things change….

On September 22, 2014 By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Mindfulness13 Comments

Everything Changes - photography by w. holcombe — Everything Changes –
photography by w. holcombe

Trying to hold on to the good days, thinking life will stay that way forever is fruitless. It will change. And it has.

My hip flare up, that was just this little thing, that was supposed to calm down after the cortisone injection….has become a complicated mess.

I had my hip injection on September 11th. We got Kiki that evening. It was an exciting day. I expected to be sore that night. I expected to possibly be sore the next day, but would probably feel better….and continue to get better. That didn’t happen.

I’m not sure if the shot did anything. I don’t think so. However. on the night of September the 12th, I got up and went to the bathroom. I started to sit on the toilet and lost my footing and fell, hard, onto the seat. My elbow hit the back of the toilet where I keep a box with things in it and I got a nice little scrape on it. The big hurt was my hip. OW! The pain shot through me, from the top of my buttock, along my side down through my knee….I was in PAIN! I have been in constant pain in this areas since that night. The pain ebbs and flows, but never gets better than a 6, and if often hovering around an 8. I had Stuart give me a Toradol injection. This really helped. Toradol is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug. (I can’t take NSAIDs by mouth because they tear up my stomach, but I can have these injections occasionally.) Since this worked to take most of the pain away I was sure I hadn’t broken anything. I was also hoping the cortisone shot would kick in and help. So I waited….

The cortisone didn’t help. I went back to the doctor on the 18th. She was disheartened. She suspects that my pain may be coming from my spine, and maybe also from my hip. She set up a CT scan with contrast dye, and she wants me to see a spine specialist, and a more specialized hip doctor. (she is actually a PA in the office, she wants me to see a specific doctor in the practice). I will have the CT scan on Friday. (I was originally supposed to have the CT scan today, but I didn’t sleep at all last night and I can’t control the Meniere’s vertigo today, and since I could get in closer to my doctor’s appointment I decided to change the appointment.) I see the hip specialist on October 1st, and I’m not sure when I see the spine doctor yet, I haven’t heard from their office yet.

How am I handling all of this? Some days very well. Some days not well at all.

I have had a hard time not getting really stressed out about this. I’ve been creating “what if” stories in my head. My mother started having back problems in her 50’s and it really changed her life. She died of lung cancer when she was 64, but I’ve never been convinced it really didn’t start in her back. There are many reasons I believe this, I won’t get into them here. What if I have to live with this pain forever?…….See the stories I have been spinning in my mind….this is not a good thing. This is not a mindful thing to do. It does NOT make things better. It makes it worse. The stress builds, and everything spirals out of control. When I think like this I can feel the depression creeping up over me. It is oppressive.

Then I try to be more mindful. Being mindful is hard. It isn’t something you can just click on with a switch and suddenly you think mindfully all the time…I wish I could, I think I would handle things better. I’m trying. First, I am trying hard to stay present. I cannot change what we are going to find out, but I sure don’t have to make up all these horrible scenarios. I could have something easily fixable. If I have something that is more difficult to deal with, I’ll deal with it. Either way, I don’t have any idea, so stop speculating. Keep my mind in the present, right here, right now. That is the least stressful thing I can do.

I also got so stressed because we got this precious little dog, Kiki, to take care of and suddenly I can’t take care of her. I can’t even feed her. I can’t take her out. I can’t care for her at all. Stuart would not have signed up for this had he known he would have been the sole caregiver for me, Max, and now Kiki. We would not have adopted Kiki at this time. Does he regret it? No. But would he have done it? No. So I have been having that emotion that simply doesn’t help…..guilt. I have put more work on him, and I feel guilty because I can’t take Kiki on long walks and to the dog park and do things I feel she needs. I can’t focus time on training her. I feel guilt. Ugh! useless!

