Whew!

Howdy, friends!

That about sums it up about my day.  My husband got paid and we did our usual thing like we do every month.....buy all our pharmaceuticals, cat food (Jack would be ONE unhappy kitty if we skipped that part of the routine!), electrodes for my TENS machine, we washed the car, got cash from the bank, went to Checker for an air filter for our "baby", and stopped at the grocery store.  We JUST got back home and are exhausted.  My feet are sooooooo big I can hardly bend them.  I cannot WAIT for my weight loss surgery.  It's detrimental to my health. I can barely move around WITH my walker.  I can't bend down.....there's just so many things I can't do now, but I can do when I lose weight.

My husband and I are going to a support group on November 17th as part of my weight loss program.  It sounds really good-it talks about holiday eating and how NOT to blow it over the holidays!  What is the norm?  Gain 5 pounds over the holiday season?  I know they did a study about that, but because of my fibro "fog" that's another thing that got lost in the fog!  Anyway, at my initial assessment they said it would be beneficial to attend the support group even before I've had the surgery.  That way I can ask questions about what to expect.  Maybe take away some of the "fear" component of going under the knife!!
I really am scared (and excited about the outcome) about what's coming up.  I hope everything goes OK.

Well, I gotta eat supper and then put my poor, blown up feet high up on my elevator pillow edge and attempt to read my Janet Evanovich book.  I've got her brand new one out, "Wicked Appetite."  I just finished her other new Stephanie Plum book, "Sizzling Sixteen."  If you like reading funny mysteries, she is your author!!  I just love her to death.  I should have listened to my mom long ago and given her a chance!  Oh, well, I'm reading her now and have her whole Stephanie Plum series.  If you want to check her out, she has a cool website at www.evanovich.com.  I should get commission, don't ya think? LOL!

Hope everyone has a great evening (or morning, wherever you are) and I hope I made it easier for my foreign visitors by adding a website translator at the top of my blog.  I was reading my blog stats and I have a lot of foreign visitors, so I thought I'd be nice and add that.  :0)

TO DAD AND GINA:  I hope you two are having the time of your lives. You both deserve it. Post more pictures, please.  And for all my faithful followers, Gina is a new blogger and you can find her by clicking HERE.  I'm sure she would love the company and some new followers.  She's a really great gal whom I'm growing to be quite fond of.  So Dad, don't mess it up!  LOL (just kidding)!  I love ya both!!

God bless you all!
Until next post,

Happy September!!

Good day, my fine friends!

Happy September 1st!  I thought I'd start the day/month out with a blog post.  Can you believe it's already September 1st?  Where has the time gone?  I'll bet the kiddos are happy to be back in school....NOT.  I remember when I was a kid (a long time ago!) I didn't like summer to be over and then having to trot back to school for another year of carrying heavy books and listening to your teachers drone on and on about things that happened way before you were even born!  As you can see, I'm NOT a historical buff!

I don't feel too badly today, of course I had my morning cocktail of pills, pills and more pills.  I wonder if I will ever have a day again where I don't have to take pills all day?  Maybe after the lap-band surgery I can drop some of my pain meds, blood pressure meds, and the diabetes pill.  We shall see.  I'm so excited because this is the month I go for the initial appointment for the lap-band and since I've already had the cardiology clearance, it should save a lot of time and we can move forward.

Well, today is the day I go back to the foot doctor. I plan on holding up my grossly swollen feet and saying, "fix me!"  If anything, my foot is even worse than when I went in the first place.  The shot he gave me did nothing.  He also said something about getting insurance authorization to take care of my ingrown toenail.  Sounds fun! He better hurry. I got a letter from my insurance stating that due to the state's bad budget, more people are going onto the state insurance so they are cutting back on things for people over 21 yrs. old.  One of them is podiatry care!  Great! I've only got one month until this takes effect, so hopefully everything will be done in that time.  They ALWAYS take away from people over 21 yrs old, while if I were a kid, I could get everything - dental care, even.  As it stands, I can't take care of my teeth issues because I have no insurance and my other health issues kind of trump the dentist.  All in due time, as my dad always said.

