Well, the dust has settled after the wedding. The young couple is settling in to their new apartment in Bet She'an, and Dov is back in the army during the week. They have Shabbats together, sometimes by themselves, sometimes by her family, and sometimes here with us.

I still have some lumps and swollen places from my fall down the stairs, those are going to take time. I got really lucky with that- it was 11 hard marble stairs, and I went tumbling down all of them, couldn't catch myself. I'm totally OK, thank Gd.

Life these days remains confusing.
One large surgery healed my body... what can heal my soul now? Things are so different than they were before I got sick. I know that is the understatement of the century (for those of you who knew me before I got sick, you know what I mean).

I am playing horn, practicing almost every day, and playing in the Gadera orchestra once a week.
I am also swimming at the pool a few times a week. Problem is that I am not enjoying these things (and I keep getting swimmer's ear). I do them because I have a make-believe checklist in my head of things I have to get done. Also making dinner for the kids; I used to enjoy that. It seems like the enjoyment is out of these things I do. I keep doing them, but it is hard to motivate myself when I don't really get enjoyment out of them. This is part of depression.

I am doing the jewelry making four times a week, mornings until 12:30. I like that, it gets me out of bed and doing something. I need a reason to get out of bed or else I don't get out of bed. (truly- it's not good). I've made three rings so far and am in the middle of making a small round silver box (these things are not for selling, I am still learning. Soon I will make things to sell there). I like the skills I'm learning. Especially soldering.

My health is good. Baruch Hashem. I have a few things to tend to, but nothing too serious. I've never been in this position- that my health is good, and I'm not working at my careers. I'd have to practice a lot more if the orchestra I used to play with is going to hire me as an extra sometimes. They haven't told me that, I just know. And as far as birthing work, I have no motivation. Like I said, nothing in life feels motivating. I have a child who also has nothing going on all day, and I see us as mirrors for each other. He went downhill when I did a few years ago when my abdominal pain got really bad. Now he is stuck in quite a terrible rut, and I don't know how to get him out of it. He just turned 20, but....it's complicated. I don't want to talk about him too much in the blog. It's not fair to him. But it is a source of *a lot* of heartache for me.

I am still getting used to life healthy. It was twelve years of health troubles, then one big surgery last summer, and now about seven months of being healthy. I still get twinges of pain in my abdomen, especially when I play horn, but it's nothing like what it used to be. And my hips still hurt me from time to time, but I'm taking this stuff for them is really helping. It's a supplement called CetylPure, for joint health. It is really working, my hips hurt less when I take this stuff twice a day. It works on the collagen in the joints. I highly recommend this stuff for anyone with hurting joints, especially from surgeries and arthritis. I am postponing my hip replacement because of it. This supplement is buying me time.

In a few weeks I start the two week evaluation from Bituach Leumi (National health care). I have no idea what to expect. I'll miss two weeks of the jewelry making. It is supposed to be an evaluation to see what career options are best suited to me. Should be interesting learning the results. What are they going to do for two weeks? Must be some thorough evaluation.

To sum it all up, I am still suffering from depression, and complex-PTSD, and I don't know where to turn anymore. I have a decent therapist, and I take my medication. I sleep most nights with the help from the Cannabis. I'd hate to think this is my lot for the rest of my life. I think I need to be busier doing productive things. Isn't that what every human needs, to feel they are a contributing member of society and not just a body taking up space? I feel awful. I gotta stop writing, it's making it worse. I think that is why I am not writing my blog much anymore, it no longer helps me to feel better. This stuff is too deep to write about and feel better afterward. Some things don't have "feel better" solutions. Taking care of my soul (and my children's) is much harder than focusing on my body's [medical] problems that I used to have.

I was just looking through some old blog posts looking for something specific, and I wound up clicking on some interesting titles, having forgotten what they were about. MAN, I have been through So. Much. It's flippin incredible. Reading old posts, I inspire me! I hear lots of times that my blog inspires people. I don't quite understand why, but reading back (this evening I was at the beginning of 2013, right before Ya'akov's BarMitzvah) shows me how strong I really have been. Raising young kids through all the surgeries and infections and more surgeries. Whoa. It's just been so crazy.

And it's not really over. I mean, so much is better, thank Gd. The right thigh joint surgery was definitely a success. I feel that very confidently. I have confirmation from the physical therapist, too. I now have physical therapy once a week, and hydrotherapy once a week (in a pool in Soroka). It's a good groove. Oh, and just started back to Tai Chi, slowly. It is very taxing on the thighs, actually. But it's good. I'm going to get stronger with all this.

So why would I say it's not really over?
I looked fine when I went to synagogue this morning. Chatted with everyone, smiled all the time, had an easy, pleasant time. I walked back and forth on my own two legs, baruch Hashem! Not to be taken for granted.

What was behind the scenes, though (although I did share it with my close friends) is that I was drugged up on Advil. The fever and strange thigh pain was back. It hit on Friday, like a bomb, with a quite sudden deterioration, just like last time when I went to the hospital (three weeks ago). I still don't know what it is, but it has flare-ups, it's inconsistent. This particular pain has been going on for well over a year, but 1) I had assumed it was part of the joint problem, and 2) the occurrence of it with fever just started happening. Since the joint has been fixed, now, by the process of elimination, I know that this is a separate problem. It's upsetting.

I have reason to think it may be endometriosis, but that can only be truly diagnosed with laproscopic surgery, and that is ***~~~out of the question for me~~~***. The idea of another surgical procedure makes my stomach churn. There is no real cure for it anyway, so why bother with the trouble of diagnosing it? I have had multiple ultrasounds of the area, CT, and MRIs, and nothing showed up. As I said, it's been going on for a long time. The diagnosis of endometriosis is also by process of elimination, but the thing is, I have almost no common symptoms of it. Just the sharp, hot kind of pain, and low grade fever (which is unusual, and last on the list of possible symptoms). Once, in my sessions with Miriam Maslin with the biotensor machine, it picked up endometriosis, so that is also why I am leaning in that direction. It may go away with menoapuse, but I'm not there yet.

