~cut, paste & fibromyalga~

this is mostly a cut and paste from my M.E blog as i do not have the energy to do a whole new post~so apologies if you have been there first!


i was lucky enough to get a 'same day' doctors appointment today that has opened another door to another problem.

i have had increasing pain in what i can only describe as my bones and joints, a deep aching, pain that makes me grit my teeth and feel close to tears~more recently the pain has become so intense i have been able to do little more than lay in bed with a hot water bottle to ease the many points of pain.

well my doctor is 99% sure i have a cross-over of M.E and Fibromyalga~he examined me for the fibromyalga pressure points~oh my and did some of those feel tender!
i am off for the blood tests that will rule out any other possible problems in two weeks and have a follow up appointment with my gp in six weeks to see how the amitriptyline helps me with the pain and my sleep.

he sent me away with a few web sites to find more information and a lot of things that don't quite fit in with my M.E now make a lot of sense to me~which makes me sure that he is right with his diagnosis.

so something new to manage and learn to live with!

~but i am still smiling~

~normality~

today was my first walk out across the forest with swampy and little flynt for days and days~it was slightly chill and blustery over the forest but wrapped in my poncho and wearing thick warm socks with my beloved Birkenstocks (i have no shame in wearing funky patterned socks with my birks!)~it felt so good to be out and i felt the cobwebs of my recent ill health blow away in tatters, drifting off across the moorland and surrounding trees like tatters of cloud, racing upwards to join the clouds passing over our heads.
i did struggle a little for my m.e has not been too good and on wednesday i had to give in to it, something i don't do very often, and go to bed~my joints and muscles were aching so badly i could have cried, and i spent my time in bed placing a hot water bottle onto my joints in turn to ease them.

there were lots and lots of varieties of mushrooms~plenty of field mushrooms, including these making up a partly formed fairy ring (sorry the dreaded fuzzy blackberry was in action again!)...





plus assorted tiny ones of differing colors, which has reminded me to buy an identification guide so i can pick the edible ones when out.
i adore mushrooms and could, much in the way of hobbits, eat a fine, big plateful of freshly cooked ones quite easily.
its also time for me to track down some sweet chestnut trees and bring myself home some chestnuts~although i no longer have the open fire on which to roast them~unless i take myself down the road to my mum and make the use of her open fire.
beech nuts are also lovely if you can get some.

~*~*~*~*~

the forest is feeling so autumnal now, i really think we have seen the last of true summer, but its really no surprise as we are so close to the autumn equinox~is it really so close? where did the days go since the summer solstice?
blown to tatters and taken by the wind no doubt.

i am looking forwards to the darkening days, some of you older readers will know i am a soul of the autumn and winter~times of introspection, withdrawl, dark days and wild weather.

~up & about~

i have been up and about now for a few days, but still not feeling too great.

i still have some pain but no-where near as bad as during the first week out of hospital.

*my visit to the hospital was the first i had ever had~how had i made it 43 years without a stay in hospital i ask myself?!*

i have to say despite dreading the night away from home it was not too bad at all.

i spent the first six hours after my operation in the big general hospital~the first few hours only being able to lay flat~as they had operated through my femoral artery i was not allowed to move until the wound had stopped bleeding and healed over a little.
then i was transferred by ambulance to the women's hospital just over the road, the princess anne where i remained until the following afternoon.

i was in a small ward with only two other women and it was nice a peaceful~the only trouble was the 'ob's'~ checking us every two hours on the hour including throughout the night.
i admit to not actually being able to sleep due to the pain and sickness but the one or two times i did manage to nod off i was woken for 'ob's'~my blood pressure, temperature, checking of the wound and a finger prick for my blood sugar level.

the worse thing was the heat though~i sleep throughout the year with a bedroom window open, i feel as if i am suffocating if i cannot feel nice cool air around me.
well i was in the bed furthest from the window!
by the morning both my temperature and blood pressure was sky high and i asked to be moved to a window bed with the window open. this soon lowered my temperature and blood pressure and when my consultant came over to see me he agreed that going home would be the best option as i was obviously distressed!

