Category Archives: Health

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Christmas, 2019

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I could say not a lot has happened since my last post, but that’s not quite true. Ajax is successfully buried and we speak of him fondly from time to time. Mr. L had a good father-daughter trip to Pennsylvania. Shortly after he returned, I experienced something both odd and incapacitating.

On Sunday, October 27, I was my normal self doing normal self things. On Monday, October 28, I woke up early freezing cold then burning up. I decided to stay in bed for the day. On Tuesday, October 29, I woke up with really bad lower back pain that was unlike the annoying lower back pain I’d been waking up with for the last several months — and it didn’t go away. I opted to have Mr. L drive me to urgent care where they diagnosed a UTI and gave me naproxen for the back pain. I came home, took my meds, and rested in my chair. By later that day, I could not stand or walk. It didn’t get better.

On Wednesday, Oct 30, my neighbor called an ambulance — it was the only way I could get out of my house. The ambulance took me to the medical center where they said I had more than the garden variety UTI and gave me IV meds. At about 6 pm, they told me I could go home. I still couldn’t stand, sit, or walk. They gave me a pain med. No difference. They gave me morphine. No difference. They admitted me.

For 16 days, they did a CT scan, X-rays, an MRI, and a bone biopsy to rule out infection. No problems found that would cause me to be in excruciating pain from lower lumbar back spasms. They did start me on a muscle relaxant, that helps. The first time Physical Therapy tried to get me to sit on the side of the bed, I was in 10 out of 10 pain and begging her to not ask me to do anymore. Subsequent PT sessions went slightly better.

On November 15, I was transferred to a skilled nursing facility. It took two people to get me from the transfer wheelchair to the bed. For the next four weeks, I incrementally began to improve. On Thursday, Dec 12, I was able to walk out of the facility to come home only using a cane.

As for my current status — I still get spasms. I alternate between a cane and a walker, depending on how I feel, but based on advice from physical therapy, I’m mostly using the walker. I’ve come a long way to be able to spend a lot of time in my recliner and to gingerly walk around my house to keep my body moving. But at least I’m home. There’s apparently nothing seriously wrong with me, but my return to normalcy is coming slowly. I’m confident I’ll get back to my “normal” self, but I don’t know how long it will take.

For Christmas 2019, I’m moving slowly, but at least I’m moving. As I normally do this time of year, I’m reflecting on what has been and where I want to go in the new year. I’m not making resolutions, but I am planning where I want to go from here. Perhaps an enforced slow down will help with that.

 

Sleep In for A Prize

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Are you someone that would love to stay in bed a little longer in the morning yet feel more energized when you do get up? Then check out my 90-Day Wake Up Challenge over in my Facebook Group.

The challenge begins November 1. What do you do?

  1. Go to my Facebook Group and check out the pinned post.
  2. Watch Pamela’s video for her morning routine (the audio can be a little hard to hear, but the video shows you what to do). Why would you do this? It gets the synovial fluid moving in your joints providing lubrication and gently extends and contracts muscles, preparing them, and you, to face the day. Plus, you’ve accomplished something before you even get out of bed! How cool is that?
  3. If this looks like something you would do, Join the Group and comment, “I’m in.” on the post.
  4. Each week, stop in to the 90-Day Wake Up Challenge Unit and comment on that week’s post about your experience that week. If you miss a day, that’s okay. If you don’t do the full program, that’s okay. Just tell us what you did do and your experience with it.
  5. Do that for each week of the challenge.
  6. Upon satisfactory completion of the challenge (you made your entry during each week of the challenge), I’ll ask for your mailing address, and I’ll send you a 5 ml bottle of Peppermint Vitality — just in time for hot cocoa season.

 

I hope to see you there. This is a basic first step to self-care and a better life.

 

MKE: New Year; Smooth Sailing

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With the Master Key Experience tools, I don’t need to do New Year’s Resolutions, but I do take the refreshing of the year to do some Big Picture Planning to make sure my life is on track for where I want it to be going. I’m not the same person who welcomed 2017, and I’m willing to suggest those of you reading here have changed too.

