A New Grandchild Arrived Feb. 10

Photos: My five grandsons: Caleb 5, David 4, Simon 18 mths, Jacob 11 and Daniel 2 1/2. Grandsons David 4, Daniel 2 1/2 and new baby Rachel.

My daughter, who has five boys, finally got her baby girl. Rachel Amanda was born February 10 at 3:25 p.m. weighing in at a whopping 12 lbs. She has dark hair and eyes (so far anyway) like her oldest brother, Jacob. I really hope that they decide it is time to stop but I'm afraid that my daughter wants to have more. The problem with that is the fact that when they need someone to look after the children, I am the only one they can call.

My family doctor read me the riot act this time because she told me when Pamela had Simon that I was not well enough to look after so many children for days at a time. A few hours maybe, but no more of this 24/7 babysitting. Pamela started making trips to the hospital three weeks before the baby was born so I was at her place, whichis very small, almost the whole three weeks. It's been a week since I came home and I still haven't really recovered. When I am there I cannot take extra pain medication for the pain because I need to be alert at all times. I cannot take my power chair to her place because I have no way to get it there so I use my manual chair but there isn't room to use it everywhere so I end up walking (if you could call it that) to get a lot of things done. I also have to lift the youngest ones in and out of their cribs.

At the end of a typical day with the children I am in such pain that it is hard to focus on anything. I drag myself to bed, dead tired, and fall alseep right away. The problem is that about 2 to 3 hours later I have to get up because the pain wakens me. My body gets increasingly stiff and painful with each passing day and yet I keep pushing. I think I get to a place where I become numb to the pain as a survival tactic. Of course, when I finally did get home my body and my mind flooded me with my true condition - terrible!

I can't write any more today, it is too painful to sit here and I need to get out of my chair and into my recliner with my swollen legs up. I am so grateful that I have a doctor who understands chronic pain and will prescribe pain medication for me. I know many people like me who have doctors who just refuse to accept chronic pain as real and won't prescribe anything and, in fact, they are sent for psychiatric help! Unfortunately, there are more of them than I care to think about. Thank you for reading this, please leave a comment.

ALWAYS turn your power chair OFF when getting out!!!

The holidays this year were a little better than other years in some ways with the exception of my stupid accident. As a rule, when I get out of my power chair for even a moment I turn it off and this story will tell you why this is so important. I had just arrived home from a dental appointment and was in a hurry to make it to the washroom. I stood up to take my coat off, without turning off my chair, and my coat caught on the controller of the chair, moving the chair forward. As I was standing sideways, the moving chair was pinning me between it and a counter and causing my legs to bend sideways in a completely unnatural way, under the chair. Caught up in my coat, my screams brought my roommate running and she managed to turn off the chair but not before I heard the tell-tale "pop" of a breaking bone.

A trip by ambulance to the Emergency Room revealed that I had a hairline fracture and torn ligaments and tendons in my left leg and strained ligaments in my right leg. Both legs swelled horribly and were so sore that putting the absolutely necessary compression stockings on was a terrible experience for me and, even more so, for the person unlucky enough to be elected to help get them on. They were necessary to keep the swelling, and the pain, from getting out of hand but that didn't make it easier to tolerate getting them on. At one point, my partner was trying to get the stocking around the heel and her knuckles dug into the flesh around my ankle and this caused an involuntary scream on my part that nearly gave my partner a heart attack.

My legs are better now and x-rays this week show that everything is healing well. There is an ulcer on my right leg that is getting larger instead of smaller but so far it is not painful and I can tolerate having the stocking over it. The doctor said it is imperitive that I wear the stockings and maintain pressure at the site of the ulcer to keep the lymph fluid from developing an infection that could spread throughout my body with dreadful consequences.

Although the holidays were more painful than usual, I enjoyed them even more than usual. I spent Christmas Eve day from about 4 p.m. until Christmas Night around 9 p.m. at my daughter's home. My grandson's are just the thing to make anyone forget their pain, if only for a few minutes. They range in age from 17 months to 11 years and are a barrel of fun. Having them to distract me from my pain is better than any drug on the market.