Posts Tagged ‘Health update’
Friday Inspiration: Overcoming Back Pain, and Other Obstacles
Folks, for the past several weeks, I have been saying very little about what’s been going on with me and my health.
Why? Well, as you know, I am not able-bodied. But I can do many things, and I don’t want anyone to dwell on my disabilities. I’d rather talk about my abilities instead.
There are many people in this world worse off than I am. I can walk, albeit with a cane, and I can type, even though sometimes I have pain due to carpal tunnel syndrome.
I would rather overcome my obstacles than give in to them. However, sometimes I have to take time out for myself to rest and recuperate.
Or, in this case, to do back therapy, as my lower back is so inflamed, I can barely walk or move around.
Of course I’ve been taking more medicine, including the hated seven-day course of prednisone. to try to get my muscles to relax. I’ve also been doing the stretches prescribed by the physical therapists, and will be in physical therapy for another four or five weeks.
Why am I telling you all this? Because maybe someone out there needs to hear that you don’t have to give in to pain. You have to recognize it, and deal with it, but you don’t have to give in to it.
There’s something you hear a lot from professional athletes, who in the main deal with injuries far more than the general public. They say that when you’re recovering, you have to “stay within yourself.”
I’m not particularly good at this, but I’m learning.
If I stay within myself, I can get everything done that I need to do. That includes writing, editing, practicing for next week’s concert with the Racine Concert Band out at Park High School…all of that.
Yes, I’m going to pay in pain. But I can get it done.
So, for the moment, how I overcome obstacles is to pace myself. Do the stretches, and try to get my back to loosen up a little. Take more breaks. Eat well, and try to rest (which isn’t always easy with back pain, but I’m doing what I can). Use a heating pad, or take a long, hot shower a few times a day.
Whatever works.
And try to give myself a break, too. Because sometimes, being good to yourself is the hardest thing — especially when you want to be doing so much more than you are.
Still. For this week’s inspirational thought, I leave you with this:
Don’t let your obstacles overwhelm you. Find a way to circumvent them as much as possible. And live your life as best you can.
That is the winning strategy.
My Writing Adventure Continues (Slowly)
Just a quick update here, folks, as I’m in the process of trying to get a new story out to the Writers of the Future contest as their quarter ends at 11:59 PM PDT on 3/31/15 and my story is, at best, three-quarters finished.
Once that’s done, I hope to be able to blog about a few subjects near and dear to my heart, including baseball, my opposition to Indiana’s new “Religious Freedom and Restoration Act” which looks to me like anti-LGBT legislation (and thus needs to be either rescinded or amended, stat), and some discussion about words, their meanings, and whether or not some words should ever be off-limits (whether in baseball or in politics) because they’re considered overused, hackneyed, trite, and/or politically sensitive.
But for now, I’m alive, and I’m writing. Recovery is in process, and while it continues to be slow, I’ve been able to gain a little ground in regards to my final edit of A LITTLE ELFY IN BIG TROUBLE and with regards to this proposed story, which I fully intend to send to the WotF contest if I can only finish it…
Anyway, back to work.
Quick Update, November 2013 Style
Folks, I haven’t had much time to write blogs or do much of anything this week aside from a spot of editing and a teensy bit of fiction writing.
There is, of course, a reason for that. Unfortunately, it’s the usual one: I’m under the weather. (Again.)
As I continue to fight for better health, I’m also continuing my fight to get the Racine Concert Band fully funded for 2014. And I do have news in that quarter — the RCB has been funded for next year, albeit at a much lesser level.
What this means is twofold: the RCB will continue. (Yay!) But the RCB will have eight performances rather than thirteen, one being the City of Racine July 4th Parade, and will become a summer band only. (Boo!)
I’m not sure what else I can do, if anything at all, to affect the outcome. But whatever I can do, I will.
Anyway, as for what I plan for the upcoming week — over at SBR, I plan to review one non-fiction book tomorrow, BATTLESHIP (about the horse, not the game), and will have an interview with author Stephanie Osborn up by the end of next week. And here at my blog, I plan to discuss the World Series (the good, the bad, and the really odd) along with a brief bit about Carlos Gomez winning the first Gold Glove for the Milwaukee Brewers since 1982. (Mind you, had Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin kept shortstop J.J. Hardy, we would’ve had two by now, as Hardy won in both 2012 and 2013 over in the American League.)
