Lisa,

and super congrats on the negative test results!!

Thanks Jerthie

Hi Jenny,

When my son was 2 we fed and got to pet dolphins at Sea World.  When my son was 16 he went on a cruise with his Dad and they had a dolphin excursion in the ocean at one of the countries they ported at.  I couldn't go on the cruise but the pics of my son with the dolphins were awesome.  My son was so genuinely happy in the pics instead of being the grumpy teenager he often was back then.  I would of loved to Have seen all the dolphins together that  you saw from the boat. 

Congrats on 8 months !!  Your daughter and son get to have a healthier Mom and for more years because you quit smoking.   That fact is important to acknowledge and remember. 

Did you get your spinal shot yet?  I hated getting them in the past.  I could of used way more sedation than they gave me before the procedure .  It didn't feel like they gave me anything each time before  I had a spinal shot.  Maybe they got the real stuff and I just got plain saline in my IV or the dosage was for a pediatric patient.  Also the spinal shots hurt awful when they were doing it.

I am off to try to get more sleep , the sleep gods were not kind to me last night.  I feel the rainy weather everywhere in my bones and muscles.

I have started making diamond art Halloween coasters recently .  They are fun to make and look good.

                  Lisa

Thanks Jenny .  I was so relieved when I FINALLY got the results. 

Lisa,

That’s so cool your son enjoyed swimming with the dolphins so much. I know what you mean about the genuine smile from a teenage boy who is often grumpy, lol.

I get the spinal injection on Monday and am really looking forward to it. I think I have amazing doctors or something. They put me under really good before the injection so I don’t even remember them doing the shot. They put the thing in my nose, tell me they’re injecting me with something in my IV, and the next thing I know I’m waking up in the recovery bed. They are pain specialists, so I guess they’re good at making sure I don’t hurt when they do it? I’m so sorry you’ve had such bad experiences with the injections! Do they do actual sedation with propofol? I think that’s what my doctors use. I’d be checking to see if they’re pocketing it if that’s what they’re supposed to be using and you’re still feeling stuff.

The rainy weather is so awful for so many people. I hope you get some better sleep. I think I’m just going to cut off half my body if this injection doesn’t work. Then I might sleep better. Ok, I’d just like it to be detachable, cause I’d like it back sometimes. Nerves are so weird, though. The doctors say that even if they cut away the nerves that hurts, it would just make the nerves hurt further up. Stupid nerves.

The diamond art sounds so cool. Halloween coasters will be fun to have! I can’t believe Halloween is next month. It’s my wedding anniversary, actually. It was a fun wedding!

Jenny

Hi Jenny ,

Is it too early to ask if the spinal shot helped ?  My last one in my spine was ten years ago .  I did have all of them at a pain clinic .  Maybe since then they have changed their policy to a more humane way.  There was no putting people under or adequate sedation , it was horrifying and hurt awful. They gave you something to "relax" which did nothing.  The pain clinics around here are awful.  I am glad to hear you are in much better hands.  The way you describe it is how it should be done.  

A Halloween wedding sounds fun !! What co!ors did you have ? I bet there was some purple . I was a bridesmaid in a December wedding many years ago .  The red and black theme was so beautiful and even my dress was red on the top part and velvety black on the bottom with long black gloves.  

 I celebrate my divorce every year now even if it is just saying out loud to myself yay me !  Actually it is tomorrow the 15th !  Eight years of divorced bliss. 

I am going thru a gastroparesis  flare right now.  The nausea, difficulty eating, and stomach pain is awful.  I hope it doesn't end up being a long one . 8 to 10 weeks are the long ones.  On a positive note I have not had a long flare for about a year and that is the highest amount of time  I have went without one since being diagnosed in 2005.  Progress.  

I hope you are doing at least a bit better since you dropped off your daughter at college .  But I know it hasn't really been that long so maybe not?

I have one more Halloween coaster of 6 to finish.  Next up are Mandala coasters. 

