Stuff about Open Carpal Tunnel Surgery and of course, the fibro...

First, let's cover the surgery thing. I didn't- as I'd mentioned in that video- update anyone after the cast thing came off my hand. So, let's start there... sort of.

If you're on my Facebook, you know how it has been going, because I did not one update, not two updates, not three, or four, not even five (which was the start of the second surgery). I did six, seven, eight, nine  updates on my Facebook. All my posts are public, so you should be able to see them.

My first surgery was amazing. Every single day felt like an improvement and within two weeks, I got most of the feeling back in my fingers. Just the very tips of my index and middle fingers are a bit tingly. But, I can feel things with them- including hot, cold, wet, or dry. My second surgery wasn't quite as fun. The pain after surgery was much, much worse. I spent a lot more time elevating and icing than I had to with the first. Even now, I sometimes have to wear a brace to do things- but the weird thing is that I don't have to wear any kind of brace to sleep with anymore. I've slept with braces on my hands for more than ten years. I was worried I wouldn't be able to fall asleep without them, but I adapted very quickly.

Here's a list of things I wish I knew ahead of my first surgery-

1- if you take a fistful of pills in the morning like I do, get yourself one of those days-of-the-week/month pill holders and set that shit up BEFORE  you go in for surgery. I didn't. Didn't even cross my mind. I take some vitamins (prescribed) and some other blood pressure and edema-related pills every morning. And I take a small amount of pills at night (pain meds, muscle relaxers, fibro med).

2- Get bottles without a childproof cap. My pain meds were in the super-dynamic-engineering type of bottle. I had serious problems getting into my bottles. The spouse- you know him, The Disabled Guy- only has the use of one hand himself, so the two of us trying to wedge a childproof cap off a Vicodin bottle was pretty hilarious... not as hilarious as the two of us one-handed wonders trying to get my giant DDD-cup bra on in the morning. Boy, THAT was an experience in pain and hilarity.

3- Get frozen meals or pre-cook/freeze meals. Not everyone is as lucky as I am to have a disabled spouse who is always home. He handled cooking okay and we had takeout and frozen pizza a lot. (he doesn't like to cook very much).

4- Train all of your pets ahead of time to bring you shit. Not actual shit, that's gross. Like, food and drink. Ice packs. Pain medicine. That remote control you kept dropping behind the sofa because you thought setting it on the pillow next to your swollen hand was a good idea.

5- Chihuahuas make good nurses. At least, in THEIR mind, they do.

Here is a link to a photo of  my left hand with stitches visible, and the right one with stitches and bruising. Here's one of just the scars (at four weeks and six weeks). They're not so bad right now, they look more like a slight discoloration than surgical scars.

Now that's out of the way, let's move on to the fibro thing. I think my Generic-Cymbalta-for-fibro has stopped working. I've been dealing with almost-daily flareup pain for just over a month. I have my semi-annual followup appointment two days from this typing. It started just like last time- I couldn't tell if it was the weather or if I was having issues with the medicine. I even thought that it was related to my hand surgery because that second one sucked a lot more for pain/issues. But it isn't that either. I didn't try to get in at the VA earlier, because I already have this appointment scheduled, so I just let the days drag on till now.

That said, the other day, I picked up some potted flowers at that big orange box store because it'd been SO LONG since I held my beloved Nikon in my hands. And I got a few really nice macro shots of flowers. And now, I share those with you, because what better way to end a blog update full of Facebook links and Mom Jokes? Enjoy!

This is the first batch of photos I have taken since my open carpal tunnel release surgeries. I did do a few snowflake macros in February, but I still had the cast on my arm, so it wasn't much effort to hold the camera. This day, however, I learned just where the pain was internally.

Despite the pain in my hand (which I controlled a bit by wearing a soft Neoprene wrist brace), I loved being outside to take photos again. In the weeks leading up to my surgeries (which were January 22nd and February 5th), I didn't have much chance to do a lot of photos (drab weather, lack of indoor flowers).
















This is the fingertip of my pinky finger. For size reference.

Faire Day! Flare Day.

So, we're just past the fifth weekend of Bristol's season. We have nine weekends total, nineteen days (because Labor Day Monday is our closing day). And, not much has changed since my previous post about the left half of my left foot. I've been plodding along and the worst part of it is that the humidity has been kicking my butt. I've been trying to get to other shows, but I always seem to need to sit down more. And I lose the motivation to slog up that hill to stand up and take photos when I'm already so wonderfully sitting down somewhere else. But, I have four more weekends to motivate my fat ass up that hill.

"What about the title?" I can hear you asking. Well, Sunday morning, I woke up having a flareup. The weird part of it is that I didn't realize I was having a flareup till I was halfway there. I mean, I knew I was in pain, but I didn't realize it was flareup pain right away.

I spent all of Sunday, limp-dragging my left foot around behind me. Sit down, stand up, limp-drag-walk-limp-drag-walk. Okay, so maybe "drag" is a bit of an exaggeration. But I was definitely limping and I was walking much slower than usual. The only thing I can think that caused the flareup was the intense humidity. I wasn't itchy or anything, but goddamn was there pain. All over muscle pain that seemed to radiate from my joints. And from my bones in general. Even parts that didn't have joints. Like my collarbones. And my shins. Well, just- you know- all over pain.

I did survive the Faire Day Flare Day, of course. I mean, I wouldn't be here typing this if I hadn't. Monday (which is yesterday as I type this), around 2 in the afternoon, the pain in my left foot became so intense I had to take off my shoes. The whole bottom of my foot felt like it was swollen and bruised. It felt that way to the touch too, but it didn't look swollen (or have any actual bruising). I tried icing it, but it only worked for those moments when the ice was actually touching my foot. It was a lot better today- I lasted till 4 PM before I had to take my shoes off. (in both instances, by "shoes", I mean "Dr Martens boots"). I felt a lot better on Monday, compared to Sunday. And today, aside from the lingering aches from my "hot spots" (today's are my left hip and my right shoulder), I feel like my usual level of aliveness since the Generic Cymbalta started working. So far, so good.