And, as always, if there’s anything that says to me, “Write about me right now,” I promise I’ll do just that.
For now, though, it’s back to some mint tea and soup (which is simmering in the stove even as I write this), in the hopes that by taking it easy I’ll be able to work up a storm tomorrow. (Here’s hoping.)
Saturday Odds and Ends (May 2013)
Folks, there’s a number of things to cover, but I have only a limited amount of time to cover ’em all. So let’s get started with a shameless plug, shall we?
Since you already know about HOW BEER SAVED THE WORLD, please check it out. I would really appreciate it. (Links available in the prior post.)
Next, due to my health continuing to be problematic at best, I won’t be reviewing anything at Shiny Book Review this week. I do hope to review two books by Karen Myers — good, solid fantasies about fox-hunting, dogs, and just a bit of the Wild Hunt for good measure — very soon. I also have books by Ash Krafton and Chris Nuttall that I’ve read and am pondering, but am not quite ready to review . . . anyway, I plan to review these four books as soon as I can, starting with at least one book by Karen Myers next week over at SBR. So please, stay tuned.
As for everything else . . . my favorite baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers, lost a heartbreaker at home this afternoon to the St. Louis Cardinals, 7-6. The Brewers had tied the game in the bottom of the 8th on a suicide squeeze, perfectly executed by Nori Aoki, so things looked as if the Brewers might actually be able to win against the Cardinals at home. Unfortunately, when Brewers closer Jim Henderson entered in the top of the ninth, he ended up giving up a run partly because he didn’t hold his runners on base very well. Had he done a bit better at that, the Brewers and Cardinals might still be in extras right now, tied with a score of 6-6, because Henderson pitched well aside from that.
A health update: I continue to have problems with what I’ve been told are “the remnants of bronchitis.” Because I have asthma, these remnants continue to cause me to feel completely wiped out. I’m able to concentrate better, providing I continue to rest much more than usual, and I have been able to resume work on a difficult edit in progress. I’m also thinking about various stories and worked on one of them, albeit in prose notes form only (no dialogue, a couple of brief character sketches, and scene setting), earlier today.
So that’s progress, of a sort. But it is slow.
I just have to remember that even incremental progress is still progress. And that it’s important that I keep trying . . . as if I could ever forget.
Anyway, there were a number of other stories that caught my eye this week — Howard Kurtz getting fired from the Daily Beast due to a factual inaccuracy in an article Kurtz wrote about NBA basketball player Jason Collins (Kurtz said initially that Collins didn’t explain that he’d actually been engaged to a woman for eight years, which wasn’t true — in Collins’ first-person Sports Illustrated piece, Collins clearly says that he was engaged to a woman. Kurtz’s newspaper made a correction later, saying that Collins had “downplayed” his engagement instead, which makes more sense, but apparently Kurtz himself did not make this correction.), Harper Lee suing to regain her own copyright for TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD due to what appears to be an unscrupulous agent giving her bad advice in order to profit himself, and, of all things, a second grade teacher in Colorado who taped the mouths of her twenty-eight students shut. She’s currently on paid administrative leave as, apparently, doing this to her twenty-eight students is not considered a crime in Colorado.
I’d love to write about those three things — any, or better yet, all. But right now is not the time, as I continue to have problems drawing a full breath. As long as this condition persists, my energy level is just not going to be what it should no matter how strong my will is that wishes it otherwise.
At any rate, all I can do is to get up every day and try my best. I’m doing that.
My hope is that I’ll be able to feel better soon and do much more of what I’m accustomed to doing — writing, editing, and playing music (I can’t do the last at all, and it’ll probably be at least a few more weeks before I can even make an attempt, considering) — rather than how I feel right now: more than a tad guilty for leaving three juicy blog subjects on the cutting room floor, all because my health just won’t allow me to do them justice right now.
Still Really Sick
Folks, if I knew what was going on for sure, I’d have put a stop to all this coughing, wheezing, and sneezing weeks ago.
Seriously.
I’ve counted up how long I’ve been sick and it’s been at least five weeks. I have been to the doctor twice in that time (Prompt Care; all I can access and afford). Once I was given antibiotics; the second time I was given prednisone, mostly because I have been on antibiotics five times since late October and the doctor was afraid the antibiotics were not helping.
As a woodwind musician, I have better lung capacity than most. And I found out years ago that it is possible for me to have a bad bronchitis or even pneumonia and have it not sound nearly as bad as it is due to my extra lung capacity.
