I spent a few days describing my back problems and I want to add to that before I begin on the Sjogren's journey tomorrow. Let's get to the wrap up about the arachnoiditis. With Adhesive Arachnoiditis, it can cause so many symptoms in you that mimic other diseases and autoimmune problems. Right now, I have muscle jerks and spasms that are insane! If I am at rest they start, jumping here and there and once, ( you can laugh, it's ok, I did, ) once, I smacked myself in the face! My arm just came up and plopped my hand right down on my face, I guess I needed it? I don't know, lol! Anyway, it causes that and I take a muscle relaxer at night so I can sleep. I am now on my third one, they all stop working at some point. Praying the new one doesn't. It causes muscle weakness and that's myositis. My muscles are weak in my hips because my back is weak. Getting up and down is hard sometimes, not always, but there are days. It mimics autoimmune disease to the point that sometimes I don't know if it's the arach or my Sjogren's or something else! My worst fear with Adhesive Arachnoiditis is getting up one morning and my legs won't work anymore.Being paralyzed, having to live in a wheelchair, have someone clothe me and bathe me, I don't want to even imagine it! That's the big possibility with this crap, that and not being able to control my bladder or bowels. That's called Cauda Equina and Adhesive Arachnoiditis can cause it to happen. Right now, I don't have those problems and I am going to thank God every day that I don't. I may never get to that either. It's just a huge possibility and you can't help but worry about it, but after the initial worry, I turned that over to God too because I have no control over whether it happens or not. So why dwell on it? Woke up at 4 this morning in so much pain, I just started doing leg lifts and stretches right then and there to ease the pain. I needed to get up and take something but sometimes I am hard headed and I forgo the pills and opt for other options, especially when I don't want to get up. Living with chronic pain is a battle. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose but it's never ending and there's the problem. It is in your head all of the time, it consumes you and sometimes it eats you alive! You drive yourself and others crazy talking about it all the time. It becomes your life trying to figure out how to fight it and still live a half way decent life. I didn't know how any good would come from this, but as I have fought on, I have found a whole world out there with people just like me. I am NOT alone! We want to laugh and have fun with our kids and our grand kids and our friends and go to concerts and water parks and amusement parks, but some of that just isn't possible anymore, so we take what we can get. For me, just spending quality time with my grand kids and just talking and watching them play is good enough. And most of them are now old enough to understand that I can't do a lot, but we still have a blast with each other. Instead of making it about a place we can go, I make it about time, spending my time with them, getting to know them. We make videos and talk about silly things and laugh a lot! So living with this chronic pain and illness is teaching me lessons that maybe I wouldn't have otherwise learned. Time.........time well spent talking and learning and getting to know those we love, is so very important and shouldn't be wasted! Not ONE second of it!
Please leave a comment at the end if you desire. If you don't have a google account and just want to comment anonymously you can do that. If you want me to know who you are but don't want an account just sign your name in your comment and then publish anonymous. Click where it says No Comments. Talk to you all tomorrow! Tomorrow I will talk about that wonderful Sjogren's. My goal is to let you all understand what I have and how it affects me before I talk about my every day junk.
Love to you all,
Cindy
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