This Perfectly Imperfect Life

Who, exactly, thought it was a good idea to drink a bottle of radio-active crap to begin with?! Seriously! Who the hell thinks that's a good idea?! With all the advances in medical technology, why in God's name do people still have to do this?! Thankfully, I don't have to since my bloodwork came back good! Otherwise, tomorrow @ 12:45pm, I'd have to somehow get down a "thick" berry flavored barium for cat scans (w/contrast) of my pelvis (gall baldder) and abdomen (appendix) w/a friggin iv of iodine running through me! Just the thought of it this morning made me so queasy I could only drink a cup of tea for breakfast! I haven't been on here much as of late, so I'll fill in about what lead up to this soon!

Yesterday I did end up taking a walk to buy flowers yesterday afterall. The walk there was windy with rumbles of thunder coming from the dark grey clouds. I asked Brianna which flowers she wanted me to pick and felt drawn to the ones I picked. The walk home was still and disgustingly humid! I talked with her along the way about the flowers and where to put them. Once home, I put my treasures on the patio table and changed into a tank top and shorts. I lit both of my Blessed Mother Mary candles, placing one on the mantle and one on the patio table. Afraid it was going to pour at any moment, I set to placing the flat of magenta Petunia's and 1/2 flat of pale lilac colored Petunia's into their new homes. I took some pics which I'll post soon. Honestly, I did a bit too much physically, given the humidity and just having had an i.v. treatment 2 days before, but I kept plugging away, chest pains & all until I was finished! Then I sat for a long while. When the rain finally ca...

I had my 4th I.V. treatment at home on Tuesday. It left me very tired and wheezy, but ok. Yesterday, because I woke feeeling fine, I did a little too much off the bat and found myself having 2 big dizzy spells & back to being as exhausted as I was the previous evening! I knew I should rest, but I didn't want to go back inside, so I sat in the sun in one of the adirondack chairs you've seen many times in my photo slideshows here. For as long as I've had them where they are now, I've never sat in either of them! (Since last summer when the relandscaping was done?!) It was very windy which made sitting in the sun so comfortable and relaxing! (Gorgeous weather but the wind blew pollen around like crazy so everything was glowing with a greenish coating of it by dinner! I had so many sneezing fits!) Initially, I wrote in my journal for awhile, about some things I did outside, a few things I'd like to do out back to make things look better and seeing the 1st butterfly ...

i can't believe it's after 3pm already. i've done nothing today. nothing. i feel like crap. i'm tired. i haven't had a restful night's sleep in a while cause we desperately need a new mattress. it's so uncomfortable & painful. we flipped & rotated it last night, can't tell if it's helping yet. i've got HUGE, painful pimples on my face (mainly on my chin) that aren't going away. no matter how much i scrub and put stuff on them. i've got a headache & my head's all congested. i'm hungry lately ALL THE TIME! today i'm also on the verge of tears for some unknown reason. i'm a writer. i'm supposed to be a writer and i can't write. i don't write. i don't know what's wrong with me sometimes.

well friends, i've been blessed with the gift of time again since my social security disability has been approved! since i really don't know how to NOT worry about everything & anything, it's going to be a while before i unwind! i'm hoping this will help with my overall physical health too. in the mean time, i'm going to concentrate on my writing and finishing my online courses. i woke with a cold coming on today & i'm so very tired, but, things are actually going to be ok now! i'm so very thankful! you have no idea!

i started taking calcium with vitamin d(3) sometime last year, either late summer or fall. almost immediately i noticed a drastic change in my pain & swelling levels, overall. i’d only been taking it about a week! the only thing i was doing differently at that time was that i’d started taking the supplement! (my obgyn had been bugging me to start calcium supplements, blah, blah, blah...!) i did a bit of hunting around out in cyber space and found that vitamin d deficency has been linked to all kinds of things like depression, autoimmune diseases like lupus, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia and others! i was surprised to learn this as i’ve had a "compromised" immune system for about 15 years or so (that’s when i started getting sick at least) and not 1 doctor i’ve ever been to ever mentioned that 1 of the possible causes could be vitamin deficency! but, it made sense to me! more recently, i read an article in the january/february edition of mother earth news ma...

