Tag: pain

Train Wreck of a Night

I saw it coming this time but I still couldn’t get out of the way. For the second time in about three weeks I found myself fetal on the floor, moaning in stomach pain. Hooray.

I went to sleep last night at a little after 11:00pm, which was two hours later than I wanted to, but that’s my fault, not my stomach’s. I could have gone to sleep earlier, but I wanted to play a little Jedi Survivor, and then I had to wait a whole hour for it to install. Not a big deal.

I had a snack just before turning in for the night. My theory was the first fetal on the floor experience was down to an empty stomach. I now know it wasn’t, but that was the theory at least. A few minutes after I finished the snack I started feeling some stomach discomfort. Not outright pain, just enough of something to know that something was wrong. Like I said, I saw this train coming miles away. I got into bed and went to sleep though.

About 12:30am I woke up. Just like last time, it was my bladder that woke me up, not my stomach. By the time I was done in the bathroom though, my stomach was a thing. I went out to the living room to eat the smallest protein snack I have. I took one bite and knew that this time it wasn’t hunger. It just kept getting worse. The pain was bad, but it wasn’t the end of the world. Maybe a six on the pain scale from one to 10. Enough to suck, but not debilitating. No, the worst part was the inability to get any relief from it. Sitting down made it worse. Laying down made it worse. Standing up made it worse. Walking around made it worse. I ended up doubled over no matter what I was doing.

The first time I went through something like this I ended up getting a tiny bit of relief from curling up in a ball on the living room floor and moaning a lot. This time I was in the cellar because last time I woke Jen up with all the moaning and a groaning and I was hoping to not do that again. So I curled up in a ball on the cold cellar floor and it helped a tiny bit. I also found myself moaning again. I don’t think it was a conscious choice, you know? It just sort of happened. That helped a tiny bit too. Something about the way I was pushing air out? Like a good woodwind player I was pushing the air out from my diaphragm and clenching up my stomach a bit and yeah, it helped. The two things together lowered the pain by maybe 0.1% or so. Barely noticeable, but still kinda helpful.

In the end I failed to keep Jen asleep. She woke up and wanted to call an ambulance to take me to the ER. I protested mightily. I feel like I know what was happening and I just needed to ride it out. She was getting frustrated with me and I don’t blame her. She kept telling me that I would be dragging her to the ER if our roles were reversed and, as always, she was 100% right. I would have done exactly that. I guess I am just a really bad patient. I apologized profusely for being so stubborn and tried to express just how thankful I was for her concern and how much it meant to me. It really did. I love her so much, I am sorry I was such a tool.

The funny thing was, we were yelling back and forth through the cellar door (cats are not allowed in the cellar, ever since I caught them clawing at the central air ducts) and our inability to communicate effectively resulted in me coming up stairs. Wouldn’t you know it, as soon as we were in the room together I started to feel better. I was sitting on the couch talking to her and the pain was suddenly very tolerable and manageable. We talked through the situation together for a little while and then she went back to bed and I was able to lay down on the couch and sleep. I didn’t get up early for my morning yogging and I slept as late as I could. I’ll have to fill in the exercise in spurts throughout the work day. That’s not a big deal.

I have had eight ounces of lemonade and my morning vitamins. My stomach has played along nicely so far, but I am super seriously gun shy this morning. I’m afraid to eat something, though I am going to try in about 15 minutes. We’ll see how it goes, but I am behind schedule on my food and drink goals and I would not be surprised if I miss them both today. I will be okay with that if I can avoid any further pain and suffering.

As with the first time, I assume something I ate last night caused all of this. We had Chinese take out for dinner. I only ate a couple of boneless chicken fingers (my favorite) and I wonder if there was something in the batter or the breading that set me off. It’s the only candidate that makes sense. I want to call the weight loss clinic and see if they have any advice on how to handle this if it happens again. I am going to bet that they will say to just ride it out. It was something like 2.5-3 hours last night and it sucked but I made it through okay. Here’s hoping it doesn’t happen again any time soon.

Going to Try

I’ve barely had any food or drink today. It’s been three hours since I’ve even tried.

It’s 12:36pm and I’m feeling the need to try again. I think I’m going to take a shot.

Wish me luck, oh my readers and only friends. Duck and cover, here we go…..

ADDENDUM: I was going to air fry a little piece of chicken but the window crew is working in the kitchen so I’m going to try a protein bar. Fingers crossed.

Sick Day Update

How’s it going, sick person?

I feel better. Not all better, but better than I was when I was doubled over in pain while I was trying to take a shower this morning. I feel like I got my ass kicked by a locomotive or something, but my stomach isn’t hurting like it was before.

I managed some food. It was sort of like breakfast at lunch time, but I ate some scrambled eggs. I’ve had some water too, and in 13 minutes I’ll be able to have some more. I still feel pretty dehydrated, but nowhere near as bad as I was when I wrote the last post.

