Entries by Christy Bell

Those who know me from long ago remember one me, who used to be able to laugh and joke a lot. "Bouncy" was one word used a lot. "Cute" was another, though some who used it made it sound more like a curse than a compliment. 

Those who met me after the fibromyalgia really started getting bad knew a quieter, moodier me, prone to "wearing my shoulders as earrings" as I'd hunch from the constant pain, etc.  It got so bad that physically I became a virtual hermit, only really getting out of the house for the chiropractor, the grocery store and such.  My 2005 Celica is not yet at the 5000 mile mark for mileage, if that gives you any ideas of how bad it had gotten!  (Meanwhile, I've put wayyyyy more "miles" on my keyboard than most folks do, during that time, escaping to the distractions of online worlds as a form of pain-blocking.)

 Starting the Savella helped in the fall, but once I settled into a new baseline for the pain, and winter, such as it is, hit here, it was almost back to the same-old same-old. I'll candidly admit, after the fact, that I was getting close to being clinically depressed, due to so many years of constant, never-ending pain.

 I'm still in pain. There has been no miracle cure.  There is, however, a new me.

 Sort of.

More like the old me, starting to return after over a decade of hibernation. The process will be a slow one, but the first steps were very noticeable.

I started up gentle Hatha yoga 3 times a week, starting at the beginning of June. Last week, I went mall-crawling for the first time all year, then went back and got a body wave (perm) the next day. Next week, I get a professional hair coloring done, to more properly cover up the grey.

And I'm doing it all with a huge smile on my face.  I'm reclaiming the old me one gentle stretch at a time.

The next several weeks are going to be busy, with EQ2's Tinkerfest, the SOE Block Party, the SOE Fan Faire in Vegas, etc., but please, folks, help nudge me about mid-August if I've not started up a blog series. There are many out there with whom I want to share several fibro-related notes that I learned the hard way regarding massage, chiropractic, yoga, and even some food sensitivities that may help my fibrofriends out.  Old me or new me, I'm still prone to procrastinating and getting side-tracked, and if I'm getting enough nudges, I may get enough "oomph" to get them written for you!

Into every life, some quakes must fall ... at least for those of us living in Southern California!  We're actually due for a lot of quakes in the coming year, apparently because of the bigger one back in April.

How many of us know what to do during a big earthquake, though?  I'll be the first to admit that I was clueless until someone posted the following link a few months back, so I'd like to share the knowledge around as things start rattling a bit more around here.  This comes from the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA): What to Do During an Earthquake  For those of you living in the SoCal area, the following site can also be a handy one to have bookmarked: California/Nevada Region Earthquakes

Do you know how hard it is to stay in a "blah" mood, when you've got a tiny hummingbird perching on your finger?  For me, the answer is "impossible".

I may be fighting a losing battle with the flu, and feeling the worst, physically, that I have since starting on the Savella (bad enough that I canceled my chiropractor's appointment today, as I didn't feel up to driving, nor did I want to give them whatever it is that I have).  I may want to just crawl under the covers and sleep for a week or two. I may even feel bad enough to go to bed right after dinner, instead of my normal midnight-ish.

I just can't be too grumbly about how I feel, though, due to thumb-sized little bundles of jewel-bright feathers.

It has been cool enough now, that the hummingbird population in the area is lessened. Many of the birds have headed down to Mexico for a couple months of warmer weather, and after the temperatures on waking up a couple different m*rnings, no matter how warm it got later in the day, I can't say as I blame them! 

"Lessened" however, is a relative term, and there were a dozen birds visible, and more that were audible, when I shambled out to refill the feeders just now. Although it means extra walking, when they're in that sort of a feeding frenzy, I bring the feeders in one-by-one, placing a filled one out before grabbing another of the three feeders to refill. It is a bit more reassuring to the territorial little flitterbidgets when all of the feeders don't disappear at once.

When I brought the third feeder back out, some of the little birds did not fly away as I approached, but perched at the other two feeders an arm's-length away, pigging out. This made it the perfect time to play human statue and see if I could get one to land on my finger.

The answer was a resounding yes, within about 15 seconds of me placing my finger in front of a feeding port on the nearest feeder. It wasn't that the other ports were all busy (they weren't), or that they'd been totally out of food and starving (one of the feeders still had nectar in it that I dumped out and replaced when I refilled the feeders), it was simply that he wanted to be at that specific spot.