That makes 14 total so far! Yippie!

that i'm wearing sweat pants and i don't look huge! i've lost 11 lbs as of my dr's appt on monday & i changed what i eat & how much i eat throughout my day in january ~ only 59lbs more to go to lose the total of 70 lbs i've gained since getting hurt @ work in 2004! speaking of my dr's appt on monday, my obgyn says everything's fine ~ no fibroid tumor and no miscarriage. the double periods are from the birth control pill i'm on. (i sure don't remember him telling me that when he prescribed it 3 years ago!!!) i have an appt with my rheumatoidologist next wednesday & my next iv treatment on friday, 3/14.

Thats my girl! Recently, Barbara from WritingTime.net called Booper gorgeous on her site after I posted the link to a pic of her on here! And that she is! I adore her in a different way than the other kitties! Today I find out if what I have been going through is an abnormal period or a miscarriage. I have an appt with my OBGYN this afternoon. My PCP thinks I way have a uterine fibroid but I doubt it since I have none of the symptoms! Regardless, I am getting butterflies in my stomach and my heart is racing a bit! I am not only worried about possibly miscarrying, but also that maybe my new iv med is not working they way it should on me. Ok, worried is an understatement! I am scared!

well, i've added another 'slideshow' over to the right of here with pics from this past weekend ~ it snowed! finally! about 8 inches but it didn't last very long since it changed to rain late friday night. i also added the rest of the valentines photo's to the other slideshow which includes a photo of a hardcover book called "boone" and a packaged birdsong indentiflyer (a hand-held gadget that identifies birds not only by name/picture, but also their calls & songs) ~ these were our valentines gifts to one another! i got hubby the book "boone" by robert morgan and he got me the birdsong identiflyer cause i'm always trying to figure out what the birds are out in the back yard!!! (i know, sounds odd but it works for us!) he also got me a dozen roses and a card that brought me to tears! as you can see, i've uploaded a video! i've tried to do this before, but this is the first time it's worked!!! i've got some things to take ca...

this is me, in our living room, facing a large mirror hanging over the couch. not the most flattering picture i've ever taken of myself, but when you're trying to take it 1 handed and that hand is shakey, this is what you get! the angle's not so good - i'm not really that wide ~ i think! (i know i've lost weight recently ~ i need to wear a belt with all of my jeans now!) today's treatment went ok ~ only a little itchy & slightly headachey this time around! my left hand (the one with the needle in it) doesn't feel too good this time around! 1st treatment, i had no pain in this hand with the needle going in, during the treatment or after it was out. i didn't swell or bruise either. this time, it hurt like hell going in, hurt most of the time through the treatment, hurt coming out & i bled a lot! and my hand hurts now! robert (my nurse) said "we're going to have to go elsewhere with the iv next time - this hand's done!" which means...

My pretty little Primroses! Got this little pot of flowers wk before last at ShopRite. The flowers started out a bright pink, then came out in the lighter more pale purple pink you see here. If you look at the tiny flower opening to the right, you can see that the next flowers coming in will be off white! This is on my dresser. Wow. I am in a lot of pain tonight! All over, not just in 1 area of my body. Horrible! Horrible! Horrible! Hope I can sleep some of this off! Until tomorrow!

Friday, February 01, 2008 12:50:10 PM on wednesday (1/30/08), i had my first at home remicade iv treatment. as explained to me by my nurse robert, it's a biological med that hopefully at first confuses my t cells and b cells so that they'll stop attacking my immune system and then in the long run re-trains them to attack the things they are supposed to (viruses ~ bacterial and virual). i was very nervous about starting this med for a few reasons. first off, when i got the delivery of supplies - "lab in a box" - i freaked out a bit! ok, it scared the hell out of me! as my nurse robert said "don't let all of this scare you! you probably thought 'what the hell am i getting myself into?!'" but, it did. i put off my first treatment from 1/9 to 1/30! (told him i had a sinus infection and then the next day i got whammied by a nasty sinus infection!!!) second of all, i thought this would supress my immune system completely and ...

Not sure if this video will actually post or not, but this is what I sent Hubby this afternoon during my 1st Remicade treatment. I'll get into it more tomorrow - still a bit loopy from the meds!

I cannot take this sinus infection with its waves of face and head pain, nausea, fever, eye pain, fatigue and absolute misery! I have been like this nearly a week and there does not seem to be an end in sight! Ironically, the day before this set in, I was watching a repeat of Dr.Oz on Oprah and they were talking about and demonstrating the Neti Pot (to rinse out your sinuses) and I thought to myself that I should try it some time. Last night, Hubby and I stopped at Whole Foods and picked one up. I used it once last night and once today - not much difference as of yet, but we shall see! (didn't realize that knife was on the counter when i took the pic! how funny given the title of this post!!!)