2010 Coming to an End

I can easily say this year has been one of the worst years of my life. It's right up there with the year my grandfather died of lung cancer. It might even be worse than that year. Because of that I cannot express how happy I will be when 2011 gets here. I am praying that it will be a much better year, filled with a lot less worries and pain.

Speaking of pain. It is my new best friend. It is the constant monkey on my back, gnawing at my soul. I know that sounds crazy, trust me I know. But its the truth. I have now been in constant pain for the last 4 months. At this point I feel more alone than I ever have before. I know I have support from those around me, but they can't feel what I feel, and I can't describe what I feel well enough to get relief from their support. The pain saps my energy, my emotions, my motivation for anything. And I know my friends and family feel helpless, which only makes me feel worse, and makes me feel guilty for sharing my feelings with them.

The pain was really bad on Friday. I was at PT where they have a sonagram machine that puts sonic waves into your joints to stimulate the healing process. That little metal wand hit something in the joint, and hit it hard. All of the sudden I was in DEEP pain, sucking in air, and trying to find my happy place. This isn't normal, yet no testing can find an issue. I have now had 3 x-rays, and 2 mri's and nothing other than some bone bruising that I hope has finally healed. But the area that hurts the worst is "fine" according to the tests...I am supposed to get a bone scan to get a better idea of whats going on, but I have absolutely this VERY expensive test will find anything. I know my health care professionals believe me, which is better than where I was 2 months ago, but if I've made any improvement, its minuscule.

The crappiest thing is that I finally got out of the boot, which I wore for 3 months, and everyone was really happy for me. Sadly I couldn't be happy with them because its not healed, just healed beyond what a boot can do for my foot. So now I have become what I study. I have an invisible illness, that even the doctors cannot find.

Pain

WARNING: This will not be a happy post. If you don't want to read about my complaints in life, please stop reading now. I need somewhere to go to write, so here I am.

I am in pain. Physical, sometimes sharp, sometimes dull pain. I have been in pain for the last 4 and a half weeks. I should not be in pain, and it confuses everyone including my Dr. as to why I am hurting. Let me tell you the story.

On August 1st I fell. One minute I was standing by the car waiting for the door to unlock, the next I was on the ground with my ankle twisted underneath me. It hurt like a motherfucker so I went to the only Dr. who was open at 3PM on a Sunday. All the way out in Loudoun Co. They took x-rays, saw nothing, told me it was a sprain, gave me a little air splint and crutches and sent me on my way. A month later...it hasn't gotten any better. It still swells every night, it bruises randomly, I am still in a huge amount of pain, and starting to wonder if something more is wrong. So I make an apt with a new Dr. who specializes in Sports Medicine. More x-rays only to reveal....nothing...but they did give me a boot and prescribe PT and I see them again in a week and a half.

At this point, I have now been in pain for as long as I can remember. The pain keeps me from sleep if i don't take something. I'm constantly in what feels like a bad mood because of it. The new boot helps, but at the end of the day I still have a swollen foot because I walked to my class on campus. I'm so tired of not being myself. I feel like the pain has made me a shell of who I was. I miss when I didn't have to consider the amount of standing/walking involved in the day. When I could go shopping (yea walking around a store...not fun anymore). When I could easily walk up the stairs to my own apt. Sometimes I wonder if its all in my head. If because they can't find anything that means really nothing is wrong. I keep thinking i'm crazy, but yet what else can I do? The swelling is a real problem so that means something really is going on right? Right? I know people are sick of the injured me..hell..I'm sick of the injured me. Shes no fun to hang out with.

Summer 2010 Bucket List

So lately I have started to notice more and more bloggers making "bucket lists" of sorts. I made one in my personal journal a while ago for things I want to accomplish in my lifetime. It is a very long list and one I don't particularly want to share with the interwebs, BUT I think I am going to follow the trend and make a list of 30 things I want to get accomplished this summer. I'm hopeful that with my three day weekends this list can get done before the end of August. So here we go, as I finish them, I will put them in bold and italics!

