Pain - centered week for sure... some holiday!

[barb dwyer]

wow.

The phone rings early monday morning ...
and I reach over to get it-

and pop my shoulder out.

Now, I'm dead broke
and I've done this
several times over the years.

has to do with a connective tissue thing
and two ligaments literally cross.
(Just like when you cross your fingers)

So my shoulder drops a good two inches
and turns purple
and hurts like a MOTHER.

So since I"m broke
I try to find some way
to put it back myself.

Hot pads.
Cold pads.
Hot showers.
Okay, no way am I takin a COLD shower.

Arnica cream
MSM cream
I can't take aspirin because of the other meds I'm on...
So I've got four days off
and am hurting so bad,
I went until Wednesday night without sleeping.

Finally a friend calls
and says he'll pay the chiro feller
and it'll be my christmas present.

So up I got
and off did trot ...
all I have to do is call this chiropractor
and say 'shoulder'
and he makes room for me.
He's been putting it back now for ... eight? Seven?
years now.

So I told him about all that's going on
and he gets kinda MAD at me
for not coming to him
with fibro.

To be honest
the clinic only costs fifteen bucks
each visit
HE costs forty.

So I told him that.

So tomorrow
I'm calling his office
and we're setting up a visit schedule
that I can afford.

He did some other popping
but said I was too inflamed
to do much that day.

And I'm sporting a big
shoulder bruise ...
but my arm can move now.
It always makes a bruise.

Sometimes
all you have to do is tell the truth.
People, if good people,
will do what they can.

I just have to remember
to do the same for the one placed in front of me.


So I go to my boss's house
for T'giving dinner.

Great food
we watched movies
she's got a hot tub...
so I made sure it really worked, you know....
just a wunnerful time.

About two hours after eating, tho
I started feeling kinda queasy.
So I went home
(just in case, you know)

and sure enough -
yack-a-rama for the next eighteen hours.

Threw up every two hours for nine hours straight.
Then it lengthened out.
But ... NOT fun at all.

Best I can figure -
I have either become allergic to something we ate
(because it was JUST like back wehn I had food poisioning)
-or-
My already stressed system
reacted to something
they were strong enough to handle
-or-
the hot tub has become yet another place I can no longer go.
Because my body can't regulate it's own temp
maybe it let me get too hot?

Then as suddenly as it started .
It just ... quit.
And I was fine.


And I thought a 'bad' holiday
was one
at your in-laws ...
hoo boy.
Got a WHOLE new perspective on that stuff!
ha!

[Sugah]

First -- I'm sorry you are having such a crappy time, Barb -- though much to be thankful for in your early Christmas gift and your chiropractor's understanding.

Second, I can't tolerate hot tubs. Don't know if it's related to the fibro or what. When I lived in Florida a hundred years ago, we had a beautiful jacuzzi, big enough for nine people with a view of a lighted backyard waterfall and banana trees and sailboats tethered less than fifty feet away. Beautiful -- and I would watch everyone enjoy the jacuzzi that made me sick and made my heart race like crazy. So...if you're over it, I'm kinda-sorta hoping for you that you got it out of your system and can enjoy that hot tub again in the future.

Barb, have you looked into medicaid for "health-sustaining" necessity? For awhile, I received it because my osteoporosis was severe enough to consider HRT "health sustaining" as well as a heart medication for MVP. And, because there's not a prescription-only medicaid, I got my doctor visits covered, too. Most of the chiropractors in this area take medicaid. It used to be, if you were working, they'd do a "spend down" so that you had incentive to work and still got the coverage you needed.

***

I worked my ass off for two days baking and cooking, enjoying every minute of it and lasting just long enough to sit at the table and eat before collapsing. I did NOTHING Friday and dragged my sorry butt to my home group meeting last night, though I could easily have spent another day in my muumuu. Felt well enough to make some turkey stew and dumplings today with I think enough puff left to get me up and moving in the morning. It's another 400 mile week this week, so I'll be using that shiatzu massager I got last Christmas.

