Birthday Party 3.0 Was a Success!

On Friday, my friend had his birthday party. We went out to a bar, and drank many alcoholic beverages, and I hijacked his party. Not in a mean way, but in a "YAY we get to celebrate 2 birthdays!" kind of way.

I got pretty drunk, on a relatively small amount of alcohol. My friend had about 3 times as much to drink as I had, and he ever so abruptly fell asleep on my lap. I have a bruise on my arm to prove it.

Saturday morning-ish rolls around, and I wake up after a nice solid 8 hours of sleep, have breakfast, and proceed to go back to bed for another 8 hours of sleep. When I woke up, I had breakfast again, and watched a couple movies before heading back to bed once again.

So I missed my niece's birthday party on Saturday, because I was recovering from a lovely hangover, but I'm sure she'll forgive me.

Last night was another early night, with me going to bed at an incredible 9:30. That's really early for me. And I fell asleep almost immediately after laying down, which doesn't happen to me. Ever.

But I did finally have a birthday party, and I got to see one of my really good friends from high school, and introduce him to my hubby, and I met a bunch of his friends, and it was all really fun. The 2 days of recovery were well worth the fun night out.

Birthdays...

Last year for my birthday, I got a spiffy cane.

This year for my birthday, I got a nice relaxing day in bed.

By that I mean; last year I broke down and gave into my pain, and finally started using a cane, even though I should have been using one for a while by that point.

And this year, I was so allergic to everything, I had to take Benadryl so I could breathe and when that kicked in, I was so dizzy, I had to go back to bed, and forego all attempts of a "Birthday Party."

So sunday rolled around, and I tried Birthday Party 2.0, which consisted of going to the Calgary Stampede, on the last day, so I could watch some fireworks. Hubby and I walked around for about 2 hours, then when the fireworks were about to start, we climbed 2 flights of stairs and found a nice place to stand and watch the fireworks. The thing is, even though walking around slowly for 2 hours didn't bother my hip, standing for about 10 minutes caused a lovely dislocation, and I went smashing into the pavement, landing on my knee. Stood up, and sarted the slow, slow trek back to the car... Wishing the entire way that I had brought my cane, even though I didn't need it until I fell.

Oh, and I totally missed the fireworks, and the only game I'm actually any good at, they don't have there anymore.

But, YAY, I made it one more year... I'm a whole 24 years old now... Why do I feel like those numbers should be reversed, and doubled?

What Does Pain Look Like?

Can you see the searing, pulsing flames as they lick slowly across my chest, burning hotter as they reach my shoulder and linger?

Can you see the color of the glass shards as they slowly wear away at the soft tissue of my hip?

Can you see the sharp knives cutting into my ribs, stealing my breath as I walk?

Can you see the waves of pain crashing down upon me, suffocating in their weight, taking all my energy just to keep from drowning?

I can.

They are all reflected in the single tear falling slowly, silently, down my cheek, as I hide my face from you.

Dishes or Laundry?

Unfortunately, that is a question I ask myself more often than I care to admit. Do I do the dishes, because I haven't any clean ones left, or do I do the laundry, because I've worn my shirts twice each, and I'm dangerously low on clean undies? (TMI?) Either way, after my very rushed shower, there is only enough hot water left for one of these things. There is also only enough upper body strength to do one of these things.

Yesterday, I decided it was time to do the dishes. They were stacked in both the sinks, on top of half of my counter and all over the stove top. So I filled both of the sinks, and started soaking things. There were dishes from my gramma's rhubarb pie that she'd sent me, and no matter how much you soak them, they never want to come clean without a thorough scrubbing. Scrubbing is the worst thing on my shoulders ,because it pits my strength arm against arm, and it dislocated half my fingers, and both my shoulders, and some ribs. Which is all well and good, and to be expected. Until my right shoulder goes *SNAP* and I get the feeling of a hot poker going through my shoulder blade and into my ribs, accompanied by a very strong electric shock feeling. My right hand went numb for a minute, and when the feeling came back, I started scrubbing again. A bit later I was putting a dish into the rinse water, and just shifting my weight that slight bit caused the same sensation through my left hip.

Once the dishes were all clean, and sat out to dry, I took a nice 2-3 hour break and watched a movie, and read a chapter or five of my current book. Then I put away all the dishes. And I even remembered to write myself a grocery list, so we wouldn't be out of toilet paper with me begging my hubby to run to 7-11 to pick some up at 10:00 at night... again.

So tonight, I will try to go grocery shopping. And once that is done, and I get home, and have everything away in its cupboard, I will once again contemplate laundry. Or maybe I'll put it off another day or six... I won't know what kind of energy I'll have until the time comes...

I hope everyone is doing alright.

Hugs and happy thoughts to all of you!

Can we ban the use of invisible sledgehammers?

It feels like instead of twitching, I had someone smash my shoulder to bits with an invisible sledgehammer. I was reduced to tears for 3 hours straight. I doubled up on my pain meds, and was still unable to distract myself from the pain. I was too drugged to read, so I watched tv, and I had an ice pack on my shoulder.

The twitching is getting to the point that the dislocated shoulder/collar bone/larynx/ribs are all driving me nuts.

I choke on myself multiple times a day. It currently feels like I have 2 separate dislocations, as well as a pulled muscle in my shoulder.

