Fun with Tubes . . .

I guess it's time for an update on my shoulder.  My idea about my asthma med was not the answer to my shoulder pain.  I thought the pain might be getting better, and then I got the flu and moved my arm the wrong way and was reminded just how not okay it is . . .

I had an MRI on Wednesday. The results?  Inflammation.

I would like to throw something.

I'm not joking.

Once again, it's just inflammation.  I have a great doctor and we're trying to figure it all out, but I'm getting very, very tired of this ride, that's for sure.  The good news is that, thankfully, I do not have arthritis anywhere.  There is no joint damage in my knee or my shoulder.  I just have inflammation.   I start Physical Therapy (PT) for my shoulder next week.  I sure hope it helps.

I think it would really help if I could get smaller again but I'm struggling mightily in that area at the moment . . .  oh well.  The doctor thinks I'm depressed and I'm starting to think he might be right.  I'm in pain every day and I'm just not handling it very well, I guess.  I'm using old, non-functional coping skills again, i.e., attempting to use food to ease the pain.  It doesn't work and I don't know why I can't seem to stop it.  And I'm not moving enough because it hurts to move.  The proverbial vicious circle.  I'm hoping that PT will help me because I'm going to have to move and it won't matter if it hurts, I'm going to have to move.

There are so many things I like to do and, apparently, I just don't have the energy to do them all any longer (or at least not at this particular juncture).  I don't know if that's going to be permanent.  I don't think so (and I hope it's not), but I feel sad about it all the same.  And I have daily pain and seem to be losing mobility one limb at a time.  I feel sad about this, too.  And I don't know what it is about 2016, but people keep dying - not even making it to 70.  The latest is Patty Duke.  Anyone of a certain age will remember her show.  If you want to skip to 2:18, the theme song starts - this is the version (from 1964) that I remember most vividly:

And I'm alone - I feel sad about that, too.  I know I don't sound like my normal very positive and happy self at the moment, which is why I've not been posting here very consistently.  I'll be better.  Soon, I hope.  So maybe I am depressed - but it's just a rough patch, and I'll pound through it - but at the moment I'm feeling bleak.  And blue.  I do know that I have to move through this on my own, however, because I'm not interested in any of the drugs they give you for depression.  They are not for me.

Onward.

Get this: I realize how horrible this sounds, but I was actually hoping that the MRI would find something physically wrong in my shoulder just so I would have something concrete that I could focus on.  Seriously - I should be jumping for joy that I don't require a surgery.  That I don't have a tumor in my arm.  That it's only inflammation.  But I'm not.  Jumping for joy.  I'm frustrated and confused and I feel like I'd like to smash something.  It didn't help that the technician took one look at me and said, "This is going to be a really tight fit."  After I picked my jaw up off the floor, I said, "Really (?!).  Do you think I'm too fat to fit in the machine?"  She attempted to backpedal, "Oh, no, the tube is just really small."

Right.

Thanks for that.

Even if I was bone thin I would still be wide, but that's really not the point.  Why would you say something like that to someone?  To anyone??  Isn't it enough that I have PTSD from being pinned and trapped in my car in the accident, and now you comment on the size of my body as I'm beginning to freak out about being trapped - on my back like a turtle, with no way to get out - in a fucking tube??  It already feels like a COFFIN and you think it's OK to comment on how fat I am???  I could go on.  But I won't.  I reported it on my evaluation form to the hospital and made a couple of suggestions to them.  They probably won't do anything, but at least I tried.

The really good news is that I made it through the test.  It took me two tries, but I made it.  I was completely unnerved and lightheaded for hours afterward - the poor cabbie I had on the way back to work got an earful, that's for sure.  But I made it through the test.  That's huge for me - and way more huge than the size of my ass and whether or not it was going to fit in that fucking tube.

Ahem . . .

In fun news of the week, I have a house full of company coming today for the weekend, and Linda the Chicken Lady is visiting next weekend. I'm looking forward to both.

And somewhere in the mix I'll be having a Come to Jesus Meeting with myself to figure out what all I need to do to take care of myself.  Because at the end of the day, it's only me.  I don't come home to a support system.  I am responsible for everything in my life.  If something is to get done, I'm the person who is going to have to do it.  On my own.  By myself.  I'm tired of reading self-help books.  I must already know in my heart what to do - the challenge is to find it, and then actually do it.  I can affirm and set intentions until the cows come home, but until I force myself to do the work, nothing is going to happen

I just typed "nothing is going to happy."  How Freudian is that?  ;-)

Still - all in all - I am the strongest woman I know.  No - I'm the strongest human I know.

Some Bollywood cheer is required today, I think.  From Salaam-E-Ishq