1. Go to at least 2 more Orioles Games
2. Finish the books/book series that have been started this year (Eat, Pray, Love, The Sookie Stackhouse Series, and the Mercy Thompson series)
3. Go to the cabin at Smith Mountain Lake for at least 2 days.
4. Make use of my pool pass
5. Go to the American History Museum in DC
6. Go to Chincoteague to watch the pony's swim
7. Get in the Ocean, at least once this year
8. Take Meg to the Holocaust Museum (Then for ice cream to cheer ourselves back up!)
9. Go to a movie with Mom and Dad
10. Start walking at least a mile every day
11. Become better at teaching COMM 100
12. Have a girls night complete with fruity drinks and lots of laughing
13. Catch up with old friends from High School and Undergrad who live in the area
14. Start doing Yoga again
15. Have "Roomie" time on the patio at least 2 more times
16. Go to a vineyard
17. Make at least 5 more knots of love chemo caps
18. Crochet a sweater
19. Finish my blanket
20. Clean out my closet and purge and donate
21. Take a night drive with all the windows down and the music up "just cause"
22. Catch up on the TV shows I missed throughout the year
23. Take more pictures
24. Lose at least 15 lbs.
25. Walk a 5K (I put this on here because its on my actual bucket list and I did it last week)

26. Re-teach myself how to knit and make a complex scarf
27. Do a small act of kindness for strangers at least once a week (0/11)
28. Go to a concert at Wolf-trap
29. Sit on the patio and watch the fireflies come out
30. Go to the local farmers market

So there ya have it. Most of these seem like simple things, but that was kind of my point. Life gets so hectic during the school year, that I need to recharge my batteries before I start it all back up again. And really, when was the last time you sat back and watched the fireflies?? Maybe something you should think about too!! :)

Staging A Come-back

So...I haven't written in this thing in quite some time. Actually I completely forgot I had it. But now is as good of time as any to start it back up right?!? I think so too. Now that we have that straight, I do need to vent on one particular topic....

2010 has officially been the craziest year of my life. The year started out good, but three hours in turned into a nightmare. Many people who read this already know what I am referring to, but for those who don't, to make a very long story short, my little brother was attacked by a group of high school boys and in trying to defend himself, was wrongfully charged with a very serious crime, one that included 20 years to life in prison. Two and a half months later my nightmare is over. A few nights ago we found out that the charges have been dropped because the evidence does show what my poor brother has been saying all along, it was self-defense and will be expunged from his record. This was a day I had been looking forward to since the beginning of the year, yet even now, days later I'm still not positive it has all sunk in. Its like a weight you've grown so acoustomed to carrying for so long that once it's gone the phantom feeling persists. Its strange for me to not dread the future as I have for the entire year, and to actually be excited about my own birthday. Before, the pretrial was supposed to be 12 days before my 25th birthday. Needless to say I wasn't looking forward to anything in April, yet a total 180 has occurred in 4 days and now I have plans to go to the FL keys a day after I turn 25 and swim with dolphins, a dream I've had since I was a little girl. I honestly feel, for the second time this year, that I have whiplash.

Yet I'm still left asking why? Why did all of this occur? What was the higher purpose? As a rational person I know that not everything happens for a reason, and this whole situation could just be a massive fuck-up on many people's part (including my own brothers because while it was in self-defense, he could have walked away and called the cops rather than putting himself in the situation). But another part of me, the part that believes whole-heartedly in a higher power, looks for the bigger picture. Two things I see from this whole debacle is that my family has grown closer and more tight-knit than ever before, my brother learned a valuable lesson, one I wish he could have learned a different way, and has changed his life for the better. I just hope that these changes last, in both my family as well as within my brother.

Well...now that I have that off my chest, I should probably grade papers :( lol.