Health Update

Hi everyone,

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and New Year.

I've been doing O.K. lately. Mostly I've been very, very tired. Around Christmas my blood pressure lowering medication built up a little too much and I became very weak so I pretty much slept through most of the holidays, or, if I wasn't sleeping, acting like a brainless zombie. Just ask my mom about all the brainless, and even dangerous, things I did (and continue to do). As always, part of my "slowness" is because my liver isn't filtering chemicals that go straight to my brain. Don't ever give me new instructions on how to do something. It just doesn't work.

I want to thank you all for the lovely, wonderful gifts!!! I want to get out thank you cards, but lately with me, these things don't always come to pass.

I've still been having pain, but it's not as bad as it was, say, 3 months ago. I've started physical therapy and continue to see my pain control doctor.

I've been keeping busy with various projects and social endeavors. Though I don't always have it in me to do everything I want to do, I still am able to get out of the house on a regular basis while (usually) keeping up with things like laundry, rat cages, and keeping my room sumptuously clean and tidy. ;-)

One of my biggest complaints right now is the cold. I'm very sensitive to it and can shut down physically and emotionally pretty quickly when it comes to the cold. Despite keeping my room at around 75 degrees fahrenheit, I usually wear two or three layers of clothing, usually with at least one layer of fleece or some other toasty fabric on each part of my body. If I leave the house I put on even more layers and wear my gloves at almost all times (yes, even indoors).

I also get these horrible chills if I don't keep my pain under control. Sometimes the chills remind me that I have pain I need to take care of because, after living with these paricular pains for over 6 months, I sometimes don't notice them.

As for the menopause thing: I can keep the menopause symtoms under control pretty easily, but the pain in the ovary area is still the same as ever, if not worse. I'm on my second shot now and am due for the next one in a couple months, although if it hasn't delivered satisfactory results by then we'll have to look at other possiblilities.

I've been doing a lot of research into natural pain relief and have completed my Reiki training so I can do more advanced self-healing (this helps my pain a lot). I've also been doing some Reiki on friends and family (and of course the animals) who all seem to really enjoy it.

I have one energy healing group in town who are giving me their services for free. They do wonderful work. I always feel more energized after a session with them and the pain relief I get is sometimes better than narcotics!

I think that pretty much covers it for now. As always, I'll try to keep ya'll updated as often as I can.