Pay It Forward!

Yesterday when I stopped into the post office to pick up the mail after a long day of cooking up at the cafe, I was pleasantly surprised to see a package!! The package was from Sherri of the blog My Life in the Fishbowl and was filled with the goodies she sent to me for being selected as a winner in her round of the Pay It Forward challenge.

I couldn't wait to get home and open up my package!! Inside I found a wonderful Starbucks gift card (how did she know how much I love a yummy coffee beverage!?), a cute photo album, a lovely notepad, a flowered nail file (I always seem to lose these so getting one was wonderful!), flower shaped post-it notes, cucumber melon antibacterial deep cleaning hand gel (this will come in so handy working up at the cafe), and lastly a very sweet note from Sherri! Even though we only know each other from the vast blogosphere I feel like our friendship is beyond the boundaries of the internet.

Now it's my turn to Pay It Forward. Please know that to play along with this game you do not need to go to grand levels for the goodies in the packages. The real point of this is to simply let others know that they are appreciated and to help them feel inspired as they blog.

On to the rules: To enter, leave me a comment saying you are interested in being a participant in the Pay It Forward challenge. The entry must include either an email or a blog address to reach you at if you are a winner. To help keep shipping costs down this challenge is only open to U.S. addresses. I will accept posts/entries to the challenge until Midnight on Thursday, June 4th. On Friday, June 5th I will post the 3 winners of this round of the Pay It Forward challenge! I better get my brain in gear and figure out what goodies will be in my boxes to ship off!

In other news:

Suzy is doing a little better today. I am getting her to eat a few bites of food a few times during the day and she seems to be feeling better with less pain. However, she seems to still be having some lingering issues unrelated to the colitis from how the vet techs handled her. I think that she might have had a small brain bleed or mild stroke from the stress and such of their treatment. But slowly she is starting to become the sweet girl again that we left behind when we went on vacation. It is going to be a long road and probably have more than a few bumps in it, but I believe that we will come out the other side of this journey.

I worked 2 days in a row up at the cafe and know now that at this point 2 days in a row is my limit. My body just is not capable of more than that due to my illness. I also have been trying out the second medication to help me reach that restful stage of sleep and I think that the first medication is better at the job for me. I see the Rheumatologist again on Tuesday, June 2nd and hopefully we will move forward with some other treatment options in addition to the medication to help with sleep. I still have a lot of pain and muscle burning. The brain fog episodes are a little less frequent but I still am having them especially when I am working or exerting myself. Right now my schedule for the month of June is to be the cook up at the cafe on Wednesdays and Thursdays but the other cook doesn't want to work 5 days straight per week as it is just too much for her to do. So my schedule might be changing to help out more up at the cafe.

We are hoping to get some major work done on the laminate floor laying on Saturday and the repair man is scheduled to come to fix our satillite internet too. Hopefully they do fix it and we stop having all the problems which have been going on for the past 2 weeks or so. If things are fixed then I should be able to post on my blogs more regularly again!!

Enjoy the weekend everyone! Don't forget to enter my round of the Pay It Forward challenge!

Home Again & Back to the Grind

We got home very late Sunday evening from our vacation. We had a great time and I have a lot of stories to share over the next week or so.

However, today I am going to just touch on how this week has been so far...

I think that the medication that the Rheumatologist prescribed to help me get better sleep is helping some. I still have the horrible burning muscle pain but I am having less "brain fog" issues which is a step in the right direction. I ended up working a partial shift on Monday and a full shift on Tuesday up at the cafe as a waitress. It was very hard and I definitely can not do what I used to be able to, but I was able to get through it. Towards the end of the full shift I started having "brain fog" issues pretty severely.

Also, our female husky was a little off when we got home Sunday night and jus kept getting worse so we ended up making an emergency vet run when DH and I got home on Tuesday. She should be OK but she is in a lot of pain and in a horrible mood because of it. She has to eat special prescription dog food for a few days and take antibiotics for a week. The vet said that it is colitis which is basically an infection in her digestive tract. So needless to say that whole situation is adding to my stress levels which doesn't help with the pain and other stuff at all.

Today I am trying to rest some from all the exertion of the last few days and get some work done on my frelance projects since I am way behind from vacation! I am having a hard time focusing today for some reason so the writing isn't going so well for my articles :(

To end I will share one thing from our vacation... My parents generously bought me a new laptop! It is my first ever laptop and it is WONDERFUL!! It actually is quite a lot better than my old computer which to be honest is on it's last legs so to speak. In case you are wondering which laptop I got you can go here to see.

