It's Getting Harder!

So in case you're wondering, I did not post yesterday because there was something waaaaay more important that I had to do: watch the LOST PREMIERE!!!! (that episode needs to go into a hall of fame or something--sooo gooooood! :D)

***WARNING!!! this post is veryyy long! you have been warned!!***

So yesterday: lots of lectures, pt, ot, biofeedback, and telling my story to every teacher or doctor i meet. I came home very sore and very tired. Alette, Jessica, and I went to lunch at potbelley's. (well, they ordered lunch there, i ate my bag lunch....its was like school all over again!) Then dad and I went to the dinner that the hotel provides 3 days a week; last night was basil penne with grilled chicken and salad. it was delicious!! normally hotel food is pretty crappy, but this was amazing! (tonight's not so much, but more about that later.)

Today, I got up with the alarm pretty quickly-I was up before dad! staying up was another matter though. But I managed to be ready on time, and met alette in the lobby and we walked over to the equinox yogga studio in the mezzanine. This place is ultra fancy-like the kin of place you'd spend hundreds if not a thousand dollars a month to use! I don't know if i mentioned this before, but its in a mall, which makes it even more awesome! so i pretty much get to pretend im rich for the next month! :)

Feldenkrais (kinda like yoga for people with chronic pain) (try googling it-it's pretty cool!!) was extremely hard today! yesterday i loved it! but today it hurt really bad. I was lying on my back, on an extremely thin and useless yoga mat, on a hard wood floor. With that genreator in my left hip, it was NOT fun! there were also somethings out in my back/hip, so Im going to have to see a chairopractor soon! The pain was so bad in my hip and lower back that i couldnt do the excersises! i could barely get up, actually. it was kind of scary, because i couldnt move for a few mintues. But the instructor told us that if we cant do the moves, then to imagine them. What good that does, idk....alette was having lots of trouble too, and we hobbled back to ric-and barely made it!

Next I had a psycology appt with a doctor, where I had to yet again tell my entire story, what i hoped to accomplish/my goals, and what stresses me out, and how i manage that and pain. I am SOOO sick of saying that same speech for every single person in the clinic! (not literally every person-but thats how it feels.) Then I had PT with lisa, where I had a rough time doing about 7 different excersises in very difficult postions!

Then on to a "big movement group," which is a combinations of stretches and aerobic moves, only done much slower and extremely exagerated! It was also extremely hard! The theory behind it is this: people with chronic pain tend to "gaurd;" that is they tend to hunch over, and curl their bodies to try and protect them from being hurt firther. they also tend to tense their muscles alot-which I know i do! So big movement helps them learn to move carefully and largely, and to be able to move without the fear of being hurt by someone passing them. Most of the excersises were beyond my ability, but I should be able to do them in a couple of weeks! So I adapted as best I could, and sat out on the ones I just couldnt do.

We all had a 1 hr lunch break, so aleete, jessica, and I all went to a place called "wow bao", or "bao wow," or something like that. the food was TERRIBLE! so alette and I took the elevator up to he 7th floor ( we were in water tower place, by the way-a very cool place! im TOTALLY comming back there on saturday to go shopping![if im able anyways]) and went to auntie anns anf got pretzel sticks. i was extremely tempted to get the cinnomin sugar ones, but i got the plain ones wit hsome butter and salt. I was very proud of myself :) we then realized that it was 12:50, and had 10 minutes to go 3 or 4 blocks, stash out coats and bags in our lockers on the 2nd floor, get up to the 8th floor, and get to the lecture. we were only 4 or 5 minutes late, and we came in limping, (which was not acting, by the way) so the teacher/doctor person had no problem. it was obvious we had rushed to get there and done our best.
after the lecture, which i loved, (it was all about the gate control theory-also something cool to google. its a theory created by two people named wall and melzack, i believe...anyways its the theory that there are centers in the human body that pain travels through like an express way, and if we can shut down those gateways, we can get some pain relief. there are several gates, and numerous ways to shut them down. It was a great class :))
Then I had OT-and the dreaded beggining of DS! (desensitization of my bad rsd foot; aka->> touching the foot all over to get the nerves used to it again.) I knew it was going to hurt, but i dont think that any amount of mental preparation can prepare me for that kind of pain. I cant even describe it; I know I have to touch it to get better, i just REALLLYYYYYY wish there were some other way! (Luke-I missed you the most ever during those loooong 7 minutes! I really wish you could have been there to hold my hand.)
Im extremely blessed though-i got the best OT in the clinic! her name is kathy, and shes AMAZING!! shes very kind and understanding, but shes also FUNNY! If I had another instructer, i dont know I if could have done it! she was writting the logs papers in my pink and blue pens and making jokes like "now, which one should i write this column in? pink?" shes just awesome :D

