Same old, same old

Friday, I tried to make it a work emulation day. I sat at the computer as much as I could, and didn't take the "as needed" pain meds. I did this because my chiropractor said that the change in my back was miraculous. I did fine.

Until I went to bed. I was feeling cold all day. When I got between the sheets, it felt like the matress was sucking all the heat from my legs and buttox. It was very painful. I heated the matress up with an electric blanket, and then I was able to fall asleep, but I could feel tension in the tailbone and right hip.

Today, I was a complete wreck. I felt so horrible I could not tell what was wrong with me. The thought of eating was disgusting. By noon, I realized that this might be a pain reaction, so I took pain meds. (I have been taking all pain meds each morning and night, including the "as needed" meds) Within 2 hours a felt somewhat better, and felt like eating.

I have been bringing cashews back into my diet. I really love 'em. And I cannot have them. Within 2 to 4 hours, I get explosive diarhea - bad enough that it requires the toilet bowl to be cleaned. This is very discouraging. The IgO index for cashew was just one. Chocolate has the same effect, but much worse. It's score is 4, and the diarhea continues for days until I feel like I am pumping acid out my rear.

I am coming to the realization that this might be it - I might be in pain like this from now on. So I am going to work on Monday.

I will be getting a nerve pain test soon - can't remember what it is called. It will be a full body test, where they stick acupuncture like neeedles in my skin and measure the electrical conductivity. This will guide the orthopaedic doctors in knowing how to control my pain.
Right now, it feels like my ass is on fire - no joke - burning flesh.
___________________________________________
I thought I'd add more. This is from Sunday Morning. I have decided to use seroquel each night to help me choose when I go to bed. It is prescribed for anxiety, but it is also a sedative. I have not been taking it for months.

I also put the electric blanket in the bed and turned it on HIGH for 2 hours before going to bed. This really helped. I had plenty of REM sleep - I remember the dreams. I have set the clock alarm for 7 Am, and I will get up then - like I did today. My body wants more sleep, so I laid back down at 9 Am for an hour - also had REM sleep and dreams. I plan to go to bed as soon as I get back from Church and eat dinner.

The dreams are interesting. they change copntext so quickly, over and over. hey are about simple things, things I do all the time, but most of the dreams have an alternate presentation from my currrent reality. A slight differernce in the floor plan of the apartment, that kind of stuff. The only thing I can remember from the dream is reaching for a shirt in the closet, and the entire rod which holds the clothes hangers up came loose and all the clothes fell forwards on me. It was startling, but not scary.

I had a realization about Katie. I don't know why she is shutting me out of her life. Some of the kids say it's because she feels she has to take the burden of Mom's role in the family because I am not stepping up to fill her shoes. But that doesn't matter. I decided long ago to let my children have the intellectual and spiritual freedom I enjoy, even if that meant they decided to leave the Church. Those of my children that have taken other paths know how very much I love them, and would do anything to help them. I consider them equals - peers, if you will, and grateful that they are my friends as well as my children. The realization I had today is that I should extend the same grace to katie, even though she has cut me out. It doesn't make any difference. I still love her and would do anything for her.

Getting Better

The pain in my back is practically gone. The chiropractor said my back was in very good shape. My right hip still hurts a little when I step down out of the SUV. In total, it took 10 cortisone shots in the spine (different locations)

I will go back to work Monday.

My FMLA was approved - but that just means that I won't be fired for not being at work.
I may have to appeal for it to be listed as a disability, in order to be paid.

I am going to have a test done to see what the extent of the nerve damage is.

more shots scheduled

I go in tuesday for more cortisone shots in the hips. I hope the y do both hips. Pain meds are strong, and are starting not to work. I am not able to do much

Internal Conflict

My right hip is a real pain in the ass. I am taking very strong drugs, and it still hurts. My doctor is going to arrange for more cortizone shots - they surgery center doesn't return my calls.

For that last 2 days, I have done nothing but do to multiple doctors, and a little shopping. I cannot sit for long. I cannot read. I can barely watch a video. If this goes on much longer, I am going to lose my mind.

There is something I want to do in CA on 11 SEP, but right now that's impossible. There is no way I could make the air trip.

I have a conflict with Lucy Mack Smith - the Mother of Joseph Smith. Opponents to the Church are digging up some good dirt on the Church, but the original sources of these discrepencies is Lucy Smith. I want to say something about it, about her lack of credibility, but within Mormon circles, that would be like saying Queen Elizabeth is a whore.

