Home Sweet Home!

I apologize for taking several days to respond to some of your comments...I was traveling back home to Wyoming during that time. It's been 14 1/2 weeks since I've been home and it's good to be back. There was snow on the ground when I left and now the grass is green and the flowers are blooming. It's weird, I feel like I just missed a big chunk of time/life being somewhere outside of my usual daily life.

But I feel good! The last day I took my painkillers was on Thursday. I get a pang of pain here and there but it's not bad...not enough to take the pills. I spent yesterday spraying weeds, grocery shopping, doctoring my horse's eye (he decided to poke it on something just a few days before I was going to be home...big dummy), etc. I got really hot (it was 85 degrees out) and had a small spell where I could really feel those wires in my neck and it made me feel a bit claustrophobic, but as soon as I cooled off a bit I was fine. I think after time I won't even feel those things anymore. The battery may be another story. I'm always kind of aware of it because it just seems so big and so obtrusive. It doesn't bother me very often, it's just sort of an annoyance sometimes, like I want to say to it "will you just go away already?" But of course that's silly...I'd rather have that battery there any day than have the pain.

I have had one issue in the past few days...anxiety. At first I thought it was because I was home and had all this stuff to do to get my life back in order. Friday night I took 2 anti-anxiety pills to be able to sleep. But last night was 10 times worse. Took 2 more anti-anxiety pills and they did nothing. It was one of the most horrible nights ever. Even this morning I couldn't just relax. I feel like I'm breathing really quickly and shallowly. To be honest, I'm having a hard time sitting still to write this right now. Then I realized what it probably is...lack of pain pills. The ones I was taking were morphine based. I was on them for 2 weeks, and then just suddenly quit taking them. I imagine they made me rather calm and now that that's out of my system, I feel like I've got ants in my pants. Now...how do I remedy this? I got lots of exercise yesterday...in fact I was rather exhausted last night, but my body just wouldn't cooperate. So now I'm just annoyed. I've taken all these pills over all these years and this is what it all comes down to...no headaches but I'm as jittery as junkie. Awesome.

I Can Feel It

Today was a rough day. I'm still exhausted for no apparent reason, which is not good because I have only a week before I go back to work. But worse than that, I seem to be very aware of my neurostimulator. This morning it kind of freaked me out. I could feel all the wires coming down the sides of my neck and felt like they were just closing in on me. I wanted to rip them out but of course I couldn't. And I'm always aware of the giant battery in my chest. It makes me wonder if I will ever get used to it. I can just feel it in there, pressing against my skin on one side, and my chest muscles on the other. It doesn't inhibit my movement much, but I'm more aware of it when moving that arm, and it does inhibit movement a little bit, which I notice particularly in the shower for some reason or when I try to turn my head really far to the right. I'm not sure if that's something that will change since I'm still healing or if I'm stuck with what I've got. The whole thing freaked me out and I had to take an anti-anxiety pill...glad I have those. I cut back on my painkillers quite a bit this weekend so I bet the increased awareness of everything is due to my nerves not being so de-sensitized by Vicodin. But still, I can't take Vicodin for ever so I'd better get used to this. It's just weird to be so aware of a foreign object that's in your body all the time and you can't get rid of. I should probably try not to think about it too much!