Adriene, That Pain, and Yoga

Self care for some nurses is wanting.  I am a case in point.  If you come to me and describe certain symptoms I am likely to tell you that you should see your doctor.  When I experience a problem  I have a consistent plan of action.

1.  Ignore as long as possible and wait to see if the problem goes away. (This step may take weeks)
2. Consider carefully all steps not requiring medical care and implement accordingly.
3. When it dawns that no this problem will not go away without some kind of intervention, then activate the result of step two.
4. When it is obvious that your friends are sick and tired of your whining and sniveling, go to a doctor and shut up. ** The shutting up will occur, the doctors visit rarely.

Several weeks, dare I say months?  No, several weeks ago I developed headaches, something very unusual for me and on occasion dizziness.  I noticed it when I moved my head, and on waking the pain would be at the resting point in my head.

It must be my brain I thought.  But then not to long ago I took notice that the pain was not just IN my head but in my neck and shoulders.  I was unable to turn my head right or left to any degree.

So one morning after someone had mentioned Yoga in another conversation it came to me that perhaps I should try some exercises and I googled my symptoms and the word exercises.

Naturally a plethora of remedies popped up, most of them on YouTube.  I watched a few and realized there were no Downward Facing Dogs in my immediate future but then I found Adriene.  Fibromyalgia precludes some types of exercise but this particular exercise seemed made to measure.

You can sit on a mat or in a chair, and there are days I do one or the other. The first time I thought, ‘Oh Oh, I can’t do any of these.’  It seemed nothing stretched the way it should.  But Adriene says, ‘Listen to your body.’  So I did.  If nothing was going to stretch at least I could strive to get into the starting position.

Well guess what?  That very first day, I got up, got on with  my day, and found myself in awe that I could move so well and so comfortably.

I have done it every morning on rising without fail (no I did miss one day and was quite miserable with pain for the day), but otherwise for a week, I have felt wonderful.  I make note of my discomfort on waking, where in my head or neck it is, just in case I ultimately do see a doc but my quality of life is wonderful.

So please meet Adriene!

I had a plan**

I had a plan. **

You know, best laid and all that.

Life got in the way and all that.

I want to say something but I do not want it to sound whiny or pouty or feeling sorry for myself and all that.

I think it may be unresolved anger. Or maybe it is very well resolved anger. How do you know if it is unresolved? Maybe by the number of **** used in words like da*n or is it d*mn. Nuts I can’t even curse properly in print.

In six days I have an appointment to see my oncologist. The plan was to tell him that even though I still have two years of drug therapy left I simply must stop taking the pills.

I am certainly much better off than many people I know but I am angry at ‘the attitude’. So you had cancer, radiation and medication and the follow up tests say it is all gone. Mine would be a success story. Except.

The complications and side effects at this moment are just too much.

Most are just annoying, but I have discovered that annoyances that are constant are debilitating and depressing.

I have a number of friends that went through, and are continuing to go through the same diagnosis, treatment and consequences, all within a short time of myself. For some the stage of cancer was worse and some not as bad, but basically we survived the surgery, radiation, chemotherapy and had positive results. So it looks like we survived.

But no one said the cure was worse than the disease. Well I guess it really isn’t but it sure feels that way. Would I have agreed to treatment if I had known what it meant?

October 7, 2013 surgery for breast cancer.

December 2013 to January 2014 radiation. Fair skinned – and I burned like a toasted marshmallow in spite of ointments and creams, and the radiation broke down one of the incision sites. That was fun.

Then a start on Arimidex, a drug to prevent the production of estrogen (since my tumors were estrogen producing) – to be taken for 5 years.

Now my doctor would say, ‘I explained all the possible side effects to you before I ordered the drug.’

Yes, yes you did.

But when you are sitting there in a state of shock over your diagnosis everything else that is said is just back noise. Your mind just can’t grasp it. And really, until you actually experience it you can’t possibly know, or guess, or imagine. It is all just a bunch of words.

I was pretty good until April 2016. Hot flashes that had been gone post-menopausal for ten years came back with a vengeance. But I am woman. Hah! This is no more than a very uncomfortable annoyance. Not to mention embarrassing when speaking with someone in public and the hair at the back of my head drips water down my back.

I had three friends that went through all this a few years back and had NO side effects so I did not expect any either.

