Scattered Thoughts . . .

Not a day goes by when I don't turn a certain way or lift something incorrectly or simply breath incorrectly that I am instantly slammed with spinal pain that is enough to trigger my body to involuntarily buckle at the knees.  In those daily instances, I manage to catch myself before hitting the floor.  This morning, I awoke with spinal pain in my lumbar spine.  I got up out of bed and instantly fell to the floor, a heap of red-hot nerves in excruciating pain... wedged between the wall, the nightstand and the little step-stool to help get in and out of our rather tall bed.   I've had a nasty cold...  perhaps the flu, I don't know which nor do I care...  for the past three weeks.  I still have nasty, thick phlegm running down my throat at night so I try to sleep propped up on three pillows to keep me from choking.  This helps me breath, typically, but it is terrible for my spinal injuries.  Anyway, the cold is still lingering, causing p...

The pain from my spinal injuries is pretty damn close to the worst it has ever been in the past 20 years.  Back a few months ago, I was shopping around for wheelchairs because I had a feeling I'd need one for our upcoming extended weekend in Springfield as well as any other event that requires a lot of standing and walking. I quickly came to the conclusion that I might be jumping the gun on this purchase. After all, at this point, the train show was months away and I've always managed until now by taking a lot of breaks... why would I think I would be having more or worsening spinal problems in the coming months?  I was wrong... Getting around is difficult, slow and extremely painful..  sleeping is damn near impossible... my hips feel as though I have a nail driven into each hip... my torso, front and back, feels like it is on fire, inside and out... my spine is red hot inflamed... and the nerves throughout my entire back are tingling... I also get shooting pains do...

Late last night, my spine suddenly was on fire... I had difficulty getting up out of my chair... I had difficulty sleeping... rolling over was excruciating. Today is even worse. The pain has been absolutely brutal.  The pain is a searing, burning pain in the lower half of my spine... radiating to my hips, around my kidneys and through my groin... whenever I try to put any weight on my legs, my legs experience tremors and the pain instantly jumps to a big fat 10 on the 10 point pain scale.  There are times when I almost ended up on the floor because I could not stand on my feet without actually seeing stars due to the intense pain. Reaching out for the couch, the bed, a chair and the kitchen table helped me keep from being a heap on the floor. This has been an exceptionally bad day. Most times, despite my extensive spinal injuries, I get around just fine (with pain, but I get around just fine) but there are times when my spinal injuries are excruciatingly painful. During ...

Sheila and I came back home from the Amherst Railway Society's train show with a cold. I always need some time to recover after any trip because of my spinal injuries and mostly due to my illness... Systemic Mastocytosis. Needing some time to recover is no surprise but having a cold on top of my usual need for recovery only compounds the problem. That being said, compared to my usual recoveries after trips, this cold so far has been rather 'mild' for me. Sheila is feeling well enough to be back at work today but my cold is still lingering... clogged head, runny nose, and painful swollen lymph nodes. Of course, whenever I run down my health since procuring this insidious illness, I experience these symptoms to some extent.... some times worse than others. Since Sheila has this cold at the same time that I'm experiencing these symptoms, I'm assuming that I'm also fighting off this bug in addition to trying to recover after wearing down my health.   My spinal i...