Author: Veronica

  • Boobs!

    So, it’s that time of the year again. The time where we all snap photos of our (mostly) clothed boobs and let Lotus put them on the Internet in aid of breast cancer research and winning stuff for ourselves.

    This is the 3rd time I’ve participated, the first time I was in the middle of weaning Amy and the second time I was deep in the breastfeeding woods with Isaac. It was nice to be able to wear a pretty bra for this one!

    So, if you’d like to head over and vote, my boobs are #5 and you can vote as many times as you like. Yay me!

    For the record, before anyone gets whingy and starts complaining that it’s a huge traffic grab (which hey, I’ve been on the ‘net for a while, I know what gets complained about), all the ad revenue raised this month during the Bewb Fest will be donated in aid if breast cancer research. And that’s always a good thing!

    Honarable mention to whoever owns photo #1, awesome photo (I don’t know who you are) and I’m voting for you too!

    (I’ll write something substantial soon, I’m finding myself in a small haze of exhaustion and crying children lately. I will resurface, eventually.)

  • Drugs and Addictions.

    Drugs:

    I’m beginning to feel a bit like a Pharmacy, as I juggle drugs and fill prescriptions and dole out medication to myself. It’s an interesting place to find yourself at 21, unlike my peers, I don’t have a recreational drug habit, just a I’m-slightly-broken type drug habit.

    Nathan wonders what damage I’m doing to my body by taking them. I wonder what damage I’d be likely to do to my body was I not taking them. We end in a stalemate.

    I saw the doctor again today, and left with a new anti-depressant, something that has the benefit of being even better for neuropathic pain and anxiety. I’m grateful for this, the Endep is fantastic, but if the new drug, Cymbalta, is even more fantastic than the Endep, well then, I’ll take that thankyouverymuch.

    I shall report back with how I’m feeling in a week or so.

    Addictions:

    Books. My standard addictions. Plus chocolate, but I can’t link you up with the chocolate I love. Hehe.

    (all links are affiliate links, but I’ve searched for the cheapest copy of the book, plus it’s free shipping. I earn a few pence if you buy something through these links)

    I just finished reading The Time Travellers Wife, which is a brilliant book. Absolutely fantastic. If you haven’t read it, you should, I recommend it entirely.

    Other books I recommend entirely are the books from Alice Sebold – The Lovely Bones, Lucky, and The Almost Moon, all of which will take your breath away with their brilliant writing.

    I’ve just started The Invisible Road, by Elizabeth Knox (which is 2 books in one, Dreamhunter and Dreamquake), the book that the lovely Stephen Estcourt mailed to me.

    On my current to read list are

    Riders and Rivals by Jilly Cooper – total junk food for the brain. I’m looking forward to it.

    One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez – I’ve heard good things.

    Amy and I are reading Alice in Wonderland, it’s a little old for her, but she’s enjoying snuggling while we try and get through a chapter a day (a chapter is around 5 pages, so not too bad.)

    Schindlers List by Thomas Keneally

    My Invented Country by Isabel Allende

    And for cooking and food books, I’ve just read Heston Blumenthals Total Perfection and enjoyed it immensely as well as Margaret Fultons Encyclopaedia of Food and Cookery.

    So that’s me.

    What are you reading at the moment?

    And if you’re not reading books, what blogs are making you laugh/cry/wonder? Leave a link, I’m always after new blogs to follow.

  • Hadrians Walk

    When I heard that Martin was planning on walking 84 miles in 6 days, across England, I might have laughed at him a bit. Just a little. Okay, I choked eventually.

    But you know what? He’s 3 days into it and so far whilst he is suffering a bit (okay, a lot) he’s not dead yet.

    Frankly, I think all the walkers are mad, absolutely bloody mad, but it’s such a good cause, how can I begrudge them their madness. So, even as I laughed about Martin walking his feet off, I threw some money his way, so that it was at least worth his blood, sweat and tears.

    If you’re interested, you can watch the tweets come in by searching #hadrianswalk on twitter (and there, I’ve even linked it for you!) and Dad Who Writes is keeping us all updated at the end of each day.

    The money raised goes to the Joseph Salmon Trust.

    Joseph Salmon was a little boy who died of pneumonia when he was three. A year after his death his parents set up the Joseph Salmon trust to give financial support to parents in the Huddersfield and Mirfield areas, whose child has died.

    So, you know, it’s a good cause and everything.

    Basically, I’m asking you to dig deep and donate a few pence to the Joseph Salmon Trust, so that they can help out bereaved parents.

    OR, if you don’t have the money (which hey, I know that feeling well, without my ad revenue I wouldn’t have been able to donate a cent) you can go and comment on THIS POST, where $1 will be donated for every comment left. (fine print: One comment per person and a valid email address MUST be left).