I am really angry about my cholesterol which has always been remarkably good. BUT stop estrogen production and that bad cholesterol goes sky high. ‘I will change my diet and exercise rather than take drugs.’

‘Chris it won’t change anything. Right now you have a one in three chance of having a stroke.’ So now I have a lifetime commitment to a Statin.

One friend who went through surgery and treatment four months before me started experiencing a lot of joint pain, and she would ask if I had any. Me? Not I.

But four months makes a difference. By April 2016 when the doc asked if I had any joint pain I said, No. at least no more than usual except my right wrist was painful, but I put that down to excessive Knitting or typing.

By August 2016 hand and joint pain was what I would call excessive with limited use of my hands. Pain in my hands and arms would wake me at night. I would wake up crying.

I got splints and called my oncologist who said to immediately stop the Arimidex and start taking Tamoxifen. But before he ordered it he said he wanted me to fully understand possible side effects and decide if I would continue. All I wanted was for the pain to stop. So I agreed.

Truthfully the pain remains in my hands but is less that before. I can knit and type without crying.

Then the other joints decided to join the party. But at least they are polite and let one flare-up finish before another starts. Most recently my right knee flared which lasted days, and I literally moaned and groaned with every step. Finally last Monday was a Normal Pain Day! Yea! But in the early morning hours on Tuesday I was awakened with fierce left hip pain. Now today, two days later it is just normal pain.

Some days I limp along, and some I can just go about my business, and some I have to go to bed for a couple of hours in the afternoon until the worst of whatever flare up passes. And it does pass. But I am angry. This ‘successful’ treatment is interfering with my quality of life. At my age anytime spent in bed or immobile due to pain is a major interference. I don’t want to spend a single second not ‘living.

I can handle pain. I can’t remember what it was like to have no pain. But these flare ups are above and beyond. I won’t take heavy drugs because that just fogs and messes up your mind. I know, I know, you say, the ‘quitcherbitchin’

It all comes down to quality of life.

Oh and more news. A friend who went through the same thing at about the same time has just been told she has lung cancer related to her radiation therapy. Oh I remember being told at the time, ‘Now radiation kills good cells as well as bad so there is a chance you could develop lung cancer.’

You hear the words, but they are only words.

So here it is a few days from my appointment. I decide to check with the Cancer Society and Support Groups. I want to know how reasonable my request to come off Tamoxifen 2 years early is. (One dear friend has been told she must be on it for TEN years, not five, and she is experiencing everything I am.

Anyway, apparently coming off the pill increases my chances of the cancer returning. The dreaded hot flashes in fact may not go away but may actually get worse. The joint pain in some cases gets worse with withdrawal. Oh and some report abdominal bloating. Sigh…..

D*mned if you do, D*mned if you don’t.

If I knew then what I know now would I…..?

I will say if you now anyone who makes a decision not to receive treatment, please just give support and love. There are consequences to every decision.

It’s a Sad day When

It’s a sad sad day when injustice remains so until a life is lost. This Prime Minister has been around how many years but it takes an extreme occurrence to finally get response from the powers that be. NOW the hero rides in on his politicalized horsey to say something must be done. It hasn’t mattered that other have died or continue to live in pain or rather not lived because it wasn’t time for the leaders of this country to benefit by standing up and being counted. And in the end just how long will something take to happen? No really how long?

This article is an interesting read: Prime Minister Harper says tougher laws coming for child sex offences. The Canadian Press
Published Thursday, August 29, 2013 12:37PM EDT
Last Updated Thursday, August 29, 2013 7:26PM EDT
TORONTO — Child sex offenders, particularly those who victimize multiple kids, could spend longer in prison under a range of harsher penalties proposed Thursday by the prime minister.
The Conservative government plans to introduce legislation this fall aimed at cracking down on people who sexually exploit children, Stephen Harper announced.
“Sadly there are truly evil people out there. The fact is we don’t understand them and we don’t particularly care to. We understand only that they must be dealt with,” Harper said at an event in Toronto.