Very Strange Dream

Friday and Saturday I woke up after a 4 and 6 hours asleep, respectively, feeling alert, but knew better, and slept more. This morning, I slept 8 hours, and could not get up when the alarm went up, and slept another 2. I remember no dreams on Fri and Sat morns. Today, I remember bits and pieces.

I could remember more just after I woke up, but I was worried about getting to Church on time, so I didn't do it until now, and I don't remember as much.

I remember seeing Karen's dead body in the dream. She had withered away, like a dried prune. The withering left her lips in kind of a pucker. He skin was unnaturally white, like it was bleached white.

At another point in the dream, I remember seeing some naked men. Their skin was diseased - yellow and red blotches. just above the genitalia, there was a huge bulb, about the size of a lemon, that looked like a growth one would see on a diseased tree, except it was covered with red/yellow blotched skin.

I remember there were lots of people, and work cubicles
--------------------------------------------------------------

My lower back is feeling much better. My right hip is hurting badly all the time. It is not a birning, more like I am being poked with the eraser end of a pencil, REALLY HARD AND CONSTANT, into my right buttox.

Shou, Shou (our puppy) is incredibly cute. She will just lie on your lap for hours, just letting you pet her, and shifting around once in a while. She is growing fast. Her dark fur is the same color as her eyes - I cannot tell if her eyes are opened or closed, unless she looks to the side, and I can see a fit of white on the eyeball.

58 & Feeling ...

The next word in the title is hard to choose. If rhyming, GREAT comes to mind. I do not feel great. Grate is a little more descriptive, or perhaps Fate.

Tonight is the first night after using the CPAP machine at the new setting. I went to bed at midnight. I woke up at 4 AM, my body telling me that it could get up now. I shifted my weight and felt a flash of pain in my right hip. I moaned, and slept for 2.5 more hours.

I feel more refreshed today than I normally do upon waking. Hopefully this will increase as time goes by. I was able to get out of bed and stand up without strong pain in the right hip, a definite change for the better. I have been one my feet for 30 minutes, and the hip is starting to burn. I have taken Codine to deal with that.

I played with the puppy for 20 minutes, while sitting in the lounge chair. She was ready to play. she kept wandering to my knees loopking down, so I figured she had to pee.

And now I am here, typing this. and this. and...
_____________________________________________

It is now almost noon. Thought I'd add a bit more. My body is craving sleep, but I am trying not to sleep all day. I got up to watch a DVD. I have played a few word games on the computer - cognition and speed of thought is noticeable greater. And right now, I can honestly say I feel better - I can say "I feel good" and it not being a big lie.

I have read the analysis of the sleep study. My sleep problem is not Apnea. The Apnea is corrected at lower pressures. The amount of oxygen supplied at lower pressures was high, between 96 to 92. At higher pressures, the range widened - 98 to 90. CPAP 14 had the highest and lowest oxygen percentages - but it was a large sample - 2 hours. Lower pressures were only sampled for 10 to 40 minutes.

The key is REM sleep. I had 52 minutes of REM sleep in that 2 hours at CPAP 14. In all pressures under 14, ZERO minutes of REm sleep. In 2.5 hours of sleep at CPAP 15, only 10 minutes of REM sleep.

My problem has been lack of REM sleep. It is not oxygen deprivation - which is good -less tissue damage.

Sunday Pain

Kofi was ill today, which meant that I could leave the meetings today whenever I needed to. I left right after the Sacrament was passed.

The pain in my spine has been getting longer. Over the last week I have felt it move down my right buttox and into the inner thigh. I have been getting flashes of pain in the right outer hip for a long time now, whenever I rotatoed my right toes clockwise. Now both pain are all the time. The outside hip is especially bad when I get up from a sitting position. The pain in the buttox feels like it is burning - it is very sharp and constant

I am really looking forward to that cortisone shot now.

I got the results of the sleep study. My current pressure is 10, and it is going to be increased to 14. The scale of the CPAP pressure numbers was created so that most people would only have to increase 1 unit a year. So my rate of pulmonary integrity degredation is 4 times faster than normal. Hopefully my machine will be configured this week.

wsarped mind

zzzzI am plying dragonwars. spacial percetionheightenedlines of text warp in 3D
itie=s sttrange ti watch. I t an artifact of my tired mind. it happens once in a while

I watched Harry Potter and the ZHalf Blood Prince, and Enemy mine
Both er=were good

NOW IT IS THE MORNING. I have slept 6 hours. I spoke with my Brother Richard yesterday from the hospital. This is his second time in the hospital in 3 months. I worry about him.