I'm sure you've noticed all my Amazon ads on my blog. I signed up with their Amazon Associates program and they approved my blog almost immediately!  Makes me feel better, since Google adsense rejected it (after looking at the WRONG blog) and then went on to say I have broken links, under construction signs, ect.  I appealed my application and still haven't heard anything back. They are soooo way over the estimated "week" they told me a month ago!  Anyway, I just LOVE Amazon and have been ordering from them for years.  You can get all kinds of stuff there and I've included a "search" Amazon widget near the bottom of the page for your shopping convenience.  Everything you order off of my blog, I get commission for.  So if you love Amazon, too and order a lot, please do so off of my blog, please. :0)


You remember me talking about that pillow wedge that I use?  Well, on Amazon it is even cheaper than what I got at ActiveForever.com!  And it works so well and takes pressure off my lumbar spine.  If I didn't have that pillow, I'd have to sleep sitting up because I can't lay on either side.  Here is the pillow wedge link in the sidebar if you are interested:


I find it helps very much if your ankles swell, too. It keeps them raised while you sleep.  While my ankles are always swollen, they are a lot less so in the morning when I get up from having them raised all night.  I also keep them raised while reading, too.  It's soooooo very comfy, if I don't say so myself!! :0)





Another product that I highly recommend if you have a sore neck is "the neck pillow."  So much more than a regular pillow, it centers your head and neck in a cradle of comfort!  I love mine!  Here is the link for that in the sidebar:













One product that I use on a daily basis is a pillbox organizer.  I take so many things, I'd be lost without it!!  Here is just one of many types/designs. This is the one that I use:

Hmmm.....I see they have a 31 day organizer out now that I may have to buy myself!










One more product that I just can't live WITHOUT is my TENS machine. And Amazon has a number of them, both new and used, that will do the trick. They even have the electrodes and conductive gel, if you need that.  Here is the link to a similar machine to what I have and love:













I hope you all have a great day and the start of another week.  Joy, health and peace I wish for all!!!

God bless,
Until next post,
Missy

Down The Drain

Hello, fine friends!
I hope this post finds you all happy and as pain-free as possible.  Unfortunately, for me, I've been battling severe leg/feet pain for so long now, I feel they are a part of me.  I am so tired of waking up and feeling like I'd been rolled over by a steam roller.  I'm so stiff, I have to sit at the side of the bed for a half hour before that first agonizing step.  And I always have to use the bathroom really badly, but I've got a "bladder" of steel and I can hold it until I can painfully limp to the bathroom.  When I was working as a floor nurse, I rarely had time to even breathe or have lunch, let alone use the bathroom, so I probably got my "bladder of steel" from that experience.

I guess I'm still "paying that piper" from when Frankie was in and out of the hospital this summer.  That really took it out of me and my mother-in-law, who has arthritis and fibromyalgia, too.  She has had rheumatoid arthritis since the age of 12! Poor thing! That is when all the fun starts with being a teenager and with running around town looking for boys (that's what I did when I was a teen, anyway!) and going to dances and just being active.  I can't even begin to imagine having juvenile rheumatoid arthritis. I've always told her I really admire her for getting so much done in her life (raising three children AND working a full time job!) with the limitations of arthritis.  Her hands/wrists are really bad and she has had surgery on her toes to correct them as they were laying on top of one another and posed a great infection risk.  Her feet look great! I wish something could be done about her hands, though. They are crippled from the arthritis and her wrists are fused. 

Anyway, we stuck it out because we love Frankie and would support him in any way we could.  I would CRAWL to the hospital to see him, he is that important to me.  Luckily, though, I don't have to crawl. We have a great car that takes us wherever we want to go...as long as we have gas in it!! :0) I'm just so happy that he is home and it looks like he is here to stay.  Today is the surgery appointment and the million dollar question is: will he remove the drain or leave it in?  We're not getting our hopes up this time.  That way, we'll be pleasantly surprised if he pulls it OR we'll accept it if he doesn't pull it.  What else can we do?

I took two pictures of my "patient."  The first one shows Frankie with his shirt up, to show off the drain so you can have a visual idea of what the heck I'm talking about when I mention his drain. The tubing goes to the little suction bulb hanging down his left leg.  He's healed up nicely from the surgery, as you can see the long incision down his belly.

The second picture is of Frankie doing what he loves most....the computer.  He still is very weak and somewhat pale, as you might be able to tell from the photo.  But each day gets easier and I think once the drain is out, he will feel a lot better.  It's almost like an anchor weighing him down, reminding him constantly of his recent surgery and staying in the hospital for so long.

