Everything else is fattening. And since I can’t do much right now due to stupid pain, I spend time gazing out watching snow.
Tag Archive: Pain
Yeah. I’m grabbing a cup.
We’re making progress, despite the loss of male bits yesterday. Sammie was very scared and disoriented when he first got home. It was like he didn’t know any of us or where he was. By evening he seemed to feel more at home.
By the way, it was so nice of the spay/neuter team to come out to our everything desert on their weekend to take such good care of our puppies and kitties.
Today we had a couple lap sessions and recliner time. He initiated. I was elated.
Because of him, and aches and pains due to weather changes, I’ve gotten very little done today.
NaNoWriMo isn’t going well either. I reduced my word count goal to 25k.
Even piano was a short session.😥
The only thing that might show progress:
I hope you had a happy, safe, thoughtful Veterans’ Day. Thanks for your service folks.
Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “chicken or egg.” Use the “which came first” conundrum in your post, whether about the chicken and the egg or about a real-life situation that fits the question. Or just talk about chickens and eggs! Enjoy!
There are so many times in life that you wonder what came first the pain or the fear. Sometimes the very thing you fear brings the pain you most dread. Worried about stepping on glass you bump your head. Ya know what I mean? The thing you were alerted to had you blind to something you never thought of.
We’ve just finished bingeing Cesar Milan’s show on Disney. I’m trying to train myself to get ready for my new fur baby when the time comes. Cesar sees many people who have been traumatized by dog bites. And those animals were traumatized by past people. Now the new pet and parent have to overcome their fears and learn to trust each other.
The lesson is to control yourself in the moment. Be present. Trust you’ll know what to do.
I kitted down for waterfall, then kitted up for Starry Night. I’ll never do that again. My right arm, shoulder, and back are killing me. I should have at least taken breaks to stretch. The annoying part is: I’m so addicted to Diamond Painting that I have a hard time stopping.
Back to the Aspercreme, Advil, ice, and stretching.
The Carolina Diaries: Belle
The Carolina Diaries: Belle by Darlene Winters
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I don’t know. This was hard to read. It is hard to review. It feels autobiographical. Though it–
I don’t do this often as I figure people will go read the blurbs themselves. But this and the reviews make me wonder if I read the same book.
“Her cousin wants to die. She has the whole roadtrip to convince her otherwise.
Darlene only knows of one way to help her cousin Belle after a life of disappointments–go with her on a cross-country road trip, head back to California where Belle was born… and where she intends to die.
But deep family resentments and drama rides with them across the country, shedding light on heavy themes like sexual abuse and depression, as well as religion and politics. Growing up in North Carolina, these cousins have a lot of stories to share: some sad, some comical, and some just down right disturbing.
If you enjoyed Little Miss Sunshine and Girl, Interrupted, you’ll want to read The Carolina Diaries with its unique blend of dark humor and even darker perspectives of life past, present and future; the real take-aways being how to cope and heal.”
I found no humor. I wish I hadn’t picked it up. It was exactly what I don’t want to read before bed. All the reality of our daily news lives during this pandemic. And though I agree with the author on a lot of stances, I couldn’t deal with it in my bedtime fiction.
My fault. I saw road trip, my first name, and didn’t read the description.
Maybe if I read it during the day I could see the humor in a suicidal cutter who had lived with so much abuse, of every kind, during a pandemic during the political turmoil of 2020. No. I don’t think so.
The reason I am not giving this a lower rating is the list of good books and ideas the author presents. Unfortunately, the way it’s presented makes me sure the ones who need the information will not see it. Still, there’s a chance I could be wrong.
Changing Your Pain Pathways: Ways to cope with pain in daily life by Bronwen Moore
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
I have been doing chair-yoga for a while. It is one of the things I do to help become healthier in spite of the pain. One of the YouTube tutorials I follow features the authors of this book. Cara, Sarah, and Bronwen. As they are introduced I tried to decide who was who. Here is the link to the lesson:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMps5…
Now what I had thought was the one in the middle and the one on the right of the screen looked like sisters. Then I thought they might be twins. Thereby I named them Cara and Sarah. The one on the left didn’t look related so I figured she was Bronwen. I went online to see if I could find these teachers’ pictures. Nothing that helped my curiosity. But then I discovered their book. With fibromyalgia and arthritis competing for my full attention, I thought maybe I could find something that would help me become healthier and have less pain. I found the Kindle version was cheaper so bought it. I would suggest if you have the money get the paper book as it is a workbook with pages to fill out as you move along.
