One step forward, two steps back

August 15, 2018August 15, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 27 Comments

Do you ever feel like for every step you take forward, you take two backwards? That is the best I can say to describe the events happening in my life right now. I did think of using a hurricane or other storm as an example, but while those things ONLY cause disaster the things happening in my life are only causing me grief, and I haven’t given up just yet. So what’s been happening here….

Instead of re-writing, or copying and pasting things from previous posts, I am going to add links to my previous posts if you want the back story.

Walking a minimum of 4000 steps a day

On July 13th, in the post let’s get moving. I talked about making it a point to walk everyday to increase my endurance, strength, and stamina, even though I am afraid to walk alone and have had some pretty bad experiences. The positives are that I have finally reached my goal of walking for a full mile at a time, and have had some days that I have reached more than 8000 steps (not at one time though). I was doing good with the whole weight loss thing, ( I haven’t written about that yet), until Birthday week hit….yah cake? My neighbor (who works nights) even started setting an alarm to wake up at 8 am and walk with me everyday. I bought a rollator walker to help with my balance, which I used in the evenings to try to get a few more steps in.

One day after getting lots of steps in, I came home, took off my shoe and saw this…

Awww, shit. I had broken my foot a couple years ago, and had attributed the pain to “an old sports injury”. The fact that it was so discolored told me that I couldn’t ignore it any longer. I reluctantly called the podiatrist I had been referred to in the past. I don’t want to be “one of those people” that claim that doctors treat patients without insurance differently, but after the office visit I have to be.

The doctor physically examined my foot, said it felt warm to the touch and was obviously very inflamed, but since I hadn’t suffered an actual injury “this time” he was going to call it GOUT.

He sent me to the lab for a uric acid test, gave me a prescription for indomethacin, and told me to keep ice on it for a a couple days, then to start doing stretches for it.

NO Xrays?!?!?!? That’s it?!?!?! Not even an order to stay off of it…..

I went to the lab and had the uric acid test done, which came back as negative for gout. Ya think?!?! I did not take the prescription because NSAIDS, cause my blood pressure to go through the roof, and make me sick to my stomach. I instead have been living on advil and tylenol. (also not good, but the pain got to be pretty bad even at rest).

Yesterday, I broke down and went to an immediate care center. The first step while there was to do XRAYS.

GUESS WHAT

It’s broken AGAIN!!!! Is anyone really surprised?

So now I am back in a boot, yah that it’s a short boot this time, but a boot nonetheless. I have an appointment Monday to see a surgeon. If I end up spending any real time in the boot again, I will be ordering an “Even Up” from Amazon this time.

I don’t have the time or the patience to figure out why the link to amazon isn’t working, but if you want to see what I am talking about please click the link below or google “even up”.

Basically, it’s something you attach to your other shoe to help not cause further injury by walking “crooked” or unevenly when you are stuck in a cast. IMO well worth the $20.00.

When I began writing today, I had envisioned telling you about all the fun ( said very sarcastically) I had trying to switch to self hosted, and updating you on Me and my shadow, but this post is pretty lengthy as it is so I will write separate posts….later.

It’s good to be Back…. I have missed interacting with everyone and feel like I have alot of catching up to do.

The verdict is still out

August 7, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 20 Comments

While the verdict about if switching to self hosted was worth it is still out, I thought I would take a few minutes to update everyone on where I have been hiding.

First of all this is “birthday week” in my family. My birthday was Sunday, Thing 1’s b-day is Saturday and Thing 2 will be turning 21 on Sunday, so needless to say things have been a bit busy. (and been gaining a few pounds…yah cake?)

The stove/oven was identified as the cause of my C02 leak. I am happy to report that the shopping for, financing, delivery, and installation of a new stove has been completed.

3 out of 5 of my animals, have had to go to the vet. (2 cats for breathing problems and one dog for explosive diarrhea) I should be grateful that D.O.G. actually had most of her episodes on my bathroom floor, but if you remember, my bathroom floor is currently newspaper stuck to old tile glue, so it was actually a mini nightmare to keep cleaning that mess up. The bill for the vet hurt quite a bit too. 😦

My bank went through a conversion and payments ended up not being were they were supposed to go, So I have literally had to say, “the check is in the mail” which NO ONE believes or wants to hear.

One day, after reaching 7000 steps, I came home and took off my shoe to see this.

My foot hurts like hell, but I have still been walking every day. IMO, this is NOT gout, and the uric acid levels in my blood say that it is also not gout, however; the doctor is still calling it GOUT. I have purchased new walking shoes, and am having custom inserts made for my shoes, (yah more bills) hoping that that helps, while trying to find a new doctor, that will at least perform xrays….. again SMH

My Shadow

I feel like I should call this little guy more of a stalker now. He comes to my house Every day and either lurks in the tree at the end of my driveway, or rings my doorbell continuously. One day, I did have him sit at my patio table, and I let SNUFF out the meet him. I wrote a note for him to take home to his mother, I read him the note, and reiterated that he can not come over without a parent. I put my phone number on the note, and have still not seen or heard from a parent. Instead, he brought another slightly older brother over 10 minutes after he met my dog……smh that is NOT what I said. I did learn that he is six and his brother is 7. When I asked about his mom, he said she worked until 4

Switching to Self hosted

As far as the switch to self hosted goes, the jury is still out. As with most things in life, there are positives and negatives to everything. One of the positives, or at least one of the reasons I switched include having more options or tools available to use. When you are using wordpress.com, you are basically “allowed” to use what they tell you that you can use as far as plug ins etc. are concerned. Last month’s, 370k in spam comments, and no ability to change security plug ins was the final straw for me, so I finally made the jump.

