Still unwell

Friday I went out on my first excursion sans-Wilomena (no walker) I was having a great day with hardly any pain so I decided that I would try walking on my own for the first time in two years. A friend took me to go and look at freezers. What I wasn’t expecting was lousy sales-people who left us STANDING waiting for them for over 15 minutes. I still can’t stand very well due to pain so in the end it was awful. If we could have just gone in – looked at freezers – and then left it would have been fine. But customer service really sucks and no rep ever did come and serve us in BestBuy so we ended up walking out after 20 minutes. But by that time I was back in pain from the standing. So even though this outing wasn’t a success as I had hoped, it did let me see that maybe in the future I will improve. For now I guess it’s only walking – no standing. I guess I will need the dreaded Wilomena afterall for a bit longer.

I have also been unwell for the past few days. My hiatic hernia is grumbling. It is a dull ache and it won’t go away. I feel quite nauseous all the time as well. I’m hoping it’s just the hernia settling down. But so far it’s been 6 days and I am still not feeling well. Yesterday I didn’t even get out of bed. I have messages from people who need replying to but I just don’t feel well and have gone to bed. No cleaning has gotten done. Nothing has gotten done. Just me in bed watching mindless tv. My apartment is a disaster.

Today I woke up still not well but better than yesterday. So I am forcing myself to get up and get things done. So I have my games on (the weekend is for soccer) and I am trying very slowly to catch up. But so far I still don’t feel my best. All i want to do is climb back into bed and sleep. The fibromyalgia pain is back as well so it really hasn’t been a great week for me.

But,… I am still optomistic I will get better and I have told myself that I will be walking un-aided by the summer. That is my goal. Once the warm weather gets here I plan on going for a walk everyday. Try and push through the pain. Because from what I have seen over the past 3 years is – if I can’t walk,… there is noone to help me. So I have no choice but to push through the pain and get back to walking. I have no money for a care-giver. So I HAVE to get back to walking by myself.

Well that was a day,…

Just as I was starting to feel better,…. Yesterday I woke up in the middle of the night with severe pain from my hiatus hernia. I have had this for about 10 years and about once or twice a year it flares up. It leaves me in severe pain for about 24 hours with vomiting and diarrhea. Most times this happens I just stay at home and ride it out. What else can I do? But yesterday I had a headache on top of it all that concerned me with my blood pressure.

Coincidently just a few days prior I had signed up for the “Guelph-Wellington Community Paramedics”. It’s a program for in-home care. In my case,… to have my blood pressure checked if needed when I felt it was dangerously high. Because I was so sick and had a headache I reached out to this group. They didn’t have anyone in the area to come out so they called 911. And that was the beginning to my day. 6 hours in the ER. My blood pressure was 215/190. DANGEROUSLY high. So I felt better about calling an ambulance. I would hate to waste their time on something non-emergency. It was not a fun day. I have not been that sick in a very long time. I called my friend K**k and he came and got me from the hospital and brought me home. Funny story,…. I had no coat – no shoes – as I had been brought in by ambulance in just a soccer jersey. So when I went home K**k leant me his workboots and coat. I must have looked a sight walking into my building wearing that. Luckily no one seemed to be around and I was able to sneak up the elevator without being seen.

Today I have woken up feeling 100% better. No rhyme or reason to my health. One day in hospital ~ the next perfectly fine. (???) So fun being me,…..

Getting better?

More good news! I have been getting better! Three years ago during the first covid lock-down, I fell and really injured myself. I’m not sure what exactly I did but my whole right side was in severe pain and I was left unable to walk. It started at my calf and went right up to my knee/leg/groin/hip and back and left me crippled. I couldn’t get to a doctor as it was the first covid lock-down. So me being me (hating to bother anyone) I just dealt with it. On my own. When I did finally get to talk to my doctor she basically told me what I already knew. I can go to a Doctor and get it looked at but without money for physiotherapy what would be the point? Only “Happy Shiny People” can afford those things through their companies and what not. Me? I have nothing so I just had to suffer. And for the past 3 years I have been unable to walk or stand. I have been more or less stuck inside my home in bed or in my lounge chair unable to do much of anything. I thought my life was over,…..

Until this year. What happened in 2023? I do not know. But suddenly my pain started to deteriorate. One day about a month ago I woke up and realized I didn’t need my walker to get up. The horrible stabbing pain I usually got in my back and hip and leg wasn’t there. I was confused. For 3 years I have had debilitating pain so bad I can barely get up in the morning. now today,… it was gone. And since then it has been getting progressively BETTER! Not every day is good. It is still hit and miss. For instance yesterday and friday I was again in bed all day in pain,… but the few days before that I was up and walking and doing well. It seems to have no rhyme or reason to when I will be in pain and when I am not,…. but I am not complaining. I will take it. I will take ANY pain-free time.

