Tips for Supporting a Chronic Partner

Last night I stumbled upon a post on Pinterest that made me cry. It made me cry because it is fantastic, so it was tears due to a display of true love. It was written by a guy who has been married to his wife for almost 14 years, and his wife suffers from chronic pain. He gets it. He gets it in a way I never thought anyone other than the sufferer could get it. The article gave me a lot of hope: It just takes time and patience but the two of us (Dan and me) will learn to conquer this together.

23 Tips For Men – On Supporting A Partner With Chronic Pain

I'm Here For You

The article isn’t just for spouses. Really, it isn’t. It has perfect tips for any support person. It works the same if the roles are reversed (husband has chronic pain), if it’s a parent/child relationship (either direction), if you’re the best friend of a single friend, etc. Anyone that has to take a primary, or even secondary, caretaker role can benefit from reading this article.

Continue reading

It’s Christmas Eve!

Tons of cooking to do today 🙂 we’re hosting my in-laws for dinner today! I love making holiday dinners.

Unfortunately, my back is doing the same thing it did a few days ago. Breathing hurts, being upright hurts. I had Dan put on a lidocaine patch for me, which I’m desperately hoping works. I can’t take both metaxalone and Tramadol today, or else I can’t hang out with everyone! 😦  I really hope this will get better.

Merry Christmas Eve, everyone!

Happy Holidays!

Suddenly, the Weekend Attacked

This weekend was insane, and I’m definitely feeling it pretty badly. It really sucks when you don’t do anything social for an extremely long time, and then everyone wants to do stuff the same weekend! But while it physically sucks, it was still a ton of fun.

Life is Hectic

Continue reading

Finals Begin Today

My first final is in an hour… And my intestines are spasming badly. I took my antispasmodic before I left the house, but I didn’t bring it with me…

gastroenterology

I really hope they calm down before my exam. I’m not all that nervous, I’m pretty good at exams. I did well on my midterm, and I’ve done well on everything else. I’m at school with tons of time, and I am mentally reviewing info for the essay questions.

Not So Good

Physically, I’m doing fairly poorly. My neck keeps spasming, so I’m very glad to be going to see Joleen today. My stomach is killing me, to the point I think I might have something other than IBS. My sinuses are making me want to vacuum my nose. And everything together just makes me want to sleep.

Hopefully, I can do a better update for y’all soon. I’ve really got to study for my final tomorrow, so that “soon” probably won’t be today. I just wanted you to know that I haven’t died, just kind of feel like my body is trying to kill me.

What, Why? Not Now Please

I’m pretty sure I still have my sinus infection, but I’ve been getting distracted by other things recently. First off, all the muscles in my neck and back feel like I’ve been hit by a truck: miserable, sore, knotted. Second: today, after class, I noticed a horrible pain in my neck, and realized that I have a very swollen lymph node. Third, the temporal side of my temporomandibular joint is insanely painful to the touch on my left. I’m concerned about it, because I don’t think I bruised it in any way, so I’m worried about possible infections or something. Fourth, my ear might be infected again. My ear smelled terrible yesterday, but it was crazy clogged up with wax. Hopefully, it’ll dry out (now that I’ve cleaned it out well) and be fine.

Oh, and did I mention I have one final Thursday and one next Tuesday?

Chronic Living – Buzzfeed

enhanced-23199-1435867487-2

Living With A Health Problem | Buzzfeed

Here’s a collection of good quotes about living as a young adult with chronic health issues.

The Husband and The Head

Days like today make Dan’s job ever so slightly less exciting. It’s Saturday, he’s at work. Yesterday was supposed to be an off Friday (every other Friday they get off, they work 9 hours Monday-Thursday then 8 hours every other Friday), and he worked yesterday too. They’re trying to launch a rocket. Thursday was the first attempt, got scrubbed (cancelled for the day) due to weather. Yesterday, scrubbed again due to weather. Today, same percentage chance of getting scrubbed again due to weather. Tomorrow, thankfully, he won’t have to work (his coworkers are covering his support position because we had plans), but they’ll try again, and it’s the same percentage. If necessary, they’ll push it to Monday, which has a much better percentage of launching. At least they switched to a two week pay period, so he can flex his hours, which will make next week very short.

oa4_supportimage

Continue reading

Slight Relief

Thankfully, the KILLER headache is gone. I’ve been doing homework on the computer all day though, so I do have a headache again. Most of my muscles no longer feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, but if I move wrong I can tell they are really tight because suddenly they pull very painfully. Still no energy for a shower or anything like that. I really need to shower today though, especially if I am going to take Dan out for his birthday! Ugh. I cannot wait to get my homework wrapped up for the semester.

Snapshot_20151204

Can’t you tell that I’m super excited about my homework?

Dan is going to call his Employee Assistance Program thing to find me a neurologist. My increase in the severity and frequency of my headaches was concerning us, and this last episode definitely scared us both. Here’s hoping I can find answers sometime soon.