The workbook idea is a good one to help you realize your points of pain increases and decreases. It helps you see how your mind can steer you to better health. And even more important how you can help others to see what you are going through and how they can help you. People caught in chronic pain cycles find themselves bullied in every direction.
As it happened I was in the middle of a flare and reading this by text-to-speech helped me reflect on my pain and my methods of relief. I don’t take many drugs for it as I found they made me sicker. The occasional Advil and CBD for sleep. The rest of the time I use distraction therapy. Keep my mind working on interesting projects.
I will be picking up this book again in the near future to do the exercises and journal what I learn as I go. Thank you for the tutorials and this book to all of you involved in it.
It has been a long time since I actually wrote more than a few words over here. Let’s see if I can catch you all up to date.
No, I didn’t finish Camp NaNo. I got to about halfway and ran out of juice? Fibro-flare? Life? happened. I can’t remember two minutes ago, so remembering that long ago is foggy. I still like my plot potential but haven’t been able to get back into it. Time travel has to be well thought out. Since this one is different than any I have ever read, I don’t want it to be NaNo-ed together. I need to step back and make a tight outline. Will it be this year’s NaNo? I haven’t decided. Nor have I decided if I want to write a NaNo this year. If I can get a tight enough outline before Halloween, I might just try to add another 50K to this 25K story. Who knows?
I have spoken about my new medicine, Gubabapentin (Neurontin), that may be helping me have a few good days now. Yes, a few. As of two week ends I could count 3 good days. On these days I felt pain in joints but not the all over pain and fatigue I have gotten used to. The doctor said it takes a while to titrate to the proper dosage that will be better for me.
Which brings me to just over a week ago. Two Wednesdays ago, a friend called saying she wanted me to accompany her to the GeoCaching Con in Las Vegas. At that time it seemed that it would take a perfect storm to actually pull it off. She was being gifted the trip, basically, even down to car and hotel room. Even that day (Wednesday), I felt horrible with fibro so I was afraid to think of the week end.
As it turned out, my hubby was able to help me pack, and I was able to go. I figured that even with pain I wouldn’t be doing more than I do here at home. I didn’t feel well enough to trust myself to help with the driving, but we were able to stop at rest stops along the way and even pick up a couple caches. So I was sitting in a car or in a hotel room. I still had fibro-pain, worse coming home than on the trip down but the sites I saw from where I was sitting was at least different than the four walls I see here. The bad thing? A flare I felt on the trip back got worse the whole next week. I am thinking I am better, finally, today. Hence a real blog. 🙂
Related articles
- Geocaching – The Official Global GPS Cache Hunt Site (darsword.wordpress.com)
English: Vladimir Bystrov. 2006 Russian Premier League (FC Zenit St.Petersburg v.s. FC Spartak Moscow) Русский: Владимир Быстров в матче 7-го тура чемпионата России 2006 против петербургского «Зенита» (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
In case you have wondered where I’m hiding, picture a little whiny ball of pain curled up on the bed. That’s me. Except I can’t stay in a ball. I must constantly change my positions. It’s like those first few days when you know you’re catching something, you’re all achy, can’t think, pretty worthless to everyone. Can’t even stay focused on a book or television show. Too cold then too hot, dizzy–blech!
For me that is a flare, a fibro-flare that comes with fibro-fog. Nothing soothes the pain and it is ALL OVER!
It always comes as a surprise. I felt so good last week end and the first of the week. When my pain isn’t the major part of my life, I do things, fun things. I make plans. If I think of the pain, I almost think it was just a dream. Hey, maybe I could go back to work?! Maybe I could go on that awesome hike!
I did manage to go to my writers’ group on Wednesday evening. I had a great time. Even started a new story that was fun. But then by about 9pm I started fogging out. I couldn’t sleep all night. Thursday was a blur and that blur continues today. Grrrrr! I know I can’t get a job. I know I can’t make plans. Still, I try not to sleep my day away. I read small amounts, surf the web lightly, try to write down ideas of what I might like to do when the flare becomes more bearable.
***
After going through this for a few years, I do console myself with the fact that it doesn’t last forever. Along with that notion comes, when it is gone I am so wiped out that it takes a few days to recover. Then I can’t remember all the things I wanted to do once I got well. Any exercise routines must be started anew. All the tasks around the house that waited on me are still there. Then I am overwhelmed with what to do first, and I feel bad that what I want to do is run around the block, go to the park and play. I don’t want to do housework or boring stuff. Yet, at 63 the life of guilt hits me with the hammer. Then the cycle continues and no fun is had.
I must learn to find that happy medium. Maybe she can help me! 😉
Darswords 
You must be logged in to post a comment.