    And if you’re so inclined, cheer the walkers along on twitter by using the #hadrianswalk hashtag. They’ll (probably) be grateful for all the support they can get (from us lazy internet friends sitting at home in our warm living rooms….).

    Hehe.

    Photo credit: Dad Who Writes

  • Ehlers Danlos and Neuropathic Pain

    A little while ago I went to a rheumatologist to discuss my Ehlers Danlos and various pain management drugs.

    At first, the lovely doctor was a little baffled as to why I was seeing her, as she was not a doctor who normally sees EDS – apparently in Tasmania, once you’ve gotten a diagnosis, you’re expected to stay at home and deal with it, not seek input from specialists. But maybe that was just the collective impression I’ve had from all the doctors I’ve seen.

    We talked a little, as you do and she admitted that she knew very little about EDS, having only seen one, very mild case of it in her history of seeing patients. I wasn’t put off, I’d much prefer a doctor who admits they know very little and listen to me, rather than someone who knows very little, bluffs it out and ignores everything I’ve got to say.

    Of course, we all know how bendy I am and I had to stop myself choking with laughter when she asked which joints of mine dislocate. I told her she’d be better of asking which ones don’t dislocate (to my knowledge, my right elbow is fine. So are my ring fingers. And I don’t think I’ve ever dislocated my spine. I’ve also never dislocated a patella, my knees when they dislocate prefer to pop out my fibula. Yay me) and so we worked through how broken I am.

    We talked about pain management and she recommended a new drug, something that I’d not tried. It’s called Endep, and while it’s mostly prescribed for depression, it also works ‘off the label’ for insomnia (check) and pain (double check).

    She was concerned about the possibility that my pain, while some of it is related to constant and recurrent dislocated, that it could actually be neuropathic. She was also quick to let me know that she didn’t think that it was ‘all in my head’ but instead, that my nerve signals were getting muddled and telling me I had pain when I didn’t.

    Which um, hello pain episodes! I knew, from research, that my pain episodes were likely neuropathic in nature, but I couldn’t get my GP to listen to me properly when I tried to bring it up before. In his defence he is highly overworked, knows very little about EDS and so relies on me to research and present him with the best course of action. Fine when it’s ‘please redo my prescriptions’ less fine when it’s ‘I’m having issues with — and I need your help’.

    Anyway.

    I have pain episodes. They’re triggered by something hurting, something new, that my body isn’t prepared for, which in turn overloads my brain. When I’m having one, it feels like all my muscles are clenched, my skin feels like it’s burning and every nerve ending sets on fire. I can’t walk properly during one, because it hurts too much and if I’m touched suddenly, I have a panic attack because of the pain. It’s almost like an itch in the middle of your back you can’t scratch, your whole body focuses on it and everything else goes a little hazy.

    To put it in perspective, a stubbed toe can cause a pain episode. My latest one was caused by my period starting, the period pain tipped my brain over the edge into a world of hurtiness.

    The Endep, because they work on nerve pain, they help the pain episodes, something that no other (legal) drug has helped with yet.

    So they’re working and working well – I’m managing to sleep again and my pain has calmed down. Inside a brain, the pain and anxiety centres are very close together (or else respond the same way to stimuli, I can’t quite remember), meaning that pain triggers anxiety and anxiety can trigger neuropathic pain

    And there I was, falling apart, stuck in the centre of a giant vicious cycle. That I’ve now, hopefully, broken.

    Of course, I’ve still got pain from the dislocations and I suspect we’ll see the onset of arthritis in my hands fairly soon, but the debilitating pain, that’s being helped.

    I’m also still on a slow release Tramadol and a regime of panadol osteo (for bone pain) and it’s better than it was. I’m still fairly broken, but I’m not as messed up as I was.

    I’ve got a referral to the pain management clinic as well, so I’m hoping that that will help a bit with the pain/anxiety cycle – but of course, like all good things it takes 9 months to get in to see them. Le sigh.

    I’m in a good place at the moment, mentally (we’ll ignore my physical bits for now, fucked up mess that they are). Of course, there is a ‘clickiness’ in my heart, so I’m booked for an ECG to check my heart out and I’ve got a mild scoliosis that needs to be watched – something that I didn’t have a few years ago, but I’m in a good place.

    Something that I definitely wasn’t a few weeks ago.

    ***

    Updated:

    A visit with the doctor has seen my Endep changed to Cymbalta, which in the long term will be better for pain and anxiety. That said, it’s currently making me completely sleepless, so I’m not enjoying myself very much. Sigh. It feels like a balancing act, trying to work out what works best with minimal side effects and long term issues.

  • A winner!

    Remember, a little while ago I offered a copy of Microsoft Office 2010 for one lucky reader?

    Well, the numbers have been drawn, (a little late, no judging me)

    annnnnd…

    Which is the lovely Annabel from Get in the Hot Spot!

    Congratulations Annabel, I’ll be emailing you with details and organising your prize!