Depression Rears its Ugly Head

I hate to say it, because I don't want it to be true, but I think I am getting depressed. For 9 days now, I have not ventured out of our apartment. I sleep a lot during the day and stay up all night. I realized that I have been procrastinating with everything. Avoiding things that must be done or taken care of. I got our budget all messed up this month and now we have a week still left this month and we are beyond broke. How did I let things go like this? Usually, I am right on top of the budget and things we planned to do.

Depression is one of those unfortunate facts of life for people like myself that are suffering from chronic pain. The last couple of days weren't so bad for pain but before that the days were a blur of nothing but pain. I know that the depression is just a reaction to the continuous pain and I have to work hard to stop it from taking hold of me when the pain eases. I just don't have any fight in me this time, no energy to even pretend. My Mom was here today and it was just not in me to pretend. I finally have my Mom come for a visit (the last time was when we had moved here) and I was barely functional. I really hate that about myself.

We are supposed to go out to Pamela's tomorrow for Jacob's birthday a little early so that Pamela and Efrain can use the pick up truck to come to town and pick up Kelly's bed from my Mom's and bring it over here and then take the old beds to their place. My old single bed (I just got a hospital bed) is going to Daniel and they are taking the headboard and footboard from Kelly's bed and, last but not least, Kelly's bed can be put out for their garbage pick up. We can't put anything like that out in the garbage here in the city. The problem is that I don't know if I will be able to make myself go out. The plan was for us to look after the children while they came in to do all this and I just can't see me having the patience to look after all five boys! Even with Kelly's help it just looks like such a daunting task.

My upper back and hips are really hurting and so are my ankles and hands - it's starting to spread through my body. I have to leave for now. Take care everybody and I hope your day will be painfree. PLEASE - check out this website because I found it very helpful and even very thought provoking - http://www.beliefnet.com/painmanagement/

What's Happening in June

We have had some beautiful weather this month and for the first two weeks I was able to get out and enjoy it. I still don't have my power chair, which would make it easier to get around and even go down to the boardwalk. The compression stockings that I purchased last month are doing a really good job and the swelling is down a lot in both legs. The skin rash and inflammation isn't getting any better though.

The past four days have been quite bad. I have been little more than a vegetable because of the pain. Right now, the pain medication is working fairly well but I won't be able to sit here much longer. I have just been drifting in and out from the medication. Sometimes I start to wake up and the very first thing that I am aware of is pain screaming from my hands, hips, legs etc. I have to force myself to get up to a sitting position and then I reach for my pain pills and pray they work quickly. It may take hours before I can move about easily and this often means cancelling plans. I hope I can get out today but the way I feel at this moment that just doesn't seem likely. I need to take some pain pills and maybe an anxiety pill because it's getting hard to accept that I may be stuck inside again today. It looks quite cloudy out so maybe I'm not missing anything?

I just can't type any longer. I really pray that some one will notice my blog and - maybe - post some encouraging comments for me. In any case, that's all I can write today.