Keep On Truckin'

I had my doctor's appointment Monday afternoon and finally left with some ideas and a plan of action. Through a process of elimination that has taken many months, my diagnosis is fibromyalgia. After much reading, I think my episode of extreme pain last week was what is called a 'flare up.' I was in excruciating pain for about four days straight. My pain levels have decreased since last week, but are still very much present.

Next Monday I will be going to my very first physical therapy appointment. I'm really looking forward to hopefully finding some treatments that will ease my pain. Of course, reading information I've found on the web can be daunting and depressing, so I'm just going to move forward and try to keep my head up!

Pit Bulls and Boats

Charles and I joined my parent's in Dad's boat for an afternoon trip. We brought Finnegan and Auggie along as well. It turns out that they really LOVE the water. Although Auggie is not very bouyant, he swam alongside Finn with his life vest. We had a really fun day!

 

 

Tuckered out at home!

I Have To Remind Myself

Answers please!

I've come to despise bed time. My body and my mind are at odds on this one. Most of the day my mind is screaming for sleep, yet my body fights nearly every moment of it. In the last few weeks, my unknown ailment has limited my sleep to a few restless hours each night. The few hours I can sleep I wake up frequently-even a dozen times each night. Before sunrise, I give up hope of falling back to sleep even though I don't feel rested at all.

The pain that started in my wrists early this year has moved to my elbows, my back, my knees, and most recently my ankles. I wake up with my hands and wrists contorted into painful gripping positions. My upper back has searing hot pain which doesn't allow me to stand straight until I have spent at least fifteen minutes in a scalding hot shower. My lower back is tense and feels as if it is bruised from some sort of blunt force trauma. My knees and my ankles waiver between constant aching pain and just a dull weakened feeling as I try to get from my bed side to the shower, merely a few steps away.

Once again I have a doctors appointment next week and I don't have any hopes that I will get an answer as to what is going on. This will be appointment number 7 with doctor number 3. I've finally found a doctor I like so I'm really keeping my fingers crossed I will get some answers.

A Green Alternative

With the summer storms we tend to get, the main play yard for the dogs ofter turns into a mud pit. We have two outdoor play grounds, but the main one gets a lot of wear and tear. We decided to mulch one of the yards and leave the other as grass, but first had to officially kill all the grass. Besides several rounds of Round-Up, we laid newspapers down the morning of the mulch delivery. It was fairly tedious, but really worked well. Even weeks after the mulch was spread, there were only a few small green patches peeking through. Check out our beautiful new maple trees too!