The Tale of the Left Half of My Left Foot

Last weekend was Opening Weekend of the Bristol Renaissance Faire!

[wait for audience roar]

I KNOW! And it was just as awesome as I knew it would be, despite certain people not being there when they totally usually ARE there.
(yeah, I'm looking at you, Loki or, I guess I'm NOT looking at you right now. Dammit, Loki!)

The weather was hot and humid, so my asthma was SO NOT HAPPY, but that's why I carry an albuterol inhaler in my pouch. I'm not going to die of asthma for the sake of authenticity. Besides, have you see what I wear? I'm definitely NOT authentic. Well, that and the fact I whip out a DSLR at any given second.

Speaking of that DSLR, I chose to wear my cross-body strap on Saturday. I thought that by wearing the camera instead of basket-ing it, I'd take more photos. Well, I didn't. All it did was make BOTH my shoulders tired. See, I usually carry my basket on my right arm and I carry my mug in my left. If I get completely fatigued, I'll carry my basket in my left hand for a while. But mostly, it'll be on my right arm (crooked into my elbow). Well, by having the cross-body strap on, all I did was create drag on my other shoulder, so by mid-afternoon, my shoulders were just killing me. I went back to the basket-ing for Sunday.

Surprisingly, I didn't have any extra pain. My body wasn't in agony (I was a little itchy from the humidity, but no extra pain). And on Sunday, I even forgot to take my Vicodin before the final joust. (Just in case you don't remember or didn't know of this blog, this is what happened 3 years ago when I forgot to take my Vicodin before the final joust). I remembered about ten minutes after the joust ended, so I took it then (because I STILL had to walk up that damn hill). The only pain I was suffering from was in my left foot. That stupid, stupid left foot. Not even the whole left foot, just the left half of the left foot.

I finally figured out a way to describe the pain in the Left Half of My Left Foot. You know when you're sitting down and your foot falls asleep? And then you get up to stand and your leg crumples under you and suddenly your foot is on fire with a thousand white-hot sewing pins and knitting needles burning through your very bones? THAT. That's the feeling I have in the Left Half of My Left Foot almost all of the time. Right now, I'm seated at my desk with my foot resting on top of my man-sandals, so The Top Part of the Left Half of My Left Foot isn't so bad. But the second I slip into my man-sandals, that white-hot agony will be there.

The Monday and Tuesday that followed were normal days, except for the Left Half of My Left Foot. I wasn't in any extra pain like I've been for years after a faire day. Even my human knee didn't hurt. (my shoulders were a bit achy, but that's because of the camera/basket thing I talked about above). In fact, I wasn't in any real Not-Foot-Related pain till Wednesday, but that pain was the tendinitis in my shoulder letting me know that rain was a-comin'. Yes, "a-comin'" because that's how you say it when you have a body part alert you to its arrival.

So, I'm going to mark this up as another success for that Generic Cymbalta for fibro. So far, so good. I'm not going to be excited or overly complimentary. This is good. That's all I'm sayin'.

And now, let's talk about photography OPENING WEEKEND!! And there just so happens to be photos. As usual, ~here is the link~ to the entire album of Opening Weekend photos. And below are a whole bunch of them. Just take a look at whichever you want- the link or scroll down. How can I NOT love the faire? These people are awesome.

OH!! SIDE NOTE- I nagged convinced my son to come along to Bristol finally! He's going to come with me on Sunday!

Now, on to the photos!!

Sir Mauldron, Baron of Blackburn! (FACEBOOK)



Sir Maxmillian, the Jousting Earl of Braden! (FACEBOOK)



Duchess Anastasia of Warwick! (FACEBOOK)



Sir Edgeron of Aquataine! (FACEBOOK)



Don Vincenzo di Scicilia! (FACEBOOK)



Squire Archer!



Squire Freya!







Awwww, yeah... I missed this!



Squire Savvy and Squire Murley!



Dandelion fairy!



By the Sword!







The Royal Falconer (Flight of the Raptor)





On Sunday, Mauldron's horse had a bad hoof, so instead of "on with the show" and causing further harm, he opted not to ride in the joust. Instead, he sat in the stands with the audience, walked around to other areas, talked to kids, and was otherwise genuinely hilarious. This is my favorite shot from that whole thing.



This is Alexx, Sir Maxx's new horse. The Lady of Chivalry is riding him at Bristol while he continues his joust-horse training.

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.