First couple weeks of school, rain, and pain

Well the first two full weeks of homeschooling have passed. So far so good! Kyle has gotten a lot of work done, and I have a pretty good schedule set for his work. The hardest part is finding a balance between "enough work" and "too much work". That always takes a bit of rearranging until I find what works best for us both. He is learning a lot so far this year and surprisingly he is enjoying it! Unlike last year there have been almost no arguments, which is a major relief. I have been sitting with him and we do a lot of talking about the different subjects, specially history and science. He really enjoys those conversations and so far he is even learning to think about it and make some pretty good comments when I ask him to compare something from the history book to something that is going on in current times.

I have also found that I am enjoying these conversations with him and the time spent with him every day. Homeschooling him does put a lot of work on my shoulders, but so far this year I am enjoying it. However, sitting at the kitchen table, even with a cushion on the seat, is very painful. My pain has been up as a result. Add to that the rain that we've been getting almost daily for the last week or so and my pain is pretty high. As a result today had to be a short day. He did spelling, cursive, and took his math test (he got a 70, which is better than I expected. most of his errors were caused by not paying attention, simple basic math errors). After the test I just couldn't sit in the chair any longer, so gave him the rest of the day off. We could sit in my bedroom, but he gets drowsy sitting in the bed. It is difficult to teach someone who is falling asleep LOL We will figure something out I am sure.

That's pretty much it for me. I am trying to catch up on blog reading. I have 743 posts that I need to read, which is better than the 900+ I started the day off with. So I better get back to it!

Damn Rain

Rain rain go away..come again another day!

We've had thunderstorms off and on for the past 3 days. This, of course, has caused my pain to rise considerably. Which, as a result of the increased level of pain, causes me to not be able to sleep. Last night I got 2 hours of sleep, but had 3 hours between each of those 2 hours. We've had a heavy downpour this morning with thunder and lightning. Here it is 12:11 PM (central US time) and it is still raining (not as heavily though) and the sky is fully overcast, so it will probably rain off and on all day. Ohman that stinks!

Both sides of my pelvis are just throbbing and screaming. My lower back feels like there is a hot rock in it making the muscles all very very tight, lots of pain and sciatica symptoms.

My son has finished his school work for the day, so I'm going to go to bed and try to sleep. Good night all!

Sometimes it is nice to be wrong

I don't usually like to be wrong, but then not many people do like being wrong. LOL

However, in this case I am quite happy to have been wrong. I am not alone and the person I had been relying upon did not really believe that I was faking my back. I misunderstood what was said, and one of the things was said the wrong way ( which woke the fear). I have this fear because I have been replaced by my ex-husband as a direct result of my back. In fact, when he told me he chose his girlfriend over me he said it was because she wasn't broken like I am. I've gotten much better about it, but it is a still a sore spot.

Thank you for your support, I really do appreciate it. specially when I am being an idiot... :)

I am so glad to have been wrong though!

Losing Support

One of the most important things a chronic pain patient needs is someone who believes them that they are in pain. Someone who emotionally supports them, and is there for them. Having someone like that is invaluable. It keeps the person from feeling alone, like the entire world is against them.

There is nothing more devastating to a chronic pain patient then finding out the person they have been relying upon for support as well as strength and courage to keep fighting day after day, really doesn't believe them about their condition. That all the supposed support has been a lie, an act.

I really am alone.

Try Try Try

If at first you don't succeed...try...try again.

That's a good saying for situations where a person is trying something new, or starting a new job or school or many other situations.

What happens though when that becomes your very life? When it becomes the way you have to handle every day little things that other people take for granted? Things like getting some sleep, using the bathroom, taking a shower, fixing a meal, washing clothes, running to the store for milk and every other little thing. How long can one just keep trying all the time while watching others do things so easily, without thought and hearing from people who should know better (doctors, therapists, friends, and family) that they just aren't trying hard enough? Where do they get the strength to just keep going with little or no support and understanding?

The answer is different for every person in a similar situation. For some it is pure stubbornness, for others it is anger at their mistreatment, for some it is a combination of both, and for others it is the belief that suicide is a sin and will send them to hell, leaving them no choice but to muddle through somehow. For some it is the love of their family and friends that gives them what they need to go on. The reasons for going on, day after day, when everything is a struggle, vary from person and person. Whatever those reasons are it is a good thing to remind yourself of them from time to time, specially when things hit a rough spot.

