Since I haven't posted on here since July and this blog is supposed to be a reminder for me about how I'm doing medically, I figured I should probably post an update.
This past year was a year from Hell for me medically. It was by far the worst year I've had with my back pain. I was in crippling pain from around May. Previously, it's been bad, but not this bad, and I get better once winter is over. That wasn't the case this year. I was in excruciating pain until sometime in November. (For those State-side, that's late Spring.)
I was constantly using an electric blanket or heat pack to help ease the pain. I could barely sit up and some days I spent a large portion of the day struggling to concentrate or trying to stop myself from crying because the pain was so unbearable. I could no longer help with creche at church, as I could barely move, let alone take care of small children, and I couldn't paint my nails, which was sometimes the only joy my depression would allow me to feel. Everything was hard work and it put a strain on every aspect of life and added additional stress to Rohan. I'm so incredibly blessed that he takes the "in sickness" part of our vows so seriously as that's definitely been tested.
Gradually I started feeling better and, in September, I started doing what I could to try to get healthier. I had been putting on weight since moving to Australia permanently, but being near immobile made it worse. I started out with walking part of the way to work. It was pretty far, so I took the bus most of the way, but instead of transferring, I walked the last 1.5 kms. When I could, I'd walk that to and from work and, if I was really up for it, sometimes I'd walk with Rohan home from work, which was another 2+ kms. We also bought a recumbent exercise bike so I could ride that and it wouldn't hurt my back, at least not any more than it already hurt. I've lost a bit of weight, and am no longer obese (yay!) but I still have a long way to go until I'm a healthy weight.
Everything was looking fine come Christmas. My job's contract ended in December and I didn't have a job lined up yet, but I was going to replace that walking to/from work with walking to the lake near our house. But then January came. I had a flare-up with my back pain a few weeks ago, which I think may have been from a sudden drop in temperature that night. I went to see my rheumatologist for a check-up a couple days later and she decided to change one of my medications. It took much longer than she had anticipated for my pain to get better after starting on methotrexate, so she thought maybe this would help. I'm now on moxicam instead of celecoxib. That flare-up went on for two weeks or so, which I'm guessing is from the change in medication. My back is only a bit sore now. Like uncomfortable but not too bad.
I had about a day after my back flare-up until I came down with a cold, which luckily only lasted for a couple days. I was then healthy again for about two days before contracting food poisoning. (Which coincidentally was 1.5 days after a job interview for a research project on food poisoning, so cue the conspiracy theories!) I'm just now recovering from that.
This year hasn't been off to a great start so far, but, hopefully, it will turn around and be a better year than the last one!
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