Perpetual Smile

Nothing about today is good. My back pain is back; I spent last night tossing and turning because not only was it in my lower back but also in my front hips. I also had a bad dream, so all in all it made for a pretty sleepless night. I dreamed I was some blond runaway and my runaway, brunette and abusive boyfriend got me knocked up. He beat me up so bad that I had a miscarriage. The dream flickered to me lying on a hospital table to me in some house where everyone was dead and I had a gun to defend myself from — I’m assuming — my abusive dream boyfriend. Talk about a vivid — and somewhat depressing — mind. I don’t dream that vividly very often, but when I do they’re usually really crazy.

Maybe I’m having more issues with what happened to me than I initially thought.

I went to the chiropractor this afternoon and then to Wal-Mart. I got some stuff to make cards with for the Letters of Love Greeting Card Challenge and stuff for my crafts class on Monday. I also got some sugar cookie mix, which was a pick-me-up — at the time.

Then I got home, and all hell broke loose. Mike and I got into a fight, Lauren and I got into a fight, and now I have no energy to get anything done that I need to get done. I have piles upon piles of things to do, and it’s so overwhelming that I don’t want to do any of it. I hung out with Nikki last night and although it was a nice break it’s just another reminder that I hardly ever get to just relax. Even when I’m hanging out with my friends or Mike, my mind is constantly racing, thinking of all the things I need to get done. I can’t relax, because I’m too busy being preoccupied with what I think I should be doing instead of having fun.

To top it off, my McAfee subscription is expired. I probably shouldn’t be online right now.

There are some days when lifting my arms above my head hurts too much to bother with blow drying and straightening my hair. Sometimes I make my sister do it. Sometimes I force myself through it and take lots of breaks. Recently, I’ve just given up.

It’s much easier, I’ve decided, to twist my hair around my fingers and then pull the curls apart rather than go through all of that straightening business. Even better, I can sleep on it and it usually doesn’t require any work when I wake up.

I feel like I’ve made a major breakthrough; I can actually stand my curls now!

My mother is on Cloud 9 now that I've been wearing my hair au naturale.

Yes, it’s true — the shiny, poker straight hair you’ve been seeing in my photos is a lie. I was born with thick and tight curls that have eluded me for twenty years. I’ve only recently discovered a hair product that kills the frizz, leaves the curls soft and makes them look pretty: Herbal Essences Dangerously Straight mousse. Yep. I don’t get it, either. It makes my curly hair look and smell pretty, though.

Is this a breakthrough? Can I now be satisfied with what I was born with? Will I break the code of women’s nature? Only time will tell how long it takes before I hate my curls again.

Sometimes I feel like the world’s biggest liar. Okay, not a liar. But I do feel like people may think I’m lying. Do I sound paranoid? Stay with me. I’ll explain.

I go to the chiropractor every Wednesday. Today was my fourth visit, and Dr. Rosa — my regular doctor — is on vacation. The chiropractic assistant (massage therapist?) always asks me how I’m feeling and to rate it on a scale of 1 to 10. Sounds pretty basic, right?

It’s not. When she asked me today, I said, “Well, my back is all better, as long as I’m very careful about how I sit and stuff.”

“Good,” she said, making a note. “And your neck?”

“My neck is — well, it’s stiff — but it’s more my arms.”

“And how would you rate the pain?”

“Well, it’s so on and off it’s hard to tell. I guess… a six?”

It is so hard to explain to someone something that isn’t always there, or plays musical chairs. Like, when my back hurt I could say, “it was an eight all day today, but now it’s about a five,” or “it’s been a four today.” With my arms, one spot could be a three, another could be a nine, yet another could be a six and another could be a 999939572359i27t59275. The next day I could have a pain number of two in my wrist for a few minutes, ten in my upper arm thirty minutes later, then sharper pain in my wrist. The scale system really doesn’t work, unless I were to walk around with a notepad noting each spot and the scale number. That would get awfully tedious. I mean, I have a hard enough time doing things as it is because of this. If I were to stop each and every time just to write it down, I’d never get anything done!

Besides, what would I do at the end of the day? Find the mean, median and mode of all of the numbers? Would those calculations be, like, the final scale number I give to the people at my chiropractor’s office? In that case, I’d better pick up a notepad and a calculator.

PS: I’ve edited all of my pre-diagnosis posts and put them in the Thoracic Outlet Syndrome category, if anyone is interested in reading them from the beginning. There are probably — no, definitely — more that I haven’t gotten to. I’ll get there. Eventually.

