Wonderful and Horrible At The Same Time

Hello everyone. I appreciate your patience during this long gap with no post. What? Oh no, I haven't given up on blogging, I have just been too busy mentally to think of anything to write about. I have had to focus my attention on classes. Oh, you thought that chair killed me? No, lol, it is still tucked away in the corner, well out of the path I walk.

Anyways, I have two bits of news that are both wonderful and horrible at the same time. *Grins* First off, school. Only 2 weeks left of this term. This is wonderful because I am almost done with this icky politics class, but horrible because the last 2 weeks always seem to take forever. I want to be done with it NOW! I am hate this class. Next term, however, looks to be more interesting, with 2 accounting classes, and the 3rd being Sociology. I am really hoping that 3rd class is interesting. It is so much easier to do the writing when the material intrigues me.

Ok, enough with school stuff, you say. I agree, listening to me complain about classes is probably boring for you. On to the second bit of news then. My back pain. No, it hasn't gone away, but the doctor I have been seeing has done more than just toss a prescription at me for the pain. She sent me for x-rays to see if there was a problem there. Turns our my bones look great. She said there are no signs of osteoporosis and no fractures. There were a few minor spurs on my spine that could develop a bit of arthritis in the future, but no problems that are causing my pain now. So she says that means it is muscular. She referred me to physical therapy. That is wonderful as maybe with some proper exercises my back will get straightened out and the pain will go away eventually. But at the same time it is horrible, because they are gonna make me stretch in ways I haven't moved in a long time, and that is gonna hurt like hell for awhile.

Personally, I still think the pain is from nerve damage, but I would be delighted to be proven wrong. If this physical therapy doesn't work, I have no idea what the next step will be.

That is pretty much all that is going on with me at the moment. I do plan to get back into posting daily or at least 3 or 4 times a week as soon as this term is over. So if you can hang around for another 2 weeks, there will be more regular posts after that.

Happy New Year!

I hope you all had a pleasant and safe evening last night. I wish you all have a Happy New Year. May this upcoming year bring you joy and see some of your dreams come true.

This year holds a lot of potential to me. I will be graduating college and getting my first degree. I will also be enrolling again to start on my 2nd. I have doctors appointments coming which may just fix my back, so it is possible that I may be able to get fixed and finally be able to get a job again.

I really hope this happens, it would be so nice to be able to work, to go out, to stop being stuck in this damn chair all the time. But, I also have to face the alternative, I may not be fixable, I might have to suffer this pain for the rest of my life. But there is a good side to that too, if the doctors tell me that I can't be fixed, then I may be able to qualify for disability, which will make my life a bit easier, as it will give me access to help where I need it.

I just hope that this year will be just as good as last year was. Even though I have been in pain, life has brought me much happiness over the last year, and I can only hope it will continue this way.

Many of us make new year resolutions. Most of us don't manage to keep them, but the resolution I made last year, I kept it all year, so I will make the same one again this year. So my New Year's resolution is to always try to find something to be happy about, to always try to find the bright side of things, no matter how bad they get.

What are some of your wishes for this new year? What resolutions did you make and keep last year? What resolutions are you making this year?

Ice Cream and Bruises

To start out with, I should explain: I have no depth perception. I cannot tell exactly where things are, or how far away they may be from me or each other. Apparently, my eyes don't work together as they should so distance and location has always been impossible for me to determine. This has cause me to bump into doorways, knock over drinks, etc.

As a result of this, I am not the type of person who rearranges their furniture very often. I tend to put everything in a spot and there it will remain until I move out. Earlier this year, however, I got tired of bumping into the doorway leading out of our main room. There was a chair on one side and a dresser on the other. But they were on the wrong sides. The chair was on the narrow side and the dresser was on the wider side.

So I switched them. Seemed to make sense. The chair was wider than the space it was in, and blocking part of the doorway. Switching sides would mean a clear path to the other room and I shouldn't bump into the doorway anymore.

But the chair was long than the dresser, and that meant I had to remember to walk two steps further before I turned to go through the doorway. I think you can see where this is going now, *grins*

All went well for a few days, until we decided to have ice cream cones. The ice cream didn't want to stay on the cone so I dumped it into a bowl and ate the cone first. Then I reached for the ice cream and realized I didn't have a spoon. Focused on what I was reading, I grabbed the bowl and jumped up to hurry to the kitchen to get a spoon.