                            Lisa 

Lisa,

I think the injection is helping a little bit already and I’m really hoping it will help more in the next few days. 5-7 days for full effect, so I guess I’ll know it’s as good as it’ll get when it’s Monday. I’m hesitant to get excited since I’m afraid the relief I have had so far will just up a disappear. Maybe I’m just having a couple better days and they happen to be the exact days after the shot. Haha. I’ll keep hoping things stay a bit better and get a lot better in the next few days.

Did they do your shots at a pain clinic office? My doctors have me go to an outpatient surgery center to do it. I can’t imagine someone poking anything near my spine with me being awake. I move way too much.

We did purple and black for our wedding My dress was purple I’m very non-traditional and absolutely love purple, lol. 

Ha! I love that you celebrate your divorce each year. Happy divorce day tomorrow! 

The gastroparesis sounds horrible. That’s great you had such a long stretch without a flare! I really hope things settle back down quickly for you. 8-10 weeks would be way too long. Ugh. You’ve really been dealing with that for a long time!

I’m doing better than I was the first few days after dropping off my daughter. We’re planing to go visit at the end of next month, so I’m focusing on that to keep myself from crying too much. She’s doing really well so far. Joined the choir and is applying for jobs. She’s going to be so busy. 

Mandala coasters sound cool! I’ve been thinking of getting out my cross stitch and doing just 5-10 stitches a day. It would be super annoying to only do that many at a time, but I can’t stand the thought of not finishing the project after being so close to finishing. I might have to get it out and see how I do. I really, really, really want to finish that thing! 

Jenny

Hi Jenny,  

I love that you had a purple wedding dress.  Purple and black colors for your wedding too !   Did you have different shades of Purple in the color scheme?   I was married on September 22nd 1990 and we had for colors royal blue, different shades of pink, and a bit of white here and there.  It was a lot fun getting married and although it was necessary , getting divorced not so much fun. My cousin that is 12 years younger than me got married in 2005 and she had what I call an anti color June wedding.  Brown , white , and there were green ferns.  I am an into colors person and it was dismal but to each their own.   

I know exactly what you mean by the stage of where is it helping ? Am I just having a better day? Is it not helping or is it hurting because I did X,Y, or Z today.   It is a kind of a mind screw.  

Yes I had my spinal shots done at a pain clinic but they were all set up like an outpatient surgery center with a recovery room too.  They had oxygen, IVs , technology to see where they were going into in the spine , and more.  They were super stingy with meds even for a procedure.  I would scream the whole time they were in my spine but be very careful not to move my body.  

That is good your daughter is doing really well.   How nice you get to visit at the end of October.  Maybe if there is time you and hubby can have a little side trip to celebrate your anniversary or have an out of town date night.  I am glad you are doing better than those first few days.

Yeah, get your cross stitch out and see how it goes .  Test the waters .  

I have been outside on my back porch for about an hour and a half lounging on my loveseat .  I have my puzzle books, regular books , and kindle out here to entertain me.  I am not well enough to do anything physical out here but seriously needed to get out of the house.  Rains are coming tonight and tomorrow.

Dodgers will be playing soon and my favorite pitcher is pitching tonight (Clayton Kershaw).   

Today is day 227 without stuffing a cigarette in my mouth .  I know if I had one puff I would be a full on smoker .  I will not smoke !!!