*~*~*~*~

i have now been up and about for the whole day for three or four days and i have been out of the house a few times. for two evening i have been on a short, slow walk over the forest with swampy to walk flynt~yesterday it was drizzling but warm and it felt so good to be out. the one other time swampy took me to a hobby shop to buy some yarn~they didn't have what i wanted so i ended up buying a book~one i have wanted for some time~the stitch n' bitch crochet:the happy hooker

already it has helped me figure out a few minor and one more major crochet niggles~so money well spent.

i am still having to take strong pain killers with the associated anti-sickness tablets and yesterday started having to take tablets for stabbing pains in my tummy~now i had these before my operation so a bit unsure why i should still be having them~i guess i shall see how it goes over the next week.

~hello!~notes from an honest blogger~

well sort of.

i have been out of hospital since late last wednesday and have been in no fit state to do anything but lay in bed, taking lots of pills, sleeping, dozing and feeling utterly miserable...oh and losing weight~i have lost about a stone and i now have legs like chicken-little!

the only food i have been able to handle have been yogurt and grapes and the only fluids ice cold water, a ginger and lemon grass cordial, lemon and ginger tea made by swampy and Indian tonic water.
last night swampy did me steamed broccoli and grilled salmon as i had become so hungry and the constant sickness subsided~i managed half of it.

this morning i sat up gingerly and announced 'i am feeling quite chipper today'~well that didn't last long i can tell you but decided that as i had to do a bit of jigging with my bank via my online banking, i thought i would pop by here and say hello and let you know i am in the land of the living although some of you may have notice i have been slightly active on twitter~its easy to lay here and post short tweets.



here is a fuzzy picture on my bedside table~the little~weeny crochet bag and Tisserand 'de-stress' roll on oil is from a lovely soul up in Yorkshire.
oh the oil raised my spirits~it is a combination of patchouli, rose and orange oils.

~*~*~*~*~

well i cannot continue~ i am amazed i have made it this far!

all being well i shall entertain you with my adventures in hospital tomorrow.

~my bookshelf~

~nellie and skye both have posts about their bookshelves and so i am joining in the fun and spreading the idea~

i wonder what the contents of my bookshelf tells about me?

***

our bookshelf has six shelves, with four given over to books and two for bits and bobs.
i have to say i have two other bookshelves however~a tiny little tucked in a small corner space facing my six shelves and a huge custom built one in our front room which takes up one whole wall and home to many, many books and our collective cd/dvd collection~but it is still too small and we are contemplating using the larger end wall in the room for an even bigger one~the possibility of not buying books is not an option!

for this post i shall look at the books/bits and bobs shelves...

~'one hundred years of solitude' by gabriel garcia marquez
~all of armistead maupins 'tales of the city'
~'wilderness man' by lovat dickson
~all of laura ingles wilders 'little house'
~'earth wisdom''sacred celebrations''herbal healers''a hedgerow cookbook' by glennie kindred and many other books on paganism/druidry...if i listed them all here this would be a long old post!
~'touch the earth~a self portrait of indian existence' by t.c mcluhan
~'ordeal by hunger~the story of the donner party' by g.r stewart
~'where the heart is' by billie letts
~stephanie meyer's 'twilight', 'new moon' and 'eclipse'~i am buying 'breaking dawn' to read during my post-op recovery.
~'the heart of the trail~the stories of eight wagon trail women'
~assorted bill bryson
~'dog heaven' by cynthia rylant
~'fried green tomatoes at the whistlestop cafe' by fannie flagg
~all harry potter books by j.k rowling
~'driving over lemons~an optimist in andalucia' by chris stewart
~'gone with the wind' by margaret mitchell
~'doctor zhivago' by boris pasternak
~the 'stonewylde' books by kit berry
~'the pop larkin chronicles' by h. e bates
~all of tove jansson's 'moomin' books from my childhood~and i still read them today
~'the shipping news' by annie proulx
~the gormenghast trilogy by mervyn peake
~'the civil war' by g.c ward
~'the west' by d.duncan and g.c ward
~all of michael palin's travel books
~a hardback of the complete chronicles of narnia by c.s lewis~i have all of my paperback ~copies from the seventies on the 'monster' case
~assorted gardening/vegetable books
~'the complete advetures of curious george' by margaret and h.a rey
~'cosmos' and 'comet' by carl sagen/ann druyan

~*~*~*~*~

there are many, many more so i will not continue with my list of books.
as for the 'bits and bobs' i have part of my collection of mugs, two of codys toys, two ceramic piskies that belonged to my nan, a collection of small bears and bear memorabilia from tahoe, and a 'bunnykins' bowl from the 1920's or 30's.

~*~*~*~*~

so what is on your bookshelf?