Now,… I still have the fibromyalgia pain. I will always have that. And it too is debilitating. But it atleast allows me to walk and stand. I can still function albeit in pain. but I am used to that. I have had Fibromyalgia for over 30 years now so this pain is nothing new and even though it’s horrible,… I can function. I can go outside and walk. I can do my own shopping. I can do things for myself once again. In short,… I have my pride back a little bit.

Right now it is still winter here in Ontario Canada. But now that I am feeling better I can’t wait to get outside and WALK. Walking was my favourite passtime. It was good for my fibro and it kept me mobile. I can’t wait until that first warm day when I can get out there and walk,… walk,… walk,….

I learned a very valuable lesson over the past three years. Never take your mobility for granted. because the day you can’t walk anymore is the day you lose your pride,…. and your life will completely change. If you can walk,… don’t ever lose that! And be grateful that you can,…..

Today I cannot walk. The pain is back. But I have faith that it will be better tomorrow. Right now there are more bad days than good days. but it is still early and I have complete faith that over time and with gentle exercise, I WILL have more better days than bad ones. I HAVE to have hope and faith because without it,…. I have nothing.

Could this be a complete turn-around for me? Fingers crossed,…. prayers said,….. this spring could be a whole new life for me.

Catching up

A little bit to catch up on today. Good news or bad news first? I will jump ahead to the good news. After hearing my story on the CBC radio a lovely woman named Ashley got ahold of me and offered me some money. Now other generous people have been doing the same since that interview, but I have been turning them down as it is not easy for me to accept money from a stranger, We all know how I feel about charity. But for some reason this woman peeked my interest. She just seemed so genuine and really wanted to help. So I accepted. And she sent me some money. With that money, I am going to buy a small apartment size freezer. It is something I have been needing for a long time. I buy a month of groceries at one time. When you get so little to spend on groceries (under $200 for a whole month worths) you have to be clever and make that penny stretch a mile. I am QUEEN of budgeting and making my money stretch. In fact I budget 3 months ahead. Right now I am budgeting for June. When you only get a pittance coming in ~ you have to be very clever to make that money give you enough food for a whole month. I have gone hungry and it is not fun. My answer is cook everything that first week and then freeze those meals in the freezer. NOTHING will end up going bad. Right now I end up throwing food away after a few weeks as it goes bad. So when this woman contacted me and asked if she could help me out? I accepted. And because of the kindness of this woman,… I will now be able to go out and purchase a small apartment size freezer. And THIS will enable me to eat well for the whole month. So Ashley H.,… You are a God-send and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I also got medication. I don’t have a family doctor anymore. So I have been out of luck trying to get some prescriptions. I need one for my high blood pressure (yesterday my BP was at 180!) and something for my mental health (depression). I think getting back onto these meds will be helpful. How did I get them? From my new MAiDs doctor. Yes,… MAiDs got in touch with me and they sent out a brand new doctor yesterday. I had my pain interview and he has gone away and will get back to me on whether or not I meet the criteria for pain for Medically Assisted Dying. He seemed to be on the fence and needed time to speak to other people (I guess) so I’m just waiting to hear back from him on whether or not MAiDs will be a go or a bust. While he was here, he took my blood pressure and it was still way too high. Thats when talk of meds started. They will be delivering them to me this afternoon. I only hope the mental health meds work. They are suppose to work with fibromyalgia and pain so I’m actually looking forward to starting them. Hopefully I will start feeling a bit better. He also sent me for bloodwork which I went for this morning. I will have to wait for those results. Can you believe it cost me $20 round trip just to get my bloodwork done? I hate spending money on taxi’s. Such a waste. $20 is my milk for the month. But instead had to spend it on taxi’s. 😦 No transportation is my hardest thing to deal with in this poverty. It took me 2 hours to get my bloodwork done because of all the waiting for taxi’s.

I also got my 2022 taxes done. I just did them myself. It came out 0 balance. Nothing owing,… nothing coming to me,…. It was so easy to do. But here lies the bad news,…The problem still remains the past 3 years,…where a volunteer forgot to add my disability tax credit and that has me owing over $2,300!! And Revenue Canada doesn’t seem to want to allow me to go back in and change them so I’m pretty stressed out about that. Because I haven’t paid them,… I don’t get the benefits of trillium and other government pay outs as you only get them if you dont have a balance owing so I am not only missing out on the extra benefits but I am also being charged interest as it accumulates. It’s this huge monkey on my back I can’t seem to get rid of.

I am still in pain and still finding life a huge grind with no money and no car. But today it was sunny outside and I got to go out and enjoy it so I’m going to give today a bright red star.