Pain

I haven't been myself lately.  It started about 3 months ago or so and has progressively gotten worse.  I brushed it off at first and when it began to get worse, I chalked it up to the changing seasons.  The weather was getting cooler and thought my stiffer joints was weather related and once I got acclimated to the cooler temps, I'd be OK.  How wrong I have been.  I'm still hurting and the pain is getting worse.

So let me rewind a little bit.  A few weeks after we returned home from our 2 1/2 weeks in IN visiting with family, friends and Eriks attending camp I started to wake up with sore, stiff feet.  At first I kind of thought maybe my plantar fasciitis was back since it hurt to walk.  But the pain wasn't in the muscle(s) on the bottom sides of my feet where plantar fasciitis occurs.  The pain was more in my toes, my ankles and the tops of my feet.  After a week or so, the pain subsided so I thought it was gone, whatever it was.  Then on random days I'd wake up again with stiff feet.  Then I began to think that maybe I was positioning my feet in weird ways while I was sleeping.  I am a rather awkward sleeper who puts herself in strange positions while I sleep because for me they're comfortable.  Also after having my sternum cut in half twice to have heart surgery, finding positions that support my chest while I sleep have been key.  It's amazing how not being able to put weight on a rib cage that has been wired shut when you sleep has you finding interesting and comfortable ways to sleep.  I still can't sleep full on my chest it hurts and the wires are still wrapped around my sternum.  It will take years and years for them to disintegrate.  I actually use a small travel-size pillow to support my chest when I sleep.

Not long after that I started waking up with a stiff neck, shoulder and back pain.  Luckily this has gone away for the most part so I'm not really sure they are correlated.  However, there are days from time to time that I wake up with back & neck pain so severe it causes migraines.  Luckily it's been a few weeks since the last time I had the back & neck pain.

Fast forward to 3 weeks or so ago.  The foot pain has gotten worse.  At the end of October or early November there was about 2-3 days straight where the pain was so intense in one of my feet that it was radiating up my leg to my knee and my hip.  I was hobbling on it severely.  Sleeping was nearly impossible and after 2 days of very little sleep, I just broke down.  It got a bit better but in my left leg the pain is constant in my foot, ankle and knee.  Sometimes my hip gets bothered.  It varies from day to day.  The right foot and ankle are sore but so far, no extensive radiating up the leg.  When all this happened I also began noting pain in my hands when I woke up.  It was stiffness and not easy to grasp my fingers into a fist.  Well the stiffness in my hands has not gone away at all.  I'm trying to spend less time on the computer but it seems as though almost everything I do requires me using my hands.  Opening things with lids has become difficult.  And of course my husband has to close everything tightly so there are times it's really difficult for me to open things.  I'm finding when Lane is home, I'm handing off more and more for him to open.  Why cause pain when I don't have to.

Since the pain has gotten worse and I'm realizing it's not going away, I finally called the doctor.  Bad news is I can't get in until Dec 7th.  So I have about 2 weeks until I can get seen.  My best guess is that I've developed arthritis.  But that's just a guess. 

Being in pain really stinks.  I don't think anyone, Lane included really knows how much I hurt.  I've been hiding it.  Unfortunately, the pain has caused me to become really impatient.  Especially with the kiddos and I hate it.  I don't want them to see that I hurt.  I don't want them to see me wince as I go up and down the stairs.  I'm really cursing the 2 story house we're renting because of the stairs and because the idiot who designed the floor plan made the stairs extremely steep.  I've always cursed the steep stairs but even more so now. 

When I have my answers, I'll post them.  Just send lots of patience my way so I can get through the next few weeks.