Tag: chronic illness

insult to injury

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

Insult to injury

Not having a good day. I fell asleep around 7 pm last night only to wake up at midnight and stay up till4 or so. I wasn’t in pain, I just couldn’t sleep. I had some waffles as it was close to 12 hours since I last ate and that seemed to settle me. I woke up when my med alarm went off, my foot was bothering me in the atrophied area. It felt like it was going to cramp but wouldn’t. I made breakfast. I was going to make some burritos but wasn’t feeling up to it. Standing was hurting me. I took a shower after I ate, which only aggravated my ankle/foot. I was still having intense pain so emailed my psych to see who to best to see. She said my PCP so I called the office. Of course my doc wasn’t available and I saw the nurse practitioner.

I played with my phone and decided to catch the bus so I could have my espresso and maybe write in my journal. I wore the walking boot because I couldn’t bear weight. It was good because any forward movement caused me pain. I was early when I got to my doctor’s office, though I had to wait an hour to be seen. I wasn’t thrilled about this. I wanted to do shopping but now it wasn’t likely as it was getting late. The NP examined me and said she thought I sprained a ligament. She said that I had weak ligaments because of my surgeries. I didn’t know what surgeries she was talking about as I never had ankle surgery. Just pissed me off. Then she said to ice and elevate it. You don’t use ice if you have CRPS. I said I would elevate it. I had to go down to X-Ray as she said I had pain on my bone (malleolus). She said she would send me a message when the results came in.

So I have a sprain and I am to be in the boot for a week. Just fucking great. It is going to wreck my back. The report of the X-Ray is that there is come changes to my medial malleolus not my lateral. I find this weird as my lateral malleolus (the one that is outward) hurts me more than my medial. It doesn’t make any sense unless the radiologist got it wrong. Going to ask them to look again because I don’t understand how I have pain in the opposite malleolus.

I then fiddled with my time until the Sox game. It got bad. The starting pitcher, Price gave up a lot of runs. Then the relievers did. The $31 Million dollar pitcher said he had a “sensation in his hand” causing him to pitch poorly. OK. There were benches cleared after an exchange of words during a second base play. I got tired of listening to one of the announcers on the radio that tends to piss me off regularly but I have to tolerate him because I can’t watch TV. I am in too much pain tonight to listen to him so shut off the radio. That is when the fun started. Sox scored some runs and it is now 8-6 evil empire in the 5th. And a friend just texted me the top of the 6th. Reliever gave up 2 runs. What a shitshow. I am going to bed. This day has been nothing but awful

Morning Glory Muffins and other things

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, CRPS, depression, mood disorders

Morning Glory Muffins and other things

In case you missed the link for the recipe: https://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/morning-glory-muffins-recipe

I woke up at 5 in pain. My ankle was screaming. I took some meds and was just beside myself. The depression that I have been feeling is getting worse. I just feel so hopeless. I managed to go downstairs to use the bathroom and then have some breakfast as I was hungry. I made four waffles and a cup a tea. I was starting to get a little sleepy by the time the tea was cool enough to drink. I went back to sleep after I drank it.

I woke up around 11. I found out the ballgame was at 2 so wanted to make these dreaded muffins. I should have used a food processor to chop in hindsight. I stood for about an hour walking around my kitchen getting things and mixing and stuff. I realized when while I was mixing it the apples I cut up were too big and the carrots were shredded too long. Oh well. It was the first time making this recipe. The muffins would just be chunky. They have apples, carrots, walnuts, coconuts, and raisins. It is a nice hearty muffin. It came out good. Even my mother liked it, and she doesn’t usually like my baking.

I went up to my room to rest and listen to the game. It was like the 7th inning and there still was no score. Price, the pitcher, left and then the Rays scored after a 2 run home run. Then we tied it in the 9th. We ended up winning in the 12th. I was happy. It was the 6th game in a row that we won. Our record right now is 6-1. Tomorrow they are off. Saturday is a day game, Sunday probably as well. I am happy with my team. I wish Red Sox Nation would give JBJ, the centerfielder a break. We probably would have lost the game had he not been playing today as there were some pretty tough balls hit to him.

My ankle exploded sometime around 5 and then again around 7 when I went to put eyedrops in my eyes. Same pain that I have been having all day. I hope I can see my psych tomorrow. She will understand if I don’t make it but it takes forever to get another appointment. I really hope I sleep tonight and don’t wake up fucking early in the morning. I can’t even give myself a “bedtime” because it never happens. I have been trying to stay off my phone when I want to sleep. Only trouble is that the books that I have been reading have been on my Kindle so the no electronics rule is out the window. I really need to read more but it’s so hard when the pain makes my brain mush. I can only read a few lines, like Twitter. I mostly just read a few tweets and skip the rest because they don’t pertain to me. I hate retweets because some of them are so not relevant to what I like. But whatever. Some of it is good because it keeps me in the loop of what Dotard is up to.

my aching back

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

My aching back

My lower back was really sore today. I mostly stayed in bed. I had some tea and crumpets for breakfast. I didn’t feel like having anything else. I went back to bed as there was no way I was going to be able to go out. I was too sore.

