Monthly Archives: June 2016

To The Stars With Difficulty

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The road to the life of our dreams is seldom a straight and smooth one.  I admit I don’t remind myself of that enough.  But life is mainly about how many times you get up after being knocked down.  I have been knocked down quite a bit in the last several months as my previous posts have shown.  But I have to keep getting up and moving forward.  Yes I lost a grandmother who was one of my closest confidants.  Yes my back got messed up in a car accident.  Yes I got lazy about losing weight and gained much of the weight I lost.  Yes I had difficulties and relapses with my schizophrenia.  Yes I became lazy in my social life.  Yes I developed a negative attitude about many things.  Yes I became depressed and lazy in my personal habits.  It’s all true.

But that does not define me any longer.  I won’t allow it to define me.  I do have problems I’ve been dealing with.  But I will solve them and keep moving forward.  I have solved problems in the past and I will solve my problems again.  No I may not make my goal of being at my high school weight within the time frame I set for myself two years ago.  But I won’t give up on pursuing that goal.  No I haven’t been able to exercise for two weeks because of my bad back.  Yes I made excuses not to exercise because the weather was lousy this spring.  Yes I lost a lot of my social safety net when I became paranoid and thought I could do all things on my own.  But that is changing starting here and now.  I am not going to go out without a fight.  I am not giving up on improving my health.  I lost seventy pounds in a little over a year only to gain at least forty pounds back in a year.  But I am stopping the bleeding.  I lost weight before and I will do it again.  I had good mental health before and I can gain it back even with a mental illness.  I have had good friends and lots of acquaintances before and I will have them again.  It starts here and now.  It starts today.  I am no longer going to be my past failures.  I have been through difficulties, some beyond my control and some even self inflicted.  I am going to be better all around.  And the road to the stars for me restarts here and now.

Healing From Back Pain With Mental Illness

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My back has mostly healed by now.  About the only time I feel any kind of pain is when walking longer than five minutes at a time.  Probably doesn’t sound like much but ten days ago I was getting this shooting pains that felt like electric shocks in my back almost every time I stood up.  I still haven’t gotten brave enough to try to sleep on my back.  I’ll probably sleep in the recliner for another night or two.  But today is the first day I haven’t put ice on my back at all for almost two weeks.  I have definitely been limited by this back injury.  I imagine I would have been fired for missing so much work had I still been working.  Part of the reason I don’t mind not working; I can heal at my own natural speed.

I saw the chiropractor on Tuesday.  She was happy that I was making good progress.  She seems to think I’m recovering faster than normal.  I don’t go back in for at least another month but that should just be basic maintenance.  I’m glad I was able to get my back mostly cleared after only three visits.

The worst part about this back injury was I couldn’t exercise and I got lazy about my dieting.  I’m sure I gained several pounds over the last two weeks.  Today is the first day in awhile I’m tracking everything I’m eating again.  It’s worked in the past.  It’s the biggest thing that worked in the past.  No reason it can’t work again.

The days have been kind of boring these last two weeks as I healed from my back problems.  I played more Civilization 5 and Skyrim in the last two weeks than the previous three months.  As much as I like computer games, even a geek like myself knows there’s far more to life than just sitting in front of a computer.  I have been getting outside more the last three days.  I make it a point to stand up every two or three hours and walk around for a few minutes.  Ran some errands yesterday and bought a few shirts.  Since I’m not fashion obsessed I can get by pretty cheap on clothing.  Most of the stuff I get is pretty plain.  I wear mainly t-shirts and occasionally polo shirts.  I don’t have much for dress clothes since I worked mainly manual labor jobs most of my adulthood.  I think I look like one of the hired thugs from ‘The Sopranos’ when dressed up anyway.  Regardless my wardrobe was due for a few updates.

The back is almost completely healed.  I probably have another few days of nagging pains.  So I may be taking it a little easier until the weekend.  Since I started tracking what I eat again (I had been lazy about that for several weeks), I’m ready to get back on track with the weight loss.

Keeping A Positive Mental Outlook

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Been on the mend from a bad back for a week and a half.  Today was a good day.  I was able to get outside a few times today and get a little sunshine.  I’m still doing the ibuprofen and ice.  I walk short distances every few hours to break up the boredom.  My back is much better than this time a week ago.  But it will probably be another few days of ice and rest before I’m back to normal.

