Keep Up with Me!

It’s late. I should be in bed. But I am plugging away at my To Do List. I feel a little disjointed and scatterbrained lately, trying to cram lots of priorities into very little time. (Mainly a small window of nap time!) I’ve been wanting to blog about big and little things for the last two weeks, but keep running out of time. So I’m MAKING time right now, the best way I know how: staying up late to clear the list.

So, in random order, here are random things I want to post for future reference. The little dregs of daily life alongside the bigger milestones:

• First, there was lots of snow in St. Louis, which had me craving spring. The snow finally stopped, but rain took its place. One of the worst parts of the rain was driving and listening to my windshield wipers screech back and forth across my windshield. So I got new windshield wipers last week. It seems so inconsequential, doesn’t it? But, oh! It truly made my day. You don’t realize how much you take something for granted until you don’t have it anymore.
• Speaking of taking for granted, today is the first day in seven days that I have had full mobility back in my left arm. On Easter Sunday, somewhere between a ham dinner and stuffing my face with dessert, I realized I couldn’t reach my mouth with my napkin in my left hand. Sometimes, my lupus acts up like this and I’ll wake up with the loss of function in random body parts. Usually I get functionality back in a day or two, but this time it lasted seven days. I couldn’t shampoo the hair on the left side of my head, wash my face with two hands, or open jars/packages very well. Today? I am *so* happy to say I have 99% function back. I am ashamed to admit how much I took it for granted. Here I am with a chronic disease, and I blithely go about life thinking it’s all peachy and forget how pain can be crouching around the corner.
• So, while we’re on the subject of lupus, let’s tackle another biggie I just found out this week (thanks, Christy!): there could be a link between the Hepatitis B vaccine and lupus. Here’s a link to a Federal Court’s ruling on the matter. When I was a hospice volunteer, I received the three Hep B vaccines in 2001. I was diagnosed with lupus in 2008. Hmmm… I’ve called my rheumatologist about this already, and she says the FDA says there is no concrete evidence of a link and more study is needed into the possibility. I don’t know about y’all, but I don’t feel any safer just because the FDA says it’s safe! Phooey on that.
• And now for my THIRD health-related bullet point (yes, I sound like an old man enumerating all of his ailments!): I have a neuroma in my left foot and it’s driving me nuts. I had a cortisone shot in my foot last November, and it gave me some relief. Slowly, the pain has been returning. I got custom-made orthotics, have tried staying off the treadmill and limiting my walking to only a few times a week (2 or less), and I bought new shoes too. It still hurts and it still stinks. I think my days of half marathons are over, and some weeks it seems I can barely do a one hour step aerobics class. Thank God my gym has a pool!
• In other non-health related news, I was glad for the end of Lent because I could drink something besides water. I gave up every beverage for Lent (except for water) in support of the Living Water H2O Project for Lent. It was a lot harder than I anticipated. I am donating all the money I didn’t spend on Cokes and Starbucks and beer to Katie’s well fund.
• Lately, I’ve been listening to regular songs on the radio and turning them into songs about God. Either I change the recipient of the lyrics to be Jesus (like I’m singing a love song to Him), or me (like He’s singing a love song to me). Have you ever done this? Try it, and see if it changes your day.
• I took a genealogy class with my mother-in-law the last two weeks, and now I have a hankering to open my old family tree files and start hounding my relatives for more information. I especially want to find my grandmother’s sister, Nell. I have countless photos of her that I’d like to pass along to her descendants.
• Jackson hit another milestone this weekend. The training wheels are off and he is riding a bike on his own. The pride on his face is unmistakable. I think he’d look so cool with a helmet mohawk like these. It’s such a joy to see him zipping up and down our street on his own.