Scattered Thoughts . . .

After my most recent flare up of my spinal injuries over this past weekend, I am now back to my daily physical therapy. The pain is still quite bad and I still have limited mobility but I feel I am well enough to start on limited physical therapy for all of my spinal problems including this latest flare up of my lumbar spine. This is a critical stage... if I do too much, I risk getting worse...  if I do too little, I risk getting worse.  After some light therapy this morning, I am feeling pretty good. The worst of the pain is isolated to my right side... my pelvis, hip, groin, buttocks, etc. I still have some pain on my left side, but the pain on the left side has diminished by a fair amount. This could easily change by lunchtime though. I have to say, however, that getting myself up out of bed this morning... I mean the physical act of moving my legs out of bed and rotating upward... was excruciating and quite difficult. At that point I wasn't sure if I would get anything ac

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 a

I think I can safely say that everyone enjoyed themselves at the Amherst Railway Society Train Show this year. Of everyone in the group, I probably had the most problems and even I enjoyed myself. I've been quietly recovering at home this week.  My week has involved sleeping, showering and cooking meals for myself and dinners for Sheila and Adam.  I'm still not 'myself' but I am slowly recovering. This will be a tougher recovery than usual because I had such serious health issues over our long weekend. We arrived at the hotel Friday evening and we gathered in the bar/lounge of the hotel for dinner and a few drinks. That was a nice little party and I do believe everyone had a lot of fun!   Later in the evening, shortly after going to bed, I had some sudden health issues related to my mast cell disease, Systemic Mastocytosis.  I'm not going to get into the disgusting details, but I will say it was not pleasant and it kept me awake most of the night.  Needles