I wonder if this is why I keep staying sick and nothing seems to improve.
I am going to have to go back to the doctor again in the next few days, and I will do it. I’m not looking forward to it, mostly because I know I have limited energy and I hate wasting my time on things that are intensely frustrating (like the doctors telling me I’ve already had five courses of antibiotics since October, so this can’t possibly be an infection).** But I don’t see a choice; I’m going to have to go, and I’m going to have to insist that they do a chest X-ray if I continue to cough like this for another twenty-four hours.
This is why my editing (paying work) remains way behind and I have absolutely no idea when it can be finished — something that’s never before happened, even when I’ve been extremely sick. But usually, within three to four weeks, I’ll start to have a bit of physical energy, stop coughing, my sinuses will drain and then I’ve been able to get caught up again.
Not this time, I fear.
Those of you who pray, I’d appreciate some support right now. And for those of you who don’t, please wish me well, send positive energy if you have any, or even send along your best home remedies for nasty coughs that don’t go away. (Maybe it’ll help, and it certainly can’t hurt.)
———–
** Note: The doctor I saw last week had no doubt I was sick. He just didn’t think this was an infection, and I didn’t present in a way that was symptomatic for pneumonia. But I’m wondering if, because of the one time I actually was diagnosed and how many times I had to go back (three) before I got a chest X-ray and thus a diagnosis, I just don’t present in the usual and expected way due to being a woodwind musician since the age of ten or eleven.
Bad Weather Plus Migraine Equals . . . Not Much
Many of you have heard that most of Wisconsin is under a blizzard warning. Southeastern Wisconsin hasn’t been hit that hard thus far, but we’ve had a great deal of rain in the past sixteen to eighteen hours . . . and now, it’s turned to snow.
Before the weather turned bad, I was able to get a great deal of editing done for a very big project I’ve been working on for a few months. I’m now over 3/4 of the way through it, and it looks likely that I’ll be able to turn it in soon.
The weather shouldn’t affect me providing the power stays on, of course. But one of the problems I have with huge weather systems is that they tend to set off a very bad headache, and that’s what I’m dealing with right now.
So everything that I’d hoped to do today — save my visit to the Asthma Clinic, which was accomplished — is likely to go by the boards, at least until I’ve had some decent rest.
I should be fine tomorrow (when I have internship hours scheduled), providing I’m sensible tonight and rest.
So I’m going to be sensible, stay home out of the nasty weather, and just do the best I can.
As for anyone else in Wisconsin, I hope they’ll be sensible, too — or at least be smart.
See you all tomorrow, when I should be able to get at least one book review up over at SBR. (I had hopes to get three up this weekend; now that looks most unlikely. Boo, hiss to that!)
Quick Note
Folks, I’d hoped to review Rosemary Edghill’s VENGEANCE OF MASKS at Shiny Book Review this evening — in fact, I’d planned on reviewing it all week.
However, I’m feeling very poorly this evening for the second night in a row. (I think it has something to do with the heat and my asthma not mixing.) Because of that, I’m not able to do much — even writing a short blog about Ben Sheets’s superlative start for the Atlanta Braves today was nearly too much. And writing a quick, fact-based blog like that one is much easier to write than a book review any day of the week.
That’s why I’ve decided that I’m going to take a break for the rest of this weekend in order to come back stronger on Monday. Because of that, the review for VENGEANCE OF MASKS will be rescheduled for this upcoming week at SBR, with all apologies to Ms. Edghill and to anyone else who may have been awaiting my review.
While you’re waiting for that review, I’d like to suggest something. Go buy anything Rosemary Edghill currently has available, regardless of genre. (These books include DEAD RECKONING, VENGEANCE OF MASKS, the Bast mysteries included in BELL, BOOK, AND MURDER, and THE WARSLAYER — the latter should be available from Baen Books directly as an e-book.) She writes extremely well, always has great craftsmanship, and her storytelling ability is without peer. So meander on over to Amazon, or BN.com, or better yet to her page at Lulu (where the information for VENGEANCE OF MASKS resides), and get yourself one of her books, pronto.
While you do that, I’ll do my best to recover my energy so I can do justice to her extremely interesting and thought-provoking book, VENGEANCE OF MASKS (genre: dark fantasy/urban fantasy hybrid).
Have a great weekend, folks. See you back here on Monday.
Barb Caffrey's Blog 