I am once again at the point where I feel as though I can no longer hold my job. The 9 hour days, even though they consist of mostly sitting, are too exhausting. I haven't been able to find a comfortable sitting position for weeks, and I am so exhausted by the twitching and the pain, that I am unable to do anything outside of work.  But I'm me, so I'll tough it out as long as possible.

But I could really use a nap... This whole 2-4 hours of sleep every night isn't enough.

So Tired

The title about sums it up.

My poor hubby has had the flu for the last 2 weeks, and I seem to have avoided the worst of it. All I seem to have caught is the inability to sleep, and all the extra aches and pains that usually come with being sick. And a runny nose. And I have no balance and nearly killed myself in the shower this morning.

I'm also cat-sitting. Have been for 2 whole weeks, and Princess's mommy should be back tonight, so I don't have to climb all of the hazardous, mismatched stairs.

In other news, I recently went to the bookstore, and purchased 5 new books, and went home and downloaded 2 additional books for my ebook, as well as one more book which was e-mailed to me. One of the books I bought was from a series, #20, and I have finished it, and am now re-reading 2 or 3 of the books in the series because some of the main characters haven't been in the last few books, and I missed them.

I have been having problems with Blogger. I recently got a new android phone, which forced me to get a new Gmail account, and I can't seem to leave comments. I've been trying to comment on Jess's blog over at Falling Apart at the Seams, to send my thoughts out to her friend who has just received a liver transplant, as well as Jess's pooch who is having medical problems of his own. I've also been trying to comment on Saurou's post at Disjointed regarding an explanation about brain fog and memory holes."I have a hole in my vocabulary the size of... That place... The south-ish one. You know that big place in the south? Ummm... Texas! A hole in my vocabulary the size of Texas."

Since returning from my vacation, I have only fallen once or twice, and I haven't had to use my cane. But I'm twitching more than I had been when I was falling all the time.

I'm Back!

Okay I got back at the beginning of last week, but I've just been too busy to post anything. This post started off as bullet point, and is therefore a bit scattered, and jumping from topic to topic in no particular order.

Let me start off by saying that driving through the Rocky Mountains in the moonlight is incredible. You can see the snow at the top of the mountains, and the outline, and some very vague sense that there might be trees.

While we were vacationing, my hubby and I, and one of his friends took a nice long walk. We were out for 3-4 hours, and I went without my cane, because driving the 12 hours to Vancouver did a number on my right shoulder. During the walk, I dislocated my left hip about 5 times, and I came to the realisation that uphill is a lot more forgiving on my joints than downhill (and sand is not meant for bendy people to walk in). The next day, I was practically unable to walk, and hubby was hurting  too, so we mostly stayed in, and took our pain meds, and tried to rest. -- Since we got back from the trip, I have been almost walking like a normal person. My limp is very slight, and probably not noticeable to other people. So, walking helps... but you need to give yourself 2-3 days to recover before it feels like it's done anything good.

Now on to my coffee date with my friend in Vancouver. It turns out I thought he was older than he is by a year, and we had nearly 6 years of our lives to catch up on. That made me feel old. I haven't seen him since I graduated, or shortly thereafter, and he is planning on coming back to Alberta for a few days at the end of June to visit family. I think I've convinced him that we need to get the old gang together for drinks one night. I've already got one other friend who's excited about the prospect. I managed to get through the whole nearly 3 hour visit without talking much about my disability; which I'm very happy about, as the last friend I caught up with told me that I've grown bitter about the whole health care thing.

On the trip, I figured out that I can in fact digest things. The only problem is I MUST HAVE COFFEE in order to do so. I didn't have coffee the first couple of days of the trip, and when I finally did, I had to take several trips to the bathroom... So, now at least I know to drink coffee every day, about 2 cups.

I recently had my car to the mechanics for my power steering problems, and at that time they were supposed to do an oil change, and a seasonal inspection. They didn't. I had to spend $120.00 to have my "thick as tar" oil changed, as well as filters, a bolt, a gasket, and a shampoo of the oily bits to get rid of the crud that built up.

There was recently a horrendous fire in Slave Lake, and for nearly a week, I had second cousins who were afraid they had lost everything. They had just built a new house there, and were getting ready to move in, or had started moving into it, so they also had their old house, as well as a business with a lot of expensive equipment. Luckily for them, the fire completely missed both of their houses, and the business, and they will be able to move back in as soon as the electricity and water are functional again. My one second cousin is helping with the rebuilding efforts. They will also be selling their old house, which will help get one more family out of the temporary shelters. These family members have an adult daughter at home with them who has Down Syndrome, so I was very happy to hear that they all got out safely, and that they still have a house to go back to.

I received a letter in the mail today from the Big Hospital in my city, saying that I have an appointment with their movement disorder clinic in August. I'm confused. I had never heard that I had been referred to them, or that there even was a movement disorder clinic in the Big Hospital. When this all started, I was told that the Children's Hospital was the only place with a movement disorder clinic, then I was also sent to a neurologist, and now they're sending me to another movement disorder specialist. I'm glad that they haven't given up on me, but I'm so frustrated by the amount of time I've had to wait.

That's all I can think of for now. I hope everyone is doing okay!