Blog Carnival Introduction!

Well first of all let me say this is my FIRST blog carnival!  I had never heard of them before my wonderful cyber-friend Jolene (of Graceful Agony) introduced me to them.  What a wonderful idea!  I have had so much fun reading blogs since discovering them in February. Yes, I know blogs have been around long before that, but I just never actually READ them.  That is until I decided to start my own after another friend started one…he has since quit blogging, even though he’s a talented writer and should be writing all the time…but  that’s when I found Jolene’s Graceful Agony blog, and it really inspired me!  She is a wonderful person and a gifted writer and everyone needs to be reading her blog at http://gracefulagony.wordpress.com/ …but enough about her….this blog is supposed to be all about ME! lol (said jokingly of course!) 😉

Me.  Well, at risk of boring most of you I will keep the life history of yours truly as short as possible.  I’m a forty-two year old married mom of two wonderful children, a 22 y/o man and a 16 y/o young lady and of course I love them both more than any words could ever convey.  My husband is very devoted and supportive.  I have two dogs who keep me entertained and provide me with unconditional love and affection.  My childhood was very rough and dysfunctional to say the least, but I won’t type all that out, as it is pretty much portrayed in some of my earlier blogs (The Little Girl). I love to read and to write.  My favorite color is pink…but I wear alot of black and white because its easy…lol.  I love dogs and babies.  My fave tv show is The Office.  I love Steve Carell and Will Farrell.  I love all music, rock, pop, country, spiritual, jazz and more.  I love Chinese and Mexican foods the most.  I like a good margarita once in awhile.  I love good movies…especially the classics…Cary Grant, Bette Davis, Deborah Kerr…those are great movies!  I bite my nails til they bleed. I worry too much. I am a denti-phobe to the nth degree. So that’s a little about me, now here is about my chronic pain/illness!

My “adulthood” was going along fine until about 1998 when I was diagnosed with Fibromyalgia, after a few years of having mysterious aches and pains, and going from doctor to doctor.  None of the meds they ever tried me on helped much…so I just didn’t take anything other than over the counter meds after awhile…and just gritted my teeth and got on with life.

Then I started having pelvic pain that just wouldn’t quit. So in 2005 my OBGYN at the time said a hysterectomy would solve my problems…but that he would leave my ovaries so I wouldn’t go into early menopause.  I was all for anything that would stop the pain that was really affecting my daily life at times. I woke up from that surgery in more pain than he had led me to believe there would be and found out that I had hemmorhaged during the hysterectomy and required a few units of blood…but that other than that everything went peachy…by his standards I guess.

I recovered from that hysterectomy, but continued to have pelvic pain.  I decided in my infinite wisdom to find a different OBGYN as I wasn’t entirely impressed with the other…which now in hindsight was quite possibly a life-changing decision.  The new doc was young, handsome and had a great bedside manner.  He impressed me with his knowledge and I believed him when he said that my pain was probably due to the cysts on my ovaries and if they came out the pain may stop as well.  Now, my thinking was…that of course the pain would stop…there would be nothing else in that area to cause the pain…right?  So, I was too trusting and didn’t do much research into any of it and actually was looking forward to the operation to get those “things” out of my body so the pain would stop. I would take that pain back in a split second compared to the pain I must now endure.

That surgery changed my life forever. I will make it as short as I can.  During the operation the doc punctured my intestine and failed to recognize it.  He went to Disneyland for vacation…I ended up in ICU on a vent and medically induced coma, and remember very little for a few months after the operation except alot of pain and being restrained to the bed to keep from me pulling all the different lines and tubes out.  I ended up over the next year having around fifteen abdominal operations, part of my intestine removed, having ostomies, wound vacs attached to my abdomen where the wound was left open (about the size of a softball) and the hose was attached to a machine that vacuumed out the contents for months, I was fed thru a line inserted under my collar-bone, I had other peripheral lines up around my arm pits, or in my upper arm…which frequently ended up giving me blood infections that I also almost died from, I spent most of that year in 3 different hospitals, and some of it at home with home care nurses and my family working to care for me around the clock.My husband and family became my nurses.  I missed many family events of course during all of this…basically I missed my sons entire senior year and my daughters sixth grade year.  To shorten this section up, I will end it by saying the last surgery managed to close up my abdomen, but the pain is non-stop due to massive adhesions (my insides are basically like hardened cement…organs glued together and to the abdominal wall), the nerve pain called neuromas from the constant cutting, and I have no abdominal muscle wall at all in the front…I have a ventral hernia from my breastbone to my pubic bone and my intestines lay right under the skin/fat layer.  I can’t eat alot of foods due to digestion problems.  I must wear an abdominal binder 24/7 to help ease the pain and hold the hernia in.  I go to a pain center every month and must take narcotics to even take the edge off the pain.  I can’t do alot of the things I used to do, no bike riding, no running, no hard exercising of any kind…basically I can’t do anything that requires using abdominal muscles.  The pain is relentless and hard to even describe to people, it is like your insides are on fire while at the same time being shredded.  To say it makes everyday life difficult is an understatement, but I am alive. Living with pain, but alive.

So, since I know that was long…even though I really did leave ALOT of stuff out! I will finish up here.  About the time I started blogging and finding others out there who were suffering with chronic pain just as I was, there was alot of depressing thoughts going through my head.  I was feeling down and useless at times, and still do occassionally.  But I am a fighter, I always have been.  Stubborn some people would say I guess.  But it’s that stubborness that got me through that horrific nightmare that I lived through…and continue to live through. Stubborness and a wicked sense of humor!  I read self-help books and look for inspiring blogs on the web.  I pray alot. I always said I would continue to live for my childrens sake.  I now feel I will continue to live for MY sake.  Even though there are so many days that I am crying in the fetal position and ready to jump off the nearest bridge, I eventually dry my eyes and decide that I won’t give up that easily.  I want to live, even if it’s with pain that would bring most people to their knees, I want to experience life…to see the beautiful sunsets/sunrises, all the beauty nature provides, and to see my family, my children, my grandchildren.  I love blogging because it’s free therapy for me.  I can vent, I can inspire, I can joke (sarcasm is my specialty!), I can pretend that someone out there actually cares!

Wow…this really did turn out long…if it’s too long I guess my buddy Jolene will have to tell me to shorten it up and I will!  I’m thrilled to be involved in this carnival and look forward to hearing everyones story! To anyone who suffered thru MY long story…thank you for reading!