I have no idea why I took the bowl with me, it could have sat on the table while I got the spoon, but I took it with me. Not really thinking about anything except getting that spoon and getting back to my story, I forgot about that chair I moved.

Yup, I tripped on it. But this wasn't a simple stumble. Nope, it was much more dramatic than that. Picture this scene now: My foot slammed under the chair. I went flying forward, landing on the chair. But since I was moving quickly, there was more. I bounced off the chair and hit the dresser before finally crash landing on the floor. The ice cream and the bowl soared up and landed in the chair, splattering all over it.

Go ahead. You can laugh. I know you want to. I sure did. Even laying there on the floor, bruised in many places from that dramatic fall, trying to catch my breath and gasping from the ache of hitting my foot on the chair, the throbbing in my side from colliding with the dresser, and the pain in my hip and back from the wrenching landing on the stone tile floor. Even with all of that, I knew how funny my fall must have looked.

Ducky had seen my acrobatic failure, and when I looked up, he was standing there. Fighting off a grin and asking if I was alright. I couldn't answer at first, the pain and the laughter took my breath away. Eventually, I managed to get up, and limp back to my seat. I was bruised, wrenched and sore, but even then I knew just how ridiculous I must have looked.

That chair didn't stay there much longer, it was soon moved to an out of the way corner where I have almost no risk of tripping over it again.

I still find the whole event hilarious. One thing I now know for sure, though, is this: I am not an acrobat, nor can I fly. Oh and that chair is still plotting against me, I just know it.

No Pain, No Gain?

We have all heard that old saying. I think we all share the same understanding of what it means. No Pain, No Gain. A very simple way of saying so many things. It applies to just about any situation. There are other cliches that have similar meanings: Nothing In Life Is Free, Early Bird Gets the Worm. I am sure you know a few other phases that work as well. They all have the same underlying meaning that to get what you want you have to work at it, you have to put forth some kind of effort to achieve your goals.

Even though I know this meaning to the phrase, it has come to be something different to me than a simple encouraging phrase. I have constant back pain. My back hurts me no matter what I do. Pain killers don't work for me any more, hot baths or showers do nothing, creams, ointments, etc, all have no effect. My back still hurts. If I sit very still and move as little as possible, I can ease the pain to a level where I can almost forget about it for awhile.

But it is always there, biding it's time, just waiting for me to stand up too fast or move just a little too much, so it can jump out and attack me again. At times, the pain gets so severe that I can't take a breath without feeling that agony shooting up and down my back. It is almost impossible to stand up straight at times, and sometimes, I can barely walk.

No Pain, No Gain. This says the effort you make will pay off somehow. For most people this is true. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Keep at your efforts, you will see your goals become reality. Not quite fitting to me, I feel. Even something as simple as getting up to get something to drink can leave me hurting so bad I feel nauseated and dizzy from the intensity of it.

There are good days, yes, where I can summon up the will to leave my house and go do something, visit the flea market, see a movie, do some grocery shopping. But then there are the bad days, where all I want to do is stay in bed and cry, or try to sit at my computer and surf the internet in an attempt to forget or at least distract myself enough that my pain isn't all I am focusing on. Sometimes this works, other times I just end up sitting there, staring at my screen, doing absolutely nothing but concentrating on not taking too deep of a breath.

No Pain, No Gain. This is a good phrase, but for me I think it is backwards. The less I try to do, the less pain I have to suffer. For the most part, anyway. For my situation, the correct phrase would be No Gain, No Pain. If I do completely nothing, the pain usually stays bearable, in the background so to speak.

However, I have come to realize recently that this is not good enough for me. I don't want to give up my goals and dreams and efforts. I don't want to be controlled by my pain. I want to go get a drink when I am thirsty, to go for a walk on a nice evening, to clean the bathroom so well that it sparkles when you turn on the light. In short, I want to take back my life and live it productively. I know that some of these wants are just not possible physically. I have no choice but to avoid them. I cannot go bowling, or spend the day walking around the mall, it would just hurt too badly. But I will not let the pain stop me from the small things anymore. My bathroom will sparkle, dinner will be made, I will have a drink if I am thirsty.

No Pain, No Gain? or No Gain, No Pain? Either way, I will still have pain. At this time, that is a fact and unavoidable. But now? I have decided the gains are worth the pain. Pain will still control much of what I can and cannot do. Pain will be there just waiting for the chance to attack me and bring me down. I will not be just a victim of it anymore, this is official notice to my pain:

I am fighting back!