I can maintain a reasonable pace most weeks, but during the holidays, I willfully and knowingly overdo it. As my friend, Mike says, "I can do anything I want so long as I'm willing to pay the consequences." To know I was able to feed and fellowship with ten on Thursday was worth the consequences I paid. Now, if I could just get me a damned teleporter so I wouldn't have to keep zooming up and down the roads in my Subaru, I'd start Christmas shopping

Peace & Love,
Sugah

[barb dwyer]

hi sugah -

got denied the medicaid thing. Am supposed to try again here in a while - after the first meeting with the attoryney.

I've got the problem now of having made two pies -
and no WAY am I gonna try to eat 'em.
(I'm still diong the chicken broth thing)

so I am going to bring the pies to the casino
and let the gamblers eat 'em!

LOL!

I'm glad to hear someone else has the prob, as well.
I even wondered if it was the pain meds reacting to the heat?
I won't let anyone in the sweat lodge if they're on
ad's or ha recent surgery (like 6 mos)

so maybe that was it as well?

I'm justnot as 'game' as I used to be.

dang it all.

[Sugah]

I honestly can't remember if I was on anything for pain then, Barb. I know I was smoking a lot of pot (the marijuana maintenance plan -- my first attempt at quitting drinking). What I meant to say and I guess, looking back, I didn't, was that if you're over it, I was hoping for you it was something in the food that disagreed with you. If it's over, that is

What kind of pies did you make? I only learned to make pies last year because my mother was no longer able (she was the pie queen, just like my grandmother was the bread queen). My pies are ugly, but they taste good. I made two apple, two pumpkin, and a cheater chocolate (graham cracker crust with pudding filling). And are the gamblers also boozers? I'm thinking pumpkin pie and bourbon might make 'em feel like they've been in a hot tub too long

Peace & Love,
Sugah

[Sugah]

P.S. Keep trying on the medicaid. And let's keep praying for universal health care. Seems to me medical care for everyone is just as important as any other inalienable right.

[barb dwyer]

yeah I'm continually praying for the healthcare, man.

I made a pumpkin and a cherry. I was going to take one to the boss's house
but she said don't bring it there was too much food as it was.
The cherry pie
was t take to another friend's house
that I didn't go to
because I was sick thenext day.

I really think that's what it was, sugah.
The thyroid meds nd the pain reacting with the heat of the hot tub with a full stomach.

Yecch. makes me queasy just typing it.

I work in a casino -
well, in a liquor store connected to a casino.
gamblers will take anything if it's offered free - LOL!

Making pies is really easy for me
I buy them frozen
(God bless Mrs. Smith)
and throw it in the oven.

The directions actually TELL YOU
to take the pie out of the box.
I love it.
hard to mess it up that way.

[Lenina]

Barb and Sugah,

Sorry to hear you're feeling so rotten. I don't know what it is exactly that makes this time of year so bad. Maybe the stress of the upcoming holidays, the change in the weather, the shortening of the days, the Day Light Savings Time going back to Standard time, I don't know. All my joints are aching, the IBS is kicking up, it feels like electric shocks going down my legs and my sleep is just not good. Wild, epic dreaming and waking up tense and sore.

I don't understand why we can't get the insurance companies to realize that if we could get some alternative therapies it would cost less and we could feel better and function at a higher level!

I hope you're feeling better soon! I have some self-hypnosis CD's on self-healing that seem to help me. PM me if you want the names.

Much love,

Lenina

PS: And the brain fog! I feel so muddled and befuddled!

[barb dwyer]

thanks Lenina!

It truly does help me to know that I'm not alone and yes, it DOES seem to be seasonal, but then - this is MONTANA not a moderate climate at all.

could well be the fewer hours daylight,
and the temperature for SURE

the doc messing around with this bs of antidepressants for fibro hasn't helped
I mean -
if they could get a trip to hawaii for pushing
a lotion made with chicken poop
they prolly would, ya know?
I need a 'pro' who is more a healer
than a businessperson.

i went and put the kai-bash on that in a permanent way last week.
the antidepressants tho.

although after the blood test
I'm to go twice monthly for a b-12 injection.
foundout
it costs a dollar.