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

Another Monday Rollin' Around

Good morning, everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend, not too much pain or flare-ups for us, the "fibromites!"  Unfortunately, that is NOT true for this "fibromite." I feel worse today than I did yesterday. My husband and I were like bed bugs yesterday, couldn't get up the energy to even THINK about getting up the energy! Now, that is bad!  My hubby slept until noon yesterday, whereas I was up at my usual time at 5am (so I can take my first round of pills for the day....yummy!) but then konked out at 3pm and my ding dong of a husband didn't wake me until 9pm! So I was late on taking my evening meds, hadn't had dinner yet and because I slept so long, I knew I probably would be up all night and that would leave a mess on Monday with regulating my body clock "back" to the usual times.  One thing that I have learned very well in my years of having fibro is that you need consistency of bedtimes. I NEVER have had consistency, due to the fact that when I was working the night shift, that is when I felt the most alive.  But I did find a way to make it work where I wouldn't be in one long continual flare-up. I would stay up all night, and sleep during the day until 5pm, whether it was a work day or not.  Sure, it had its problems-not a whole lot of businesses were open at 3am. So if I had a doctor's appointment, I'd make it later in the day, say anywhere from 3pm-to-closing or when my shift would start. That worked out that problem.  But now that I'm not working at all, I've trained my body to the "normal" rhythm of the world-I'm awake during the day and sleep at night. What a concept!

Sleeping, I think, is the most important concept in the treatment of fibro. Sleep is when the body regenerates itself from the brutality of the day. Muscle cells repair themselves when you sleep - that really DEEP sleep, not the "cat naps" that we "fibromites" are so good at!  What happens is when day after day, night after night if you are NOT getting that good, deep sleep, your muscles don't repair themselves. And then they get cranky! And then they hurt like heck and then you are officially in flare-up. When I first started the Savella for my fibro in October of 2009, I had my doubts. I'd been on so many damn drugs, I'd lost count at 109....LOL!  But my rheumatologist was so insistent I take this drug, I was beginning to think he owned stock in it. He told me that he had a lot of patients that were taking it with very good results. It's some kind of seratonin and norepinephrine regulator.  Since he was so nice and cute to boot, I figured, heck, what's ONE more pill?  So I started it.

It got to be mid november-6 weeks or so, and the only thing I felt was aggravation. The medication caused my already high blood pressure to get higher, so much that my primary doctor increased both my blood pressure meds. Secondly, that's when the profuse sweating had started. It got to be so bad, it looked like I just came from the showers and forgot to towel down!  I couldn't live that, so I stopped taking it and let him know. He said he wasn't going to change it, I just needed more time on it. It can take up to 8 weeks on some patients. That would've been nice to know!  Luckily, I only stopped the day prior to the appointment, if I remember correctly. So he gave me a lot more samples, as my dear insurance wouldn't cover it. My rheumy had to write a letter to get authorization and explained to them I've been on all the medications with little to no results. Whatever he wrote them worked, because the medication was then approved for a year. And, slowly, I started sleeping better and more deeply. My husband said I was talking a lot in my sleep, too and having whole conversations!  I woke up feeling refreshed for the first time in a LONG time. So finally after all the years of pills and side effects, I found one that actually worked!  YIPPEE!!

Well, anyway, I think why both my husband and I feel so rough today is last week WAS rough. Between worrying about his PET scan and worrying about my cardiac tests, we were both so worn out. And it getting so hot and muggy in Phoenix. The monsoon season is upon us early this year.  Oh joy, oh bliss!!  And with my sweating, excess weight and the fibro and we musn't forget the slipped discs in my lower back, getting around is murder!  Hopefully this week we will find out more about the surgery-like when it will be. This waiting around is for the birds. Let's just get that tumor out and forget about it already!

And, lastly, to start out this perfect week-my TENS unit is on the blink. I think it has fallen one too many times and has a short in it. I can make it work again by gently hitting it against my palm or the table top. But I will definitely need a new one when my hubby gets paid. Luckily they are not that expensive.

That pretty much is it, to start out this Monday it is enough! Hope you all are doing well.  Oh...a little update on my darling dad...he has his new apartment in Michigan and even hooked up the utilities AND contacted Social Security all on his OWN, without me reminding him.  Will wonders never cease? I just hope it lasts. I hope he can continue being good like this. I know he can do it, it's just HIM that doesn't know it! But maybe with having his own apartment will bolster his self esteem and act like a responsible adult.  I'll be praying my lil' heart out for him....or shall I say my STRONG heart? That's what the cardiologist said about my heart.  Don't ya just love good news like that? 

Take care and God bless!
Until next post,
Missy