Maybe today will be THE day he can throw that blasted drain "down the drain" at his appointment!!  Good riddance is what I say!  Although, that drain is what made it possible for him to be at home instead of in the hospital with a partial bowel obstruction, all hooked up to the IV nutrition and the NG tube down in his stomach.  But I think it's served its purpose, though, and he's had it in for two weeks now. Time to go in my humble opinion.

OK, enough talk about that.  You probably have noticed I've made some changes to my blog. I found some really cute backgrounds from "Cutest Blog On The Block."  The link for it is way at the top left hand corner, where their logo is.  Best thing about these backgrounds is that they are FREE.  My price!  And they have oodles to choose from, and not just backgrounds. They have blinkies and buttons for your blog, too.  So if you have a blog and want to spice it up some, head on over to "Cutest Blog On The Block."  They are so easy to use and their instruction page is easy to follow.  Heck, if I can install 'em, so can you! :0)

The second change I did was add a jukebox to my blog so you can listen to some great tunes while visiting my blog. If you really don't want to have it play, just take your mouse and hit the pause or stop button on the player.  As you can tell, I'm a HUGE fan of Michael W. Smith and the Irish boy band, "Westlife."  They ROCK!!  Makes me feel like a teeny bopper again....well, not quite.....

That'll do for this post. I really hope each and every one of you is OK and getting plenty of rest, eating well, all that jazz that we SHOULD do, but never quite do.  I know, I'm one of them!!  I'm sticking pretty close to my diet, but I never get enough rest.  My back is killing me and I can't lay on either side because then the opposite side starts in with the nerve pain that shoots down my legs.  So I'm stuck on my back. Thank God for the elevation wedge I got for my legs and it also takes pressure off my lower back.  If I didn't have that, I'd go nuts as I wouldn't sleep at ALL.   Ho-hum, the life of one with lumbar disc disease, fibromyalgia and arthritis.  It just keeps getting better and better!

God bless ya!
Until next post,
Missy

PS....Tomorrow we go to the seminar for the Lap-Band.  Yay!  I'm really excited to see what they have to say about it - how it works, how much weight you should lose, ect.  I just want to get on the road and start it already!!!!  I'm tired of waiting.....life is full of "hurry up and wait!"

A Draining Experience

Hello, friends!

Well, the weekend had its ups and downs with Frankie and his gastric drainage. On Saturday we were really happy that he had a significant drop in the amount only to return on Sunday and see that he had more than made up for it in the night.  The nurse explained that the tube wasn't all the way down into his stomach, so it couldn't get get all the drainage on the bottom of his stomach.  I should have known!  Anyway, he had another abdominal X-ray and CT scan on Monday (he's had enough of them he should be radioactive or glow in the dark by now!) and the nurse told us the preliminary report showed NO obstruction anymore.  He still has the hematoma, though, that showed up on previous X-rays and this is due to his recent surgery.  Frankie told us that he saw the doctor in the elevator on the way back up to his room after his CT scan and the doc said he would be placing a drain in the hematoma to get all the blood out of it and maybe that would also help the gastric drainage go down into his intestines like its supposed to.

I was really bummed out as I wanted to talk with the surgeon to get the full report myself.  I love my husband dearly, but he only gets bits and pieces of the conversation and doesn't ask very many questions.  I went early yesterday morning (Monday) to stake out a doctor from the surgery group and luckily one came in and answered some of my questions.  And she ordered the radiology examinations.  At least this time Frankie didn't have to drink the citrus contrast, as the nurse used a syringe and put it down his NG tube.  He hates ALL fruits (can you believe THAT?) and would just cringe to have to drink that contrast for his every 3 month CT scan!

Today, Tuesday, my mother-in-law and I visited Frankie in the afternoon and he had a wonderful surprise for us!  He actually POOPED!  Unfortunately, it gave him NO warning and he had quite a mess to be cleaned up by the staff, but things are starting to wake up and move right on down like they are supposed to.  Isn't it just sick that we should get so excited over that? Almost like we're potty training him and we would clap after he did "number two."  LOL!  So I think we FINALLY are turning a corner.  They are going to do a NG tube clamping again tomorrow and see how things go.

My aunt and uncle in Texas did something so sweet...they sent a beautiful plant and "Get Well" balloon for Frankie!  He was very pleased by it, as we were too.  Thank you so much, Aunt Penny & Uncle Jeff!!!  :0)

Frankie had the drain placed late this afternoon and when he returned to his room, he was half out of it due to the medications they gave him to relax him for the procedure.  I stayed for a while then decided to head home at dark.  I am just literally asleep on my feet.  And my feet have been giving me lots of problems with numbness, tingling, pins and needles and pain.  It feels so good to come home and get my feet up on my elevating pillow rest.  I have my TENS unit cranked up on high and I try to read my book, but I don't ever get very far and wake up two or three hours later with the light still on and the book on the floor.  So tonight, I'm gonna close this post and just go right to bed.  I'm exhausted!!!