Happy hump day everyone!

Fibromyalgia Information

A little bit of information about Fibromyalgia since this is why I am scheduled to see the Rheumatologist in early May and this is what the PA and the GI specialist think that I might have.

According to the Mayo Clinic …”Fibromyalgia is a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain in your muscles, ligaments and tendons, as well as fatigue and multiple tender points — places on your body where slight pressure causes pain. (Yes)

Signs and symptoms of fibromyalgia can vary, depending on the weather, stress, physical activity or even the time of day. (Yes)

Widespread pain and tender points
The pain associated with fibromyalgia is described as a constant dull ache, typically arising from muscles. (Yes) To be considered widespread, the pain must occur on both sides of your body and above and below your waist.

Fibromyalgia is characterized by additional pain when firm pressure is applied to specific areas of your body, called tender points. Tender point locations include:

• Back of the head - Yes
• Between shoulder blades - Yes
• Top of shoulders - Yes
• Front sides of neck- Yes
• Upper chest - Yes
• Outer elbows
• Upper hips - Yes
• Sides of hips - Yes
• Inner knees

Fatigue and sleep disturbances
People with fibromyalgia often awaken tired, even though they seem to get plenty of sleep. (Yes) Experts believe that these people rarely reach the deep restorative stage of sleep. Sleep disorders that have been linked to fibromyalgia include restless legs syndrome and sleep apnea.

Co-existing conditions
Many people who have fibromyalgia also may have:

• Chronic fatigue syndrome - Maybe
  
• Depression - Yes
• Endometriosis - No, but PCOS
• Headaches - Yes
• Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) - Yes
• Lupus
• Osteoarthritis
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Restless legs syndrome
• Rheumatoid arthritis”

WebMD says that people who suffer from Fibromyalgia should avoid 7 foods in particular.

1. Aspartame or NutraSweet
2. Food Additives such as MSG and Nitrates
3. Sugar, Fructose, and Simple Carbohydrates especially High Fructose Corn Syrup
4. Caffeine including Coffee, Tea, Chocolate, and Soda
5. Yeast and Gluten
6. Dairy
7. Nightshade Plants such as Tomatoes, Peppers, Potatoes, and Eggplant. However, these should only be eliminated if they are specifically a problem for the individual because they are highly nutritious.

Yeast, Gluten, Dairy, MSG, and Aspartame all make sense to me as these things do greatly play a role in my health. The Caffeine, Sugar, and Nightshade Plants I am not sold on.

Then you have a ton of information from Anne Hillebrand at FibroFix. A lot of this information is based on her personal struggle with Fibromyalgia and on the food front it conflicts with the information from WebMD in more than a few points. But there is a lot of good information there I just need time to process it all and start trying some different things.

Rough Week So Far

It has been a very difficult week here in the middle of nowhere for our family.

If you remember from my post over at Today.com about riding the steam train then you probably remember this photo of my MIL. Well she gave us all quite a scare yesterday and got to ride in not 1 but 2 ambulances on the way in to the hospital - I guess that is what happens when you cross county lines. I waited here in the Bow for her husband my FIL to get here from one town over where he teaches high school then we headed in too. She was experiencing shortness of breath, radiating chest pain/pressure, and a headache when she went over to the clinic here in Medicine Bow and had the PA take a look at here. It was then that the clinic called me and said to get right over there. I did and then I called my FIL and let him know what was going on. Once we got to the ER they started doing tests, lots of tests but not finding the cause of the problem and her distress. They did find quite a number of things that could have been the problem but were not the problem though. Eventually they decided to admit her to the hospital and sent her upstairs. Today she is having more testing and we do not know whether she will be coming home tonight still. So needless to say things have been stressfull around here...

My body is not handeling the stress well. I guess that is to be expected though with all my medical issues. As soon as the stress hit me it was like every muscle in my body was on fire and it really still has not subsided over 24 hours later - I guess that is expected with fibromyalgia and stress though. In addition I have been very light headed and have felt like I was going to pass out a number of times. To top it all off I am very queasy well actually more than queasy as I have actually thrown up a few times. I don't know if that is from the pain or what though. I am thankful that yesterday when I need to be mentally clear at the ER I was able to think and communicate. Today is a different story though and I have had difficulties with getting my freelance writing done do to the "brain fog". All I know is that I feel horrible and the pain is so intense that I just want to lay down and not move.