It’s a safe bet I won’t be hitting my protein and liquid goals again today, but now it seems like I won’t get virtually shut out like I did on Thursday. I just missed a bunch of time while I was hurting and I don’t think I will be able to make it up. I’ll get as close as I can without overdoing it and just let it go from there.

I’m also not sure what to do for today’s photo a day thing. I will probably used the bathroom construction again. I could use xmas decorations but I’m tired of that. I’m pretty tired of the construction stuff too, but what can you do. We also need to find things to put us into the holiday spirit. I don’t know about the rest of you, but getting sick twice in December has put a damper on my festiveness. Jen found this yesterday though and it might help:

I wonder why our house isn’t on the list?

Kidding.

There’s also a light display at the Stone Zoo. That feels more like a weekend thing to me though. Maybe we could wait for the kids to be home for that one.

Really Bad Lunch Experience

I don’t know what I did, but I sure did something wrong.

I put about four ounces of chicken onto a little plate and brought it to my desk for lunch. 0.9 ounces into it and I was done. Pain, babie. Real pain. Not nausea this time, just stomach pain. It’s almost like one of the bites I took failed to make it into my little redesigned stomach pouch and then the next bites backed up behind it. Usually when that happens I feel like I need to throw up, and once or twice I actually have a little. Not this time, just stomach pain.

It’s been about 90 minutes since this happened and I am feeling mostly okay again. I need to have some lunch though so I am trying a protein bar. One bite down and, while I am definitely not all better, it hasn’t gotten worse.

Fingers crossed, my friends. Fingers crossed.

I’m Pretty Sore Today

Yesterday was a tough one physically mostly, but also mentally.

I am not going into a lot of detail here, but the back story is this. Last September my parents moved from their house in Tewksbury to an assisted living space in Billerica. Over the course of the next eight months my mother’s dementia grew steadily worse to the point where she was getting up in the middle of the night and falling down. On May 9th she had a fall and was taken to Lowell General Hospital. The assisted living space said they could no longer handle assisting her living so the hospital started working toward finding a new place for her. She was moved into a nursing facility in Andover and she’s living there now. That means that my parents, who are days away from their 55th wedding anniversary, are no longer able to live together. It’s crushing to say the least. My father was still in the same room at the assisted living place, but that room was in the memory care unit, which he does not require. So yesterday we moved him to a new room, one that is not in the locked down memory unit.

We had movers pick up a piece of furniture at the house in Tewksbury and take it to Billerica. They then moved everything from the memory wing in the basement to Dad’s new room on the first floor, then they took some of mom’s things back to Tewksbury. I bounced from place to place with them and helped out a little. Mostly just by punching in the door lock codes getting in and out of the memory wing.

After the movers were done (huge, huge thanks to them) I went back to Dad’s new room and helped unpack. My sister and my two nephews were there too. We had everything wrapped up by about 2:00 with one glaring exception. Dad sleeps on a rented hospital bed. The company that rents the bed handles moving it from place to place. They initially said they would be there to move the bed at 2:09. Then 2:48. Then 3:30. I had to leave before they got there. I’ll tell you why right now.

We had broken for lunch at around noon. Dad went to the cafe, My sister and the kids went to Wendy’s, and I stayed in the room waiting for maintenance to fix something in the bathroom and switch on the Cable TV. I started eating my little four ounce of chicken lunch but kept getting interrupted. In the end it took me about two hours to get through it and I spent a lot of time taking a bite, then unpacking something for a few minutes, then going back for another bite. I don’t know if my bites were too big, or if it was something to do with being active mid-meal, but I found myself getting pretty nauseous. I pushed through it, but I was feeling pretty bad.

Later, during the time we were done with everything but the waiting for the bed I started feeling sicker. I think it was due to lack of protein? Maybe? Lack of food? Something? I only had a protein shake for breakfast so I hadn’t eaten much. I was just feeling sick to my stomach again and weak and I was getting on toward being nervous about driving. I had to leave and go get something to eat. Once I was home with food in me I felt better. I feel bad about bailing, but at least now I have another couple of food experiences to keep an eye on.

So stomach wise, things are good today. Thankfully. Dad wise, he’s in his new place. He’s miserable about being separated from Mom, but otherwise he seemed okay yesterday. It’s possible he was just putting on a brave face for two of his kids and two of his grandkids, but he did seem okay. Here’s hoping he still feels okay today.

The hang up for me, personally, at this point is pain. I more or less was on my feet yesterday from 7:00am to 3:00pm. It was rough for Mr. Out of Shape here. Sure, I have a lot more energy and stuff since losing 100 pounds in the last seven months (WOOHOO!), but I am still really fat and out of shape and that was a lot of work yesterday.

Then to make things work, I still did my 30 minutes of walking. It was after dinner when I was all settled and feeling better. Jen and I were in the living room watching the tube and I got up and started walking. My Activity App credited me for 18 minutes of exercise during the day, but I have a streak of doing 30 minute walks going (I don’t actually remember when the streak started so I can’t tell you how long it’s lasted) and I didn’t want to ruin it. So I started walking. 30 minutes later I was a mess, but happy. Today I got up as usual and did another 30 minutes before work and now my legs are going to fall off. Poof, no legs. Figuratively at least.