He was glorious. A lovely metallic green back and wings, a cap and throat that looked black from some angles, and an absolutely gorgeous metallic fuschia from other angles. Bold as can be, perched on my finger while chugging away at the nectar.

He was soon replaced by a dainty little green female, then another male with the patchier neck plumage of a young adult.

I likely could have had more land, had my body been able to cope with standing statue-still for much longer, but even those brief little visitations were enough to brighten my mood.

As "winter" approaches here in Southern California, we're still in a rather nasty drought. Mandatory water conservation is in effect here in Vista, which mostly involves what you can and cannot do with your yard and such.  However, water conservation shouldn't end there for anyone living in a highly populated area, as more and more cities struggle simply for suitable drinking water for everyone, much less irrigation water.

 I'd like to share one of my preferred ways to help, since it allows me to keep alive the much-loved family rose, even with reduced sprinkling throughout the week. It also capitalizes on the fact that I have hummingbird feeders to keep clean, if I don't want hummingbirds killed off by nasty bacteria.

 Rinse water.

Such a simple little thing, but something most of us take for granted.  I now keep a large metal bowl in one kitchen sink, and rinse my hands, various dishes, etc into the bowl. As it fills, I dump the water from it into an easily-filled wide-mouthed pitcher, then dump the water onto the most needy of my outdoor plants and shrubs.  Given how frequently I have to clean and refill hummingbird feeders during the week, this is saving many gallons of water a week.

The other one that I do is more "work", but I try to be good about it. I keep another wide-mouthed pitcher (the wide-mouth makes it easier for filling, and easier means I am more likely to be good about doing it) in the shower.  When I am waiting for the shower water to suitably warm up, I fill the pitcher with the running water. Dumping this out on the plants gets the water back into environment without it having to go through the costly and time-consuming sewage treatment plants, etc.  Yes, it takes extra effort on my part, lugging it from the upstairs master bathroom to the outdoors, but, again, it can be a savings of several gallons of water a week, which makes it worth it in my book!

For those wanting more water-saving tips, sites such as bewaterwise.com are fabulous resources for helpful hints and tricks. (It also gives you a visual of how badly off we are for water as the years of droughts continue in the area.)

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For those wondering how I am doing on the health front, the results from the Savella are still good.  Yep, I'm still in pain. Yep, I still have flareups. In both cases, however, they are definitely lessened, which makes them more bearable. I may be able to do a bit more gentle exercise and the like, which should also help in the long run.

As an example of how much it helped, my father-in-law was just here visiting for a week, and in the space of 4 days, we went to both the San Diego Wild Animal Park and Birch Aquarium. That may not seem like a lot on the sightseeing side of things, but it is more than I had been able to pull off in a few years without ending up flat on my back afterwards for a day.  Yayy for progress!

... the hummingbirds are still lively at the feeders, and the family rose is still blooming up a storm.  What a lovely day!

I have now been on Savella for 2-1/2 weeks, and I've gone from "cautiously optimistic" to downright "happy". My mood is definitely better than it has been for months, and the pain, while still there, is lower than it has been since spring. There is still plenty of room for improvement, mind you, especially on the pain front, but every little bit helps when you're dealing with a chronic illness that saps your energy and mood as badly as fibromyalgia does.

The blood pressure worries seem too be a non-issue, as my blood pressure is back in the normal range at long last. (This sort of helps prove that a chunk of my blood pressure issues are from the constant fibro pain.)  126/87 is the best I've seen for a while on the blood pressure front, and if I can keep it down, perhaps I can reduce the amount of blood pressure medication that I'm on.

 The difference in mood and energy is very visible.

I regularly hit up the Alberston's deli for roast beast and meunster cheese. Often, I shamble through the store - eyes a bit glazed, possibly limping a tad if my hip is acting up, and so forth. Today, I practically bounced up to the counter, and was pleased to see one of the "regular" deli staff waiting to serve me. Somewhere in the depths of my often-fuzzy memory, I seemed to remember that his wife also suffers from fibro, and I was eager to share the recommendation. Sure enough, she suffers from lyme disease and fibro, so I suggested that she look into Savella.  He commented on how much better I seemed, compared to my usual, and was not only glad to get the medication name, but also my doctor's name. (They're new enough to the area that she hasn't settled in with a good doctor for the fibro, and I'm pretty pleased with Dr. Shali.)

