Hey y'all, 

I'm getting back into crafting, after a long hiatus...it's something I can do even when I'm not feeling great. :) and since I'm a sucker for a contest and/or freebie...AND it's National Craft Month. I figured I'd send y'all over to The Original Scrap Box's facebook page to check it out, since they're having a giveaway in honor of National Craft Month....and to plug for them to up my chances to win :) So, here's their page, go check 'em out. 

http://www.facebook.com/TheOriginalScrapbox

Who would have EVER thought jelly bracelets would come back into style??? D*MN I'm getting old

A quick rundown on what I'm dealing with & some of the symptoms as well as the meds I take to help make life liveable.

• Spinal Cord Injury(SCI) 
• Neuropathic Pain
• Musculo-skeletal pain
• mobility issues
• Neurogenic Bowel 
• Neurogenic Bladder
• skin problems and suceptability to pressure wounds

• Begnin Multi-Nodular Cold Thyroid Nodules
• This caused a major cancer scare, no cancer however constant monitoring is required
• Hypothyroidism
• Silent Reflux/GERD
• Vocal Cord Granulomas
• loss of voice 
• difficulty breathing
• Adrenal Fatigue
• This is a disfunction of the Adrenal gland, it affects every system in the body. 
• Symptoms of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
• exhaustion, exhaustion, exhaustion
• Fibromyalgia
• again, exhaustion
• neuropathic pain
• muscular pain
• sleep deprivation, poor sleep schedule(hence posting between 4 & 6am)
• foggy brain
• Chronic Pancreatitis with unknown source
• I've been hospitalized 3x due to this. My GI dr SUCKS and am in process of seeking out a new one. 

Medications & Supplements I take:

• Topamax
• Zanaflex
• Prevacid
• Cymbalta
• Hydrocodone
• Zyrtec
• Twice Daily multi-vitamin(I'll link the maker later)
• Co-Q10
• Magnesium
• Zinc
• OsCal+D
• EsterC
• Ashwaghanda
• Gotu Kola
• Rhodiola
• Reservatrol
• Bio-Freeze
• Voltaren Gel
• Lidoderm Patches(when I can afford them)

This ever growing list of pills allows me to function. Crazy as it sounds, the supplements make more of a difference most days than the pain medications do. If I don't take the supplements I can't function to get out of bed, much less do anything productive. 

Well, y'all got this far so you must not be bored to tears about me. To say that I'm no stranger to hospitals would be an understatement. I was a fearless accident prone child with a pain-related seizure disorder. Anything that could potentially cause an injury, I wanted to do and found a way to do...And somehow I only got injured doing the "normal" things. 'Ya know, like pulling out a loose tooth as a 4th grader, riding my bicycle up the next door neighbor's driveway after crossing the street to avoid the glass in the one prior. I didn't get hurt doing the crazy things like walking along the edge of the Grand Canyon or throwing myself in the waves of the Pacific Ocean when they threw me back upon the shore completely short of breath...That was just fun, purely fun...I climbed trees, ran races, competed with the boys, nothing ever stopped me...Even when I had a broken collarbone. My seizures made it so that I wasn't supposed to do things that put me in immenint danger, so what did I want to do in sports? Play catcher in softball & goalie in soccer...Yeah, I was just a mite bit of a thrill seeker...and that adrenaline junkie hasn't gone anywhere.

As a younger adult I was stubborn, extremely stubborn when it came to health-care. I had GOOD insurance too. I worked for a MAJOR corporation with really good benefits & had no excuse for NOT going to the dr for anything...I was so stubborn that at one point, my roommate had to force me by dragging me out of the house under false pretenses when I had been vomiting for two days...I came to find out I had a really bad kidney infection & was on the borderline of having to be admitted to the hospital...Yeah, I was quite stubborn....

Fast Forward to November of 2003...I was forced to go to the hospital, not under my own volition. I fell 25' while working. I was doing the 'safe' job that day...I was climbing and 80' ladder to use a radio to communicate with the person doing the dangerous work & the people on a ground crew...Earlier in the day I'd been doing really dangerous stuff moving equipment on the same type of ladders & NOT gotten injured, NOT had trouble, but apparently my history of injuries doing the safe things caught up with me...go figure. As a result, I have a Spinal Cord Injury(SCI). The injury in and of itself could have been a TON worse, for that I am grateful. The complications from it can be a pain in the a**.  This has been a lesson in going to the doctor. a HUGE lesson...The first lesson I had was while I was still in the trauma hospital & they had to convince me that it was OK to take pain medications...I was so argumentative against taking anything, yet I was in so much pain that I couldn't function. period. They were giving me IV Morphine AND oral Morphine, I was constantly in pain & wouldn't ask for meds...I had several family members and medical professionals lecture me about how I couldn't heal if I was in too much pain. I eventually gave in and got some relief...That was the 1st step in my learning that dr's were there to help & you could ASK for things when you needed it. Now, my rehab experience is a chapter unto itself & didn't teach me any of that...it was a nightmare. Another story for another time...maybe...

Anyway, since then, I've been diagnosed with a handful of other Chronic conditions and the complexity of battling the SCI complications with the Chronic illnesses can be a full time job. Sometimes I meet people & they ask what I do & most of the time my answer is that most of my time lately is spent going to dr's...Lately has been the past 3 years, minimum...7max...Somewhere in between there I've lived with the medical profession. I swear at times I'm a walking pharmacy, others a walking PDR. I know so many drugs and drug interactions off the top of my head it's insane...

Hello to those whom may have stumbled upon my newly created blog. I have created this as my place to express what it's like and provide others with a little glimpse into what it's like living chronically. What do I mean by living chronically? Well, I have a myriad of medical issues, none of them "life threatening" however they are chronic in many ways, chronic in that they are always there, I can't escape them, and they will eventually get worse, and also chronic as in I've got chronic pain. It is always there, some days just a dull reminder that it exists & I can't escape it & some days so bad that I can not function. Living chronically is an exercise in exhaustion. The dr's appointments are never ending, the medications cost more than the food I eat in some instances & the continual additional issues coming up with no explanation is downright exhausting.

Although these chronic things exhaust me and wear me down, I still do my best to enjoy my life. I don't let them keep me from doing the things I REALLY want to do. I do, sometimes pay for it later, however. My birthday was last summer(it was a biggie) and I fulfilled a lifelong dream! I got to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. It was the most exhilarating thing I've experienced in a long time. The minute I landed, I wanted to go up again. I am a roller-coaster junkie and love to go to theme parks. These are things that completely exhaust me & I typically require a well planned out excursion w/an overnight stay in a town that's normally a short drive from my home in order to accomplish doing these things. In the past few years my excursions and adventures have dwindled as my chronic conditions have worsened.

In my next few posts I'll go into all the wonderful details of my medical history/issues and how it affects me. 
Thank you for entering my world.

@hosinsider here is my pic
'Chelle

Fiesta

Fiesta