Finally, some Breathing Room

Well, I guess I kind of hit a wall Friday evening.

I just couldn't put one more step in front of another.

My sister and I considered the responsibilities associated with taking on the executrix duties of my cousin's estate and the legal advice we received was to leave it to the beneficiaries of the estate to work out.  Having come to that decision, we notified the appropriate parties and I will have to make a trip to Arnprior to deliver her personal effects to the lawyer's office. So there is nothing pressing for us to do in that regard now, other than whatever assistance the lawyer might need from me with respect to her personal family background, if he needs that at all.   Of course, once everything is sorted out, we hope they contact us about a service if they choose to have one (she was to be cremated and we expect her remains will be disposed of along with those of her partner, who predeceased her two years ago).

By Friday afternoon, the back of my neck had been becoming increasingly sore.

My neck muscles are not strong enough to hold my head up for any length of time, which in turn strains my shoulder muscles.  So if I'm upright, I need the collar to help hold my head up (and that collar is damned uncomfortable).  But I'm still "falling forward" because my neck muscles can't seem to propel my upper body backwards without a lot of pain yet.  I'm working on it.

Yesterday, I spent the day applying heat to my neck, shoulders and mid-back area and ice to my right hip area.

All day long.

When I wasn't battling dizziness.

And nausea.

The nausea comes from forward head movement.

The dizziness comes from forward body movement.

As long as I stayed sitting on my recliner, with my head and neck very well supported, I was fine.

Otherwise, I was dizzy, nauseous, or in pain.

Yesterday was not a fun day.

Yesterday was day 13 since "the incident."  Perhaps I'm a tad overly optimistic but I'm thinking I should be feeling better than I am.

I watched an episode of Law & Order, Special Victims' Unit yesterday (I had a couple of weeks' worth to catch up on).  In this episode, the character Elliott Stabler was pushed, very vigourously, off a rooftop (looked to be about three or four storeys, not clear how high). Anyway, Elliott lands flat on his back, on the pavement below.  He should have been dead!  But this is television after all.  And it is Elliott, after all.  So they find him and take him away on a body board and there he is in hospital, with the requisite neck brace, on the stretcher, the whole nine yards (just like I was).  Next thing you know, Elliott is up and about, in the squad room, even in court -- not even a little collar on his neck, and he's moving like he doesn't have a pain in the world.  By the end of the episode, he was good as new. The timeline was presumably within days of his having been thrown from that rooftop.   Gotta love the realism (lack of medical research?) in these television scripts!  Why wasn't mine written that way?

By 7:30pm last night, I had had the biscuit.

Hence, by 4:00am today, I've had enough sleep.

At least, I've wakened enough times and can't find another position to try for comfort, so I'll try upright for awhile.

I know that I should be taking something for pain. 

One of the reasons I'm feeling the pain more now is because of the reduced Cesamet dosage (and it's going to get worse too, because as of today that level reduces again by another .5mg per day).

It's not a coincidence that my neck pain became more evident and my hip pain returned as the Cesamet dose went down.

And I know that my doctor is going to tell me that I should have taken some Tylenol #3 for the pain and should not have put up with this.

But we are trying to figure out what is happening with my brain and there are so many things going on and we are adjusting this and trying to see if that is the cause of this --- I just don't want to introduce anything else into the mix; not even a pain killer.

My stepson and his new wife (you know, my new step-daughter-in-law who is older than I?) are bringing the fixings to make dinner for us today.  They figured we could both use the break from the craziness that has been going on around here.  It will be a fun afternoon, and John doesn't have to do any driving!

Other than a very pleasant outing to have lunch with my former boss tomorrow, I have no demands on us until my doctor's appointment on Thursday, so I'll lay low for the next several days and just let my body heal.

Thank God for hot pads and ice packs, and TENs machines, and Acupens.