Not sure how that is handled in mindfulness, but I know for me, I need to channel that into something constructive I can do. Haven’t figured all of that out exactly, but I will. Yes, this is not how I planned for things to go, so I need to change my plans. I have been playing with Kiki more indoors as much as possible. She will bring me a toy and I will throw it. She brings it back and drops it in my hand. (how cute it that?) I have taught her to sit before I’ll throw it again. (really, she was already doing that most of the time.) I will hide it and have her find it. (I think this is a newer thing for her!) So we are working on some training. It’s just different from I planned.

Then I go back again to how I feel about my body, and what is happening. My Meniere’s is acting up big time! I always tell myself to stop trying to figure out why, it used to drive me crazy, and I would end up blaming myself for my attacks, but this is pretty obvious. The pain will not allow me to sleep or rest enough. I can’t relax. Also, it is Rag Weed season. I think I’m handling the rag weed pretty good, but I can’t keep up with the exhaustion. My hearing is going up and down; yesterday if I was blind folded I would have sworn a jet engine was in my living room. When the noise started I kept asking Stuart, “what is that noise?” He looked at me funny. I said, “You don’t hear it do you?” I realized it was just me…dang. Then it got louder and louder and louder….and it lasted for over 2 hours at the loudest point. I’ve never had that happen before. I’ve had very loud tinnitus, but I’ve never had that it that loud for that long. It continued to be loud for the whole night but it did dial down a bit.

I hate to say it but, I’m just one big vertigo attack. I try to control them but that is exhausting too. Most of the time I’m spinning at least a little bit. I have been able to control it enough that I haven’t had full-blown… spinning so out of control that I can’t see what is in front of me… vertigo, but this constant boat feeling and everything waving is driving me crazy! I keep focusing on my breath…grateful I am still breathing. Then I laugh…they say breathe, take a deep breath..ect. It’s not like we are going to stop breathing. It is something we do. Do you ever really focus on your breath? Really think about it? If you have ever gotten choked and couldn’t breathe I’m sure you did then, but normally we just take it for granted, like we do our heartbeat, and how our brain works, or the fact that we blink…ect. So,right now suddenly I’m thinking about my breath, not just the in and out, but the actual breath. How it works. I have pulmonary problems so I don’t take my breathing for granted all the time, and I know a lot about how my lungs work….so I think about it, and really I’m thinking about how the oxygen goes through my body, how it nourishes my whole body, how my breath goes through all of me, down through my toes even. and suddenly I just realized….just now as I am writing this that I have calmed down and feel more in tuned to this body and it is just fine. It is working pretty darn good. It’s my body. I like it. I love me. I’m at peace with it. I accept it the way it is.

Now that is mindfulness. That is what paying attention to your breath is supposed to be…..wow. I feel better, right now. I know this isn’t easy. I’ll be working on being mindful forever.

Our Family Grows

On September 18, 2014 By WendyIn Chronic Illness11 Comments

On Sunday, September 7th we walked into Pet Supermarket to get Max some cat food and met this little girl:

She was very scared and shy. She wanted me to pet her, but wasn’t sure. Then she looked at me and I think she suddenly she realized, I was a good one. I bent down to her and she came up to my face and gave me the tiniest lick on my nose. Tears welled in my eyes. I knew this dog needed me.

Her name is Kiki. She is about 2 1/2 years old. She is a Terrier mix. Looks like she is probably a Rat Terrier, with maybe some Chihuahua in there? She is a little thing, she weighs about 13 lbs. One of the first things you will notice about her is that she has a crooked front left leg. This is part of her sad history.

Kiki has had a rough life so far. We know she was in an abusive situation, that is where the broken leg came from. It healed without being tended to. I can’t imagine the pain she had to have been in. She then ended up in a shelter where she was adopted by a lady who had 11 dogs. She was a hoarder. The dogs were not house trained. They were not socialized or exercised. Her neighbor had adopted a cat from the agency that ended up with Kiki, the Tasha, the founder of the agency, tried to talk the lady into letting her find homes for some of the animals but she wouldn’t let her. The lady was subsequently evicted and that is when the Tasha got Kiki. She had her for a month trying to get her socialized, at least partially house trained, and just calm before trying to find her a forever home. Kiki has been with her for about 3 months and has really shown what a wonderful dog she is.

