Haven't Posted In A While.
I'm not dead, though sometimes I feel that way.
Christmas was hard on me emotionally this year; it was the first anniversary of my divorce. (Actually, technically, the divorce was finalized on the 27th. But I digress.) It's also hard to be out of a job this time of year. I'm hopeful that some opportunities that came up near the end of 2007 manifest in 2008. Money isn't the issue--Thank God for the WARN act and 60 days of pay--but I could do without worrying that I won't get the promised paycheck from a company that would just as soon be rid of its financial obligation to me and 2000 of my closest friends and workmates. (And I miss said workmates, including my former officemate, who kept me sane and laughing throughout even the worst moments at the company.)
Family was in town--Mom arrived on the 19th and stayed until the 2nd; Rob came up from DC on the 24th and the 31st and stayed until the evening hours on the following day both times. That meant I was going crazy trying to clean up the rest of the house after the junk folks had cleared out the basement, and my body would not let me do the work.
My body has gone into full-blown rebellion lately. My GP, Dr. AwesomelyWonderful, was concerned about the long-term effects of steroids on my system (I was on 20 mg of Prednisone per day for Polymyalgia Rheumatica), so we made a stepdown plan: Go from 20 to 15 over a weekend, then 15 to 10, take a SED rate reading after a few days at 10 (to measure if the SED rate, which measures overall inflammation in the body, changes at all on the lower dose), then go from 10 to 5 to 0 in the space of the next week. So I'm now at 0 mg prednisone and have been for 3 days. I'm already noticing the roundness of my face is starting to fade--yay, no more risk of developing Cushing's Disease--and I've dropped 3 pounds in 3 days (water retention from the 'roids), but my back and shoulders are in so much pain that it's becoming nearly impossible to be out of bed and doing anything. All I have to do is bend over to pick something up, and my back seizes (right at the place where I have the worst nerve sheath tumors) so badly that it won't stop until I lie down. Same thing for lifting anything onto my shoulders. And I have headaches, so bad that I want to put a drill through my head. Women with PR tend to have severe headaches due to the increased SED rate and the spasming of the shoulder muscles causing muscle spasms and blood vessel irritation, and I can attest to that.
And, oh-by-the-way, I took a header in Georgetown the Saturday before Christmas. Yep, I fell down like a pile of bricks--smack-dab on the sidewalk on 29th St. NW approaching K Street. As near as I can tell from the injury pattern on my body, I apparently stepped onto an uneven section of the sidewalk on my left foot, which does not flex normally. I lost my balance and tried to correct with my right leg, only to have it hit a similar uneven section, causing my right foot to completely flex 90 degrees inward, in a direction ankles don't normally bend. With both my legs unable to catch their footing, I went down hard on my left side. I was disoriented and panicked (Mom was trying to send Rob to go get the car and I was calling out, "NoNoDon'tGoNoNo..." or something like that) for about 45 seconds, then finally began to calm down. After that, I took a look around, palpated my right ankle trying to feel for a break (I have broken this one before, so I know what that feels like), figured out that the worst I'd done was sprain it like Heck, then managed to get to my knees and then to my feet. I am bruised like all-get-out on my left leg and right ankle and have deep bruises on my hips as well, but I'm alive and reasonably well. (Mom said Rob was freaked out by my fall and mentioned to her that he had no idea I'd "gotten that bad" and that he wasn't prepared for me to "be so sick...she's way too young to die..." I felt bad about scaring him. Heck, those falls scare me, and I'm used to them. I fell 4 times cleaning the house before Mom's arrival. (One time I landed hard on a grocery sack full of breakfast cereals; I looked up and said, "God, is this your way of telling me that cereal is good for me?")
Anyway, Christmas ended up being nice--Mom and Rob both worked their tails off to help me get some rest and get better. I'm glad to have my house back, but I'll miss them.
Happy New Year, All. May 2008 be a darned sight better than 2007.
Christmas was hard on me emotionally this year; it was the first anniversary of my divorce. (Actually, technically, the divorce was finalized on the 27th. But I digress.) It's also hard to be out of a job this time of year. I'm hopeful that some opportunities that came up near the end of 2007 manifest in 2008. Money isn't the issue--Thank God for the WARN act and 60 days of pay--but I could do without worrying that I won't get the promised paycheck from a company that would just as soon be rid of its financial obligation to me and 2000 of my closest friends and workmates. (And I miss said workmates, including my former officemate, who kept me sane and laughing throughout even the worst moments at the company.)
Family was in town--Mom arrived on the 19th and stayed until the 2nd; Rob came up from DC on the 24th and the 31st and stayed until the evening hours on the following day both times. That meant I was going crazy trying to clean up the rest of the house after the junk folks had cleared out the basement, and my body would not let me do the work.
My body has gone into full-blown rebellion lately. My GP, Dr. AwesomelyWonderful, was concerned about the long-term effects of steroids on my system (I was on 20 mg of Prednisone per day for Polymyalgia Rheumatica), so we made a stepdown plan: Go from 20 to 15 over a weekend, then 15 to 10, take a SED rate reading after a few days at 10 (to measure if the SED rate, which measures overall inflammation in the body, changes at all on the lower dose), then go from 10 to 5 to 0 in the space of the next week. So I'm now at 0 mg prednisone and have been for 3 days. I'm already noticing the roundness of my face is starting to fade--yay, no more risk of developing Cushing's Disease--and I've dropped 3 pounds in 3 days (water retention from the 'roids), but my back and shoulders are in so much pain that it's becoming nearly impossible to be out of bed and doing anything. All I have to do is bend over to pick something up, and my back seizes (right at the place where I have the worst nerve sheath tumors) so badly that it won't stop until I lie down. Same thing for lifting anything onto my shoulders. And I have headaches, so bad that I want to put a drill through my head. Women with PR tend to have severe headaches due to the increased SED rate and the spasming of the shoulder muscles causing muscle spasms and blood vessel irritation, and I can attest to that.
And, oh-by-the-way, I took a header in Georgetown the Saturday before Christmas. Yep, I fell down like a pile of bricks--smack-dab on the sidewalk on 29th St. NW approaching K Street. As near as I can tell from the injury pattern on my body, I apparently stepped onto an uneven section of the sidewalk on my left foot, which does not flex normally. I lost my balance and tried to correct with my right leg, only to have it hit a similar uneven section, causing my right foot to completely flex 90 degrees inward, in a direction ankles don't normally bend. With both my legs unable to catch their footing, I went down hard on my left side. I was disoriented and panicked (Mom was trying to send Rob to go get the car and I was calling out, "NoNoDon'tGoNoNo..." or something like that) for about 45 seconds, then finally began to calm down. After that, I took a look around, palpated my right ankle trying to feel for a break (I have broken this one before, so I know what that feels like), figured out that the worst I'd done was sprain it like Heck, then managed to get to my knees and then to my feet. I am bruised like all-get-out on my left leg and right ankle and have deep bruises on my hips as well, but I'm alive and reasonably well. (Mom said Rob was freaked out by my fall and mentioned to her that he had no idea I'd "gotten that bad" and that he wasn't prepared for me to "be so sick...she's way too young to die..." I felt bad about scaring him. Heck, those falls scare me, and I'm used to them. I fell 4 times cleaning the house before Mom's arrival. (One time I landed hard on a grocery sack full of breakfast cereals; I looked up and said, "God, is this your way of telling me that cereal is good for me?")
Anyway, Christmas ended up being nice--Mom and Rob both worked their tails off to help me get some rest and get better. I'm glad to have my house back, but I'll miss them.
Happy New Year, All. May 2008 be a darned sight better than 2007.