving surgery down my throat, I am freaked out to have to make this decision myself. It would have been so much easier for him to just tell me what to do.

I made it through without having a panic attack

I made it to my doctor appointment yesterday, but maybe that's because I made my husband drive. Otherwise perhaps I would have spent the day at the mall. Or hiding in a corner sucking my thumb.

The neurosurgeon looked at my MRI films, poked me, stuck a vibrating tuning fork against me, and then tried to crack my body in half (or at least that's how it felt, and he did apologize). He wants to try treating this before having to think surgery, which is a-okay with me.

I'm now on methylprednisolone and once that is finished, I move on to naproxen.

I am also scheduled to have a SSEP, test done on my nerves, this Friday. I'll follow up with another appointment with him to talk about the results next Wednesday.

So, aside from hurting, my mind is okay. I made it through the appointment, and I'm taking it one step a time.

Of course, I'll probably be panicking again before Friday's test and then before my next visit. But for now - I am okay. (And I hope if I keep telling myself that, I can get through this .... no matter what the outcome is)

Excuse me, while I freak the f*ck out

I'd be lying if I said I was cool as a cucumber about my appointment with the neurosurgeon.

While I am looking forward to knowing the plan of action to take care of my messed up back, I'm petrified of what that plan might be.

I'm actually writing this post Sunday evening, and will have it go live about the time I'll be heading to the neuro's office.

So, when you read this - can you please send some happy thoughts my way? I'd appreciate it.

Suck-It Saturday

Remember how I mentioned that I needed an MRI done? Because my back has been causing me all sorts of drama?

Well, I finally know what is wrong with me. And I've held back on posting it until now, because Suck-It Saturday is perfect.

I've got 4 -- yes, count them ... one, two, three, FOUR -- screwed up discs. We're talking bulging/herniated and generally fucked up. My back is a disaster. You'd think I was 80 years old. And I fear the day when I'm that old. Or even when I'm 50 for that matter.

So I was instructed to see an orthopedic surgeon or a neurosurgeon. I am now booked to see an neurosurgeon on the 17th of this month.

Lord help me, I hope I can manage that long. If the numbness moves any farther up my leg, I'll need a wheelbarrow to pull along that side of my body.

(...Just 9 more days, just 9 more days...)

SUCK IT BACK PROBLEMS!!!!!

The Back, The Tube and NaBloPoMo

So, I'm scheduled to be stuffed into a tube on Saturday. Can't you tell I'm excited?

Yeah - I think I'd rather chew my toenails.

We're also taking my daughter in that morning to check the status (hopefully - GONE) of her UTI and discuss what's next.

And of course, it's November 1st and the official start of NaBloPoMo 2008. Which I've gotten as far as taking 1 suggestion - which will be Suck-It Saturdays. That leaves me with needing Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. C'mon everyone .... gimme some ideas!!!

What's up in my world

I realize it has been a while since my last post. For awhile, I could barely stand to sit for any length of time, so my computer use was pretty limited. Now I'm able to sit, but the problems for me still continue. The pain has remained in my leg/ankle and I have since lost some feeling/strength in that foot. I just know I must look odd when I'm walking, because I can feel the difference in my walk from not having full control/feeling of my left foot.

I've had xrays, and now I'm looking at an MRI. My doctor is fairly certain it's a bulging or herniated disc, and he's concerned about paresis in my foot.

And then there's my daughter. She finished her last round of antibiotic this past Wednesday. At one point, she was scratching herself 'down there' and I figured we should schedule a doctor appointment for her to make sure everything cleared up. Friday evening she was not feeling well. Again, a low fever, headache and she was in and out of the bathroom feeling like she was going to throw up all night. We took her to the pediatrician Saturday morning, and while there's no more blood, there's still white cells, so she's on yet another antibiotic. We're going back again this Saturday, and may need to discuss further testing to see why this is happening.

So, while I'm freaking out about my own issues, I'm worrying about hers.

Why are you walking like that?

I woke up around 5am yesterday morning to use the facilities and imagine my surprise when I nearly fell out of the bed and then couldn't bear to put any weight down on my left side.

Now, I guess it wasn't entirely a surprise, as I have been dealing with some sciatica pain the past couple months, but this truly was the worst pain yet and it brought me to tears.

I knew there were some things I needed to do at work, so I made my way to the office with a vicodin swimming in my belly. Let me tell you, slurring your words (even if it only happened twice) and wanting to take a nap is not proper workplace etiquette. I held out and put in a few hours, and then managed to make it home in one piece, despite the fact that my mind felt a bit detached from my body (yet, the pain was still there .....)

Of course, my chiropractor is not in on Thursdays, so I suffered. I wasn't about to go to another doctor. I don't even like doctors, so a new one would have been out of the question. Thankfully as the day wore on, the pain got a bit more manageable and I was able to put some weight down on that side and get around a little easier.

After a restless night of sleep (honestly, I can't believe Mike didn't trade the bed for a night on the couch with all the flopping and turning and groaning I was doing), I managed to dress myself (except for 1 sock, which Mike needed to put on for me) and got myself into the car.

Yeah - sitting for any length of time = PAIN. Red, flaming, evil PAIN. Down my leg, from behind my knee, all the way through the calf, and sharpening down in my ankle. At this point, I can't even tell if my lower back still hurts, because the pain in my leg is SO. THROBBING. AWFUL.

So, at any rate, I started therapy with my chiropractor and I hope I can make it in between appointments. Because right now?? Right now I'd like to saw my leg off.

(PS - Thank you again for all the well wishes for my little girl. This time was MUCH better and she was back to her old self in no time!)

Here we go again

My little girl is sick again. Another UTI. It presented itself the same (headache & fever), and while it could have been numerous other things, I had this nagging in my gut.

Finally this evening just before 7pm, I gave in to my gut and off to urgent care we went. We just got back in a bit ago, and she's getting some sleep after having her first dose of antibiotic.

We were kept in there a little longer, as they wanted to make sure her fever was going down after administering some pain reliever.

I could cry......it was traumatic last time. I can't bear to see her go through this again....