Even in flareup pain, being a faire is a whole lot better than sitting at home. I've said it many times- I could sit at home and be miserable and in pain, or I can go to faire and be NOT-miserable, but still in pain. The choice between wallowing in my stupid disease or hanging out with beautiful people doing awesome things... c'mon. Faire is a remedy for fibro. Trust me, I've tested that theory.

Since it is only Tuesday, I haven't finished my Week 5 photos from the weekend. But, here's the Flickr link to the 2015 Bristol photos. Check back, because I add the photos on Fridays. I will, however, leave you with a bunch of my 365s from Bristol.

I see what you did there, Fibro...

I've been doing that thing I do where I plan on updating the blog, but then I don't because I forget or I procrastinate till...  I forget.

I had a bit of a flare up on a perfectly wonderful, sunny, gorgeous day. It was 65° Fahrenheit and just lovely. But it was a weak-ass flareup. It was mostly fatigue with a bit of pain. The morning dose of Vicodin took the edge off the pain. The fatigue stuck around and got worse as the day wore on, like a normal bout of flareup fatigue.

And I didn't really know why, so I checked the weather forecast. Well, let me show you a photographic representation. I've been doing the 365 self-portrait project since 2010. I've recently started my sixth year. I'm in a group on Flickr that calls itself: "We're Here". We pick a theme for a day and then we "invade" a group with our photos of that theme. The theme for that day- Sunday, March 22nd, was "Lazy Photography" and the description was: "The great photographers venture out into the world, fearless and tireless. They search for opportunities, and even create opportunities. god bless 'em. But this group is for when you'd rather park yourself on the couch or on the porch and wait for an opportunity to come to you. and if it doesn't come...just take a picture of your foot." 

I'm a literal smartass, so that is exactly what I did- I took a photo of my foot on the swing on my back porch (which is a massive wooden deck, actually).



And, this photo is less than 24 hours later-



Is it any wonder I was having a flareup?!

Yesterday, I was having one of those low-grade flareup feelings. I felt like crap, but I could at least sit down and stand up when I needed to... And I had to go to the store. I managed to live through it, the fatigue kept trying to pull me down to the floor, but I managed to get home.

A few hours later, my son came home from whatever it is he does when he's not home and not at work. He had two of his friends with him and the girl he's dating- I'm not sure if we're calling her his girlfriend yet or not, but you know... Anyway- the kids- and by "kids", I mean "adults in their early 20s" wanted me to take some photos for them. My son rides a sport bike. You and I probably know them better as "crotch rockets", but they don't like it when you call them that. So, of course I said I'd do it and we left the house to do some photos on a newly constructed dead-end street in an industrial area (no traffic). The girl didn't want to be in any of the photos so she and I sort of hung out while the guys did their drive-bys so I could do panning shots and so on. During the course of our conversations, I told her this about my fibro- "I could either sit at home and feel like shit, or I can come out here, take some cool photos of you guys and still feel like shit. So, I'm here." (and I said that's how I survive the faire on flareup days. I can sit at home and feel bad or I can at least be somewhere fun with great people). I spent a couple hours on my feet, walking around this dead end street (it was a weird dead end, the long street gave way to a 90° turn and that part ended about a half mile up. But there were no buildings around it, just an open field on one side, a highway at the end, and a pheasant farm on the other side).

Then there's today. Today, at 4 AM, my body decided to wake me up. Wake me up out of a dead sleep. Because why the fuck not? I stayed in bed till 430, trying to trick myself into falling back to sleep, but it didn't work. Fibrofuckingmyalgia will not listen to reason. And when I tried to move, my body was quite sure that was a bad idea. It took me ten minutes to get out of bed and get downstairs. After I did my morning stuff (breakfast, reading news, catching up on Facebook, trash day, dogs out), I went back to bed to try and take a nap. It was a crappy, less-restful 90 minutes of semi-consciousness. And today is the first of the month, so I had bill-paying errands to do. I struggled for everything today. Showering, getting dressed, going outside, trying to get into the vehicle (mid-size pickup truck), standing at the bank, walking. Breathing. Blergh.

I took my usual morning dose of Vicodin. I did all those things and at 2 PM, I took two more Vicodin. And about 45 minutes later, I felt the edge slide off the pain. I was still in pain, but at least I didn't have to struggle to get up out of my chair. And here's why-

Tomorrow's got rain (a 90-goddamn-percent chance of rain), then we just drop all the warmth and go back to cold temps. For a freakin' day. The earlier weather (that I didn't screen cap) was predicting snow on Friday, so I suppose I should be glad that we're just getting rain tomorrow and cold on Friday.

So, the Generic Cymbalta isn't an all-out miracle, but damn, there are a lot more good days than bad now. I'm going to accept that. Because a little flareup that goes away after a couple of hours is doable. And today's shitty flareup? Well, it sucks, but it also has a clear reason (the weather) and I feel like there's an end to it. Compared to last Spring when I had a "flareup" that lasted for months- I'll take it. But I see what you did there, Fibrofuckingmyalgia... April 1st- haha, sucks to be you, human! BOOM. Flareup on April Fool's Day.

And because I know you're wondering, here are a few shots from yesterday with the guys.




This one is called "Girls on Instagram be like..."











This is yesterday's 365. I had Andrew (kid in red) hold the camera because he was the tallest. My son is in the black helmet behind me with the girl he's been seeing, and Reese is behind them. And I am woefully underdressed for this party.