April showers.......

Arrrggghhhhhh Well, I went from my last post in December....during the winter time, to now..It's April and springtime.. So, what's changed since December and now.... Well, it's now warmer (80+ degrees the last few days with humidity in the upper 80 percentile) Winter...it was too cold...This was one of the coldest winters on record here in NE Ohio....Many days in a row of sub zero temps.. This limited my time outside to very little at a time... I still had to walk my dog which sucked bigtime.....My legs would be burning and as stiff as boards when we got back home... I spent many days wearing my long johns which barely helped... I also got a new pair of boots to wear outside....Nice and insulated....I will admit they were warmer than wearing my mesh sneakers outside, but my feet and legs were still freezing..... It was so nice when the snow began to disappear and the temperature started going up....At the end of March we had one week where the weather and temperature was nice....Mid 60's and low humidity.... But as typical for NE Ohio....once that broke, we basically went right into summer....upper 80's for the temperatures....as a matter of fact, the last two days we broke temperature records, and the humidity has been miserable. Today we have an 80 percent chance of thunderstorms..... Not looking forward to this at all.... I swear, the weather here has to be the most screwed up weather there is......Too cold, too hot, too humid, too rainy, too gloomy.....definitely not too much sunshine... Healthwise.... Status quo..... Pain levels on some days have been pretty nasty.... When I think about my pain levels I always reflect back on the day of my onset.....I think to myself, that if that was a 10....Pain like I've never felt before, then I look at how things feel now and it varies between a 4 on a good day to probably a 7 or so... It's not fun. I still deal with the same old bowel and bladder issues, I still deal with the balance issues, I still deal with leg aches and cramps that wake me up at all hours of the early morning....usually between 1am to 3am.... This morning for example.....1:20am.... I stretch every morning, I do some light exercises to get the blood flowing, I get out and walk my dog multiple times during the day.... I try to stay as active as I can but the fatigue still creeps up on me every day.....I'll find myself nodding off and on, all throughout the day... To add more issues to this whole thing.....I've been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis and proctitis... I come to find out that UC is an autoimmune disease as is Transverse Myelitis.... I thought back and I had my TM onset on May 14th, 2008 and I had an episode of *something* in August 2008...That something consisted of diarrhea, lethargy, no appetite, just basically felt like crap for a week.... Those episodes would come around about once a month... This went on for years.... Turned out one day I was at my family doc and told her about all of this... She had me go in to a gastroenterologist.... He started me on Zantac......Seemed to help some....the episodes weren't coming monthly... As time went on, the episodes started back and seemed to be getting worse... Back to the gastroenterologist and he has me do an EGD, a colonoscopy and a CT scan.... Surprisingly I get a voicemail from my pharmacy the next day..... I had no idea what this was for because I had not ordered anything...I called the pharmacy and asked what the meds were....I was informed that the meds were for UC and proctitis... Apparently my results from the CT scan came back in enough time to get to my doc the same day as I had it, and he immediately called in the meds... So, I've been on that ever since and I've also had to adjust my diet quite a bit....but with the combination of the med and the diet change I have had some luck.... Only a few minor episodes...I did learn early on that my chunky peanut butter was out the window......and I love chunky peanut butter too....Oh well, I'd rather give that up and not deal with those damn episodes.... No fruit with seeds....raw veggies are out the door, cut back on fatty red meat.....and cut back on the fiber like oats... So, between the TM and the ulcerative colitis, it has made life challenging.....but, I deal with it. Lately I've aligned myself with an organization called the Ohio Rights Group that is working on collecting names for the petition to get medical marijuana on the ballot to be voted on in the next election..... I am a huge advocate for this because I am so tired of the pain meds I have been taking....Morphine and Norco (Vicodin) I don't like the way they make me feel....they make me feel all crappy and I also don't like what they are doing to my body... The stuff is poison basically... From all the people that I've talked to that live in states where medical marijuana is legal, they swear by it... it helps relieve the pain, the cramps, aches, spasms.....and also helps sleep...which I need desperately.... So....keep your fingers crossed for me.....Let's hope that this gets passed this next time aroumd... So....let's finish off with an old Doobie Brothers tune..... Daughters of the Sea.... Till Next Time......