Slow Progress, But Progess Still ...

My neck feels much better this morning than it did yesterday -- I removed a pillow from my stash so that my neck would be more perpendicular to my body all night.  Obviously, it was the angle at which I normally sleep that it had objected to -- duhhhh!!!!!

It is abundantly clear that I cannot move my neck forward or backward without difficulty, although side movement is not an issue.  Forward movement induces almost immediate dizziness and nausea; backward movement simply causes pain.  The weakness in my shoulder muscles is still such that I can't hold my neck and thus my head upright for any length of time without having tremendous pain.  So I have to sit back and rest my shoulders about every 15 minutes or so.  While the neck brace helps my neck hold my head up, it does little to help my shoulder muscles do their job.

This morning, I iced the back of my neck while I read my newspaper and that gave me some relief, for a while.  Gentle exercise is difficult but necessary so the icing helps with the therapy.  I haven't progressed in my range of motion yet but I'm sure that will come, eventually.

My physiotherapist had also advised me to ice my bruised hip area because of the amount of heat emanating from it.  Ice is a wonderfully relieving way of dealing with lots of injuries -- but cold makes fibromyalgia pain so much worse.  Sometimes the cure is worse than the curse!  Anyway, here's a view of what my bruised hip looks like on Day 5:

You can see by the lovely hues that the bruises are healing nicely -- but oh, the area is sore to the touch!  One can only wonder what the bones in there must look like?

Anyway, I'm taking the week-end "off" and going very slowly.  Yesterday, I did a couple of loads of laundry (thank God for the stair lift!) and that was my limit.  I in fact only put one load away this morning.  The second load still hangs on the line downstairs.  It will be brought up later today, some time.

This morning, John had to forego his Saturday "big breakfast" but he was a real sweetheart about it and he made breakfast for me, because he is a sweetheart! And he even waited until I had read my newspaper before he served it.  Then he helped me empty the dishwasher (a chore that, as an unwritten division of responsibility, we agree is mine) to save me from repeatedly bending forward.

I plan to spend the rest of the day vegging -- gonna watch all those canned TV shows I taped while we were in Halifax.  Have to catch up on my fave series so I can start watching them live as they air.  Lots of viewing to do between now and Monday night!

Then John will take me into Ottawa on Tuesday morning to see my doctor.  An appointment to which we are both very much looking forward.

Did I mention that I hate being chauffeured?  The brake pedal on the passenger side doesn't work!  I really don't know how well my psyche will handle being curtailed if this goes on for too very long.

Let's hope for everyone's sake that I'm up and at 'em again before too much longer.