(note from Miriam Maslin: Just for clarification, the machine that I use is actually called either a Frequency or Bio-Resonance Generator.)

It's the fevers that make the pain kind of scream at me, not the pain alone. Pain alone I am familiar with, and if I know it is benign, I can just take Advil and go about my business. But the fevers, indicating severe inflammation, give me a red flag, you know? I can't ignore it, as much as I want to.
As of yet I'm not sure how to proceed. Regular western medicine is out- all the diagnostic tests didn't show anything, and I am not going through lapproscopy, or going on hormone pills, so I don't want to go there. I'm going to go non-conventional. It's time.

Why is my body so inflammatory?

BTW, I haven't mentioned this yet, but since my last surgery almost 7 weeks ago, my throat hasn't been right. I lost my upper singing range. And, now when I swallow, I have an extra "click". It doesn't hurt, but bugs the heck out of me. I wonder if the breathing tube during surgery made scar tissue. I've had a lot of breathing tubes in my time. Every general anesthesia.

Again, inflammatory process?


And last, but *by no means* least, some intense, huge news:

There has been a lawsuit with us against the hospital going on for quite some time now.
The other day, I signed on the settlement. It's good. It doesn't take away what happened to me, but Gd made good on it for us. I am grateful. One huge milestone. I'm also eternally grateful for it to be over.

My John Hancock

Three of us... not our direct lawyer, but a partner.

I rarely reproduce other articles here. Usually if something strikes me as interesting, or a point of reference, I'll add a link to my writing, but directing readers to an entirely different article is not a common practice for me. Having said that, *this* one deserves this space. I can so totally relate to so many aspects of it. So interesting to me to think about pain in men being seen differently than pain in women.

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/10/emergency-room-wait-times-sexism/410515/

There is a [fairly minor] part where the author talks about retelling the traumatic story. All the people around you have heard it, possibly many times, in it's different aspects, but for you it's not over. You know you can't keep talking about it with the same people, but it still needs to be talked out and heard. That is why I started writing this blog eight years ago, actually.

I have started writing my next blog entry twice already. Just hasn't felt right. My blog writing style is changing, and I have to learn its changes. We're growing together.

Actually, I am feeling like I am growing apart from my blog a bit, at least for now.

Gone are the days of agony and anguish, many hours and entire days in bed. I do still have the occasional day in bed, but it is much more rare. I do feel the need to give medical updates every now and then, if for nothing else than the chronicling aspect of my health journey. Though of course, each medical trial brings with it its emotional counterpart. That is, if I give emotional meaning to it. I find I am doing that less; giving emotional responses to medical setbacks. It is all commentary to the facts. I can choose to create that commentary or not. Recently- I don't know- like the past few months maybe?- I am just having less running commentary in my head about the medical stuff I go through. So that is why, for now, maybe even just for today, I am going to give an occasional medical update without much commentary about it.

I am learning "mindfulness" training, together with meditation to help chronic pain. This is part of the program that the neurologist set forth for me to help deal with chronic pain, and from migraines. The rest of the program is to start physical therapy with a special neurological physical therapist, and also start psycho-therapy with a medical-oriented therapist. The physical therapist appointments start at the beginning of February.

This neurologist is starting to be at the forefront of my story. I intuitively feel that the program he has started me on is the right direction for me. That, combined with me going off the Fentanyl, is the future of my healing. Dr. Ezra (the neurologist) also agreed to be the one to submit the request for the medical Cannabis, so I will be monitored here instead of having to go to Jerusalem, which is what I wanted the whole time. I just didn't know who the doctor was going to be to do that for me here in Be'er Sheva. He actually tried to send in the request for me last week, but the computer crashed at the website. (I could make lots of jokes about a computer that crashes at the website which is for requesting medicinal Cannabis!) He said he'll do it this week- I will see him on Wednesday when I go to the meditation group.

In short, I will just try to list here some of the medical problems I have come up against lately, but without a lot of commentary about it. It is what it is, right?

1. restless leg syndrome (RLS) getting worse. It is a result of going off the Fentanyl.
2. The solution I found for the RLS was to wrap a heating pad around my leg and I could fall asleep with that.
3. The solution got nixed when we saw that it made my lymphodema swell up terribly.
4. The RLS messed up my sleeping at nights.
5. Even on the nights I don't have RLS, I haven't been sleeping deeply- or at all- almost all night.
6. This has led to increased migraines and exhaustion.
7. I have lost my appetite for some reason, and my hair is coming out in clumps in the shower. Don't know why that is happening, but I will talk to my doctor about it. I feel that the sleeping problems, appetite loss and hair loss is all connected, but we don't know how yet.
8. My doctor put in a request for me to do a sleep clinic night, but it hasn't yet been approved.

That's about it, in a nutshell!
How is it to read my "stuff" without commentary?

PS- I am writing less, also, because I have decided to not be on the computer for the hour before I go to sleep. Since I am going for early bed times, I don't often open my computer at night for anything more than looking at email or occasional Facebook for a few minutes. My kids need me in the evenings, 100% of me, until about 10PM. Then I try to end my own day as well. Since the sleeping problems have crept in recently, I will be even less on the net to give myself ample opportunity to sleep when it is night time.
Remember my "new year's resolutions" from Rosh Hashana? That I want to go off narcotic pain medicine, and go to sleep early so that I can write and work on my book in the mornings? Well, I'm getting there on both fronts. I'm getting there. :)