Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Almost done

Today I am most certain I will finish up the second job from the Italians - that means I get the day off tomorrow, just "normal" work!

I was up at 6:45 AM today, for my new workout routine. For a few seconds I just wanted to go back to sleep, but I knew that would make me feel awful about myself, so up I went and off for another 30 minuted speed walk/run. So far so good...

I am very happy I did my research and got a pair of Asics Cumulus running shoes, These babies are like running with air pillows under your feet (hence the name, I assume), and so far not a hint of a blister. This is very important, since I am very blister prone. And a bad blister could prohibit me for continuing for a while. See, I am a barefoot person. I very rarely wear socks or shoes that enclose the feet. I am all sandals, as open as possible. The barefoot part has always been the case, but the sandals thing started after I moved here to Florida in 1996. Occasionally I wear "normal" shoes during the coldest of winter days.

A few years ago I found out the lupus had also decided to include my feet, I have a chronic inflammation of the major nerve that goes along the foot, a so called Morton's neuroma.

I guess nerve inflammation is just something I will have to live with, I still have the neuralgia, the inflammation of the facial nerve. It seem though that most of my problems always seem to affect only my left side of the body, weird. In my left leg I have the Baker's cyst, a large cyst on the inside of the back of the knee, the nerve thingy in the foot, plus I had 3 blood clots in my left lower leg as well, and I think there is still some problems with that, since my leg tend to swell up a lot during lots of exercise or walking.

Don't worry, in 2005 they surgically implanted something called a vena cava filter, a filter thingy that sits in my vena cava (one of the two large veins that takes de-oxygenated blood to the heart). The filter is there to catch any errant clots before reaching the heart (or lungs or brain) and potentially killing me. The reason they gave me the filter instead of keeping me on blood thinners for the rest of my life (since the blood clot risk will be there forever), is that I was intolerant of the medication, but I also had so much inflammation going on in my body, that the risk for bleeding was too great.

This is the exact filter I have implanted

The filter is only about 80 % effective, so that sucks. But I feel a bit more stable nowadays, getting rid of the colon and rectum really helped in giving my body a chance to catch up and recover.

And hey, the filter looks like a star on a CT-scan, really pretty, at least that is something, huh?!

4 comments:

Saltistjejen said...

Wow! måste säga att jag imponeras av din energi och din postivia livssyn! Att ha haft och fortfarande har, sådana problem med hälsan är något som måste vara otroligt energidränerande i perioder. och ändå tycker jag att du alltid lyckas se saker från de mest konstruktiva och fantasirika vinklar. Oftast enormt positiv!
Och du ditt filter var verkligen fint cyker jag! Inte enbart för dess funktion utan även i sin faktiska form. En stjärna minsann!
Så en stjärna till en solstråle! :-)
Kramar!!!!!!

S w e F l o said...

Nu blev jag ju röd om kinderna... Tack!

Marianne said...

Saltis sa det så fint, och jag kan inte annat än hålla med! Du har verkligen fått alla sorters hälsoproblem man kan tänka sig, och ändå är du alltid glad och positiv! Fantastiskt, det vet jag inte om jag hade klarat.

Hoppas verkligen att du inte ska råka ut för några fler tromboser och att du ska få slippa alla större problem i framtiden!

Kram!

Saltistjejen said...

Det är du väl värd! Lite rosiga kinder är alltid bra!
:-)