Time will tell if this will continue to help, but after this many years of coping, it is so very nice to have hope once again.  I'm calling my doctor right now to update her and ask for her to prescribe this for me for the long run!

For those who have been following me on facebook for a while, you may already know some of this. For those who are just catching up with me now, as I slowly get the blog reformatted and resurrected, here's a bit of a recap.

 I've been trying since mid-June to get a prescription for Savella, which became the third drug approved by the U.S. FDA for the treatment of fibromyalgia. 

This year has been the worst year yet on the pain front, and I'm starting to have to really struggle to avoid slipping into depression.  I know I have a lot of things to be grateful for, and that I'm in far better shape on some fronts than many who suffer from fibro (including many friends and relatives), but as my pain levels continue to peak without respite, and my energy levels and motivation hit what seem to be all-time lows, it is getting harder and harder to keep my moods on anything remotely resembling an even keel.

Naturally, the added weepiness and moodiness gets me irked at myself, as I remind myself that I am one of the "lucky" ones among the fibro community (no need for a fulltime job, no kids to care for, etc). Getting irked at myself, of course, triggers more moodiness, and ... you get the picture.

Anyway, I've been stubborn for years about taking as few meds as possible and "just dealing with the pain". That went right out the window this year, however, and I'm now taking darvocet daily, just to get through the day (and to get more than 4 hours of pain-filled restless sleep a night!)  I need to at least try something to dig me out of this accelerating downward spiral. Even if it doesn't work anywhere near as well as hoped, or if I find I can't tolerate it (like my eldest sister, Annette), I will feel like I've made some progress in trying to get this illness back under control.  (Attitude makes a huge difference when coping with chronic pain!)

So, I contacted my doctor's office for a consultation in mid-June, and finally got in to see her in mid-July.  I was better-informed about Savella than she was, since it had only been on the market for a couple months. I mentioned that, other than a slight chance to raise blood pressure, it was looking far more promising than the other 2 medications that had been approved.

Oops.

You see, my blood pressure is a tad high. Constant pain can elevate it. Mood can elevate it. When you get pain and mood in a nasty spiral, well, even on blood pressure meds, things get a bit high. So, she decided I needed to take a second dose of my bp meds each day for a month, while she went and did more research on Savella.

Back I went to her office in August, after one rescheduling on the doctor's end, hot on the heels of losing Nutmeg.  Yeah, not a happy blood pressure time.

My bp was even higher than it had been the month before, even with doubling the dosage of my bp meds. Naturally, she was a bit unhappy about this, and said that, while she really liked what her research had turned up on Savella, she didn't want to start me on anything new until my blood pressure was under control.  She started me on a new bp medicine (while continuing to double-dose on the old one) and scheduled another followup for September. She'd also wanted me on a diuretic, but the one she wanted to prescribe had sulfa in it, which is a no-go for me.

September has been a tad busy for me with lots and lots of EQ2 upcoming content to test and write about for my site.  Busy, busy, busy, with my brain trying to leak out my ears due to the sheer volume of it all. Not the best time to try to cut down on my stress so my blood pressure is sane, but I was managing ok.

One hour before my recheck appointment today, the dr's office called and rescheduled ... for the same day next week when the content in EQ2 that has been making me so busy is due to be published to the game servers, and I'm due to be running about in-game verifying last-minute changes and updating the site.

Oh yeah, my blood pressure will be nice and low then.  {sarcasm}

What's next?  Another delay until October while she tries me on some different blood pressure med?  November?

The pain is getting worse as the months pass, which, I suspect, is counterbalancing any good that the bp meds may be doing for me.  I can't see much hope of that changing at this rate.

Meh.

It wasn't a quiet passing, as such things go, but Nutmeg ("Meggie") had never been what one would consider a quiet cat. The only time she was really quiet, was when she was sleeping, and she most definitely did not want to go into that long, endless sleep, regardless of how ready her body was for it.

 I got Nutmeg as a kitten 18 years ago, while living in Syracuse, and she was always a bit off-center. Mostly black, with flecks and patches of orange and cream, she reminded me of a bowl of spices that had been only partially mixed together -- including a long dollop of cream running lopsidedly down her nose. She wasn't what one would consider a beautiful cat, but rather one full of lively personality.

