day 657

I was approved for disability going back to October of 2005. They have a mandatory 6 month waiting period so I'll be getting compensation starting from April of 2006. I won't get the back pay right away but it will come. First I'll get a check for June and then we'll get the back pay in either one lump sum or in a few split up payments. I'll be getting money every month on about the second Wednesday of the month, directly deposited into our checking account.

This is a Godsend. We've been so tight on finances it's been painful. The extra money will enable us to get the rider mower fixed, get a little second vehicle so one can be here in case I need it, we can fix the garage door, and several other things we've had to let go because we just didn't have the financial wherewithal to do the stuff that needed to be done.

Once things are caught up and bills are paid we're going to start adding a few hundred dollars a month to the mortgage payments so we can pay it off early. If I can put an extra $500 a month into the mortgage we can subtract $6K a year from the principal and eat away at the interest we have to pay as well, which means we could conceivably pay off the property in less than 10 years. That would be 14 years early. That would be darn nice.

The pain has been horrid the last few days because of the stress I'm under with Kenny being sick and the weather and all kinds of crap including not nearly enough sleep. I had to take a Maxalt the other day while I was at the hospital and then had to hang out for 8 hours or so until I was safe to drive home. What a mess.

I need to tell the pain doc when I see him that I need something stronger for breakthrough and that I need the Methadone dose increased. I can't live like this for the rest of my life. I need relief from this pain. It's messing with my life way too much. I don't ask to be pain free, but I think to expect me to live with the pain at a level of 5 all the time is unrealistic.

We'll see what happens. He may refuse. I can only do what I can do.

argh

I have the flu or some other godawful virus.

I've had a fever for going on 5 days.

I sweat, and chill, and chill, and sweat.

I don't feel like doing anything but sleeping, and then sleeping all day leaves me sore and up all night.

I can't wait till this junk is gone and I'm back to just hurting again.

Kenny has had it for 10 days now. I think I got it from him. The thought of 6 more days like this makes me want to scream.

It's a sad place to be when you just want to feel your normal bad...but that's where I am.

never-ending - day 649

I've made an interesting observation.

For people like me, who are in pain all the time regardless of activity or inactivity, light or dark, meds or no meds, sound or quiet, touch or isolation...

It becomes possible, after a while, to participate in limited activities that were out of the question a year ago.

It's not that I hurt less...it's that I've become so accustomed to it that on certain days and at certain times I can function past the pain on a limited basis as long as I know it's short-term. I also need to know I can decompress and rest afterward to recover.

Case in point:
The lawn.
The rider mower bit the big one.
We have 4.2 acres of land.
Hubby is working 60+ hours a week to pay the bills and keep us in drugs and such. He cannot come home after working that long in an un-air-conditioned factory in the mid-Missouri humid dripping wet hot summer and spend 3-4 hours mowing the lawn to keep it from turning into a prairie.
It hurts like hell to go out there and mow, yet, in the past couple weeks, I have done over 1/2 of our lawn with the gas-powered push mower.
I'm exhausted.
I'm dead on my feet.
But it's almost done, and I don't have to worry about my man being half-dead and falling over somewhere in the middle of his job and me being left alone.
Yes, I still hurt. I'm still miserable and I have tension headaches on top of all the other headaches and I hate it because I get eaten by bugs and sunburned and sweat drips into my eyes and I stink.
However, this is what we have to do until we have the money to either replace or repair the rider mower, and that won't be any time soon.

Anyhow, it was interesting to notice it.

Pain level - 7-8 most of the time unless I take a day of doing nothing; then 5-6.

Acetaminophen - 2-3 times a day, 2 extra strength = 1000 mg twice a day at least. Bye bye, liver!

I'm going to try to find a PCP who will be willing to work with me on the pain meds. Maybe one of the newer docs out in this area will do it. They're not new docs, just have a new office in the next town over.

Eyes hurt. Head hurts. Body not as sore as it was last week but my right hip still is not happy with me.

day 644

I've tapered off the higher dose of Lexapro and back to the old familiar pain instead of the new discomfort. I'm not sure it's better, but I can deal with this. I'm also back to taking acetaminophen twice a day most of the time. That stinks.

My mood is worse, but the better mood wasn't worth the increased pain. I'll adjust. Part of it is hormones, too -perimenopause combined with PMS can really be a bear to deal with.

It's been a rough week pain-wise. I'm having a lot of occipital discomfort this week and my eyes just ache and ache and ache.

I'm not sleeping worth a darn. I'm up most of the night and then out most of the day, which interferes with most anything productive I could do in the daylight hours...not that I can enjoy them much, anyhow...

I hate to moan but I'm miserable.

I'm entitled once a month, eh?

day 639

I dropped down to the 10mg dose of Lexapro on Monday. While the extra head pain is lessened and the ringing in my ears is fading back to normal, I'm also noticing a change in mood. I'm feeling melancholy. I'm not thrilled with that but I'll get used to it.

At least I'm not eating Tylenol like I was...

I should be hearing this month, I hope, about the disability. I do hope we don't have another fight on our hands.

Time for a nap.

day 634

That's it.

Tomorrow I start back on the 10 mg of Lexapro.

I'm not going to stay at this dose. It's not getting any better; in fact, it's getting worse. I simply am not tolerating this and I'm not going to make myself do it any more. I gave it 2 weeks and that's what I promised.

Back to the drawing board...