The spatial affects I was seeing last night were strange. The testual displays in the game seemed to have 3D layers, and they were undulating as if small waves of water were passing over them. When I looked away from the game display to the compuer desktop, it appeared as if the windows were moving in a spiral, sucking things inward, but they were trying to keep their positions, so only the corners were affected, then they would snap bakc, as if the spiral drain like effect stopped all of a sudden.

During the day yesterday, I was hearing things that were not there. I kept hearing my phone ringing, but it was not - it was a muffled ringing. I would also hear a constant high pitched noise. At one point,I was hering the faint sound of a woman's voice singing. It sounded like it was in an echo chamber, but faint - like she was far away. She was singing to a rhythm of 1950s style music, something upbeat and catchy. It sounded like English, but I did not understand what she was singing. This went on for several minutes

I also had to go to the bathroom a lot yesterday. I had to leave the theater projection room 3 times duing the Harry Potter movie. The urine was coming out with so much pressure, I could feel splash back drops all the way back to my elbows, so it took a long time to wash up.

I had the sleep study done on Tuesday, and got the results yesterday. The current pressure of my CPAP machine is 10 (I thought it was 5). IT will be increased to 14. This is very good news.

I have stopped taking spirulina and omega 3 fatty acids. I was taking maximum volume of each. When I started taking spirulina, I was very physically active. I was constantly binging between meals. The spirulina stopped that. But I am not as active now, so maybe I don't need it. The omega 3 fatty acids are fat - it is an oil. I am trying to see if this will lower my weight without exercise, because I cannot exercise - too painful. For the last few days, my right hip hurts very much when I get up from a seated position, almost to the point of stopping me from getting up.

The lady that administered the sleep test to me was named Mary. I think her last name was Polish, and started with a Z. She never said it aloud, and I could not read her name tag. She had a half smile and slurred speech. I realized a few days afterward that this was evidence of a stroke. Her half smile was very cute, and I liked her from the start. She was from Detroit, and had a tatoo on the underside of her left wrist of the outline of a star. She was hiding it by holding a piece of paper over it in her right hand. She was very intelligent, dressed in nurses garb. The sleep study was done at a hospital. She never said so, but I knew she had children. One give away was a small bag she had with her as we left the hospital together - she had to escort me out. It had handprints all over it of a child's hand. It look like the child had dipped his hand in paint and touched the fabric. Each hand print was a different color. I told her about our new puppy, and she told me about her dog and 2 ferrets. There was an awkward moment in our last few moments together. I wanted to ask her out, and I knew she wanted me too. But I want to marry within the Church, so I didn't. I keep thinking about her. If I ever see her again, I am going to ask her.

I should explain about the dog. I was keeping this information secret until Amy got back from her honeymoon. There was an attempted breakin at my apartment 2 mights before I left for California. They did not succeed. The perp tried to get passed the deadbolt using a very large crow bar, as evidenced by the scratches on my door jamb and the warps in my door. The crow bar has 2 prongs in the leveraging end, so there were 2 scratch marks and two warped pinches in the door. The tips of the prongs were 2 inches apart, indicating that this crowbar was huge, maybe 6 feet long.

Emily is very visible in the apartment complex. She often goes to the pool. When she left for California, her car was parked right in front of the building. It is the only red car, so it was easy to see that it was not moving for several days. Since there was no light coming from her bedroom, and I have sealed my window over with tarps because ot insomina, the perp thought no one was there.

I have put a brace on the front door to keep it closed at night, made from a 1 by 8 piece of wood. The front clost is 4 feet away from the fornt door, and parallel. Placing the wood on the ground snugly between them, the front door willl never open unless it is pushed with so much force at the top of the door, that the door folds back. It is a metal door.
I have also paid extra for the alarm system to be activated, and I finally caved in to Emily's request for a dog. She has asked 3 times, and I believe it was for security reasons.

The dog is a black and white Shitsu. Emily has named her Shou-Shou. She is adorable. I love playing with her. The feelings of love and affection just flow out of me to that dog. She makes me so happy, I don't mind the extra work it takes to have her here.

We are training her to use pee pads. We bought a gate to seal her into the kitchen, so she stays over the linoleum, until she doesn't make mistakes. I can tell she is trying, but I believe she sometimes can't hold it long enough to make it to the pee pad. She is teething. I bought her a stuffed toy back and white puppy that is her same size to sleep with. I use the puppy to wrestle with her, so she will learn not to bite humans, only toys. We take naps together.