 She was also extremely "mouthy", and was pretty impartial about sharing her opinion with anyone and everyone, often at maximum volume. I used to joke that she averaged about 45 ypm (yowls per minute) whenever I had to drive her to the vet, and the vet's office could always tell which cat I was bringing in for a visit, by the noise (or lack thereof, in Natasha's case) coming from the carrier as soon as I walked in the door.

During the last several months, I suspect she was actually going hard of hearing, on top of everything else. The poor old gal would sometimes "shout" at us, throwing her entire body into her chatter, as if, because she couldn't hear it properly, we wouldn't either, unless she yelled.

As usually happens with any pet that has been a part of your life for any length of time, she wasn't just a pet, she was "family".

This is something I rarely took for granted once I was "retired" and not getting out of the house much anymore. Having pets to care for meant that, regardless of how horrid I felt on waking up, I actually got up and got moving while it was still "morning" out. If my conscience didn't get me out of bed on the worst mornings, then there was generally a cat in my face (or bouncing on my bladder, or licking my fingers, etc.) telling me it was time to get up, feed them, and attempt to become human.  When the pain or exhaustion was bad enough, and I felt like napping, there was generally a cat napping with me ... just to make sure nothing other than them was going to disturb my sleep.  (I swear, Meggie was watching pro wrestling with my hubby, Adam, on the sly, and then practicing various wrestling pins on me when I tried to nap, some days.)  There were antics to make me laugh when I was feeling down, feline demands that got me up and moving, instead of sitting in my computer chair for too many hours on end.

Of course, there was also a lot of noise, especially with Meggie. While I can be pretty noise-sensitive at times, her "talk", and my habit of talking back to her had some unexpected benefits for me, and actually helped my headaches.  Yep, you read that right.  Who'd have thought that talking back to a cat would help decrease headaches, eh? 

 Like most people, I clench my jaw when in pain, and since I am pretty much always in pain, you can guess what that does to my jaw (and my neck, and my skull, as all sorts of muscles follow suit and clench along with my jaw). Since most of my "talking" is via my fingers on the computer, as well as random chats with Adam when he's home, that leaves many hours each weekday where my jaw would be pretty much locked closed, other than for food, drink ... and chatting with the cats.

 Trust me, my sisters gave me the nickname of "motormouth" when I was a kid, and Meggie seemed determined to make sure I didn't totally lose the gift for gab as an adult. She would play "shark" around my computer chair, talking up a storm, coaxing me into talking back (and into "spanking" her, and/or holding down a brush, pen, book, etc for her to rub against, etc.).

So it was a very sad thing to see her get less chatty, less active, as her kidneys continued to fail.  She still loved to chat if I sought her out in her resting place, but it was me seeking her out, instead of the other way around. It finally hit the point where the subcutaneous fluids and other tlc weren't enough, and her body stopped producing red blood cells as well. At best, extra measures at that point would have only prolonged her life by a few weeks, if we were lucky, while making her miserable with all the medicating, etc.

A week ago today, I brought her into the vetrinarian's office for the last time. Her talking was muted, but still present and she nuzzled happily against her favorite brush as we waited for the vet, a man who had been seeing and treating her for the last 10 years, and well knew her personality and foibles.

Her body was most definitely ready to give up, but her spirit turned stubborn once again. (She took after me in stubbornness at times!) The tranquilizer injection, meant to put her gently to sleep so she would feel no pain or panic during the lethal injection that was to follow, only made her more stubborn.  During the 5 or so minutes that they left me alone with her while it was taking effect, she literally braced her paws on the table, fighting to stay awake and alert for those last few moments with me. It was heartbreaking, but so very typical of Nutmeg!

Finally, however, she couldn't out-stubborn the effect of the sedative on her overtaxed body, and she drifted quietly to sleep, so that they could give her the final injection.

I stayed with her until the very end, giving her gentle pets and brushes as I quietly thanked her for 18 years of companionship, love, and much loud "conversation".

Thank you, my "grumpy granny", for those many long years.  You will be missed, old gal.

A few months ago, all our websites hosted with Racknine went kablooey, and while the EQ and EQ2 ones were brought back rapidly, my personal blog was not so fortunate. Once the server was finally kickstarted (after goodness knows how many requests), Serendipity turned out to be pretty much toast. Adam has reinstalled the blog software (thanks hon!), and it will take me a bit to get all the plugins reset, the blog configured, etc.  My energy levels are pretty low right now, and there are several things higher on the "should do as energy permits" list.  I'll get to this in Auguest, really!