Lianna McDonald, Executive Director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and Justice Minister Peter MacKay, looks on as Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks in Toronto on Thursday Aug. 29, 2013. (Frank Gunn / THE CANADIAN PRESS)
“To protect our children we must create a justice system that is more responsive to victims and especially more responsive to children and to the families of children who have been victimized by sexual predators.”
A main plank of the proposed amendments would see people convicted of more than one such offence serve their sentences consecutively, rather than the current system in which sentences are served concurrently.
Harper cited in his announcement the case of Gordon Stuckless.
The 64-year-old — who was once an usher at Toronto’s Maple Leaf Gardens — was originally convicted in 1997 for sex assaults on 24 boys while he worked at the famed hockey arena between 1969 and 1988.
Harper pointed out that Stuckless was originally sentenced to two years less a day, a sentence which was followed by the suicide of Martin Kruze, the victim who brought the sex abuse scandal to light.
Stuckless’ sentence was later increased to five years and he was out on parole in 2001 after serving two-thirds of it.
“Three years, for 20 very serious offences,” Harper said. “That sort of thing was common at the time. Of course the victims, on the other hand, have to cope for the rest of their lives with what such people have done to them.”
Stuckless now faces nearly 100 fresh charges, all laid in the past year, which relate to alleged offences that took place decades ago.
Lianna McDonald, the executive director of the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, said particularly when a sex offender has abused several children, the sentences don’t seem like enough.
“In many cases where one individual might have multiple victims the sentence has not to date adequately reflect the number of those victims,” she said after the announcement.
“For some victims in some circumstances it may not even seem that what happened to them really mattered in terms of the totality of the sentence.”
The proposed law would also increase minimum and maximum penalties for child sexual offences.
Currently, people convicted of sexual interference, invitation to sexual touching or sexual exploitation are sentenced to a minimum of one year and a maximum of 10.
Making and distributing child pornography convictions carry the same sentence range. Convictions for accessing or possessing child pornography see people sentenced to a minimum of six months and a maximum of five years.
Harper’s Conservative government has brought in a number of mandatory minimum sentences for various crimes over the years, including previously raising the minimum sentences for the aforementioned offences.
They have brought with them controversies and court challenges.
The Ontario Court of Appeal is considering the constitutionality of minimum sentences for gun crimes after it convened a special five-judge panel in February to hear six such cases at the same time.
In Quebec, the provincial bar association launched a legal challenge seeking to strike down sections of the Conservatives’ 2012 omnibus bill involving mandatory minimums. The bar association said the provisions don’t protect the public and represent an unconstitutional interference from one branch of government, the legislature, in the business of another, the judiciary.
Critics of mandatory minimum sentences say they don’t actually help reduce crime and do more harm than good.
To understand the impact of mandatory minimums one need look no further than the United States, where harsh mandatory minimums were enacted decades ago, said criminal defence lawyer Nader Hasan.
“What even some of the most Conservative law-and-order-oriented judges and politicians south of the border have begun to realize is that mandatory minimums do no make us safer,” said Hasan.
“What they do is overcrowd prisons and bankrupt legislatures.”
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder recently said the Justice Department would target long mandatory sentences that he said have flooded the nation’s prisons with low-level drug offenders and diverted crime-fighting dollars that could be better spent.
Hasan, who teaches a course at the University of Toronto titled “Crime & Punishment: Mandatory Minimums, The Death Penalty & other Current Debates,” said data from the U.S. shows little deterrent effect.
“The Harper government‘s fascination with mandatory minimums is all the more perplexing given that these policies have been tried but have failed miserably in the United States,” Hasan said.
McDonald, from the Canadian Centre for Child Protection, said her hope is that the harsher penalties will keep offenders behind bars longer so that it prevents them, for a time, from committing future offences.
The proposed amendments would also ensure the spouse of a person charged with child pornography offences could be obliged to testify in court and increase penalties for those convicted of child sex offences who break conditions of supervision orders.

Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/prime-minister-harper-says-tougher-laws-coming-for-child-sex-offences-1.1432058#ixzz2dPqLL0ez

This email was sent from the CTV News

Laid Low By Fibro Major Flare Up #1 2012

Apologies all.  I had some rather witty things to say today regarding cheek bones but have encountered major flare up from old friend who I conquered years ago but drops in to let me know I am still vulnerable now and then. There are measures but like any super hero – must retreat to Bat Cave, Ice Palace etc etc to recharge.  Energy very low pain high ..off to rest 100%.  My doc reminds me that for as bad as a flare up can be for me I do recover while somewith Fibro live like this always.

Please drop in and see my friend Joss Burnel at crowingcrone.wordpress.com. and link upto her. B.E.W.E.L.L. site.  Joss is our resident expert on Fibro and just published a great book on the subject.

Like the Phoenix I shall rise again…..confirmed size effect..drama!