It seems surreal to me. Wednesday will be the anniversary of my injury. The day my life ended, my NORMAL life. When I was whole of body and spirit and mind. Before every day became a question not if I hurt, but rather to what degree. A year ago today I was planning my future, schooling and LPN graduation, buying our home on an acreage...it was so, so close. I could almost taste it. I had even begun studying for the anatomy and physiology prereqs that I would be enrolling in that summer. I had the very best of my two worlds. Home during the day, with my children, homeschooling Diva...then to work for 3 pm every afternoon. I loved my job, my career, and I was good at it. Very good at it.
Now...well...now. As I said, there's pain. Always. There's depression, a natural occurrence, I'm reassured by the professionals. Losing use of your dominant hand/arm and all that effects, plus pain, tends to produce that reaction. Nifty of them to validate me, isn't it? And there's stress, and anxiety. Being in public is avoided at all times if possible, since someone bumping into me causes hours of excruciating pain...so of course I'm extremely anxious to the point of vomiting if I'm forced to be in public. And just in case all of THAT wasn't fun enough, lets add in the toll something like this takes on your husband, marriage, and children. Oh, and as an EXTRA special bonus, we'll throw in having to battle WCB and one of the nastiest case managers known to man. That's not just my opinion of her, folks. My union rep shares it, and when she was quiet for a while, he actually thought we'd managed to get her fired, since he has six or seven other case files on his desk, all complaints, all with her as the case manager.
Figure this one out. The one pain treatment that's actually had any REAL effect for me is the lidocaine block. I can actually hug my children with BOTH arms. That is a huge thing. Unfortunately, the effects don't last long, 12-18 hrs or so, but I'll take what I can get. My pain Dr Rx'd it for me to have at home, via a home nursing service, an IV and pain pump. Its the same treatment I get at the hospital/pain clinic, only diff being the pain pump rather than normal IV and it runs for 12 hrs.
WCB DENIED THE TREATMENT. I kid you not. My case manager, without requesting any of the 20 or so pages of studies and literature that the pharmacy has about these blocks, went to the medical advisory team, who didn't know much about it...so it was labelled experimental. Cause THEY DON'T KNOW MUCH ABOUT IT. Meanwhile, they've been being billed for my treatments in the hospital and pain clinic, and my case manager (aka The Hag) tells me that I can still get the treatments there!!!
Here's the problem though: the pain clinic is short on space. Too many paitients, not enough time. So if I (or anyone else) can get their therapy in the community, then that's what the pain Dr wants to have happen. So I've been told I can have a few more treatments at the clinic, but that's it. To pay for this myself, looking at $200 a treatment...not to mention that if I DO pay for it, WCB could turn around and claim all my probs are from the 'experimental treatment' and cut me off.
So, I'm planning on getting completely wrecked drunk on Wed. I've gone from having plans for my family's future to this...not being able to even hug my children with both arms. Getting drunk won't solve anything...but nothing's going to solve RSD anyways. Not like getting drunk will make it worse. And no, I won't take my meds, so no worry about interactions. I'm a weak drunk anyways. Two or three drinks and I'm hooped.
We've been struck down with illness at the Non Stepford Home. No, it doesn't appear to be of the swine variety, but rather of the tonsillitis sort. However, we didn't know that until yesterday. Did you know that severe tonsillitis mimics the flu, complete with fever, upchucking, body aches, chills, and all those delights? Nor did I, but Tazzie has left me a wiser Momma. Thanks kid. Really.
Now Princess has joined the illness brigade, just as Tazzie decided to recover this am. So, she's on the couch, looking like a wee scrap of herself, until we can get to the Drs tomorrow and get her an Rx of her own.
I love Wolf. Sometimes I don't understand him though. I'm not saying that in a snarky manner at all, so please don't get me wrong. We just view things so differently...I think that's probably why we make as good a team as we do, even if it occasionally leaves us tilting our heads at one another, trying to see that perspective.
Give you an example.
Tazzie, as mentioned, has been sick. Today has been the first almost human day he's had. He's been eating, drinking, and thoroughly annoying his big sister. Like I said, almost human...except for the too pale face, and crashed out boychild napping at the moment.
Wolf calls from work, wants to know if there's anything to pick up on his way home from work. Realizes he has to come home first, as his bank card is here. Okies. Then he says:
"I'll pick up Tazzie and take him with me. He hasn't been out in a few days, except to the Drs."
