Counting my blessings...

I was all geared-up to be in a crappy mood today.  It's Monday, and the last requisition day before we close the fiscal year.  (It just means I'm really busy.)  Now that my pool has opened, I've been spending a lot of time in the water.  The movement and buoyancy is supposed to be a low-impact way to help add flexibility and strength when you're dealing with adhesions.  It must be working, because since I've started swimming this summer, I've been in pain almost non-stop.  (Also, I'm sunburnt.)

Last night I was feeling bad enough to take a Naproxen (and to regret that I haven't refilled my Flexeril or Vicodin scrips).  And I'm one of those for unfortunate insomniacs for whom things like painkillers and alcohol have the opposite effect, and actually keep me awake worse than I would normally be.  So, instead of sleeping last night, I drifted between consciousness and painfully vivid dreams involving hordes of cockroaches, being 6 hours late for work, and being a pirate on the Black Pearl (and, just like, some random pirate, and not Capt. Jack Sparrow's girlfriend or anything).

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Argh! Kill it! Kill it!

Feliz cinco de mayo, todos.  I hope that you're reading this with a Margarita in-hand.  (I don't care if it's before noon.  It's very important that we celebrate Mexico's independence.  I know I wish I was drinking right now.

So, I'm gonna come clean, here.

I've not been having the best week.

Since Sunday, my adhesion pain has been hitting me pretty intensely, and has been more constant than since before my last surgery.  It hasn't gotten quite to the curled-up-on-the-bathroom-floor-uncontrollably-vomiting-and-screaming-that-this-is-worth-than-childbirth stage, but it's definitely been more troublesome than it has been in a long time.

The best way I can describe it is to use the illustration of a fork sticking into spaghetti, and then twisting it so it gets all wrapped around the twines.  My insides are the spaghetti.  (Sorry if you'd planned on eating Italian tonight, but not really, because it's cinco de mayo and you should be eating tacos.)

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Why I'm a terrible patient...: Part 3

(Continued from Part 2.)

When my son and I finally got home from the hospital, I thought we were in the clear.  I had a nasty case of mastitis, but I went to the doc, got some medicine, and it cleared up, no problem.  Recovering from pregnancy was tough, but I figured it would take a while for the aches and pains to go away.

Then, right around the time my son turned 4-months-old, one day at work, I got this bad pain in my abdomen while I was standing at the register.  It kept getting worse, until I was just about doubled over, but I figured it was just a stomach bug, maybe food poisoning.  But I tried to use the restroom, and nada.  I was off the next day, so I just stuck it out for the rest of my shift.

I spent most of the next day in bed, only getting up to take care of my son.  (Fortunately, 4-month-olds are relatively low-maintenance.)  Around 2:00 that afternoon, I couldn't take it anymore, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to give my son the attention he needed.  So I did something for the first time ever in my life.

I called my husband at work, and asked him to come home and take me to the hospital.

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I'm throwing a pity party, and you're all invited!

I generally prefer not to whine and cry, because I feel like I truly am blessed in the life God has given me, but I'm having a really bad day pain-wise, and sometimes it makes me feel better just to vent a bit.

As I've touched on in the past, I've gone through multiple surgeries to treat ovarian cysts and resulting abdominal adhesions. Adhesions come from trauma experienced during surgery, so more surgery can only do so much to help, and is typically used only as a last resort, as a temporary fix.

Well, to try to keep a long story short, this very cold winter has been causing me a great deal of adhesion-related pain and illness (just like with every other type of chronic pain, cold makes it worse). I know for a fact that I have no interest in receiving any further surgeries. I also refuse to go back on any narcotic-based pain medications. (At one point I was on Vicodin, Flexeril, and Toradol...all simultaneously. They also had me on anti-nausea meds to combat the sickness from the pain meds.)

That leaves me open to alternative treatments and therapies. If any of you out there have had any experience with these, please let me know.

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