I am doing better, but I guess that’s all relative.  I had a hell of a time for a couple of months and while I have improved, I’m still not even close to being back to where I was just two or three months ago.  I hesitate to even mention what is going well for me, because every time I do I backslide.  For instance, I mentioned to my father the other day that my shoulder hadn’t hurt significantly while I was in the chair for about 2 1/2 or three weeks and lo and behold what happens the next day?  Shoulder pain.  I’m unable to determine what’s really causing it, but at least it’s not debilitating pain.

Also a little less debilitating is the pain in my bladder.  It appears like I have learned a trick or two and have been able to do much better over the last three or four weeks.  Crap, I better look around for some wood I can slam my head against so I don’t jinx myself again.  Damn that hurt, but it was worth it.

I don’t know if I told you all (that’s right every now and then I throw in some Southern vernacular) that my urologist recommended a surgery which would alleviate my bladder pain, but I was so apprehensive that I did everything I could to avoid agreeing to the surgery until lately.  Three or four weeks ago while I was experiencing almost excruciating pain I decided I needed to get the surgery.  It’s called an ileovesicostomy.  I know it’s difficult to pronounce, in fact I’m not even sure if I’m saying it correctly.  Basically they’re going to take a small piece of my intestine and attach it to my bladder and then run a chimney like device (my intestine) out to my right lower abdomen.  It’s kind of like a colostomy for the bladder.  It’s really not much different than I have now, except I use a catheter currently and this will not have a catheter hence, it’s not supposed to have any pain.  At least that’s what they tell me.

I went in to see the surgeon/urologist three weeks ago to talk about the procedure and they (my normal female urologist and her fellow male urologist) asked me if I wanted to get a colostomy done at the same time.  After some serious soul-searching, research, and a lot of questioning I have elected not to do so at this time.  I’m afraid being under general anesthetic for too long could end up biting me in the ass.  It’s easy to get pneumonia from general anesthetic and I am susceptible to pneumonia.  Even though many people think I should have the procedure done, something deep down in my gut tells me not to and I am definitely one of those gut thinkers.  Every time I go against my intuition, I lived to regret it.

I’m waiting on a date for the surgery.  I’ll try to keep you guys updated, but I’m sure you’ll understand if I don’t tell you exactly when I’m doing the surgery for security purposes.

Strangely enough every since I made the decision to have the surgery my bladder has been feeling significantly better. Of course this gives me pause, but I’ve had this happen too often in the past to think this is actually going to last.  It’s difficult for me to believe, but I’m able to ride around my block at full speed, something I haven’t been able to do for more than a year now.  I had to slow my chair down considerably, because the bumps in the road were killing my bladder.  It’s as if something is toying with my mind.  Kind like a marionette does with a little doll.  I know if I cancel the surgery, the pain will come back full blast.  This is only a small reprieve, but I do enjoy it and I plan on trying to do as much as I can while I am experiencing it.  The sad part is that while I have been having some respite from the bladder pain I have been dealing with low blood pressure issues that have prevented me from getting a lot done.  Thankfully my blood pressure issues have improved significantly, but I’m still having some troubles every now and then.  Today, for instance, I decided I needed to get my haircut and even though I drank a Pepsi with tons of caffeine in it, my blood pressure started dropping toward the end of the haircut.  I was able to get it to rebound rather quickly, which wasn’t the case just a week ago.  Today I didn’t even wear the compression stockings I have been using since these issues cropped up.  This is the first time I’ve had to wear compression stockings in more than 16 years now.

When I say I’m having blood pressure issues most people have no clue what I’m talking about.  Low blood pressure, many people think it’s 90/60.  Unfortunately that is my primary blood pressure whenever everything is going well and I’m up in the wheelchair.  When things go badly, it drops so low that the automated blood pressure cuts can’t register the pressure.  I have had it as low as 48/35 and still able to talk.  It’s frightening, but I have been dealing with low blood pressure problems for the better part of 17 years.  In the past I simply had to wait about an hour for my blood pressure to stabilize after I was put into my wheelchair.  Of course if I needed to get going quicker, I could simply take a pill to raise the blood pressure or drink so heavily caffeinated products.  The pill causes some anxiety issues, so I’m not eager to take it too often, but the problem with caffeine is its addictive and if you use it too much you end up having to use more and more to achieve the same goal.

