The One Where I Really Haven't Thought of a Title

Without sensation in my thumb, index and now most of my middle finger, injuring my fingers / hand has become a daily occurrence.  I bent 3 fingernails backwards trying to open the oven door - didn't have my hand on the bar, just the tip of my fingers, but I couldn't tell...  I have more paper cuts and file folder cuts than ever - and don't those feel great when you soap up your hands and discover them... My brother-in-law put my new aquarium tank down on my index and middle fingers yesterday and I didn't really notice until I tried to move away...  The list goes on.  The fact that the numbness is progressing rather than receding is bothersome... Only 13 days until I have the EMG nerve study though... hoping for answers.  'Cause the pain in my arm / shoulder today is OUT OF CONTROL!

Hubby is trying to organize some of the stuff in our basement.  Mostly the totes of stuff I want to keep - photos, keepsakes, etc.  He brought up a couple totes for me to go through the other day.  So Thursday, he was working late, I sat down on the kitchen floor to look through tote #1.  It's never a good thing to reminisce.  At least not for me.  I didn't have a horrible childhood or adolescence.  But let's just say I'm really happy it is over.  Long over.  The tote contained everything I kept from about 11 years old through university.  Photos.  Yearbooks.  Scripts from high school plays I acted in.  Greeting cards.  A shoebox of letters from my dear cousin H and some other friends.  And all of my "Italy stuff".  

I started flipping through photos.  It turned out to be a task that will consume a couple of Sunday afternoons.  So I piled them up in a shoe box (I actually need 3, but only had 1 handy) and I will start sorting through and putting them in some semblance of order another day.  When you've got tears in your eyes in the first folder, you're never going to make it through the 40 to 50 more in the pile.  (I like taking photos.  I'm not very good at it, but I enjoy it.)  

The yearbooks and scripts all had the usual notes your write each other in high school - loved being in French class with you - you're such a nice person - you were so great in the play - wish I'd got to know you better - etc...  To me, most of it was crap made up by the person who signed just to show that I was included in the yearbook signing tradition, but no one really meant what they said.  Honestly.  And I only speak to or keep in touch with literally 3 people from that period of my life.  When someone writes in your yearbook that you will be friends forever, at 14 to 18 years old, you believe them.  When your friendships fall apart for reasons still unknown to you, reading stuff like that totally sucks.  And tears fell.  Especially the notes from someone you've known since the age of 3.  When you sat together in every grade through lower school and planned as many classes together as you could in high school, lived at each others houses, went on vacations together... and now it's gone - well, it's been gone for about 14 years... it hurts.  And more tears fell. (As I type there's a lump in my throat and a glisten in my eyes just remembering how I felt 2 days ago...)

Then I started looking at greeting cards.  Ones from friends I don't remember where taken out of the bin.  No point in keeping them.  The ones from my mum and cousin H in Finland I put back inside.  The cards from my Italy boyfriend were carefully piled up and put inside as well.  Then the cards from my grandma.  I didn't re-read them.  I couldn't re-read them.  It was too much emotionally for me to take by that point in sort.  So I sat on the floor and cried.  Or, more correctly, bawled like I did the day my grandma passed away.  Who would have thought a Christmas card from 10 years ago could affect me so deeply.

At this point I gave up sorting that bin.  I put everything I wanted to keep back inside.  I really only threw out a couple of items - an old sketchbook from high school... never really did learn to draw, some cards and a few loose photos.  Guess I'm just not ready to downsize my memories quite yet.

I don't know why I felt compelled to write about my sorting out experience.  I just know I felt like I needed to share my emotions with someone.  Maybe I'm emotional because everything else is just welling up inside of me - health, work, life in general...  I love my life.  I love my husband.  I love my job.  I love my family.  Just facing more medical issues is waning me... and I'm usually a fighter, not a give-upper.  I think right now, emotionally, I'm just tired.  I haven't and won't give up.  But I feel like I need a long vacation from all the medical stuff... even though I know that is impossible.  Until my mood improves, I will soak in the sunshine streaming through the front window, enjoy a cup of herbal tea with honey, and make the best of my situation.  After all, I'm still shiny side up.  It could be a whole lot worse.

Ten on Tuesday - Christmas

1.  This was the first Christmas without my grandma.  I only started to cry half a dozen times....

2.  Christmas morning started for us at 2:57am.  The phone rang and hubby went into work for a few hours.  He was home by 8 and we had breakfast and opened presents.

