A friend contacted me today asking me how I *really* feel.. as I haven't said much lately. Okay, here it is:
- This morning, my hands are cold. They seem to fluctuate back and forth. Prior to the procedure, they were generally warm. I wonder if this is part of a healing process, as after my first procedure I had the fluctuating back and forth from cold to warm a lot too.
- Last night from around 8pm until 11pm I was not having a good time. My right leg felt as though it was going crazy.. I wanted to pull it off and throw it away. I can't describe what it was doing.. like my skin was crawling and I just had to get rid of my leg. I then felt like I had been there before -- sometime in my past, but when? AHA! I then remembered! Years ago after my lung surgery, the hospital had been giving me demerol shots. But, upon leaving the hospital, at home I had to deal with withdrawal, and it was not pretty. It was then that I had the same feeling in my legs. I have no idea why this would happen again, perhaps because of all the aspirin I have been taking, and I have been phasing it out in the last 24 hours?
- At the same time as the leg thing started bothering me, my bladder issue went crazy. (Where I feel the urgency to go, but I don't really need to go). So it was a double whammy of mental anguish. I had no idea how I was going to go to sleep with this type of mental discomfort. I paced and paced for quite some time (as movement helps distract me from those feelings), took one 325mg aspirin and then went to bed, playing with Kirk's iphone. Shortly thereafter, I lay my head down and fell asleep. Is it an aspirin issue? I had a good night but woke feeling very tired (what's new?)
- I've also had ringing in my ears the last three days and I don't know why. Again I'm wondering if the higher doses of aspirin in my system are playing a role.
- Even though I'm having strange things happen to me each day, I can feel a little stronger each day. And remember, I'm trying to cut back on the aspirin each day so while I still feel neck pain (just a dull aching feeling now), it's because I'm lowering my doses and hopefully there will be a day soon where I won't need it at all and can function without it.
- It's so hard to judge as to if my feet and leg numbness on the skin is better or not. How does one judge when one's tool for judging is one's hands.. which are also numb? Post procedure, they have actually become more numb. So it is very difficult to tell what is numb or not when I use my hands to feel.
- Emotionally, I still walk on thin ice. One moment I am coping fine, telling myself I am hanging in here for the long haul, not expecting changes right away. Another part of my day, I will be somewhere which will trigger tears within me as I re-live all the losses from the past year. It definitely is a constant battle to fight away depression which knocks on my door. It is easy to give in to it if you start allowing yourself to posture an attitude of entitlement. It's definitely a training of my heart each and every day to try to focus on the moment and my blessings of NOW, rather than all the losses.
- I can't say that I have had much pain, but mind you, you tend to get used to a "new normal". I feel every day like I have a slight flu .. just that overall aching feeling. Certainly nothing debilitating.
- The itching on my skin (on my arms) has almost been non-existent, except for a day or two last week, so that has gone down. Hopefully it never comes back!
- Brain fog? I don't know.. I can't remember. Seriously, I haven't noticed any issues, but I haven't had to challenge my brain lately.
- My voice is still fairly crackly, so that hasn't gone away. Still hoping!!!