When we first met Kiki she would growl at Stuart sometimes. Actually, she growled here and there at anyone. Stuart said she growled at me a couple of times, but I never heard it. (the wonders of being deaf, huh?) We talked to her Tasha and asked about fostering her for a little while before deciding about adoption, explaining that we weren’t sure if our big old cat would accept a dog in the family. We did foster a dog for a little while once before and Max did not accept him at all. However, he was a big dog, and a puppy. We were hopeful that this situation would be different. Kiki is smaller than Max, and she has lived with cats before so she is used to them. Tasha understood and said she was willing to let us foster her for a few weeks before we adopted her. We took an application with us to talk it over and get things started.

On Thursday of that week, right after I got my hip injection, Kiki arrived at our home.

She was not too sure she really wanted to be here at first. I felt so bad. She was very attached to Tasha. Kiki cried and cried when she left her with us.

After a few hours she got a bit more settled. She did play some with me that night, and slept curled up beside me. It became apparent she was going to bond with me, but it was going to be a little bit harder with Stuart. So I had him give her treats, and spend more time with her and suddenly I came out to find….

They are best buddies now! She is still wary of him when he has on his work clothes, but she warms up fast as soon as he puts on his every day clothes. I guess she just doesn’t like a man dressed up! She used to get very upset when she got crowed. We live in a small place now, if two people pass in the hall, it is crowded. Kiki would often growl and cower if we were suddenly over her, she has gotten used to it now. She is adapting so fast, I’m so very proud of her.

In these two pictures you can see how her leg healed when it was broken. We still have to take her to see a vet to see if she is in pain, or if this will affect her in her later in life, or if there is anything we should do about it? We know we can’t afford to pay for her to have major reconstructive surgery at this time, but if she needs to have surgery, we can start to save for it now. She does not act as if it hurts. She runs and jumps without favoring it. In the photo it looks as if she is favoring it, but when she walks she puts her weight on it. It breaks my heart to know someone hurt her like that. I can only promise her that I will try my best to make sure no one ever hurts her again.

We were asked if we would keep her name. We thought about it….should we change it? Truthfully, we wouldn’t have named her Kiki, but she likes it. She listens to it. We thought about changing it to Mini, it sounds close so I’m sure she would get used to it. We thought it would be cute because we have a Max. But she’s Kiki. Stuart often calls her Kikster! He has also called her Yoda because of her ears. She does have Yoda ears. A friend said she could have multiple names, Kiki Mini Yoda…now we keep playing around and singing her songs every night adding names on to her. hahaha However, she is Kiki.

We knew it was a good sign between Kiki and Max when they didn’t chase each other. They were a little curious, but mainly stayed out of each others way. Then on day 3 I was lying in bed reading and Kiki fell asleep on one side of me, and Max came up and went to sleep on the other side. I was in a pet sandwich! Wow! I was amazed! Then yesterday I walked in the living room and saw this:

They had both taken my seat! Most importantly though, I think they are pretty comfortable with each other! Every once in a while they will chase each other. I’m not sure if they are really chasing each other, or playing. I think they are playing. When they catch each other, they just stop. It’s kind of funny.

We haven’t officially adopted Kiki yet. However, we do plan to. We just want to have her checked out by the vet first. I can’t imagine what they could possibly say that would make us not adopt her. We just feel it would be irresponsible for us to go into this adoption without knowing everything.

For those of you who have followed my blog for a while know how much the loss of my dog Sandy left a huge open hole in my heart. It has been about 2 1/2 years since she died. We feel it is a good time for us to add a new member into our pack. We think Kiki is a good fit. I also feel Sandy has had a little paw in selecting her. There have been a few little things that she does that are just so “Sandy”. Suddenly I can talk about Sandy without crying. I feel this sadness lifted. She has not been replaced in any way, I feel she wanted me to help another dog the way I helped her. I feel like I’m fulfilling a promise, and her memory is living on in this new little furry baby.

