Standing at the Trailhead of Winter

Saw the DO yesterday. Left the appointment with some hope. For nearly four weeks I've lived with incredible pain in my right leg. The pain grips my thigh, knee, and upper shin, like my leg is in a vice that is tightening and not letting up. For nearly four weeks, I've sat in this recliner, crying through the night because of the pain. Exhaustion on top of pain is not sustainable. The DO asked me to go through what I've been experiencing. When I finished, she shook her head, saying the ER went down the wrong path, that the issue is not the compression fracture; it is a nerve issue. Most likely a herniated disc, which wouldn't have shown up on a CT scan. She seemed irritated that they didn't do an MRI right there given the amount of pain I was in at that moment in the ER. I said it was pretty obvious they didn't believe me when I tried to explain the pain.  The DO ordered an MRI, which I hope to get done early next week. She also prescribed a nerve-blocking painki...

Winter is saying, "Hold up! Hold up! I'm not done here." The cold returned over the weekend, with a biting wind blowing, and it is still hanging around. We've reached that point of wintertime where it's close to the end but still far enough away from the end to bring about frustration. Temperatures of 14 degrees with real feel of -5 because of the wind have gotten long in the tooth. I am more than ready for winter to ease up its onslaught.  Because of the cold, the desire to go outside has waned. Having to pile on clothes multiple times a day is now annoying. Instead of getting out for walks, I'm simply opening the door and letting the boys out into the fenced yard, but even they don't want to be outside for any length of time. The four of us have decided to hole up, napping through the rest of winter (I wish). Recently I had my annual physical. This has become a requirement by my health insurance company to ensure my premium doesn't go up. So I jumped...

Today I am 43 days refined sugar free. I've not had processed sweets and very little fruit through these last six weeks. A couple of days ago, it dawned on me how good I've been feeling physically the last ten days or so. More energy. Less fatigue in the afternoons. Sleeping through the night and waking up feeling ready to actually get up. I feel no pull to eat candy, cookies, or other sweets. It's very much like when I stopped eating meat -- a few months into being vegan, I felt no desire to eat another steak or hamburger, sausage or hot dog. With the sweets, a very strong need filled me every day to have something. Being free from that feeling is amazing. When I sit and think about the last seven years, I have to shake my head at what I've stopped consuming. The first to go was soda. For years I was drinking a 16 oz bottle of soda each day. Along with the soda was a candy bar. It's a wonder my teeth didn't rot out of my mouth. It's also a wonder I didn...

2023 was okay. I really have nothing to complain about regarding life in general throughout 2023.  Well . . . then again . . . that's not entirely true. Mostly true, but there was that one thing . . .. The thing that happened on April 1st. Of all days, it had to happen on this day. This was the day I drove myself to the ER that's 40 minutes away, after standing up from my recliner and feeling my heart take off. It was like I had just run the 100 meter dash, giving my all to cross that finish line first. Only I didn't run the 100 meter dash. I merely stood up from my recliner. I was on my way to take a shower, so I continued to do so, hoping my heart would slow down and go back to my usual 70ish heart rate. In the shower, my heart just kept on, and the more it didn't slow down, the more scared I became. So I finished the shower, got dressed, and drove myself to the ER. That drive was surreal. I just kept thinking: if I pass out, I hope I veer off to the right, into the b...

 

Happy New Year!  While Christmas day was wonderful this year, and I will forever (at least I hope) remember sitting here with my three kiddoes and their partners talking the afternoon and evening away, I couldn't get the tree and other decorations down fast enough. I just wasn't feeling the whole keep the decorations up until New Year's this time around. So all the holiday accouterments were put away days ago, and some went into the thrift store box. I decided to do another deep cleaning, part of which is letting go of things that no longer give me joy. Yesterday, as a challenge to myself, I left the computer off all day. I didn't check in to anything on my phone, either. Instead, I spent time on the porch with the boys, listened to a couple of podcasts that really got me thinking, and I read, finishing up another excellent book: The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne by Brian Moore. Highly recommend it if you're looking for something to read. And today, because it st...

I finally did it. I managed to get all the gifts but one bought and wrapped before Christmas eve. The last gift will arrive today as it was a very last minute decision. For years I've vowed to do the shopping in early December then have all the gifts wrapped and under the tree at least three or four days before Christmas. I've never followed through. I end up dragging my feet shopping for gifts, and when it comes to wrapping I am the last person anyone should ask to do this. I'm just horrible at it, mostly because I think the whole idea of buying wrapping paper, ribbon, bows, and little To: From: cards is absolutely ridiculous. Seriously, does anyone really cares about the presentation of the gift?  Brown paper bag wrapping.  Easy peazy. This year, I decided to not buy all the gift wrapping trappings. Instead, I saved all the brown paper bags I brought groceries home in and used them to as wrapping paper. I did buy a dollar bag of bows and a dollar package of To: From: st...

Well, after six weeks, my thumb is still swollen and it still hurts. Wednesday while I was at my physical, my doc said it was time to x-ray it (I kinda think this should have been done six weeks ago, but I'm just a lowly English teacher who has no medical training). The x-ray tech said yes, there was definitely something but wouldn't tell me what. The doc had to tell me. The doc, though, ended up having her nurse call me and tell me my thumb was fractured. I needed to see an orthopedist. The orthopedist sent in his nurse practitioner who informed me a piece of the bone did break off and slipped down into the joint, which is why it still hurts and is still swollen.  There's nothing that can be done for it.  I knew before going to the orthopedist that most likely a piece of the bone had chipped off. All along I could bend my thumb a little bit and move it. The only issue I have is gripping things and using my thumb to open my car door. Any pressure on the thumb pad is painful...

