What a day, 397 miles traveled, 2 appointments

So yesterday I had two appointments one was in Silver Spring, MD and the other in Bethlehem, PA.

I left my house before 6 am and did not make my appointment in Silver Spring due to horrible traffic on the Beltway. I got there 45 minutes late which they worked me into the schedule since I called and told them I was having issues.  I am extremely lucky to have doctors that are so understanding.

So besides being extremely frustrated from traffic, being that I already have all of these crazy problems... it just adds to my severe pain. The surgeon was pleased with my EMG results from last week, because the function of muscles and nerves in my left leg are normal. What is not normal however are the sensory nerves that are in my groin area, where I always have pain. So we discussed what options were out there for a long-term solution to getting myself out of this pain. That lead us to where the doctor was expecting to go which is a nerve decompression.

Of course it is not normal to want to have to get cut open again, but in this case I want to be out of pain so bad that I will take making it worse to get better. That is what happened with my surgery in September so I have a good outlook on this even though it is an extra stress to my life right now in the busiest part of my work year. I have scheduled the surgery for April 9th and will have a long recovery. The good news is that the doctor does want me exercising, I can continue walking on the treadmill and I am to add swimming two times a week as well. He wants me to strengthen my body as much as I can, even though I am not allowed to lift or do anything too strenuous.

I was warned in advance that the surgery will be invasive and it will be painful, I am to expect a lot of pain after and  that my physical therapy after will also be difficult.

Then I had the drive to Bethlehem, which was long and miserable. I had the worst case of road rage ever as I was worried I would be late to my appointment, I made it just in time which was good. In the mean time I had an issue with work and I had to find a Starbucks to get the internet. I was just stressed in every way possible.

At my second appointment of the day, I talked with the doctor and we altered some of my medications to try and help in the mean time, which makes me feel kind of foggy today (it probably doesn't help much that I did not sleep well and then hit the gym at 5 am).  The doctor feels that he thinks that having this surgery will help calm everything else down as it is so painful right now. So I will continue getting treatments as well in the mean time.

I then talked with my doctor on how hard this is to try and talk to people about, because I just don't feel that people fully understand how miserable this feeling really is. He said that is extremely common from his patients and that it is something hard to explain and for people to understand. He once again told me however that this is something that is more common that we think when it comes to the IC and the issues within the pelvic floor (I have other issues going on as well, see the surgery remarks above).

I wish it was easier to talk about and for people to truly understand the pain that this causes. This will be my 3rd surgery in a year's time.

Right now I need to focus on everything else I have going on and in the mean time just try and make sure I am taking care of myself.

I haven't written in a while

I tell you what sometimes life just gets the best of you. I have been so busy lately, with work and going to the doctors that I don't feel like I am ever home. My bedroom shows this as it is a disaster!

Anyhow I am still in the rat race of trying to get better although it just seems to keep circling around. I started working out this week, I did 30 minutes on the treadmill... so that is something. I don't know what the future seems to hold for my body, although I am hoping for better results in 2013 than I have had the past two years.

I am still on all of the medication, part of me wonders if stopping it to see what it would do would be a bad idea or a good one. I would level on the side of bad from the one time I forgot to take it.

All I want is to feel normal again and feel like I can actually do things like a normal person. This is something that I really have yet to feel I have experienced. My weight is higher than it has been in a long time, not being able to have physical activity really messed with that especially over the holidays.

Part of me is thinking going back to PT a few times a month may not be a bad idea, I just don't know where I have the time to do it right now.

I feel like my outlook on what my future may look like has changed drastically over the past year in many ways I do not know if I will ever see it differently at all.

Right now my biggest hope is that I get a good chunk of money back from my taxes so that I can put it towards my medical bills. I just can't get ahead, my guess is over the summer I am going to have to take a second job to be able to pay my bills. Hopefully by then my body can handle it.

I got an EMG the other day, that hurt like crazy. I go in to see my doctor again Wednesday and we will find out what the next step is.

Life is just exhausting!

Trying to do a little good

Most of my life I have struggled with my weight. Everyone always comes up with New Years Resolutions to lose weight, work out more, etc.

My biggest goal for this year is to feel better about myself, which is really hard when you really feel miserable all of the time. Now on the good news front I got my doctor to agree to let me use a treadmill to workout right now, as compared to walking in the pool, so that will add up to some calories burned. I need to get back to feeling as good about my body as I can and I think it will help my overall well-being.

So I was thinking to myself that maybe I can try to motivate my younger sister, now I have done this in the past but with little to no success. She will be entering her last year of college come next fall and will then be interviewing for jobs. Well the good news is that she finally wants to take the step to feel better about herself, which is what I have gotten through our conversations.

Due to this I have issued her a challenge, if she can get to 200 lbs by the end of year, this will mean she will be losing a good amount of weight to do so, that I will purchase her a material gift of fairly substantial value. I told her I would go along the lines of a Michael Kors watch so she has something nice when she goes out into the working world.

The good news is that she has accepted this challenge, now we are only in day two, but I told her she has to check in monthly with progress reports. I really hope that she makes this change and makes it for good, because I know how much better it will make her feel and I know this because at one time I was her, but it took me a lot longer to do something about it.

Anyhow time to finish up Friday, it is officially one week to my big event next week. I had a doctors appointment Wednesday, I looked at my belly last night I have some bruising from the injections... go figure. Which just makes the pain a little worse.