Two Steps Forward, Five Steps Back

I'm sorry to say that the forward progress I was hoping that I was making seems to have evaporated.

It's not like I was feeling well exactly, but I was feeling like I had become more functional and was coping better. But it's been a rough few days.

I think my backward trend was triggered by a lack of sleep Thursday night because my daughter, Ellie, was sick. Although Scott was the one tending her and comforting her through the night, I still was sleepless as I listened over the monitor to her whimpering and fussing.

Friday I was mostly just exhausted. I've recently started logging my energy levels, pain levels and sleep so I can show my doctors how I'm doing not just on the day I have my appointment but over the time since my last appointment. On Friday, I was very tempted to rate my energy level at 0 or even a negative number, but I finally rated it as a 1 since I figure anyone with zero energy is probably dead.

It wasn't until Saturday that my pain levels spiraled out of control.

I had been working hard at lowering my pain medication dosages because I was uncomfortable with how much I was taking. I had gotten things down to a single Percoset three times a day. But Saturday I discovered that a single Percoset just didn't even touch my pain levels. By late afternoon, I relented and took two and that finally made my pain almost bearable.

And that's pretty much how it's been since then. I'm back to watching the clock for that last hour before I can take another dose of pain meds, and taking them every four hours on the dot instead of stretching it to six or even eight hours between doses.

It's the usual places that hurt -- primarily my hands, wrists and elbows. But I started having significant knee pain a few weeks ago that kicked in on stairs or if I tried to bend my knees into a squat. And now the left knee especially hurts even when walking on flat surfaces. Part of me wonders if I injured the knee somehow, and I'll ask my internist for x-rays when I see her April 2, but I suspect it's just the same old joint issue that hits my other joints.

I have acupuncture this afternoon and I'm hopeful that will help at least a little bit with the pain.