My husband had a heart attack a few days ago. I was sitting here at my computer, working on a new piece I've been tinkering with for a week or so when he called. Do you have a car? he asked. Yes. Why? I think I'm having a heart attack. He described the symptoms further. I'll be there in a few minutes, I said. I drove over then took him to the ER. As soon as they hooked him up to the machine, a code STEMI went out to the rest of the hospital. Lots of people showed up at his room, even the Chaplain. The staff worked quickly and efficiently to prep him to go to the cath lab. One of the nurses explained to me what was going to happen, and the cardiologist came in not long after we arrived to further explain how things were going to go. Right before they wheeled him to the cath lab, Lovely Beautiful Daughter and Angel Baby showed up. The three of us walked with him as far as we were allowed to go; then we went to the waiting room. About an hour later, the cardiol...

Whenever Hubby and go grocery shopping, I feel like I'm living Groundhog Day  as soon as we walk through the automatic doors. I pick up organic onions and Hubby says, "Those are a dollar more a pound than the regular onions. Why can't you just get the cheaper ones?" I pick up organic potatoes, and hear Hubby say, "Geez, those are expensive." And so it goes for the entire shopping trip. By the time we reach the check out, I'm exhausted from trying to explain why I buy organic when I can. After paying the bill, I get to hear about how we're paying too much for groceries because I insist on buying organic. Yesterday, before even reaching the check out lane, I had arrived at the point of just being tired of hearing it. Hubby and I definitely part ways when it comes to food. I'm deeply concerned about how our fruits and veggies are grown. I'm just as concerned with how animals are treated before their lives end so that we can eat. Yesterday, my ...

One week ago today I stepped onto a scale. I had no choice because if I had, I certainly wouldn't have done something that makes me so incredibly disappointed in myself. I loathe weighing myself. I have ever since I was a kid. Once a person is labeled "chubby," "chunky," "pudgy," "fat," and my personal favorite, "thick," anything directly connected to making that label seem even remotely accurate is avoided. So I began avoiding the scale, at like age eight. When I was 10, we had to be weighed in the classroom, in front of all the others. At the time, I was around five feet one inch (I truly thought I was destined to be six feet tall as I was a head taller than all the other girls in the class), and I distinctly remember weighing in at 106 pounds. I also distinctly remember my teacher, who I thought was absolutely the most beautiful woman I had ever met in my short life, smiling at me and nodding, not saying my weight out loud like s...

While I don't watch much TV these days, mostly just watching the Purdue men's basketball team consistently lose, there is one commercial that I really like. The Jessica Simpson Weight Watcher's commercial. The two lines that strike me most in this commercial are when Ms. Simpson says she loves "this body that made two amazing little human beings," and "I love this body and what it's capable of." I know exactly what she's saying though I don't always keep this in mind like I should. There are probably far too many of my days that I am unhappy with my body. And frankly, I really have no reason to be unhappy with it at all. My body produced three wonderful, funny, inspiring individuals, two of the three without an epidural, with one of those three weighing in at 9.4 pounds, the last of those three weighing in at 10.9 pounds. After each birth, my body rebounded within a few months, and I was pretty much back to pre-birth me with no health issue...

I got to thinking today about some of the changes I've made with what I eat, well, more like don't eat any longer, and that led to thinking about the amount of calories in a cola. Which led to how many calories I had been drinking when I was consuming a 16 ounce cola each day. Every. Single. Day. I pulled out my handy, dandy calculator, punched in the numbers--240 x 365--and my jaw dropped. 87,600 calories. I then divided 87,600 by the amount of calories in a pound. 25. That's 25 pounds worth of calories I was consuming each year while I was drinking colas. Talk about sabotaging myself and my desire to improve my eating habits. Part of me kept saying, "Oh, it's okay. I exercise every day, so one cola a day isn't going to hurt." Yeah. I was duping myself for a very long time. Now, into my third month of being soda free, I feel like I've taken a huge step forward with my journey to better health. While giving up sodas may not seem like a bi...

Wow! I didn't realize just how lousy I was feeling for so dang long. Well, I kinda knew, but now, this morning, truly feeling like I have my body back, the one that I thought had deserted me10 years ago, I realize I was merely going through the motions of trying to not let anyone else see how miserable I was feeling. Yeah, 10 years. I remember the very first day of feeling lousy 10 years ago, and how I believed my body was betraying me. I went to my GP, my gynie, and even a mental health counselor to try and find answers to what was happening to me. My GP referred me to a neurologist (I never went). My gynie suggested I start taking Prozac (she is no longer my gynie). The mental health counselor just shrugged and said, "Sounds like depression. Lots of people are depressed." I didn't like the answers any of these professionals gave me, so I set out on my own to find the answers to what was happening to me. I began reading anything and everything I could get my hands ...

The start of a new year has begun, and with it, the wonder of what the next 12 months will bring. I, for one, have lots of hopes. My primary hope is that my family continues to enjoy good health. My middle child for many years was the one who battled sore throats, allergies, and colds. We teased him about being the sickly one. Thankfully, 2010 was a good year for him. He remained healthy overall, only having one or two colds at most. During the fall semester, in November, it dawned on me that he hadn't been sick during the fall months. This was a first in his life. My secondary hope is that I can continue writing, producing like I did during summer and fall of 2010. I truly believe my time has come for creating good work. When I finish a story, the feeling of accomplishment spurs me to continue. I've never experienced this before. And lastly, for 2011, I hope to fine tune my nutrition and exercise. I have several events lined up, giving me something to work towards, and I'm...