For me, it is a combination of reasons why I continue to struggle through every day. I am stubborn and don't like to lose, if I give up then I have lost to my conditions. This does not mean that I do not give in to it when I have to (bed days, taking things carefully and within my limits), it just means that I refuse to let my conditions take over my life completely. When I feel angry at my condition, I try to channel that anger into a more productive way be it housecleaning, writing, stitching, or something else. I try not to let that anger take over, instead I try to vent it in a positive manner. The same goes for guilt. There is a lot of guilt with a chronic condition, specially as a parent.

For me it comes down to this, I don't really have a choice. If I want to live some kind of life and not be stuck in a padded room or dead, then I have to keep trying. There is no other option. So I keep trying. It is not easy.

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Tomorrow starts the first day of school. I homeschool my son and this will probably be the last year I do so. I am nervous because I know that my conditions have affected the homeschool process before. He learned a lot last year, don't get me wrong. I believe he learned more than enough to pass the 7th grade, and I will be having his work reviewed which I have to do by law. I am hoping to catch him back up to the grade he should be in due to his age, which would be 9th grade this year. I'm hoping by the end of this school year he will test at 10th grade level for the 2011-2012 school year and start High School back in the 10th grade where he should be. It was the school system that decided all the work he did at home for 6th grade did not count and made him repeat the year.Granted I agree he did not do enough for the whole school year. I think he did half a school year, and that was always enough to promote my other kids in this school system, but not for my son. Anyway, I have his work set up for the rest of the week and am hoping it works out well. I am nervous though and hoping he doesn't give me the same arguments he gave me last year over doing the work. The hardest part is finding a way to make it interesting. Here is hoping I can do so!

As if chronic pain is not bad enough I can now add Hypothyroidism to my list of problems. I knew it was starting a few years back when my blood test came back off. The chemical my brain was putting out to tell my thyroid how much to make, was three times normal levels, yet my thyroid T-4 (I think it is) was just barely over the low end of normal. They chose not to medicate it at the time. It started to work for a while, then stop for a while. I could always tell when it had entered the "not working well" phase because my skin would dry out real bad and my hair would fall out. Over the past year I have put on weight (that I can't lose), my hair has been falling out pretty heavily (I now have 1/4 of the hair I had 2 years ago), my skin has gotten real dry and many other symptoms. So the doctor redid the blood tests and now the levels were low enough to start medicating it. I started Levothyroxine (synthroid) 125mcg a couple weeks ago. Here is hoping it works.

Choosing Not To Work...Excuse me?!?

Someone said to me that they find it very unfair that people who "choose not to work, like you did, get services when people who need them can't get them because they have a job". I have not responded to this email yet because I am angry and very hurt by this. The only services I receive is social security and it is nowhere near enough for me to live on my own.

I did not CHOOSE not to work, injury chose me. At the time my back first blew out, I was working full-time and had just been accepted to pharmacy school to become a pharmacist. I was so excited because I wanted to be a pharmacist so badly and I loved my job so much. I did not choose to have a disc in my lower back herniate and press on the sciatic nerve root at L4-5. Nor did I choose to have a crappy doctor refuse to test for a herniated disc (or anything else for that matter) and force me into an exercise machine that caused the disc to first rupture (easy way to explain that is: it exploded) embedding pieces of it in the sciatic nerve root, then herniate again hiding the rupture.At the time I was on an HMO and needed approval to change doctors, and my insurance company refused to let me change doctors, leaving me with no choice but to deal with that crappy doctor who caused more damage to my back.

I don't know anyone who would choose to have permanent nerve damage to their lower back, complicated by an additional herniated disk (L5-S1) and the permanent compound fracture of my left sacroiliac joint. I guess you could say I chose the damage to my pelvis because I chose to have children. Since I chose to have children, and it was having those children that damaged my pelvis so badly, an argument can be made that I chose that particular injury. But saying I had a choice implies that I KNEW the injury was possible (or in my case, probable) when I had no idea that such injuries could occur. I love my children more than anything, but I can say this much I would not have chosen to have them if I had known that doing so would cause so much damage to my body. Not because of the pain and mobility issues, but because of how those same children have suffered as a result of having a disabled mother. I would rather not have them have to live the way they have, watching me suffer and not getting the same physical things other kids get. I see other parents taking their kids to ball games, the zoo, running around with them, or riding bikes and I feel guilty because I can't do those things with my kids. It seems unfair to me that my children got a mother who can't play tag with them, or chase after them to teach them to ride a bike, or play ball with them in the back yard. My children love me, and I love them, but I also know they have had to deal with disappointments because of my back and pelvis that are not fair to them.

OK I'm down to wanting to curse and scream..so I'll stop.