One of my mom’s coworkers at the hospital, Dawn, has TOS. She told Mom that she’d received chiropractic treatment for it and that it did help. She also told Mom that she feels like the symptoms are coming back, and that it doesn’t ever just go away. It’s all about managing the pain. She said she tries to be as ergonomic as possible, and always has to be aware of her body’s position.

Dawn also suggested yoga. Mom said she (Dawn) does a lot of it and that it has really helped her.

I can’t help but feel a little disappointed. I mean, I never exactly expected any kind of way to fix it or make it go away, but hearing from someone else that it doesn’t is an entirely different thing. I worry about it a lot. I mean, someday I want to try to have a baby and if it all works out — I’m so afraid it won’t — I’m terrified that I won’t be able to carry the diaper bag and car seat. I guess I shouldn’t be worrying about these things now, but it’s bad enough that I can hardly type or carry things at times. I wake up constantly in the middle of the night because I’m in pain. When my godson Konner was born I could barely hold him. It’s just these things that bug me, because I want to have kids more than anything and it terrifies me that I might not be able to be a “normal” mom.

My aunt has rheumatoid arthritis and Crohn’s disease. I guess if she can be a “normal” mom, then so can I. I guess I just need to concentrate on getting as better as I can right now.

I am going to try the yoga, though. Ever since I met Alex (who loves yoga) in my Communications class, I’ve been wanting to try it. It couldn’t hurt, right? I was on the phone with Mike the other night and I told him about Dawn.

“I’m thinking about trying the yoga,” I said.

“Yoga makes you fart.”

I asked him how he knew that, and he told me his sister had taken a class. “You lay on your back and raise your butt off the ground so you can put your legs up, and it’s supposed to let out all the bad gases and stuff.” Apparently everyone in the yoga class was farting.

I couldn’t help but laugh; I’m the type of girl who will laugh her ass off when her boyfriend (or dad) farts.

“That’s why,” he said, “there’s a gay dude walking around spraying Febreeze.”

I love my boyfriend.

I read a lot of blogs — and usually when I should be working or doing homework. I am always amazed when I hear someone’s story, but I was more than surprised when I read Miss Britt’s post from yesterday. Not many people will talk about eating disorders (I’m using eating disorders as a loose term, since not all cases are actual disorders), whether they are short periods of self-starvation or longer periods that require diagnosis and treatment. Miss Britt’s post about her own struggles as a teenager really hit home to me; at 16 I went through my own period of self-starvation. Read more on lettersoflove.net »

Today is a bad day, and also a good day. Three years ago something very big happened to me, something that I will always carry with me. I’m not going to be sad right now, though. Good things happened today.

I got my transcript transfer and graduation applications! I just finished filling them out and will drop them off on my way to Creative Writing later. I’m really excited about this. I need to fill out an application for SCSU now, though.

Today is also a bad pain day — partly because of the TOS, partly because of the flu shot I got last night and partly because of my lower back. I’m trying to get through the day, but all I want to do is go home and lie down with The Host. (Nope, still haven’t gotten to finish it yet. Sigh.)

On a totally random note, I went to Burger King during my break between classes. It took forever to get there because of unexplainable traffic, but when I did get there it took another year to get through the drive-thru. (That particular branch is always slow, whether you go inside or not.) When I finally got the window, paid and got my food, the girl asked me if I wanted any sauce. I said yes, she handed me my bag and just before the window closed I heard the girl next to her say, “For what? She’s only got four nuggets.” (I had fries, too, thank you!) So before I drove off I loudly said that I wouldn’t be coming back. Stupid Burger King.

Anyway.

Little one, I hope you are safe and happy wherever you are. Maybe someday we will meet again, for good this time.

I don’t think I can sit here much longer but I need my Visual Basic professor to look at my programs!

Lately I’ve fallen ridiculously behind in VB, which I’d been sort of ahead in to begin with. At this point I’ve completely given up on trying to read the chapters, and have been printing out his lecture slides instead. I still have two and a half assignments to finish, and tonight he is giving us another one. At least I’m all caught up with Creative Writing (I just have to edit poems to hand in for my portfolio).

Between all of the pain I’ve been in lately and this maddening rush to catch up on school work, I’m beat. Pile on a few other personal things and I’m ready to hop on a plane to Florida. (Besides, it’s warm down there!) I like to say that I thrive under pressure, and normally I do, but right now I’d rather ignore certain things than face them like a man — um, woman.

As for something totally random, I managed to smash two of my fingers in the door of the Director of Student Activities’ office. My middle finger has a crescent shaped blood blister below my nail and it hurts. It’s kind of cool looking but it kind of grosses me out.

NaNoWriMo starts in less than ten days and I still need to finish my characters’ profile sheets and my outline. I wonder if my professors and boyfriend would be okay with it if I totally ignored everything else just so I can get ready to write?

