Uncomfortably Numb

 It has been months since I have been able to put a coherent thought together. 2020 was a year of hard hits and constant pain. I wish I could be like most people and see hope in changing the calendar on the wall, but all I can see is more chaos and pain. 

My Snow Leopard tattoo.
It was two 9-hour sessions.

The best way I can describe the past year is getting a big tattoo, one of those that take 9 hours of sitting in the chair. At first it hurts. You feel every single prick of the needle and you wonder what the hell you were thinking. Yes, there will be so. awesome art when you're done, but is the pain really worth it? Then the numbness kicks in. The nerve endings get so overstimulated that they basically shut down. Sure there is pressure and occasional painful line, but you kind of zone out. Then, eventually, the artist starts going over the new tattoo with fine lines, color, and detail. By this time the whole area feels like something between a bad sunburn and road rash. The whole area kind of throbs and the new lines add to it. You just grit your teeth and hope that it is almost done. 

Well, that is definitely how this past year felt. At first I felt every single painful moment. I was terrified and angry. Here was a pandemic and our leaders were next to useless. I was hyper-sensitive to every news story and every report of rising numbers and deaths. Then I numbed out. I was hit with so much - not just the pandemic, but also floods, fires, hurricanes, shootings, riots, protests, etc. - that I finally just couldn't take it any more. I just shut down. I couldn't write. I couldn't even read. I was able to do thoughtless tasks like making jelly, sewing cloth masks, and binge-watching TV, but that was it. 

Now I am coming through the other side and it hurts. It hurts all over. Thanks to my special immune system, I have been on lockdown. There are a bare handful of places I can go, so most of my activities have been online. I do doctor appointments by video. I shop online or do car-side pickup. When I do go out, everyone is in masks and it reacts with my face blindness. I have no idea who people are. I have been dissociating most of the time. I have posted on Twitter every day with a short "day ??? of Lockdown" and yesterday was day 290. 

Oh, does it hurt. 290 days of not eating out. 290 days of not going to Target or Kohl's or any other shopping center. 290 days of not going to coffee with my friends. And there is no end in sight. There is a new mutations of the virus that has us shut down and no one knows if the new vaccine will work. As I write this, there are protesters storming the US. Capitol. Every medical test or visit is canceled or delayed because the entire healthcare system is reeling from the pandemic. 

I almost wish I could go back to being numb. It was horrible not connecting and not feeling, but it was better than this pain. I want to take the world in my hands and send love and healing throughout the cities, the towns, the forests ... I want to heal it all. But I can't even keep myself steady. There is no end in sight, and I am gritting my teeth and hoping it ends soon. 

Tired and Angry

Ever since my major break in 2012 I have not been able to process anger. It is like the part of my brain that uses that emotion was damaged or bypassed. I has caused some major problems emotionally because whenever I was faced with a situation where I would normally get angry, I instead would get sad and confused It just didn't compute.  

Well, I think that has been fixed. This past week I have been downright irate. 

First, I totaled the car. And the cop determined it was my fault. I was pulling out of the condo park where I live and I had to creek the nose of my car into traffic to see past the parked cars. This is a constant problem because there is no red zone painted at the entry/exit point so people park right up to the edge as if it were a driveway. Well, this time a truck was coming that I didn't see and he took the front bumper section and the headlight right off my car. His truck was also totaled because my car caught on the side of his truck and scraped down the side, catching the back tire and breaking the axle. He says he wasn't speeding - the speed limit on the street is 25 mph - and I was barely creeping forward. The cop who came to do the police report apologized for giving me the ticket, but he said that by law the truck had the right of way and I was technically failing to yield. The only good news is that the ticket is only $150 because the cop did list it as a minor infraction. 

OK, so the crash make me cranky. It was the first auto collision I have been in since the mid 90s. I shook me up bad and I feel absolutely awful because now we need to buy a new car. 

Well, I also aggravated my left shoulder. I didn't realize it at first because I had a major panic attack following the crash and those always leave me aching and exhausted for days. When I realized there was something bad with my shoulder I called my doctor's office and he squeezed me in on Thursday, a full week after the crash. I didn't go to Instacare because I rarely get good results. I need someone who knows my history. So, I go into the doctor's office, OCD on overdrive, and he determined that I had separation in my shoulder and it needs to be immobilized. He then sent me to get x-rays. I got done with everything by 4 p.m., too late to hear back from the doctor about the results. I rigged a sling with a scarf from home tried to keep my shoulder from moving too much. It did bring the pain down some, so I figure that is probably the way to go. 