Hope you all are well and happy.  Thank you so much for your continued love and support. I've received so many kind notes of wonderful thoughts, words and prayers.  I really appreciate each and every one of them.  So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you!!!  You all are the BEST!!!

All righty-roo!  Time to get my numb feet off to bed.  You guys and gals all have a blessed rest of the week and I'll be posting again soon.  I'll dig up another one of my poems to include in the post.  I hope you all enjoy that.  If not, please let me know.

Big, gentle hugs to all!
Until next post,
Missy

Quick Sand

Howdy, friends!
The tests that Frankie had a few days ago show that he has a partial small intestinal obstruction.  The doctor yesterday explained that SOME of the stomach contents and contrast he's ingested are getting down into the small intestine, but a lot are still remaining in his stomach.  Too bad we can't get him some industrial strength drain-o or something! (LOL!)  He's had to have the NG tube replaced three times so far because they keep "coming out." The first time was in radiology - and remembering back to my nursing days, I'd send a patient down with a patent IV and they'd return to me with either it being clogged or out altogether!-and the other two times Frankie accidently dislodged it.  Or I THINK it was an accident! Frankie has been "out of it" the past two days due to them giving him Ativan. That really knocked him for a loop.  Who would have thought that he could take a pain med FOUR times the strength of Morphine and not have a problem and then take an anti-anxiety med like Ativan, the smallest dose, and have it affect him like it did!  Luckily the doctor discontinued it yesterday and I just got a call from my husband, the first one in two days, and he finally is starting to sound more like himself and not as foggy.

I feel so bad for the guy. He's depressed. I'm depressed. My mother-in-law is depressed. We all are! It's like we are walking in quick sand and the more we push to get through it, the more it sucks us down within.  I think they should name a wing after Frankie at the hospital.  I've been there so many times, the car could drive itself there now.  With how tired and worn out I've been, I think it HAS taken me there by itself...LOL!  The only "cure" for small intestinal obstruction is to walk, walk, walk and time to resolve itself.  So his mom and I are drill sargeants and when we get there, his feet are poundin' the pavement, so to speak. He needs LOTS of motivation and we have been pushing him all the way.  I think he was using the Ativan as a way to "escape" this world he's been plunged in. Can't say I blame him, but the Ativan made him so drowsy, he couldn't walk. And we can't have that. I want him home...preferably some time in my life time!

My fibro has been absolutely horrible. ALL my trigger points are triggering! There is not ONE part of me that doesn't either ache or throb. I've got this problem with my big toe on my right foot where it just throbs and is kind of red. It rubs against the other toe. I showed it to the doctor yesterday at my appointment (and I had to go alone, no hubby :( ) and she said it wasn't infected, so I'm just leaving my shoes off at the hospital and going around in just my socks.  I have a bundle of nerves on the top of the same foot that when the shoe hits that, it hurts like heck!  I even had to get a larger sized shoe to fit my big feet in due to the swelling that I still have and nobody knows how to get rid of.

I visited my favorite physical therapy store- Active Forever- www.activeforever.com and purchased a pillow for my neck that is absolutely wonderful. It's shaped like a horseshoe and craddles my neck and shoulders. I also got a body wrap that goes over my shoulders and you can have it either hot or cold - I chose cold as that helps when the temps are up to 115 degrees outside- no kidding about that, either, that is our high expected for today!  I don't really want some hot thing draped over my shoulders! But the cold feels sooooo good!  Check out the link above. They have all kinds of stuff for pain and fibromyalgia and all at reasonable prices.  They REALLY should give me commission, don't ya think?  That is also where my TENS machine came from and where I get my electrodes. One stop shopping! Gotta love it!  So now when I go to bed, it's a therapeutic experience- with my wedge pillow that goes under my legs and elevates them, my neck pillow and my ice packs.  When I wake up in the morning, my wedge pillow is usually to the side of me, my neck pillow stays properly in place and my ice packs on the floor!  So I do manage to toss a little bit in the night, which is probably why I wake up very stiff and have a lot of pain in my back and legs. I need to come up with some way to strap my legs to the pillow wedge to keep them from moving!!  LOL!