3.  Hubby spoiled me.  He always does.  I got a Swarovski crystal Eeyore.  He had to order it.  1 of 10 left in Canada.  Very nice, and very unexpected.  And loads of chocolate... I have shares in Lindt.

4.  Dinner number one...  Mother-in-law's with between 13 and 23 people... it was crowded and wonderful. Although a little loud... my ears were ringing.  But it is only because I'm not used to the noise yet.

5.  Dinner number two... My papa's with 14, including two of my three cousins from out of town.  It wasn't the same, grandma absence was on all of our minds.  We enjoyed fantastic food and great company, but at times we were all quiet... missing the figurehead of our family.

6.  Spoiled.  Rotten.  Family overdid themselves once again.  I have the choice of a new aquarium from my hubby and mother-in-law.  And more chocolate than I could ever imagine.  I put 6 boxes in the freezer... there are at least 4 in the closet where we keep the treats!  (I'm a closet chocoholic!)

7.  Boxing day we DID NOT go shopping.  But we did go out 27th shopping.  No crowds.  No lines.  And the only size small lavender wool jacket at Old Navy for 70% off!  LOVE!!!!  I saw it Christmas Eve when I rushed in for a last minute gift for my nephew.   The clerk told me about the Boxing Day sale and I figured it wouldn't be there on the 27th, but lucky me, it was!!

8.  Food.... so much food....  And baking.... And pies....  And chocolate.  I even made it over my normal 1,300 calorie count for Christmas and Boxing Day!

9.  I'm already thinking about next year... what to make for whom... ideas run through my head all year.  Thinking of cookie mixes in the canning jars, homemade calendars, a new style of Christmas ornament... Have to keep myself busy!

10.  No plans for New Year's.  We never really ring in the year... usually in bed well before the clock hits 12:00.

(Okay... pretty sappy Ten on Tuesday... but there's 10!)

Stuff

I love history, ancient history - Egyptian and Roman especially.  If  it's not 3000 years old, I'm not that interested.  I read about it, watch documentaries, and google for new discoveries found in Egypt.  While in TO we walked past the Art Gallery of Ontario.  We were 19 days too early to see Tut, so I took pictures of me with his poster instead.  Cheesy, I know.  But if I was there on Nov 24 when he is, I'd be foregoing shopping to see his treasures for sure!!!

Outside the AGO was a great status of Anubis.  I was in heaven, for an entire city block!

Other than history, I enjoy a wide variety of things:  riding motorcycles, reading, crafts, cooking, baking, taking and teaching aquabics, and being with my family and friends.  There is no one more important in my life than my family.  I'm blessed with a loving husband, great mum, my brother and his family, my grandma and papa and my mother-in-law, sister-in-law, and brothers-in-law.  (God bless my father-in-law, we miss and love you!)  My best friend Ruth lives 1,600 km away, but when we're on the phone together and when I traveled to visit this summer, it was as though we haven't been apart a day.  My husband and best friend share my love of motorcycles and are part of the reason I ride.  In fact my bike was bought from Ruth.  Unfortunately this summer I found it harder and harder to get out on my bike.  Some days just getting it off of the patio was enough to drain me and then to ride, I was exhausted.  It was disheartening.  I may only ride a hundred km at a time, but this summer I even found that hard.  I noticed the strain in the back of my neck, my shoulders were tighter than usual, my hands went numb quicker than normal, and after riding I was a limp dishrag.

My other activities are somewhat affected as well.  Work, crafts, aquabics, cooking, baking, even housework depend on how I'm feeling that day. There are plenty of days I'm fine, I can do everything.  But if I overdo it, I'm often in pain, or in bed, the end of that day or the next.  And I hate it.  I'm very independent and to not be able to do the 101 things I'm used to doing by myself is taking it's toll on me.

I still haven't made up my mind about surgery.  I've been reviewing my journals from 2006 through now and I'm trying to make a list showing how many headaches I had per month, whether they were induced from exercise or activity, and whether or not I had to miss work or an activity.  I didn't keep as detailed a journal about my headaches as I do now, but there are lots of references to migraines but at the back of my head, pressure and pain after working out or working in the garden.  So it is there.  Some details of the Chiari even before my diagnosis this summer.  Unfortunately, I don't have journals prior to February 2006. Or I could have had a larger data pool.

On days like today, where I had to leave work at 1:30 and crawl into bed at home with an ice pack, I want to have the surgery and make it all go away (hopefully, God willing!!).  But when I had such good pain free days on Monday and Tuesday, I don't want the surgery because I don't want to have any complications or be any worse thereafter.

I'm still weighing my options... Think...think...think...