Well, here is where the major anger comes in. I checked the My Health site for InterMountain Healthcare, which has test results and such. My x-ray results posted by 6 p.m. I set my alarm for 9 a.m. the next morning and I called and left a message for my doctor's medical assistant saying that the results were posted and couldn't they please let me know what to do. This office is only open half a day on Friday and apparently my test results weren't important enough to squeeze into the short day. Usually I at least get a message saying they don't know yet, but I got nothing. No phone calls, not voice messages, and no messages on the My Health site. 

I was getting pretty cranky by then. I went onto the My Health site and took a look at the x-ray results. For patients it doesn't show the pictures, just the technician's notes. It said that there was no significant differences compared to the shoulder x-rays taken in 2018. Now, my doctor's exam showed definite separation and my left shoulder was hanging noticeably lower than my right. So I looked up the x-rays from 2018 and it showed the damage to the joint, including the fact that the ball of my shoulder was resting low in the socked. It other words, there was separation and probable damage to the ligaments and tendons.

These x-rays were ordered by and examined by the doctor over at the pain clinic, not my primary doctor. Yes, the x-ray showed degenerative arthritis, and that is what they have been treating. But nothing was done about the other issues. I have been getting steroid injections in my shoulder for 2 years, which has helped, but every time they give me exercises to do, it makes my shoulder worse. 

Now, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a pain specialist. I'm not an x-ray technician. And because my doctor couldn't be bothered to get back to me on Friday, I only have my own interpretation of the x-rays. But if there is no significant difference between the 2 x-rays that means this damage has been there for 2 years. and no one noticed. I have been getting the wrong treatments. 

I am sitting here with a scarf wrapped around my arm with my shoulder aching and I am downright pissed off at this point. I have found my anger again. I am tired of making excuses for doctors being too busy for me or not getting back to me because other people might be more sick or injured than me. I am angry that having my shoulder in a make-shift sling has done more for the pain than any of the steroid shots or exercise. I just want to scream at someone, but it is Sunday. There is no one to scream at. 

I am tired of this. I am angry. I just want to get the treatment I need. 

Domino Effect

Well, the past few weeks have been limbo in the worst sense of the word. I was still on hold regarding surgery, which was making me anxious and depressed, and the lead-up to the election was the worst kind of stressor. It is all just a blur, thank heavens. I know I was really close to suicidal several times but hopefully I am past that.

Regarding the election - well, the worst possible thing happened. I still can't spend much time on social media because of the doom and gloom, rants, predictions, talking heads telling us how we're all going to die (or so it seems), and the occasional misinterpreted quote that just fans the flames. I will sneak on to see what my closest friends have posted and to get the latest on all the cute, fuzzy animal pages I follow and that's about it. I just don't have the strength right now to think about what the future may hold.

Regarding the surgery - on Thursday my OB/GYN Dr. Welsh called and said that she had managed to talk with my other health providers and she was confident that the surgery was a good idea. And I lucked out. No one wanted to have surgery the Monday after Thanksgiving so I only have to wait about 2 weeks instead of the usual 2 months.

My whole limbo state was a domino effect. I would see something on the news about the election and it would trigger my anxiety. I would tense up and that would make my shoulders and neck hurt. The pain would make me hunch over, which would make the muscles and cartilage in my ribs hurt. Then I would try to stretch everything out by leaning back, and that would trigger the pain in my pelvic area. Or it would start with the pelvic pain and work upward. I just couldn't win.

And that is why I am hopeful about the surgery. It won't get rid of all the dominoes, but it will remove some of them and will hopefully let me break the cycle. And if I can be in less physical pain, then I can take fewer pain meds and I won't feel so groggy and dizzy. I would be able to do my yoga stretches again (I haven't been able to do yoga for 2 months. Every time I try, my lady parts let me know that they are VERY unhappy) and that brings down my anxiety. If I'm not hunching over my midsection, then my ribs don't get so painful I feel like they're trying to puncture a lung. The shoulder and neck thing is common to my Fibromyalgia, but if I can stay calm and can do my stretches, that stays under control.

Here's to hoping we can get rid of those dominoes.