For me, my Young Living business assumed a larger role, so I added it to my DMP. Additionally, I began to realize I’ve largely achieved a level of Freedom and Autonomy I’m comfortable with, and I felt called to look for a different PPN (Personal Pivotal Need). After much contempation and several “sits” and consulting with my Mastermind Partner, I decided Legacy will join True Health as my two primary PPNs for 2018.

I was uncomfortable with Legacy, because that sounds like some huge world-impacting thing (like peace in the Middle East or something like that), and I don’t see that for myself, but “being the change I’d like to see in the world” is something I can manifest.

I continue personal, professional, and spiritual development. Achieving harmony with Mr. L is an ongoing process, but I’m seeing real improvement. The cats are thriving. I’m feeling like I might want to write again, but it’s still not a big priority. I have a lot of travel lined up for 2018, and Mr. L wants to do the Hershey trip without me (as long as I’m comfortable he can do it safely, I’m thrilled, because I don’t care for the trip, and his health and stamina is improving consistently). There’s a story to go with that. The day before he told me he wanted to do the trip without me, I’d thought how I didn’t want to go — see the power of thought? Of course, I’ve added the thought that he makes the trip of his dreams with full stamina and safety for everyone involved.

I’ll be using personal, professional, and spiritual development to not only achieve True Health but also to “be the change I’d like to see in the world.” Please note, I have a long way to go before I achieve either of those, so understand you won’t always see the desired manifestation of that. I am a work in progress.

 

Merry Christmas 2017

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I wish each of you a Merry Christmas. I pray these wishes find you healthy, happy, and prosperous. If not, I pray you find all three in the coming year.

Now that my two knee replacmements and the cracked patella appear to be fully healed, I’ve recently begun taking a beginner yoga class. I’m not sure if it’s using the Raindrop oils on my feet or the yoga practice, but my right hip is moving much more freely. I’d started using the Raindrop oils before I started the yoga, and I’d noticed an inexplicable improvement in my hip, but I believe it’s a combination of the two practices which is reaping the best benefit for me. I’ve taken four classes. I have a long way to go before I look like yoga is doing me any good, but I will tell you I can feel its positive effects already.

I prepared the next issue of the RandR Fiction Club newsletter this morning. It’s scheduled to go out on January 2. You still have time to get on the list two receive this quarterly missive. Click on the Writing, Books tab above, then look to the right sidebar to add your email and name to get on the list — make sure you check your inbox and click the verification link. That protects you from some clown signing you up without your permission.

For the first time in many years, we appear to have nine cats living in relative harmony. While Lady was in the cage to restrict her movement for healing purposes, the other eight cats had the run of the open areas of the house, and they all got along. Rossie has remained visible if not always approachable. Now that Lady’s foot has healed and she is released to interact as she wishes, everyone is still getting along. It’s been less than a week, so things could change, but Mr. L and I are hopeful. If this continues, we plan to disassemble the cage, freeing up a good bit of space in the parlor.

Sneaky still sequesters herself in the dining room. That’s because Ajax is a jerk and will not leave her in peace. Sneaky is a separate issue, and she’s content in the dining room as long as we spend time with her each day.

As I prepare for 2018, I’m doing personal and professional planning. I do this incrementally throughout the year, but I look at the big picture during the last half of December and the first half of January to make sure my life is on a desired trajectory. I keep a lot of plates spinning — spiritual growth, harmony with Mr. L, my health journey, relationships with family and friends, cats, property care, my essential oils business, and my writing (which has been on the back burner from a fiction perspective for a couple of years now, but I’m looking for ways to add it back in).

 

 

What’s Your Story? Do You Like the Ending?

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What’s your story? Are you doing exactly what you want to be doing right now? Is your life where you want it or on the road to being there? Are you actively working for your dreams? Do you know what your dreams are? Last week I talked about the Master … Continue reading →

Master Key Experience: True Health

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One of my Personal Pivotal Needs is True Health. What’s the story? How’s it coming for me? I’m pleased with where I am in this process, which is mostly mental. When my mental state is in the right place, I do healthy things. My mental state was terrible when I … Continue reading →

All Quiet on the Blogging Front

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Things will be quiet around here for a few weeks, and I trust you will play quietly among yourselves — you usually do. I’m recuperating from right knee replacement surgery on the 21st. I’ll be back when I get some energy again.

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