This has been a very joyful time and a very hard time for me. People who are going to adopt a pet have many things to consider. Chronically ill people have many more things to consider. This is a huge responsibility. I have been doing so much better recently I thought I could take care of Kiki mostly on my own. I was writing stories of the future. Just as worrying does no good because we can’t do anything about the future, expecting the future to be as the same as it is today is also fruitless. Everything changes. We have to remember, we can’t predict the future. When things hit us from out of the blue, we have to make room for it and adjust.

I’ll explain in my next post. …..teaser……my hip condition is complicated so, I suddenly have a dog and can’t walk her, at least not right now………

I’m a Spinning Hipster

On September 8, 2014 By WendyIn Chronic Illness, Hip pain, Meniere's Disease6 Comments

It is a challenge to always be aware of what is happening right now, without wishing it were different. However, that is the basis of mindfulness, and it does help when you live a life full of chronic illness and pain. Sometimes I just can’t do it, sometimes I wish things were different. It’s not that bad right now. Yes, I’ve wished it were different at times, but I haven’t been too worried about it. I know things will change, and I one very big thing I have learned, even when I can’t be mindful enough to be aware of what is happening in my life right now, without wishing it were different, I can be non-judgmental of myself. That’s a big thing for me.

Traveling back and forth between Charlotte and Durham over and over again during this move has worn my body a little bit. My hip left started to protest a little over a month ago. We came back from Durham and I wasn’t walking very well. I rested it and after about a week and a half I it was acting more normal. Then we went back to Durham. When we got back, I was much worse. This time it didn’t settle down.

hip x-ray courtesy of http://www.orthop.washington.edu — hip x-ray
courtesy of http://www.orthop.washington.edu

I ended up going to the orthopedic urgent care on the evening of August 29th, yes they have a special urgent care here just for hip and knee orthopedic, isn’t that amazing? I was shocked at how wonderful this place was. I didn’t have to wait long. They didn’t rush me in and out, the doctor took his time with me, they all worked hard to make sure I understood what was being said after they learned I was hearing challenged. (nice way of saying, one of my Cochlear Implants was broken so I was really not hearing much of anything!) The x-rays showed that everything looks good. He thinks the labrum is catching, but really we aren’t exactly sure. I’ve had trouble with the other hip too. Could just be in my genes. My father has trouble with his hips (well he had trouble, now he has new hips) and my aunt has trouble with her hips. It could be arthritis starting, just not to the point of showing up on an x-ray yet, or I’m just wearing out. The doctor wanted to give me steroids to get the inflammation to go down. He said when inflammation starts it is very hard to get it to stop, it just kind of get out of control. I explained to him that I am very afraid to take steroids because they often cause me to have severe vertigo attacks. He respected that and said he didn’t blame me. He suggested getting a shot in the joint. I agreed. Then we realized the holiday was coming up. I was in a lot of pain and told him to write the prescription for a very low dose of steroids and I would take them. We filled them on the way home and then I chickened out. I couldn’t do it. I’d rather hurt, a lot.

I had a follow-up appointment scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. I was awakened on Tuesday morning by a Meniere’s attack. Full blown vertigo! There is no way for me to prepare for that, couldn’t center myself and get calm, all I could do was grab the trash can! I was totally unprepared! Stuart had just left for work. My phone was across the room being charged, this is strange, I normally charge it on my night stand, for some reason I plugged up across the room. My emergency kit was in the living room. I was really unprepared. I started to panic. Then I stopped. I took a deep breath and said, “NO”. “Calm Down” “Feel the Night Stand under my hand, it is not moving. I’m not moving. Look at the bottle on the night stand. It is not moving. Focus. Calm Down. You are safe.” It was very hard because I was SO HOT! I had no way to cool down. That was making me very sick. I did get in a Valium and Phenergan. I was calming down but the heat was still making me sick. I started to control the spinning but was still throwing up because of the heat. I was able to lunge for the phone and text Stuart…”vertigo help” all of this had happened so fast. He had just parked at work and gotten out of the car, he turned around and got back in the car and came home. (I found out it did take him longer to get to work that day because he stopped to get gas, so it didn’t happen as fast as I thought.) He came home and got me an ice pack and cooled me down. Then I could really make peace with everything. I did a good job handling things. I will say, I did want things to be different. I’m not that great at that part of mindfulness all the time yet. In that instance, if nothing else, I wanted me to be more prepared. I haven’t had anything like that happen in so long, I got lazy. I can accept the fact it happened. It is the nature of the beast. It happens. I was very upset that I was not prepared.

