My last day of the #HAWMC month challenge

Today, this last day of making up the missed days from this month, we are to find a picture on Flickr & connect it to our health focus. I'm cheating a bit...but let me explain. Last night I went out to take a picture of the super moon. After getting back upstairs & into my room, I started to fall. I caught myself & only fell halfway-ish, but the little slip ended up leaving me bruised, my toes bent backwards, & all of the force of it jamming into my pinched nerve. It hurt, & I woke up so very sore & tired today. I laid down on the heating pad which helped, had my iPad on Pandora radio (a channel based on instrumental music), read on my kindle, & played Words with Friends. I was in pain but I was content. I had the perfect position to have healing heat, music, a great book, & a good game going where I was actually keeping up. I fell asleep. Hours go by & I wake up. My body & back feel like I've been in a car wreck. I can't manage to get up for an hour. I take my morphine & wait for it to work, & I reflect back on today, with my moment of contentment.

 

 

Falling

Fell again today...but at least my brain told my arms to react this time. Been on a heating pad for hours...& family came in tonight to visit for 3 days. I can tell I'm boning to be a fantastic host. Oh sarcasm, we get on so well!

 

Bruises without boundaries

As a girl who has to take loads of medications, vitamins, herbs, etc, I tend to bruise easier than the Georgiaiest peach. After the 2nd big fall a few weeks ago, my dentist has me taking even more generic Advil for inflammation in my gums & right side of my jaw, which is still preventing me from biting down properly. After getting spinal shots on Valentines day, I also got the usual pain shot which helps the hour drive back home less painful. I woke up to find this bruise wrapped from my right hip/bum area all he way around my hip & stomach...roughly the size of my iPad. Lovely, no?

 

 

 

 

Present skin

 I have a pinched nerve in my back, which after the fall a few weeks ago has been truly unbearable. Like I want to blow my head off or be put in a coma just so I won't be aware of the pain. A few minutes ago, I reached back to adjust the always present ice pack for inflammation that has filled my body like I'm a pod person, & when I did I barely grazed my skin. Not with a fingernail, not with anything sharp-just my finger barely touching my skin...& it felt like I had taken a lit match & held it there to burn & fester. I try & see my life like this pic-the left exciting, with beautiful colors & tons of pebbles representing events, Super Bowl parties, travel, drinks with friends. The right side is my now life-giant circles of bland colorless life.

 

Bruised art

While my internet was dead & I was going crazy...so isolating...I made some art out of my bruises. ;)

 

 

 

 

Pic circles

 I first turned the camera on me & my struggles as a coping mechanism about 4 years ago. This pic was the very first I took, & when I saw it, was stunned to see what I had been feeling on the inside on the outside, so that others could see. Yesterday I opened an email, & saw that pic staring at my from this fantastic fibromyalgia & chronic pain group. After the past week, falling, etc, it was so great to see something come a bit full circle. 

 http://visitor.benchmarkemail.com/c/v?e=12CF96&c=2508E&l=1C6583F&email=0pQroMpw105javDeHn2WJRZvSxx3FN1CNyIeD9VsXLU%3D&relid=C6EC165

 

Sweaty laugh

 I haven't laughed in a week. Not at all. I think we all are aware of my impending moving dr doom & my 2nd tree fall this week, thus my haggard rodeo clown face. I can't really brush my teeth as my mouth is still so swollen, & drinking or eating is a nightmare as opening my mouth cracks open the road rash above my lips. Lovely thought, ain't it? And showering? Well, let's just not even go there...eewww. So I'm on twitter to basically win prizes & follow funny people. I put little-nothing out there of any real significance. At all. I was catching up on reading twitter as my focusing on say, a book, is a useless waste of time. That fall really just hit directly on my brain. I was reading the delightful Rob Delany's tweets & went on his website, expecting it to be a normal 'I'm famous & here is where you can find me' mess. A picture of a small girl running, no, fleeing, up in the air-like serious hang time, in spandex shorts & flip flops & a tank with a look of shear terror on her face as a goose-also in midair with one footed web foot out & forward like a cartoon chased her. His face had an enchanting murderous look & the caption read 'no is not an option for a goose'. I started laughing & a half hour later had sweated completely through my clothes, still couldn't talk from laughing & deep coughing. I finally had to blow my nose & as expected there was just buckets of blood from my smashed nose all over. Mom actually said concerned 'surely one of the 4 CTs from the ER would have shown if something was broken...?' with loving hate I composed the following tweet to @robdelany & a bit later was thrilled to see he had marked it as a favorite. Read & enjoy. ;)

 

 

 Do visit him & the goose now, you hear? Thanks. 

F is for firing flare-fall

 So a couple of nights ago I fell again, but for the 2nd time in just a few months it was what I fondly call a tree fall. I get dizzy, start to fall, & instead of my arms or hands coming up to assist me, they flake out. I just fall like a cut tree without my reflexes or time to yell timber. After going to the ER & being given the all clear, I headed to my neurologist for my monthly appt. the timing couldn't have been better. I had landed on a very thin rug that covered hard, cement tile & hit on my nose, then barely skidded on my face, landing on the right side. I landed the exact same the 1st time (if nothing else my scoliosis is telling) except I landed on Chai bunny's hay pile. Same whiplash, but minus the road rash on my face. The nurses at my neuro office took one look at me & after dad told them I had been nauseous even with meds from the ER took me back after only one song on my iPod to give me the usual pain shot I normally get after. It contains a medicine that fights nausea, so of course that helped. I got straight in almost to the x-ray table, & my lovely dr was shocked at the looks of me. He explained that sometimes when I go into a flare, I fall like that-& that it is like lighting a match to a more ordinary flare & it just exploding. After the 1st time I tree fell we I'd the whole series of MRIs to again rule out MS. He gave me a shot right in the neck (ouch) & one in my lower spine. My face still looks clownishly awful & my teeth & bridge seem off, but everything is so swollen it's hardly surprising. Needless to say I'll put the dentist off for as long as possible. 

 

With us moving I'm more fearful than ever about finding a dr who will not only treat the pain, but have the knowledge & my trust to let them inject my spine with needles. (as well as talking about me living alone again...cos I was on the floor, blood everywhere & bled for a good 3-5 hours solid & on & off through the day...)

 

 

 

Epic kindle giveaway!

 A cool virtual shirt...& I got loads of free books, & now that I'm so extra sick, those books will help get me through the rough nights!

 

 

the fallen

tonight i fell. again. for the third time in a sitting position, crashing down to the floor-landed on a bottle and the imprints are starting to turn into bruises. it's so humbling to realize that your body and what the old body could do are no longer one. 

i cried so hard as it just hurt in my hip, hands, head, etc. i scared poor Chai bunny to death and hours later she has finally calmed down-but still won't come over to where i fell. : (