Today was the first time that TOS actually severely interfered with my life. I was in my Crafts class and we started the linoleum block printing. I had done it in high school and really enjoyed it, so I was really looking forward to it. Well, I could barely get the Speedball roller going properly, and when it came to pressing the block to the paper I had zero strength to do it and the pain was beyond anything I’d ever experienced. I washed the ink off of everything and bit down on my tongue to keep from crying, then literally ran out of the studio. I started crying before I made it to the elevator, and sat in my car with tears streaming down my face like an infant.

I have never felt so incompetent in my life. The worst part was, one of the girls was complaining that she wasn’t a crafty person and that this was the hardest class she had taken yet. She said she’d rather be in Statistics. I wanted to shake her. I know it’s not her fault and that she probably had no idea how much pain I was in, but still. It was just a Truman Show kind of moment.

My mom suggested I ask my professor if I can do something else instead, so I emailed her and explained the situation. Hopefully she lets me, because I really don’t want to have to drop this class. I really am enjoying it, and if I took something else I would have a lot of work to catch up on.

I’m just beginning to realize how much TOS could affect me. It bothers me that I can barely carry things. Pens fly out of my hand. When my godson was born I had to keep switching him from arm to arm, because it hurt to hold him. When I have my own kids, am I going to be able to juggle a diaper bag and a carseat? Sometimes it just really gets to me.

Edited 10/22/2008: I got an email back from my professor and she said that we can work something out. Now hopefully I can sell the supplies I bought to another student. It’s such a waste of money now.

Friday I had my first appointment with a chiropractor. It exceeded all of my expectations. After filling out all of the usual forms and then talking with a nurse, I talked to Dr. Rosa. He asked me when the problems with my arms started, which doctors I’ve seen and what tests they ran, etc., and what the symptoms were like in the last couple of weeks.

Then he did a couple of basic tests. He pulled my left arm back and checked the pulse, and said that when he pulled it back my pulse disappeared and my hand went numb. This was especially significant because when I first went to my pediatrician about it, he and another doctor had said that the pulse in my two arms was different. Dr. Rosa immediately thought it was some kind of compression in my neck on the left side, and after doing the same thing to my right hand — and the pulse and feeling being fine — he found a few more things:

• there is a second compression underneath my neck — certain spots he touched really hurt that I had never even noticed before he touched them;
• the bone in my neck — which is supposed to be curved — is pretty much flat;
• when I lay on my stomach, one of my shoulder blades sticks up more than the other; and
• the space between my collarbone and top rib is smaller than normal

Within thirty minutes, he diagnosed me with thoracic outlet syndrome with double crush syndrome. I hadn’t even said anything about my suspicions of TOS, and yet Dr. Rosa immediately came up with it.

Even better, he began treatment immediately. He basically did an electro-massage, electro-acupuncture and several adjustments in my neck and back. Everything he did cut the pain down by about fifty percent. (Of course, it’s back with a vengeance now.) He also gave me three stretches to do, because I have limited side-to-side movement in my neck. I go back to see him on Wednesday, when he will continue the adjustment and other chiropractic treatment methods.

I am very happy with just that first appointment. It’s very, very relieving to finally have a diagnosis — especially one that is treatable. I know a lot of people tend to scoff at chiropractors, but after doing the research I did on Thursday and what was done during my first appointment on Friday I am very optimistic.

A big thank you to everyone who continually gave me their support and encouragement. It was very, very frustrating and a little depressing at times to not be able to know what was wrong. I really appreciate all of the positive and encouraging comments on the last post. If it weren’t for my family, friends and Mike I would probably have gone insane a long time ago. I know it’s not going to be easy, or a quick fix; the adjustments do hurt a little, and it’s going to be a little at a time to get everything back into place. (There is, also, the possibility that I might need surgery, but I am trying to be positive and am hoping that Dr. Rosa can help me.)

I have more to post about, but I’m in a lot of pain right now and I should try to get some homework done while I can. I will try to update again tomorrow.

Yesterday I hit rock bottom: I sat through Painting and could barely paint; I tried to sit through Visual Basic but after doing research for thoracic outlet syndrome and local chiropractors decided to wave the white flag. I called a local chiropractor that I’ve heard good things about. First I made sure they took my insurance, and then asked when I could get in for an appointment. I seriously expected next week at the earliest, but my appointment is for three this afternoon!

I got a really good vibe off of this website, so I’m hoping my intuition is at work here and that Dr. Rosa can help me.

I may or may not update later, as I’ve still got a lot of catching up to do on my school work and some other issues at hand.