My superpower on bad days...

Bad days, we all have them. Of coarse like with everything else in this world some people have more than others do.On my bad days I have this amazingly awesome superpower! Do you want in on my little secret? Well when I have bad days I just can't help but lay around and convert oxygen into carbon dioxide all day. It is really a tiring task and it takes all day, and by the time the day is over I am amazed at myself for doing that all day with out stopping. It is really a big accomplishment if you think about it. I mean can you think of how many trees I am saving by doing this?!?! It makes me feel like I am superman or someone cool like that! ;)

Okay, I guess that I will get somewhat serious now. Today was a hard day for me.. they are a part of life, I mean what would life be without opposition? Boring that's what!  All I was able to do today was sleep and lay in bed and contemplate life. Okay, that sounded really deep and cool but all I was really contemplating was if I was indeed hungry enough to actually get out of bed and get something to eat. Eventually I had to eat and take meds and what not but on days like this I wait till I feel like I am on the brink of starving to death or till I feel like I have walked across the Sahara desert with out water. Dramatic I know but it gets my point across, and I like to think that someone that is reading this might crack a smile. If you are smiling you probably have felt this way some point in your life and know exactly what I am talking about. 

 So today is one of those days where I am physically and mentally a jelly like substance. Like in the second Harry Potter movie where Harry's arm has all of his bones removed from his arm by Gildaroy Lockhart after the Quiddich game. If you haven't seen the Harry Potter movies and my visual doesn't make sense to you than just imagine jello or something flimsy and that's how I feel. This always happens after I do too much. This was the first week back to school after the two week winter break. Let me tell ya, even though it was only three days those days wore me out. Don't get me wrong my break was way nice and everything, most of the time, I really wish we didn't have such a long time off. It has been extremely hard to bounce back after the break. The weather hasn't helped at all either. I live in Utah and it has been crazy weather lately and that just kills my joints and messes up my BP (blood pressure). 

On top of the P.O.T.S I have been diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, Tendonitis, and Bursitis. All of these things are effected by the weather changing and the temperature. Really hot weather and really cold weather are not my friends. The heat makes me sweat and lose water in my body that I don't have and I dehydrate to easily. Being dehydrated makes me really tired. When it's really cold it makes my tendonitis and bursitis flare up and its really painful. What happens is the tendons and bursae (the little sacs that hold fluid for your joints) become inflamed and when that happens they cause pain in the joint area. At first the docs and I thought that it was arthritis because of the amount of pain I was in, but when I went to see the Rheumatologist he saw that it was to close to the surface of the skin to be arthritis. Anyway, this effects my shoulders, hips, and knees. It is the worst in the hips and because of this reason on bad days, like today, I really can't move that much without being in severe pain.

A couple of months back I had seen a hip specialist at our local orthopedic office here in Utah because of the pain. They had do some x-rays on me but they weren't telling the doc what he wanted to know so he had me do an MRI arthrogram and a steroid injection into my hips. When getting and MRI arthrogram they have to inject a dye in to the area they were looking at. To get the machine to pick up the dye and get a clear picture they have to inject the dye as close to the bone and joint as they can. This means they take this really long hollow needle that has a cathader in it, like the ones they use for epidurals, down to where the femur meets the hip bone. They do inject a numbing medicine into you so it doesn't hurt until the get to the bone, that's what hurts. You are probably wondering how do they see where they are going, well they are taking multiple x-rays at the same time. They then inject the dye and the steroid, they do both at the same time so they don't have to poke you more than necessary. They have to do on hip at a time and this process is about thirty minutes than forty-five in the MRI machine. Its a long processes, and the reason I told you about this is because the steroid stopped the pain for a little while but it has now worn off.

 Now you know how I spend my bad days and what makes them so rough. I am thankful for every day that I am alive even though sometimes I would rather not be. When I have this moment of weakness I always think that someone out there has it a lot worse than I do. That humbles me and makes me thankful for the life I've been given. I guess that is the moral of this post, someone has it worse and they are making it work. I will end today with a quote that applies to everyone. "Don't let  a bad DAY make you feel like you have a BAD LIFE". So my friends I leave you with this and hope that you have many good days coming for you.