Fortunately I’ve managed to keep from slipping into prolonged depression during these last several days.  Haven’t had hallucinations or delusions either.  Been playing more computer games and watching more youtube in the last week than I really wanted.  I had to get outside a few times today.  I needed to rework my legs a little.  My back has healed enough that I can walk short distances with no problem.  I can’t do my serious walking and exercise routines yet.  But I do what I can.  I have another chiropractic appointment tomorrow afternoon.  Hopefully won’t need much more.  I can tell the back is much better now.  I see that a return to normal is within sight.

Back Pains and Missing Out on Summer

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I’m still healing from my back pain.  I’m able to walk short distances again.  I was able to run some errands three days ago so I don’t really have to leave my apartment for the next several days.  But since my back is clearing up I really think I should be back to normal within a few days.  I’ve been sleeping in a recliner the last few nights to rest my back.  The last time I try to sleep on my back I could barely get out of bed.  My routine has definitely been thrown off since I hurt my back.  And the worst part is I don’t know what I did to cause my back pain.

The weather has gotten much warmer just about the time I hurt my back.  Haven’t been able to get out and enjoy it at all.  I usually go to the park several times a week during the summer.  Haven’t been able to do this for almost two weeks.  Makes me feel like I’m missing out.  But I can’t rush this recovery.  I tried to rush things a few days ago and it set me back at least a day.

Been holding up mentally during most of this process.  I’ve had a few moments of depression and irritability during those times of weakness.  When I first hurt my back I thought I’d need two or three days of ibuprofen and ice and I’d be back to normal.  Didn’t turn out that way.  I haven’t had crushing bouts of depression during the last week and a half I’ve been mending from this injury.  I’ve had more boredom than anything.  But even with the boredom I haven’t called friends much during this injury.  I just haven’t had much to talk about with my friends during the last several days.  That’s probably the most depressing part of the whole deal.  Being on the mend has made me really feel like I’ve lost connection to my neighbors, my community, and my friends.  I haven’t done anything socially since I hurt my back.  It really has been boring.  Fortunately I haven’t had any relapse of the psychiatric problems in these last days.

I have pretty much spent most of my days playing computer games, watching youtube videos, and watching baseball games.  Not exactly really thrilling but there’s only so much I can do until my back returns to normal.  I have called my parents every other day to have some resemblance of a social life.  I can’t wait until my back finally clears up.  This certainly has made me appreciate my physical health more.

 

 

Dealing With Physical Pain And Mental Illness

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I’ve now been fighting severe lower back pain for a week.  I went to the chiropractor on the first to get my back worked on.  I get to go back in on Thursday for more work.  I hope I don’t have to have many more appointments.  Medicaid will cover only so many chiropractic appointments per year.  I’m working with the same place that rehabbed me after my car accident last fall.

Since I can barely walk now I’m moving from trying to lose weight to just maintaining.  As bad as my back hurts I won’t do any exercise for awhile.  I’m thinking this could be a very long process.  At first I thought two or three days of ice and ibuprofen would be all I needed.  The back isn’t healing as quickly as I hoped.

Naturally this has me slightly depressed and mildly irritated.  I was anticipating being outdoors and walking in the park everyday, just like the previous two summers.  Summers were when I lost most of my weight.  I also decided that I won’t be able to sleep in my bed anymore, at least not until my back completely heals.  I have a recliner I can sleep in.  It is so much easier to get up from sitting down than lying down.  When I was in the chiropractor’s office on Wednesday morning, the chiropractor and I had a tough time getting me off the work table after I laid down on my back.  I felt bad for the poor lady.  But I suppose she’s seen far worse than what I had.

The back pain is more bearable now that I’m not having the auditory hallucinations.  Haven’t had to deal with those for a few weeks.  I’m still not very comfortable with driving as I do tend to be more irritable in traffic than I should.  Fortunately I haven’t crossed over into road rage.  If I can tell it’s not going to be a good mental health day I avoid driving unless it’s absolutely necessary.  But the lower back pain is going to slow down my leaving the apartment and running errands.  Too bad because I need to go grocery shopping in a few days.  The store I normally shop in is a really large store.  I love walking through the isles and seeing the huge variety, especially in the overnight hours.  Since the back is hurting bad, I won’t be able to enjoy that for awhile.  I would hate to think I have to use an electric cart for my shopping.  I mean I’m not that old even if I have a birthday in two weeks.

As I’ve been out of commission for a few days I’ve been spending most of my time at home.  I usually play computer games, watch youtube videos, and check in on friends through Facebook.  I’m starting to get a little restless as I’ve been doing this for several days.  But it’s a restlessness I can do nothing about as my physical health is suffering.  I think this isn’t going to be an easy recovery.  It’s a shame I have to start falling apart physically just about the time I’m getting my mental health in order.