That. That right there is where I tilt my head and go, "Huh?!" To him, Tazzie needs some fresh air, out of the house, etc. To me, out in public, immune system still under attack, nuh uh, no way, not a plan. Both parents with the child's best at heart, polar opposites in perspective. I know Tazzie will be staying at home when I tell Wolf my concerns about the immune system...But I also know that there are times when I would keep the kids close to me whereas Wolf rightly encourages them to wander further and explore.
Balance.
And I think that's what I'd also like to hope people keep in mind at this time of media blaring, conflicting reports, WHO numbers...balance. Caution isn't a bad thing. Freaking out is, just as complete disregard. Be aware. A little extra handwashing never hurt anyone, anyways, right?
One of life's ironies, as Wolf like's to point out is that I have to take somewhere in the neighbourhood of 30 pills a day. No, that's not a typo folks, that actually is 3-0, as in thirty. The irony being, I choke on chewable vitamins. Watching me down pills is something of a family entertainment. I've caught Wolf on the phone, taking bets, on if I choke, and to what degree. I hope he at least makes enough money to buy me flowers out of it.
Anyways...
Just had a choke session. Quite the dramatic one, with coffee spewing from mouth AND nose, progeny a 'running to ensure that I will live to make supper. I choked out a request for a towel, and Tazzie returned with one moments later, proudly announcing, "Here, Mommmy!" and just as I was about to wipe my face with it, I hear Diva shriek, "Don't use that! I cleaned up Princess' pee with it off the bathroom floor this morning!"
At least she warned me BEFORE I used the towel. Its those special moments that prove a child's love, folks. I've no doubt that by the time she's 14, she'll wait til AFTER I used it, then tell me while she snickered. Course, if Princess is still peeing on the floor in four years, we've got other issues...Maybe we'll have a puppy piddling on the floor by then? But I digress.
Just an interesting note to close on...I now know what its like to have coffee scented snot. Interesting.
Yes, I consider myself to still be a 'young woman', so you can stifle the giggling right now, thanks very much.
I said, STIFLE!
I have puppy lust.
There, I said it. I've confessed. I know some women go through pangs of 'baby lust', but not I. Wolf usually knocks me up before I usually realize I want to be pregnant. Ok, not so much with Tazzie, but definately with Princess.
Anyways, I find myself deep in the throes of puppy lust.
How deep, you ask?
Well, deep enough that I would forgo my deeply held and long cherished dream of getting a Douge De Bordeaux, my all time favourite breed that I've promised myself would be my publishing gift (when I finally get a novel published, I'm buying one with the advance...assuming the advance is big enough, lmao!) and get another pug.
Now there's some serious puppy lust happening, folks.
We have had two pugs. Our first, beloved but none too bright and well...rather untrained (our fault...fell into the 'its a small dog' mind set and didn't bother with training *blush*) scooted out of the house on Hallowe'en a couple of years ago. The Mom with the trick or treaters PUNTED him like a foot ball, and he ran off, yelping. Diva took off after him...only to witness him being killed when he was run over by a speeding car.
Utter heartbreak, as only an eight year old can know.
Last year, we tried a pug again. Winston. He was 18 mths old when we got him, from a 'breeder' I kinda sorta knew. Biiiiiiiiiiiig mistake. Huge. He was nervous as all holy heck, high strung, couldn't be trusted around the Littles...as bad a fit as could ever be. We ended up rehoming him with a sweet sixteen year old whose mom used to breed dogs, who would pamper the heck out of him, and most importantly, had no small children, and wouldn't for years to come.
A few weeks after, we got Jack the Cat, whose about the size of a pug, if not bigger. Great cat, as far as cats go. Lets the kids maul him, until they go too far, and then he gives them a nip or a bit of a swat to keep them in line.
But he's still a cat.
And I'm a dog person. And like his Momma, Tazzie is also a dog person, since he's been heard lamenting lately, "Can we trade Jack in fow a dog? Pwease?"
Kid after my own heart.
Reality of it is, now just isn't the time for a puppy. Wolf's just gotten back to work, so we're starting to bail out our financial boat. His 2nd pay will be going to an accountant to file taxes (yes, late, bad bad bad!) finish catching up on bills if we're not all caught up by then, and kitting out the family for summer gear.
But...the van's paid off in July.
I'm just sayin....
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