I wanted to wake up when the baseball game started. Today is Opening Day. I woke up to my phone ringing. It was my best friend calling to tell me there was an inside the park home run. Fuck and I missed it. I saw replays of it. It was awesome. The Sox were up 3-0 but would lose 6-4 in the bottom of the 8th inning. Relief pitching is going to be a problem. They had walked four batters, and the ump didn’t help as he narrowed the strike zone. I hate when umps do that.

I made some hot dogs for dinner. My back was really hurting. I put some heat on it and that didn’t help. My brother in law gave me some lidocaine patches so I have one on now. I hope it helps. I need to renew my T-pass tomorrow. I also want to get my haircut. I don’t care if I go to Starbucks tomorrow or not. Depends on how I feel. I hate feeling so crummy. I need to take a shower. Maybe I will in the morning. My Barber shop doesn’t open till 1030 or 11 tomorrow. That will be a good time for me to shower and the go to the Square.

I took my night meds so I hope to be sleeping by the time I finish my blog. I really don’t want to do anything. I am really sleepy after my nap. My sister had come up and said I didn’t have to make muffins because she bought a lot of desserts for Easter. Tough. I already bought the stuff so need to make them. If I don’t make them tomorrow, I will make them Saturday. I still need to print off the recipe. I got it from King Arthur Flour, I think. I will bring a couple to my therapist on my Monday and my barbers, too.

Last night, I was feeling really suicidal. Pain was making me crazy, between my back and my foot/ankle. I started writing in the draft blog I started a few weeks ago. I just added to it. I don’t know if I am going to publish it or not. It was kind of a revelation when I first created it.

I have decided to restart baclofen at 10 mg at night. I was getting bad cramping in my leg last night. I hope it is not because the CRPS is spreading up my leg. It was really depressing me because I have no idea who to see to talk to about it. My PCP is useless. I was going to try and make an appt with the new neuro but I didn’t feel like dealing with aggravation today. I will try tomorrow. Meds are kicking in so I will write to ya later.

Saturday of pain 10 Mar 18

by Midnight Demon, posted in Bipolar Disorder, blogging, chronic physical pain, depression, mood disorders

Saturday of pain 10 Mar 18

Since I woke up this morning, my malleolus has been a 10/10 pain. I thought I was going to have a good day as for the first time in weeks, I slept through the night. I wanted to make a dirty gravy but that wasn’t happening as I could barely stand. I am going to try and just ground the beef and save it for tomorrow. I had asked my brother in law to get me some hamburger rolls but he didn’t go to the grocery store today as he was working. He said he would get them tomorrow. I wanted to make Manwich. Oh well.

I tried napping and not moving as much but that is impossible. Pain went down to about an 8, then moved to the front of my ankle. When it was time for my regular pain meds, I just took them and within minutes, that part of my ankle spiked. I cried. There was nothing else I could do. I can’t move. I tried listening to music but it just annoyed me. I wanted to watch the baseball game but it was delayed due to rain. I was going to turn it on when I got back to my room but I wanted to try and nap. I had taken an Ativan to try and calm down as I feel so much anxiety, like OMG what the hell can I do to get rid of this pain???!!! It is so overwhelming. I have had pain like this before but never this severe and for so long. It’s going on almost eight hours.

I had posted to my support group what my cooking plans were and that I wasn’t able to do it. They had no idea what a “dirty gravy” was so I had to explain. Then a few wanted the recipe so rather than make a long post, I just made a blog. It was all from memory though I think I said too much of the herbs. I usually just eyeball the stuff. I never measure as I have made it so many times. I think the more herbs are better anyway. I did give the option of using onion. Some people like it. I don’t, though now that I know I can buy diced onion, I might use it more.

I hope this pain is the after effects of the storm. Now my foot is acting up. I thought about using lidocaine or the diclofenac gel but I really don’t want to touch it. It is so fricken painful. I wish I could have my “normal” pain back but it’s been so long since I had it, I forgot what it felt like. I know my pain used to be a 3 and light throbbing. Now it’s a 6 with heavy throbbing. I can’t remember when it was below a 6. I can usually handle the pain at this level, but the bone pain has been something I have not been able to bear. Nothing seems to help it. I took some 800 mg of ibuprofen to see if that helps at all. It’s supposed to be good for bone pain, but I don’t know at the intensity that I am feeling it.

My mother is going to make hamburgers for dinner. I told her there was no way I could cook. I hurt too much to stand. Just standing for 6 mins for my frozen dinner was agony. She makes better burgers than I do anyway. Maybe I will make some tater tots. I can just throw them in the oven for twenty minutes. I don’t like when my mother makes them as she doesn’t cook them at the temperature on the directions nor for as long as they say. It’s like eating raw potatoes. My mother doesn’t like it when I make them crispy but I love crispy potatoes. It’s what makes them so good. I will sometimes have tater tots for dinner, just tots nothing else. Or hash browns. I love potatoes. I have been craving red potato salad, either with mayo or oil and vinegar, I don’t care. I just got to buy the potatoes. I’ll put that on my list of things to buy. Sucks when you can only get things once a month when that is when you get paid. With all this pain, I doubt I would be able to hold a job again, even if it was part time. I have no idea what I would do other than office work, as long as there wasn’t too much bending and lifting. I can’t really bend down to pick up stuff and I can’t lift anything greater than 10-15 lbs. because of my back issues. Sucks.