Inflammation and Debilitating Pain
This past week has been an unbearable week of inflammation and debilitating pain. Needless to say, getting anything accomplished this week was virtually impossible.
Standing hurt, sitting hurt, laying hurt and sleeping long enough to keep my health stable was very difficult because the pain kept me awake. Understandably, my mood was negatively impacted. My ability to stay focused on anything for longer than a few short minutes was impossible. What an absolutely frustrating and excruciatingly painful week.
My entire spine was so inflamed it seemed like it was swollen and on fire... constantly... steadily... it burned consistently like the sun. Each of the areas of my spine that have been injured during my career hurt so badly that it felt as though I had a large swollen red bump the size of a handball at each point of injury. For those who aren't aware, after two line-of-duty spinal injuries I am left with two herniated disks, four bulging disks, six compressed disks, two areas of spinal stenosis, a broken up vertebra and disk in my neck and osteophytosis. I felt like each of these problems in my spine was painfully swollen, red and irritated. There really wasn't any visible swelling but I felt like my spine was covered in these imaginary handball-sized bumps.
As if my spine being completely inflamed wasn't enough, my organs were inflamed too. My kidneys, liver, gallbladder and spleen were almost as inflamed as my spine. Of course, some of what I felt was organ pain, irritation and inflammation could very well have been due to irritated nerves radiating from my inflamed spine. Regardless, my organs hurt terribly.
Hmmm... I'm just thinking about my health earlier in the week before the inflammation started... This all started with a flare-up of my cutaneous mastocytosis. This involves a raised, irritated rash that gets even more painful and irritated as clothes brush across it. Relatively speaking, when compared to many other patients, my medications have good control over this part of my illness but sometimes I experience enough of a problem that it affects every aspect of my life. Funny that my skin became irritated first this time around though...
Today I'm feeling a bit better so I've been trying to catch up on some menial tasks around the house this morning. Now it is almost 10:30am and I am already ready for a nap. My mind is in overdrive though after doing nothing all week. There are far too many things I want to do... there are many things I need to do... but I must be careful not to push my body and health too far. Time for 'Energy Management 101'. It's not rocket science but it is so easy to screw-up!
Anyway, it's been a quiet, uneventful week here. It is amazing I don't have bedsores.
Here's to a relatively painless weekend... there is always hope...
Standing hurt, sitting hurt, laying hurt and sleeping long enough to keep my health stable was very difficult because the pain kept me awake. Understandably, my mood was negatively impacted. My ability to stay focused on anything for longer than a few short minutes was impossible. What an absolutely frustrating and excruciatingly painful week.
My entire spine was so inflamed it seemed like it was swollen and on fire... constantly... steadily... it burned consistently like the sun. Each of the areas of my spine that have been injured during my career hurt so badly that it felt as though I had a large swollen red bump the size of a handball at each point of injury. For those who aren't aware, after two line-of-duty spinal injuries I am left with two herniated disks, four bulging disks, six compressed disks, two areas of spinal stenosis, a broken up vertebra and disk in my neck and osteophytosis. I felt like each of these problems in my spine was painfully swollen, red and irritated. There really wasn't any visible swelling but I felt like my spine was covered in these imaginary handball-sized bumps.
As if my spine being completely inflamed wasn't enough, my organs were inflamed too. My kidneys, liver, gallbladder and spleen were almost as inflamed as my spine. Of course, some of what I felt was organ pain, irritation and inflammation could very well have been due to irritated nerves radiating from my inflamed spine. Regardless, my organs hurt terribly.
Hmmm... I'm just thinking about my health earlier in the week before the inflammation started... This all started with a flare-up of my cutaneous mastocytosis. This involves a raised, irritated rash that gets even more painful and irritated as clothes brush across it. Relatively speaking, when compared to many other patients, my medications have good control over this part of my illness but sometimes I experience enough of a problem that it affects every aspect of my life. Funny that my skin became irritated first this time around though...
Today I'm feeling a bit better so I've been trying to catch up on some menial tasks around the house this morning. Now it is almost 10:30am and I am already ready for a nap. My mind is in overdrive though after doing nothing all week. There are far too many things I want to do... there are many things I need to do... but I must be careful not to push my body and health too far. Time for 'Energy Management 101'. It's not rocket science but it is so easy to screw-up!
Anyway, it's been a quiet, uneventful week here. It is amazing I don't have bedsores.
Here's to a relatively painless weekend... there is always hope...
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