Finding answers and working harder

Well we now know why I’ve been feeling wonky.  No need to click the link, I’ll give the back story.

In October, 2008, I wound up with Achilles tendinitis in my right foot and plantar fasciitis in both feet.  I was in a wheelchair for a couple weeks before the left foot could handle a little more.  By the time I got to a decent podiatrist, I was told the first course of action was to spend several weeks to a couple months doing nothing but going to work, coming home, and spending my free time with my head back and feet up.

Obviously, it’s hard to be someone’s caretaker in that position.  So when it became clear I wasn’t healing quickly, I talked my mom into using some of the money she was hoping to leave behind to pay some people to replace me.  I would be her comedian and confidante and they would do the physical stuff.

Funny enough, it didn’t seem to work.  Except in the cases of a select few who spent one night a week at the house and were awesome and supportive, about the only thing I was able to avoid was using the lift (which I was warned could rupture my Achilles) except for two times.  Once when a caregiver didn’t bother getting up when mom called and once when a caregiver was canceled and I was never given the chance to replace her because I was never told she’d been canceled to begin with.  The second time I used the lift my foot swelled so bad it looked like I had a small baseball in my ankle.   Mom told me to remind her that we were paying caregivers for a reason, but after a while of trying that only to frustrate us both, I gave up and started taking Tylenol and sometimes Darvocet to take away the pain enough to do whatever I needed to do.  Yes, I’m aware I could have hired more people, but it’s funny what you don’t think of at the time.

After mom died, nothing much changed.  I still had a lot to get done, plus I’d been having bad headaches daily which made me take even more.  So along came my time of feeling especially wonky.  I went to the doctor, got lab work done, and found out that my liver was acting like I’m an alcoholic.

I reacted quite calmly to this news.  I stopped taking ALL painkillers and went through one hell of a withdrawal weekend.  Once the pain was no longer being masked, the headaches came back and the foot pain came back with a vengeance.

So now I know I was feeling bad for a very good reason.  But I figure, if this was the path I was going to be on, then it was a good thing that I felt like utter crap.  It led me to dropping the stuff that was harming my liver, so it should be back to normal soon, and reminded me that I’m still hurt.  There’s a reason humans feel pain – so they know when to take care of an injury.  I’ve been told I have to lose weight to take pressure off the feet now or the Achilles will likely never get better.  I’m ten pounds down.

I’ll take care of my feet, lose some weight, and will be getting an appointment with a neurologist to see what the heck is going on with my head.  My guess is it’s the neck I’ve had trouble with since fourth grade.  If it was a tumor, I’d imagine these spells wouldn’t have been fixed in the past through chiropractic.  Adjustments don’t stop the headaches now though so I’m going to get it checked out.  Fix the feet, fix whatever’s up with my head, lose the weight (which should also fix my tailbone problem) and I should be good to go.

So here’s some advice from me to you.  If you notice that you take four to eight Tylenol a day, or even worse add Darvocet to it occasionally, do yourself a favor and stop, if only for a couple days.  Masking the pain doesn’t work.  Fixing it will if it’s possible for the situation.  But you might not realize how bad a problem you have until you stop covering it up.  The liver you save may be your own.