Today

 First I want to thank everybody for the very precious comments. I cried over each one. I felt the love. The sisterhood that Kathy mentioned is healing.
 Priceless.
I am on anti-depressants a big whopping dose of them, but like Kat said there is no pill to erase what is happening. One of the things on the charge card are visits to a psychiatrist.  The doctor I see is an expert in pain, depression and nutrition. I am depressed because the cervical blocks don't last. I don't think I should do anymore because they have steroids in them and I cannot have surgery with RSD. My hip is hurting significantly and I have to hope and pray the graft will hold. I do take a huge amount of the best quality supplements and everything I can to heal my body. Y'all know how I feel about nutrition.

Kat you hit it, I don't have much will to live. It isn't gone but it's pretty weak. However I am a fighter and I'm not down on a 10 count yet. I also had to clarify to my daughter that what I meant was I am sometimes sorry she rescued me. I did not mean that I was sorry she came, never. Her coming has been an amazing blessing. I get tongue tied a lot and call her Mama. How's that for a woman who is 55? I call my baby, Mama.

I'm trying to sew. I used to do a lot of sewing. Jennifer wants to learn and help out and so far I am managing OK. I think it would be fun to make little things, doll clothes, or baby clothes. Will see, one day at a time.

Roman may be going to live in Colorado on a horse ranch with another big standard white poodle. My good friend's daughter is interested in him. He would love living there. He hates the heat and he loves cold weather. He went crazy in the snow playing in it. Last year in the summer I thought something was wrong with him. He just laid around and moped. He just doesn't like the heat.

Then if we place the cats we can just relax and have less to worry about.

I'm not going to talk about pets anymore.

Maybe I'll make some stuffed animals. I don't know but I do know that if it's stressful to try and care for something then the joy is lost.  I cannot physically work with my dog. He is a brat because of it. He won't listen to me like he should. We love each other but it just is not safe for me, and not good for him.
So there we go. Sometimes I have to be an adult even when I'd rather be a kid, and a whiny cry baby at that.


Last night it took me until 2:30 am to fall asleep. My shoulder was killing me. Between pain in the left hip and pain in the right shoulder it can really be a challenge to sleep when I like to lay on my side. I have drugs for that too but they don't always work. Melatonin and all of that.

Case anyone wonders, this pain is really weird. Nurses learn how to help people describe their pain beside just, "it hurts."
My shoulder feels like it's ripping out of the socket.
The muscles under my arm and down into the elbow feel like they are swollen but they are not.
At times I have electric shocks in the bones. If someone pats my shoulder it sends shocks down my arm for hours.
Then there is the wrist. There isn't anything wrong with my wrist but it feels fractured and it aches all the time.
My hand is full of "cording." RSD makes these strings of knots grow in your hand.
They are very strange. They hurt. Right in the center of my palm it feels pierced.
At times my hand hurts so much I'd rather amputate the whole limb including the shoulder.
That isn't an option it won't help.
 I asked.
With RSD nothing will help, surgery is the worst thing you can do.

The second orthopedic doctor I went to for another opinion told me he fixed a broken finger on a woman who had RSD and didn't tell him. A 30 minute simple surgery turned her hand into a permanent claw.
RSD can deform your limbs and soften your bones.

That was about enough information for me.
I actually don't want to know too much more than that. If you research this stuff for more than 10 minutes a person could go into a full blown panic attack.
I wonder how a young woman with children would survive if she had this.
Paula from American Idol has it.

I usually wake up in the morning with some relief. As long as I lay there and no gravity is on my arm I can just relax and feel easy.  This morning I didn't want to get up at all.
Jen made me.
She dried my hair and fixed me up as much as I would let her which wasn't much.
Then we went shopping for groceries for 2 and 1/2 hours. Picking up one jar of creamer hurt the bones in my arm. So I tried to pick up light things one thing at a time.
It's really difficult to push a cart. The cart feels like it's full already when it's empty.
Makes me want to quit and go home.
When Jen moves out I'm going to send my husband to the store with a list.
We will save a ton of money because he sticks to the list. He's not an impulse buyer.

So that was the day today. If my shoulder calms down after some rest I might try to sew a little.

Team work.

One of my challenges each day is not making my daughter angry. I get her PO'd at me every single day.
I'd like to get up and apply duct tape instead of lipstick.
I'm not accepting this very gracefully.
I cuss. Sometimes I'm mean.
I don't know how she can stand me.
To make it worse she is very very sensitive and so are the kids.
It's true that you hurt the ones you love.
That really doesn't make any sense when I think about it.

I'm going to go lay down and watch TV.
I like to watch crime shows. Catch the bad guys.
I don't watch anything about cooking or homes.
No decorating or gardening. I don't want to look at it----yet.
I like looking at what you do.

I really don't know how to accept my life.
I do know one thing. Because I have taught this to others.
Grief is a valley you must walk through.
You cannot side step it, unless you want to walk around the mountain for 40 years.
I have to walk it.
It's a romantic notion to think you can lose this much gracefully.
I'm walking through it screaming, bitching, crying and sighing.
I do love my family.
My daughter.
and you.

My hope is that someday I will be nice again.
My hope is that I don't ruin the testimony of my faith.
My faith has to be real warts and all.
I have a lot of warts right now.