I’m thankful I was able to talk one of my doctors into giving me some sodium pills a couple of months ago, because now they have realized I am really low in sodium and want me to take double what I was thinking before.  It seems to be working, so I’m not going to worry about as much as I have been lately.  I need to get these electrolyte stabilized and my bladder out of control and I’ll be good to go.

Wow, this is the most I’ve been able to write in quite a while.  Maybe I’ll be even more motivated tomorrow.  The only good thing I have been able to get done lately is read.  I finished The Ark by Boyd Morrison.  It’s on sale at Amazon, but I was able to get a Kindle copy for free from an authorized source.  I found it to be entertaining and could see it being made into an action movie.  It was fun, inventive and even though a little bit over the top I still enjoyed it.

Oh yeah, I did see the psychologist and he thinks I’m handling everything fairly decently.  As he put it, “you have reason to feel down and at least you know what’s got you down.”  I’m hoping I can see the end of the tunnel.  Just waiting for that light to show up is really trying my patience.  It seemed like everything has hit me all at once, but I am the eternal optimist.  At least that’s what I tell myself .

Take care everyone,
BP
PS hopefully there aren’t too many errors.  I’ll try to look at it, but I’m not going to overboard doing so.

On Monday I had an eye doctor’s appointment and then went okay.  Yes, I am going to have to try some bifocals, but that’s not going to be easy.  I’ll try to get my sister in law to take some pictures of me on my workstation so you guys can see what I’m talking about, but it’s difficult for me to read my glasses on.  Not to mention, that if I tilt back to watch television is complicated by the little lens in the bottom of the glasses.  I’ll see what I can figure out to.  Oh yeah, after the eye appointment away by the VA with the intention of trying to get an appointment with a spinal cord psychologist , because I expect now that I probably need some professional help.  The big problem was the spinal cord psychologist I knew is no longer working there and I’m going to have to go through the spinal cord doctors in order to get a consult.  I’m going to try calling him tomorrow.

Anyway, if I make some comments that are a little out of the ordinary, I do apologize.  I have been trying to avoid going on the Internet when I do feel like this, but then I tend to feel even more isolated.

Hopefully there are too many errors, because I tried to catch them.  Both of my halfway decent microphones have broken right now I am using a really inexpensive cell phone microphone which sounds like I’m in a little tunnel.  It does seem to be working okay, but I can’t come close to writing is really as I would like.

Take care everyone and I look forward to reading your blogs, if there are some new ones to read.

On Monday I had an eye doctor’s appointment and then went okay.  Yes, I am going to have to try some bifocals, but that’s not going to be easy.  I’ll try to get my sister in law to take some pictures of me on my workstation so you guys can see what I’m talking about, but it’s difficult for me to read my glasses on.  Not to mention, that if I tilt back to watch television is complicated by the little lens in the bottom of the glasses.  I’ll see what I can figure out to.  Oh yeah, after the eye appointment away by the VA with the intention of trying to get an appointment with a spinal cord psychologist , because I expect now that I probably need some professional help.  The big problem was the spinal cord psychologist I knew is no longer working there and I’m going to have to go through the spinal cord doctors in order to get a consult.  I’m going to try calling him tomorrow.

Anyway, if I make some comments that are a little out of the ordinary, I do apologize.  I have been trying to avoid going on the Internet when I do feel like this, but then I tend to feel even more isolated.

Hopefully there are too many errors, because I tried to catch them.  Both of my halfway decent microphones have broken right now I am using a really inexpensive cell phone microphone which sounds like I’m in a little tunnel.  It does seem to be working okay, but I can’t come close to writing is really as I would like.

Take care everyone and I look forward to reading your blogs, if there are some new ones to read.

I’ll see if anybody else is blogging quite a bit, but I doubt it.

I should be back up in cooking with fire again next Friday, August 12.

Take care,
BP
PS I am going to get around to all of your sites, but I certainly hope the subscriptions is working now.

Why is it when I am lying in bed watching television that I come home with wonderful ideas to write about? Those ideas, however, seem to have vanished by the time I get to the computer the next day. (Shaking my head)

I think my wheelchair could be causing a large part of my problems and I finally got a doctor who knew enough to refer me onto urology. So, I am on the road to rebounding to my once lofty position of being one of the healthier quads around here.