At this point, there have been more negatives, but part of that can be a learning curve. I think I have said before, that I was skeptical about switching because I read the words “easy and free to transfer”….HA HA HA. Some of the negative things are:

My stats are bunk. I went from having 200 followers to having 5.
While “transferring your site” is “free, I don’t feel that it was easy and required a minimum of 15 tickets to wordpress.com and siteground.com to “complete” the process. To be honest, I still don’t feel that the process is complete.
Not only did my site “disappear” from Reader, I no longer have a Reader without going back to wordpress.com.
Most of my comments are still going to the old “whatever its called”, and I am missing several. To make it worse, some followers are no longer able to comment, and for the ones that ARE able to comment, most are not able to see when I have responded.
It WASN’T free. SMH

There is a completely different dashboard, and staging area. Siteground is also rolling out a new editor.

I keep trying to remind myself that it is all about the journey, and things will get better with time. To those of you who still keep looking for me and who have helped me “test” things, I am more than grateful. Ms Gracefulnot, is still out there, and I am hoping things will get better with time.

If you are reading this and don’t want to lose contact, please consider subscribing to the blog via email. (there should be a link at the bottom of this post ) From what I can tell, so far, THAT part works

Let’s get moving…

July 13, 2018July 8, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 30 Comments

Thank God not the packing and unpacking kind! I mean the putting one foot in front of the other moving kind of moving.

So I bought a “generic” Fitbit. By generic I mean the $30.00 not name brand one from amazon. ( If interested….click the picture!!!) While the specs say that I can link it to my phone, check my heart rate, and sleeping patterns, the only thing I investigated about it, is how many steps I take in a given day.

I’ve heard people talk about making their goal 10,000 steps in a day, and wanted to see where I compared…..

NOT EVEN CLOSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

On an average day, I took about 1500 steps. WTF?!? I am busy from the time I wake up til the time I “pass out” each night…. That couldn’t be accurate!!!!!

Well it turns out it is. I spend so much time driving, waiting at doctors, playing on the computer, fighting with insurance companies, reading, doing laundry whatever…that I really don’t move. SMH

Time to fix this shit! I made myself a challenge to get at least 3000 steps in a day and I have done it!!!!!!! Can I have a cookie now?.… No I’m actually serious…..Ok I’m not, but I AM feeling good! I am proud of myself. Not only for setting a goal and making it, but for facing a huge fear of mine by walking alone again.

I am not quite up to a mile at a time yet, but I have learned that if I can beat the heat (waking up at 5 am), I can come close. I have even started taking my dogs with me again… ONE AT A TIME, and holding the leash very loosely.

Walking by myself in a residential area is kind of boring,

and to be honest it is still kind of scary for me considering a crack like this can be a major road hazard. but it is still better than walking on a treadmill and every step I take hopefully keeps me out of a wheelchair that much longer.

Sometimes, I can con my neighbor into walking with me, but she works nights and doesn’t appreciate the early morning “Hey let’s go for a walk wake up calls”.

A bonus is that I don’t smoke when I walk, so if I can keep increasing my activity, maybe it will help with the quitting smoking goal too.

A very LONG walk

July 9, 2018October 5, 2018 ~ msgracefulnot ~ 27 Comments

I don’t know if I have ever talked about it before, but I used to be STUCK in a wheelchair. It was 2009, before I started Tysabri Infusions. I won’t give all the credit the that I am again walking to Tysabri, but it has been very effective at slowing down the frequency of my MS flares and relapses. There was also a stay in a rehab facility and a solid year of physical therapy 3 x a week once I was discharged. I have also been on Ampyra for, hmm I don’t know how many years as well. (If you have never heard of it, Ampyra is known as the “walking drug” for MS.)

A few years ago, I had worked up to being able to walk for a full mile at a time without having to stop or take a break. That’s NOT to say I wasn’t ‘down’ for the rest of the day, or that there were not a few falls ( and bone breaks ) involved, but I went from wheelchair to walking, and I was so proud of myself!!!! I had even begun taking my dogs for my morning walk, until that ONE DAY!

When I woke up that morning, I didn’t really feel like walking, but if therapy taught me anything it was IF YOU DON’T USE IT, you LOSE it. So I dragged my ass out of bed, brushed my teeth, coffeed, leashed the dogs, and headed out the door.

When my dogs went through obedience and therapy dog training, they were each ‘assigned’ different sides, D. O. G walks on the left, and SNUFF walks on the Right. (in the picture they are reversed) I wrapped each of their leashes around my hands tightly, and would soon find out that I had made a HORRIFIC mistake in doing so.

Both dogs could sense that I wasn’t feeling well and weren’t behaving as well as they normally did. (They were competing for my attention and walking under my feet.) I was very grateful to be rounding the last corner of the block (I was less than 200 feet from my front door)

The “Scene of the Crime”

This building was a barber shop, and the barber had come out to empty his trash. When he saw me he waved and called “hello” as he did 100 times before. For some reason, both dogs pulled in different directions and down I went…… literally something like this….

I landed directly on my chin and was pulled/dragged toward the un-offending man while he ran back in the store. (In his defense, he did TRY to come back out to help me up, but the dog’s seemed to have lost their minds when I fell and would not let him anywhere near me)

Somehow I got the dog’s under control and was finally able to stand up and limp home. I made it in my front door, called out to thing 2 and immediately collapsed again.

(to be continued)

I don’t think I made it clear when I posted this, this was a couple years ago. Sorry if I mislead anyone