stop worrying — image at http://sharifahnorhamidah.blogspot.com

Then I started to worry. What if I am on my way to feeling bad again. I had a reprieve of a little over 4 months before, and it all feel apart. What if….. What if…. My mind grabbed a hold of that and it kept going back to it. I would think I needed to stop thinking about the future I can’t control it, but I wasn’t really able to stop my mind from going there. Finally I was able to let it go. No I don’t want to end up getting that sick again, but if I do, it’s not the end of the world. I will make the most of it. I learned a lot, heck, if it happens again, I think I could handle it a lot better this time. I can’t control what happens. I’m not going to worry about it. I’m not going to think about it. I’m staying right here in the now. I’m living in this day, and I like it.

My appointment with the hip orthopedist was rescheduled for September 4th. I still felt a bit hung over from my attack on Tuesday and my hearing sounded a bit off, but I was able to make the appointment, no problem. I saw a different doctor. She was also very nice. The entire office is very understanding about my hearing, and try very hard to remember to look at me when they speak. (I did have both my Cochlear Implants in working order at this time, but it is still always a challenge.) My doctor forgot a couple of times and I gently reminded her that I need for her to look at me, she was so apologetic, you could tell she was trying so very hard. She is just so used to speaking to both people in the room, and also speaking when she takes notes. She was a lovely woman who explained things very well, and gave a thorough exam, that HURT! haha She agreed with everything the doctor said in Urgent Care. I will be getting a shot on the 11th. I will go back to see her about 4 weeks after that. She told me to take notice how I felt when I got the shot, if I felt better immediately, when it started to hurt again, if I felt better later….ect.. This is a good diagnostic tool telling them more about what might be wrong, and we will discuss it more when I see her again.

Right now, my hip hurts, but I’ll be getting a shot soon. I’m feeling happy I’m alive to feel it all, and just be. I’m grateful I handled the attack as well as I did even though I wasn’t prepared. I’m grateful my hubby has a flexible job and was able to come home and work from home that day and watch over me….and take the time needed to take me to the doctor. I’m grateful there is a special urgent care for hip and knee orthopedic needs. I’m grateful I had such great doctors at both of my visits, the urgent care doctor and the doctor at my follow-up visit.

I have much to be grateful for during all of this. I will admit there are a lot of challenges. I am not able to do much without pain, so I can’t do things around the house. Stuart is once again having to do most everything. This is taking its toll on my poor husband. I can see it wearing on him. There is still so much to take care of with the house in Durham. So many things to just do. It doesn’t help to worry about it. We can’t change things by worrying. What has happened, happened. We can make plans for the future, but we can’t get too wrapped up in them.

Something we’ve had to learn because of my illness, don’t fret if something happens to mess your plans all up. Change your plans as the day changes. Go with the flow, it’s much easier to float with the current than to fight up-stream. So when things happen to completely go against your plans, change your plans. I sound like a broken record, but this is one of the hardest things for people to understand. Not just chronically ill people, everyone can learn from this. People get really stressed out when things don’t go as planned. This goes for what we expect of others too. Perhaps we should talk more about this at another time….this post is getting a bit long.

Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them – that only creates sorrow.

Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like. ~Lao-Tzu

Picnic with Ants

Month: September 2014

things change….

Our Family Grows

I’m a Spinning Hipster

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