                                 Lisa 

Hey Lisa, hey everyone. Lisa, I am sorry to hear that you had to go through such pain and discomfort with your shots. I just hope that what needs to be fixed and healed, will be, as soon as it can be. Puzzles and kindle sound good to me! When I went down to 6 lozenges a day earlier this year, I bought a book of word searches, and I found that a nice and relaxing thing to do. I am still sucking away on the lozenges. I am using so much of them these days, I have stopped counting. But I feel okay, and am hopeful that it will all come to an end when it will. I love that there are so many different colours you can get married in outside of white. Very interesting. I was very anxious this morning, as I have been for the past two or three weeks. I don't think it has to do with my wanting to quit the lozenges, as much as it has to do with living in uncertainty about both my love life and work life. After six years of dating my boyfriend on and off, I have to make the very difficult decision on whether I want to stay for good or leave for good, and for this time around, it will have to be for good. I love him so so so so so so much. But we have two very big irreconsilible differences which may never be solved. We are having dinner together on Monday night. At work I love it too but again, it brings up a lot of anxiety in me. I am on four different medications daily just to get by so I don't become overly anxious or worse, delusional and psychotic. My condition is painless physically, but at times debilitating mentally. I pray a lot to help me see through it all. This morning was typical of a mentally challenging day for me. I drove to my church to do my Saturday morning volunteer work, started crying as soon as I got there, got recommended to go back home, did not want to worry my mom about skipping my volunteer duties, so drove to get coffee, went in and did not get coffee, went back to the church, went back to coffee, went back to church then finally went home and lied about skipping my duties. It just, all my anxiety, indecision and uncertainty continued until about 6pm tonight. Then when I was at work I.... Wow guys, I realized only now, wow, that I have just been rambling and complaining for a long time! Thank you everyone for continuing to believe in me!!! Last month I was so anxious, I left my car running for the length of my eight hour shift. Sadly, I know I am not going cold turkey like all of you had done or are doing, but all hope is not lost. And now let me end this long message with three good things. Here goes off the tip! Basketball season is around the corner, Halloween is on its way, and my coworker brought me my favourite bread today to eat for dinner, which I just had, and it was delicious. Night all.

Lisa,

We did a super inexpensive wedding, so we didn’t really do an elaborate color scheme. I had a purple dress, the wedding party all wore black (the men had little vampire capes), and our plastic dinnerware was purple and black. I think. It’s been a long time. Those might’ve been silver, lol. We had the wedding at a Victorian house in the Napa Valley that belonged to a friend of my sister. It was beautiful, but really simple. We did pizza and pumpkin pies from Costco, lol. We did have a couple sheet cakes, too. Had to be a little bit traditional.

Blue, pink and white sounds beautiful! I see so many gorgeous weddings and get a bit envious. That’s funny you call your cousin’s wedding anti-color. It sounds like a fall wedding done in June! 
 

Wow!! That sounds absolutely horrible for your spinal shot experiences.   I can’t even imagine. I look forward to getting mine and I’d be beyond dreading that kind of thing. I don’t know if other places are still stingy on the sedation meds, but I’m thankful mine have been good to me.

I do think this injection has helped. I could do with it helping twice or three times as much, but bringing it down at all from how bad it had gotten is huge. I wish they could do the shot 3 times in a row. I actually went to a concert Saturday night and saw Jewel perform! We had chairs to sit in and it was nice, but I wasn’t super uncomfortable and I for sure could tell my pain had improved.

My daughter doesn’t think she’ll have much time to visit us when we go to see her, even though the school says they arranged things so she will. I guess it’s close to midterms, so she feels like she’ll be needing to study. No classes, but the tug to study will be there. Still, maybe we’ll have time for a date night out of town if she decides to ignore us one evening. Silver lining. I got a phone call with her yesterday, so I’m pretty happy!! I think I’ve done better than I expected these past 2 weeks. Looking forward to seeing her in a month helps. Then we’ll see her home for a month in December!

It sounds like you have a good spot on your back porch. Getting outside is so nice. We don’t have any kind of covered area out back and our front yard has nowhere to sit, so I don’t lounge outside at all. I go out to the greenhouse sometimes to check on the plants, but that isn’t for very long. It isn’t that big a greenhouse, lol. I just got a mint plant and need to get it put in a pot. I’m planning to do that anti-inflammatory diet again at some point this winter and some of the smoothies call for mint. I figure having a plant is cheaper than buying it from the market.

I really need to find out the name of the Dodger player my step family is related to. Not that I could put his name out here since that would be too personal, but maybe I could private message it to you. I’m relatively sure he isn’t a pitcher, though. Haha. Dodgers were my favorite team when I was young. I haven’t watched baseball since I was a kid, though. I guess I only watched it because my dad watched it.

You’ve got your days figured out for how many without smoking! Nice!! I look at the date and keep in mind about how many more until the 4th of next month.

The concert we went to was at a casino and there were people smoking, of course. My first thought was that I wanted one, but then I reminded myself I didn’t. Among other reasons, I don’t want one because I’d just want another and be a smoker again and guess what? I don’t smoke anymore!!

Jenny