Here’s hoping the pain lessens as the day goes on, but we will have to see.

Ouch, babie. Ouch.

Bite

Sonofabitch.

Yesterday, while eating lunch, I bit my lip. It swelled up like you wouldn’t believe. It hurt like a bastard. It took all night for most of the swelling to go down. It was still sore this morning.

Wouldn’t you know it, I bit my lip again during lunch today. It was exactly the same spot. All the swelling is back. All the pain is back. Two pints of blood are gone. I’m feeling really lucky that I brought some paper towels with me today because I needed them to mop up the gore.

Stop doing that, asshole.

Wiped Out

We did so much stuff around the house this weekend. I need a weekend to recover from the weekend.

We’re pretty optimistic that the contractor will be done in the cellar today or tomorrow. After that we need to put all the furniture back where it belongs. I had to move everything away from the walls last night so that he can finish the baseboards. Once everything’s back where it’s going we’ll mount the new television on the wall and then… maybe watch a movie or something?

Then I need to move my office space downstairs too. There’s an exercise bike that needs to move too. Oh yeah, I forgot that we got a nice sound system for the new TV. That needs to go in before our first movie date.

Then what? We got a couple of foldable room divider things. One will go between the living room and the work space and the other will wall off the laundry room. The last thing, I think, is to figure out where the new music nook will go. It has to be close enough to the office so that I can use my computer for more wonderful home recording demo amazingness. I haven’t recorded a song in two months. That needs to change.

After all of that?

Oh, just surgery.

Sunday Night Pain

Rob’s writing about pain on a Sunday night. Why? Is he watching Fear the Walking Dead or something? No. That’s not for a couple of weeks. We are still safe.

No, I’m talking about exercise. I still have 24 minutes to do today and I only have 2.5 hours left. My legs are killing me. My back is killing me. Everything is killing me.

Fear isn’t on, but the main show is on. Shits getting weird at the Commonwealth, right? There is 25 minutes left in tonight’s show so I can probably finish my 24 minutes of exercise during the commercial breaks. Har Har Har.

Work was rough on Friday. It spilled over into Saturday. I didn’t hear anything today. Hopefully nothing happened. I’m out tomorrow because I’m taking my mother to a doctor’s appointment. That means I’m worried about work and worried about her at the same time. It could be a fun morning, right?

I don’t feel any negative effects of Covid-19 vax shot . Here’s hoping it stays that way.

Okay, the Zombies are back on. No spoilers, but who woulda thought that Daryl was Rick’s father. What a twist!

Tough Weekend

Going back to Friday, my mother went back into the hospital again, though she was discharged quickly. I put new blinds and curtains onto the dining room window. Saturday included a trip to IKEA at the crack of dawn and a whole entire day of assembling and hanging a big ass cabinet/counter thing in the kitchen. Sunday saw us putting another, smaller, piece of IKEA furniture together along with a little time at my parents place. My mother was having a tough time and I was able to help a little. At least I hope I was helpful.

I’m a big, fat, severely out of shape, hurtin’ red head today.

This week is going to be nuts too. We have some organizing in the kitchen to do before the contractor comes back for the next step in the project. By the weekend the kitchen should be wrapped up, but then I have to start looking to the cellar. We’re not entirely redoing the cellar, but we were talking about it while the contractor was here last week and he asked if he could give it a shot. Fine by me! He’s going to try and fix the floor first. That would be huge.

Also, work. Also, my second dietician appointment. I haven’t been the best at what I’m trying to do over the last two weeks. I need to straighten my dietary shit out.

Right. Off to work now. Have a good one, folks.

IKEA Can’t Defeat Us… Mostly

Yesterday was tough. We had one huge cabinet to put together and then hang on the wall. I was dead set against having us hang it ourselves because I knew the end result would look amateurish and Jen would be disappointed. When push came to shove though I said fuck it and we did it. Jen’s folks came over to help but something much more important came up and they had to go and take care of it. That left us flying solo and we got it done.

It took ALL DAY. We were up at 5:00am and we weren’t finished until after 7:00pm, but it’s done! We stood up to the IKEA challenge and we survived!

Except…

We have another big piece of furniture to work on today, and we are both seriously hurting after yesterday. My back and my legs are in really bad shape. Jen has a legitimate bad back, whereas mine is just me being fat, and she is in major pain. It hasn’t gone out on her though so we’re babying it as much as we can.

We’re going to start putting together today’s project. We may not finish it, but we’ll make a good dent.

Wish us luck in our battle against the Swedish* pre-fab menace.

*I couldn’t remember if IKEA was Swedish or Swiss so I Googled it. Apparently they are currently based in The Netherlands! Who knew? Bellana can go visit their headquarters!