~elements of self *eyes~

i am somewhat behind with the lovely juliana's 'elements of self' but here is my picture this week~and i even cringe with this incomplete image~but its okay as it only shows a little of me

this are my dads eyes~i have my dads coloring, pale, freckeld, red head.
my mum and all of her closest family are very dark people, although looking at my photo of my great granddad johney gaul, i don't think he is of very dark ancestry~even though its a very old picture he does not seem to have dark eyes.

according to my dad my welsh granddad had very dark hair~although i only remember him being pure white~but his eyes were blue grey, like mine, my sisters and my dads.

the older i get the weaker they get and i now find myself having to get new, stronger, glasses every year and although i have diabetes, as yet i have had a clean bill of health at my yearly diabetic eye screening.

i dont really have anyhting else to say, they are my eyes, nothing special.

~wahhhh~

~thank you all for your kind comments~they are all very much appreciated~

*what i didn't say in that post was that i have terrible claustrophobia!*

this meant that the night before my MRI i was awake having horrid thoughts of being in a small tube and not being able to get out.

so you can imagine the state i was in by the time i was called through.
the team were really nice however and gave me a guided tour of the MRI and showed me that in fact once in position my head would almost (notice i say 'almost') be totally clear of the other end of the machine~not too bad...but that's not the point~i would be confined in a small tube with no easy and instant means of escape.

they did tell me to keep my eyes closed as they put me through so that i didn't panic, although i admit once i opened my eyes at the other end my head wasn't as clear of the tube as i would have liked and so i ended up having to crane my neck back so i could stare at the ceiling.

i was in there for about 45 minutes and even now thinking about it my chest goes all tight with fear~from the moment i opened my eyes in there i was close to the edge of all out panic attack, even to the point of wondering if i would be able to squirm my way out of the machine at the head end~made worse when i realised i was actually strapped to the bed.
even the emergency button i had clutched in my hand was not enough to stop the rising fear inside of me, for even by pressing it, i would not instantly be free.

throughout i had my eyes fixed on the few ceiling tiles i could see and the speaker~i had ear defenders on because it was so loud but it sort of occupied my mind a little because the noises changed with each scan.

however even that was not plain sailing for one of the longer scans sounded just like a clown laughing over and over again and wouldnt you know it i suffer not only with claustrophobia but coulrophobia~the fear of clowns...oh yes!
i cannot look at them in pictures or on the screen and even thinking or writing about them makes me anxious

so there i lay with that fist of panic in my chest rising with the thought that any moment now a clown would pop its head either from the ceiling tile or appear in the room at my head.

the relief when the voice in the ear defenders told me it was all over was immense.

i do know if i ever have to have another one, involving not having my head free, then they would have to knock me out good and proper!

~*~*~*~*~

now iam in a sort of limbo~but at least things will be clearer come tuesday

~eeep~

a quick post for now.

i went to see the imaging specialist/consultant at the hospital to have another ulre-sound and discuss the option of a fibroid embolisation.

well it seems the consultant is not 100% convinced i have fibroids but instead thinks it may be adenomyosis which is a fairly rare problem where the lining of the uterus grows inside the muscle walls of the uterus~great eh?

so today...in a moment actually...i am off for an MRI scan so he can have a better image with which to make his decision.
as it is i am scheduled for surgery for fibroid embolisation next tuesday~however if this is adenomyosis then the surgery may be cancelled

watch this space!

~belated blessings~

~in the catch up of my week i forgot~

*lughnasa blessings to you all*

my harvest consisted of blueberries and tomatoes, leaving me hopeful of the means for a much larger harvest next year.

so the wheel has turned again and it only feels like yesterday that i was talking about the summer solstice~where is the time going this year?

we had many plans for this year but because of the many hospital and doctors appointments, and the vagaries of both of our health (it sounds awful, as if we are both ancient and ailing) we have done very little.

our days have been slow and meandering, taking our hints from my m.e and its assorted symptoms and poor swampy with his AIH and very painful back, doing what we can when we can~and ignoring it all as best we can during the 'what we can' times.

i have to say i hate all this compromise~life is all about 'well if i rest up now then i will be okay for this' for both of us.

2004 was our last snowboarding trip to Heavenly in Lake Tahoe i had spent the previous 8 years travelling to snowy destinations each year for snowboarding and on our last trip we spent 14 days solid going up the mountain by gondola and snowboarding down again.

was that really us? it doesn't seem like it now.