What am I embarrassed about? Well,… I had a rough morning and therefore didn’t get hardly any sleep. I called my Frau this afternoon to check on her. It seems her mother’s been going through a multitude of things, the majority being her fault. She’s an alcoholic, diabetic and a curmudgeon on top of that. She refuses to stop drinking and really doesn’t eat appropriately for her condition. Right now she’s in the hospital and my Frau was telling me about all of the issues that are plaguing them right now.

While she was droning on, much like me when I start complaining about all of my problems, I was having trouble concentrating and comprehending what she was saying. Things are a little different over there in Germany. Anyway, I listened for about 25 minutes and threw in the suitable yeah and yes’ where I thought they were appropriate. Finally I hear this strange question and then I realize I had been asleep for a least five minutes while she was continuing to vent. I was so embarrassed. I told her I had only had about three hours sleep and for some reason I haven’t been able to get hardly any over the last several weeks. Thankfully she understood. I think the only thing worse would have been if I fell asleep while having sex. I don’t know if that’s possible for a male to do, but I’m sure the women have done it at one time or another.

It’s unbelievable, but I have finally gotten through the UTI. Unfortunately my entire family must have caught some small bug. We were all feeling a little under the weather, but after staying down yesterday I seem to be rebounding pretty well. I can’t wait to get everything back to normal again. I just don’t seem to be getting out as much as I used to have this really annoys me.

There is a bit of good news here, my bowels have finally started to get back to normal. Most people won’t believe this, but I had to severely cut back on my fiber. This has helped with the burning sensation and bowel pains, but it hasn’t eliminated all of the difficulty. It is nice to have only one or two bad days a week as opposed to one or two good days every few weeks.

My niece was really excited to cook for us on her birthday, but I had to throw a wet blanket on things by not liking the vegetarian lasagna she made. Yes, she is turned into a quasi-vegetarian who doesn’t eat meat, but will still eat seafood. The lasagna was pretty good, but the ingredient which was supposed to take the place of the meat was eggplant. I did eat one and a half pieces, so she didn’t say I didn’t try. I’m going to scour the Internet to see if I can come up with a really good vegetarian casserole so we can have that for parties.

Well, I guess I’ll see you all later. I’m trying to get around everyone’s site, but I just haven’t been in the mood lately. Seems like I’m not the only one.

It’s really strange. I keep waking up in the morning with my kidneys hurting and aches and pains in my shoulders and neck. Once I get some water in me, actually a lot of water, I begin to feel better.

I have been doing quite a bit or reading, whenever I feel like it. But I have been doing a much more TV watching. I came across some really fantastic shows and I am going to tell you about them. There is a new series on AMC, the Killing, which I haven’t checked out yet. I have, nonetheless, looked at what people are been saying and it seems to be pretty positive. When I read a few of the comments I noticed this show was based on a Danish series. So, being addicted to get television crime drama, I decided to download an episode and check it out. It was close captioned, which I usually hate, but I watched the first episode and I was addicted. I downloaded the next couple thinking I would finish up the first murder and then I would start watching the American series. Well, it wasn’t until I was three episodes in that I discovered the entire first season is about one murder.

Sure there were some plot holes here and there, but I have to tell you it ranks up in my top five best television series of all time. That includes HBO, Showtime and all the others I’ve seen over the years. If you’re interested let me know. Send me a direct message though.

I’ll include some comments from other people so you can get an idea that I’m not the only one who feels this way. I had no idea the Danish film industry was so darn good. For me to watch that many shows in a foreign language was unthinkable a couple of weeks ago. All I kept thinking while I was watching it was, “my mother would have loved this.” It was a bittersweet moment for me. Not a day goes by.

Take care everyone,
Billy
PS I am a bit more optimistic. So there is that.

I was feeling pretty darn decent Thursday, but yesterday I had a bit of a back slide. Something to do with the position of my chair aggravated my bladder and caused me to begin to feel achy once again. I really wish they wouldn’t have put in this recline feature, I was very satisfied with the tilt mode only. Every since they have put this in I have had nothing but problems with my bladder and even a few instances of skin compromise. Thankfully I have been able to nip the skin problems in the bud, but the bladder has been a persistent pain.

Tonight I will be having my brother sterilized everything that I put into my mouth in the hopes that I am not reinfecting myself with some sort of a virus.

I just can’t wait to get back on my feet again. Well, you know what I mean.
PS sorry haven’t been getting around to your sites, but I have been trying to keep up with people on Facebook. Even though I don’t particularly care for Facebook.