Then I had relaxation-which is where everything went wrong. Relaxation is the entire group lying on cushy yoga mats, in a dark room, listening to the sounds of the ocean and waves. and an instructor telling us to imagine the hot sun and sinking into a sand beach. Now, if you combine a cushy mat, darkness, the beach noises, hot sun, imagining yourself on a nice comfy beach, a day full of extremely hard work, stress, and pain, what do you think is going to happem? thats right-SLEEP!!! i fell asleep! I got the living you-know-what scared out of me when the instructor woke me up by tapping on the bad foot pretty hard wit his hand. i gasped for breath, cause he had knocked it right out of me by touching my foot. (and right after the DS, too!!) I literally felt like I was in shock for a few seconds-i didnt know where or when i was! But Somehow I knew not to scream-which was my first insctinct. The instructor signaled for me to be quiet by putting his finger to his lips; he wasnt unkind about it, i think he was just trying to help. Alette was next to me, and knew at once what had happened. "are you ok?? do you need me to get anything??" "no...im ok ithink...i just need to breath for a minute...." so I lay there crying quietly for the 10 minutes left in the lesson. The instructor (Bob- idont wanna use his real name) came over to me, and knealt down next to me. "im very sorry i hurt you-i was trying to wake you because you were snoring." (o crap! total embarassment!) "thats ok; i have rsd/crps in that foot, so thats why i reacted like that." "oh im sorry!" "thats ok, you didnt know..." he went back to teaching, and i went back to crying. At the end of the lesson, he came over again and apologized again. i apologized for snoring-i know i cant helo it, but i was still completely embarassed! (even though 2 or 3 other were snoring too-but after he saw what happened when he woke me up, he left them alone lol.) so he said "we're both sorry-we're both even, ok?" i nodded. i got to my feet and rolled up mat, put away my pillow, and walked out with alette and jessica. "how bad was I snoring?" i asked them. alette answered "oh you werent even really snoring! it was more you were breathing differently. it was just the way you know people are asleep-their breathing changes. it was just louder because it was so quiet in there. I saw you were asleep, but I didnt want to wake you. I mean, we all have so much trouble sleeping as it is, I figured 'hey if shes getting some sleep, leave her alone.'" "haha thats ok, thanks i needed it." Jessica said she had heard Bob say "crap, im gonna get fired...: after he accidentally hurt me. she had also heard it was only his 2nd week. I dont know if the latter is true, but its not like im going to get him in trouble; he didnt know, and now he does. When you work in a plcae like that, you have to be careful with what and how you touch people. haha I think i scared him enough that hes learned pretty quickly!

Alette and I walked back to the hotel, and we crashed in our rooms for a couple hours, then she came over here and she, my dad, and I all hung out in my room and talked until it was time to go down to dinner. we had bbq ckicken, baked beans, and salad. the beans were plain and from a can, and the chicken was terrible! the cuts of meat were over half bone, but not whole bones, no they were like cut clean through, so you only got little bits and peices. so what little meant we did get was touch and chewy. and the bbq sauce that they offered on the side was veryyy hot and spicy! so dinner want all that great. Im hoping tomorrow will be better-taco night!

the 3 of us went back up to my room, and we kept talking till about 8:30, when her husband got here. I managed to do my PT home excersises while they were talking, as well as my DS. they were a good distraction :)

The first time i did my ds today, at RIC with Kathy, my pain went from 6.5 to 8....and took about 3 hours to recover to my baseline. ( baseline=where i started)
HOWEVER: when i did it this evening, it went from a 6.5 to a 7! and I recovered much quicker! Alette has encouraged me to not give up on the whole ds program, because shes done it and it helped her alot. I think the second time was better and easier because i was using the edge of my fleece blanket, not a rough terry cloth towel from ric! So im hoping this whole ds program will get better and esier. (it had better.....)

Whew! long post! my hands are hurting, and i still have homework! two chapters from the book "managin pain before it manages you" by friday. I thought I was done with homework until college?!?!

Tomorrow is my first time at the gym, my first pool class, and my first wii games class! (thats right-part of my OT and workout program is WII!!!! :D)

Thanks for the comments, they're helping alot!

Im going to try and take more pics of where im going, like ric and equinox and stuff. (but i dont know if i can take pics at equinoc, because its a gym and privacy and all that. but i'll see!)