Stayin' Alive

Well, the Survival book I bought J. and I to read has already helped us.

I mentioned in the last couple of posts something about what he said about attitude and not wasting your energy on negativity cause you are gonna need it.

(Picture courtesy of Dan Gregory- say this in your best Irish/Scottish accent then it's fun like the color and look of these buildings.... thanks Dan. When I am sick, art helps me work through it all.)

Now I will just quote it word for word cause his words are better than mine. As are Dan Gregory's pictures. Why? Well, for one he has already taken them and I can just copy past from his facebook page. And 2. They are amazing and I can't hike to those places unless a heli takes me.

(this is really cool, Dan, ......... good thing I can just put his photos in for now. whew. I am tired already cause typing hurts the chest cavity that holds together everything underneath that is not holding together. weird.  I know.)

 

So three or four birds with one stone- you, Readers, get a visual.  Dan's photos area amazing,

 

And that makes it so I can focus on

 

surviving

 

 

and not taking pictures for right now.

 

 Why? It' s D day. Drop day. Yup. That asthma attack and flare I am having we are seeing if I can go from HIGH to the original at the beginning of this week. In two hours I could be unable to lift my head up.

 

So let's get copy pasting shall we?

 

 

(this reminds me of when I threw shot put. I was so embarrased to throw. My bones were giving me havoc back in Jr. High and so I had to stop running the 400. I could throw pretty far so I did that and actually went to state. I weighed 127. One other gal from school, who is not a vet and looks to be leading a very active life style, was strong too and she threw. Thank heavens. I didnt' get how some of the BIG girls could throw so dang far. It's all in the wrist. shh. don't tell.)

 

 

(Dan's shot put at the Highland Games is a rock it looks like. But he has the form. Good job, Dan. If I had never gotten sick, I wonder if I'd have done this..... hmm. dunno.)

 

Oh, and writing Hawke's (the Green Beret who wrote the survival book) words.

 

I would have J. do the typing but he is shoveling off the tramp. Actually sweeping it off, a shovel would ruin it. AndThat's right, we still have the tramp  up cause I thought we had more

 

TIME

 

 before

it snowed. !!!!!!!!

 

 We got DUMPED on in IF this week. Which is fine except when you have a ton of errands across town and everyone forgot to slow down a bit on the first snow fall of the year and some either drive off the road or rear end you. Lots of that happening.

It just takes that first snow fall.......It doesn't look like it will melt any time soon- it's frigid here. Minus something. I put two extra blankets over me this morning cause I ate and that makes my body cold.

And Targhee opens in 5 days J. tells me.
I am getting shaky, Like I drank way too much coffee. Great. I don't even drink coffee.



(cool enamel ware from Bestmadeco.com)

We gotta hurry this post up.

Cause it isn't "mind over matter" in the case of prednisone. You just use up your daily allotment if you do too much. you should have minded matters.

 So ya gotta really pace yourself.

 

Where is that survival book?

* Okay, I found it as I come back to add to the post at 9 pm. I have made it through the drop day. Tomorrow is when it will REALLY be bad. My feet are burning. I can feel the fasciitis pain in a big way. I am grabbing the ice packs. See bottom for page 31 of Hawkes book under the section called:
'Preparation at Fort Living Room.'


 
(gonna need some courage in the next little while. Photo courtesy BestMadeco.com)

 

Welp, J. took it to read somewhere and it is lost in the vortex which is our lives. I just got an email from CEO, Peter, at Best Made Co. (don't worry it is just the computer generated one)

But he said he'd send an email each week to help encourage us peeps to get outside and around a campfire; he'll keep his end of the bargain by making the best products and then he wants to know how we use them. Or use our time.

 

Time is an interesting thing.

 

I recall a time when I had never been on prednisone. Did you know the withdrawal effects are compared to heroin? I remember a time when I learned about drugs and not to do them. So I didn't. Readers, if you are anywhere within the sound of my raspy, Doc Holliday coughing, eroded gastro tract voice: DO NOT DO HEROIN.

 

 

If it is true that the withdrawal is like the withdrawal of that..... you will only find the most painful experience in your life. Prednisone saved mine. The price I get to pay is going through something I was taught to stay the heck away from. It seems cruel, eh? But not really. I owe my life to the small little tablets that some have called:

 

Satan's Tic Tacs.

I laughed so hard when I saw that poster on pinterest for auto-immune disorders. Then I gave it some time to sink in and that just seems dead serious.

 

Tic Tacs are so good. One isn't enough. But if they whatcha- mah- who's--- yikes. That would be- THAT IS

one nasty tasting Tic-Tac. No thanks. But wait! I HAVE to freshen my breath with these babies from now til a loooongg time! Why? Cause my adrenal glands have been on them too long.

 (love this journal)
 

I know none of you young Readers will listen to me say:

 

Stay Away from Heroin! Or Stay Away from Drugs!

You'd say I was a hypocrite or something. Readers, I honestly know that prednisone withdrawal is so painful- it actually causes pain before you withdraw. Bone pain. It eats at the muscles. It does something to the hippocampus.....

 

It hurts. But it helped me stay alive...... how can I hate something that gave and gives me a life?

How can I hate being able to watch my son?

 

Neal A. Maxwell said our last relationship with adversity will be gratitude. Yes, one day I will be grateful for what I go through today. And tomorrow. And yesterday. And the last twenty years of known Crohns Disease.


*Thanks Best Made Co.
 

 

P.S. if you or someone you know or your dog has Crohns- it is different for everyone. And I have been on immuno-suppressing meds that are relatively new for twenty years and am suffering from the ramifications of that.

 

And the rams of disease prorgression, where it is at. I am on a new med now. It was made in Japan.

No one on the net is able to tell you or I yet what it does. Kinda like on the new Spiderman when the guy doesn't know how his body will take blood type of Peter's lineage.

 

Which makes me think of the Cushingoid Syndrome and how my body looks these days. I wish I had a swimming pool of my own so I could go swim. Not cause I am embarrassed of my striaed body. I am proud of those bruises and marks- those were hard earned, Readers!

&&&&

okay, that was earlier this morning too. Before the shock my system took at only getting the dosage I was at 5 days ago. It is so hard to go from something to nothing. It is painful. I am trying to take it a moment at a time.


(Thanks Bestmadeco.com)

Fast prednisone bursts are great at first. I could finally breathe through the horrible lung problem. I was so grateful to have those breathing treatments. I think of all the things that I have suffered and then quickly recoved from was the gift of good Oxygen. It was almost wet to my palette..... I cried tears of gratitude. So glad I went into the ER for help cause I was struggling.

I am praying that I don't run into any problems in the the next 24 hours that send me back as far as the asthma goes.

I have the prednisone headache. I feel a lot of the places that I injured in the last few weeks.
I need to upload some funny pics of the skeleton that we took so I could recall where all I was hurt.
I feel confident in many of the nurses, doctors, P.A.s that work for my good.


(let's give a good shout out to all those back east on White Street who are making things us Idahoans love for the outdoors. When ya can get out and around a campfire. )

One nurse had a son going through being on prednisone and tapering and she just "got it."
I have been blessed to read a bit from other's experiences. No two are alike but we are all human and our suffering hurts no matter where it comes from.

Too tired to write what Hawkes said. I am just going to use that duct tape trick I was planning on using on J. to keep him from snooping out gifts and  use it on myself. So I can't make any more wreaths, ornaments, or write. I just have to lay here and let my adrenal glands remember what to do.