Alrighty, that is it from my corner of the world. To end this post, I've chosen another poem from my high school years poem archives. Hope you like it.

A Road Called Life

I have prepared forever,
As long as I can remember
For the road that is ahead of me.
I have been experienced
Through past experiences
And I have been
Through enough of life's ups and downs
To be able to handle the real thing.
I wake up today
And it is time.
I am no longer "too young,"
But a mature adult
That must travel down that road.
I stop momentarily before getting up.
Some don't make it down the road,
But I will try.
I smile and get ready
To walk on that road.
I am ready
And I walk to the door that leads out.
My hand on the knob,
I stop.
My feelings all surface now,
Pleading me to stop.
To stay in my safe place
To remain sheltered a little longer.
They are so strong
What if I fail?
What if I lose?
I can't answer these yet
Because experience hasn't taught me
The answers.
With my second wind,
I think again.
I will try my hardest
And if I fail
It won't be because I haven't tried.
With that strength,
I open the door.
Talking a deep breath,
I begin down a road called life
And it's scary as Hell.

A Very Good Monday!

Howdy, friends!

I hope you all are having as good as a Monday as I am having!  I woke up this morning with not TOO much pain, that being it wasn't a screamer 10 on a 1-10 scale, mine this morning I'd rate was about a 5.  Ever since I got this absolutely wonderful pillow wedge from http://www.activeforever.com, it makes sleeping on my back a lot more comfortable. And I HATED sleeping on my back in the past. I can no longer sleep on either side or my stomach, my lumbar area and legs have other ideas then- and none of them I like! I wake up in extreme pain that doesn't go away for anything.  This pillow wedge, though, not only takes pressure off my lower back, but elevates my feet, too. So I get two in one benefits from one pillow!  It's great...I highly recommend it to those of you like me that are forced to sleep on your back.  I should collect commission from Active Forever, you think? And to think I learned about them from my physical therapist. I just completed a 4 week stint of therapy that did help and they showed me exercises to strengthen my legs.

And then I check my email, and what do I find? To back track one step, I've blogged about how my TENS unit is a worthless hunk of junk that kept shocking me and I had to pound it on the desk to get it to work AND tape the battery in? Well, my dear sister Barbara & my brother-in-law Jay got me a new one from Active Forever! My hubby and I rushed in the car over to Peoria and picked it up. The salesman there even told me, "Happy Birthday!" Wasn't that nice? :0)  So again, Barb & Jay.....THANK YOU A ZILLION TIMES! I love being part of a family again. Since my mom died, it just felt like a giant black hole inside me. But now with the passage of time and blending in with my husband's family, who have been absolutely great, that black hole is getting smaller and smaller. I will always miss Mom, and I do miss my dad, too, but I must move on with life like she would have wanted me to. So that's what I'm doing!  And my dad is doing great in Michigan from what I can tell. He emails me every few days and is doing good in his apartment. He even got a cat. He's meeting his neighbors. So what more could I ask for? He hasn't sounded bad or anything when he calls me, but you can never tell over the phone how someone really is...you just gotta take a look at them to know for sure things are OK. So I'm going on hope here that things really ARE OK with him.

Thank you to all of my friends that are following my blog by either networkblogs or Google friends. I love checking it every morning and seeing more people follow me. It's almost like Christmas! :0)  I've added a new thing called "Blogfrog" and  I have a community there, too, for fibromyalgia. I posted a discussion in my new community but so far nobody there has responded. Check it out. Just click on "join me in my community." Membership is FREE....my price! I don't know if I will keep it or not, I'll see how it goes. If the activity remains at 0, I'll let it go.

My Facebook page, on the other hand, has blossomed into a wonderful community of friends that can speak freely about fibro and it educates people who don't have it, what it's like TO have it.  I can't say enough how pleased I am with everyone who has stopped by and become a fan of my page and participated in the discussions. Big thanks to all!!  I don't know how to put a "join" button up, though, so just click "like" and keep checking back to see if anything new has happened. :0)  You can get to my Facebook page promoting the blog by clicking on the profile badge at the top of the page.  :0)

Hope all is going well for all of you. We are getting close to Frankie's surgery and he is getting really nervous about it. So please send prayers of peace for him as he faces this on Thursday.  I can't wait until it's over with and neither can he!!!!

Have a good start of the week and I'll post again either tomorrow or Wednesday.
Until next post,
Missy