Finally!

Finally after 3 days of sleepless nights, he is sleeping! Yes! I am NOT waking him up either. Not unless it looks like he will sleep too late to go to sleep again tonight. He did toss and turn a bit, had a couple of tremors, did the twitching, but then, he finally drifted off to deep sleep. Still, silent, wonderful, blissful sleep for me too! I actually slept! YAY! lol you don't realize how much sleep you miss sometimes until you get it. RSD is horrible for him to deal with but also for me.

So lets do a little update. His toes. Previously he has been fighting infection off and on the last few weeks with his big toe and the toe next to it. The podiatrist, who just happened to have experience with RSD (thank god) does not believe that he can handle injections to take care of the toenails that are ingrown due to the cam boot he has to wear to protect his foot. He feels the only way to deal with them is to do an epidural. Well he talked to the anesthesiologist and found out that he doesnt do epidurals so he now thinks it would be best to just put him under general anesthesia and take care of the nails. Its his thought that by putting him under, he will has less pain in general from it and hopefully keep him from having a flare up of the RSD.

Now, that's sort of a secondary thing because his pain management doctors are gearing up for his implant. We don't have a date for it yet but we are hoping that we will get one at his next doctor appointment.... that lil bugger set the alarm clock and just got out of bed lol So anyway, I will post when he is going to have the trial implant done and then will be updating daily so you can see what progress he is making.

I'm going to make a list of things that RSD has changed in our lives. I know that RSD and CRPS patients and families know, but I'm curious as to just how many things it has changed for us. Well, since he is awake Im going to jump off of here.

We hope you all have a pain free day!

Long time since posting!

Well so much has gone on. My mother had a stroke in mid January and I ended up having to leave him at home alone so I could go take care of my mother. That was scary. Luckily we had a lot of family who filled in for me while I was away.

Lets see, since I posted last he has added 5 new medications to the list, 2 of them antidepressants. He has been getting more and more frustrated and depressed and he has been saying things like his life doesnt has any value anymore etc. So now he is on that and it dose and it seems to be helping. He is still depressed, but its taken the edge off for him for now and helped with the mood swings he was having. He is also taking a medication now for his heart rate and blood pressure and that has tremendously helped him as well.

They upped his dose of pain meds which he says helped a tiny bit, but today he is really having a bad time. I asked him a while ago if he wanted me to take him to the er room but he said he wanted to wait. I keep telling him not to let it get totally out of control because then it will be very hard for them to get him out of pain again, he said if it gets much worse he will let me take him in.

Last night was not good for sleeping. He didn't sleep at all because of the pain. I slept about 3 hours before I woke up to find him watching me sleep. I feel so bad for him. I find myself frustrated and angry that he has to go through this. Its not just affecting our lives, its ruining our lives. We are no longer having sex because the medications have caused him to not be able to achieve erection. He cant take a drug like Viagra because that would mess with his heart rate and blood pressure. RSD is the most cruel thing I have ever had to see before, to experience, to fight. It has taken a man who was active and healthy, who hiked, rode bikes, took walks and destroyed his body, its taken his life from him, its taken the things he loves away from him, its weighed him down and thrown him into a world full of despair and hopelessness. I can only pray that they will one day find a cure for this twisted disease. All the people around the world who suffer with RSD and CRPS and still there is little known about it.

Our hearts and prayers go out to everyone who suffers from this and to all those loved ones and care takers who are inadvertently affected by it. May you all have relief from this one day!

Sorry its been so long

I know it has been a while since the last post and I give my sincere apologies. So much has been going on lately, life has been crazy.

First off let me say that I am so glad I did not allow the er room doctor remove his toenail for that infected toe. The antibiotics have cleared it up totaly and he is able on hsi own to try to get the ingrown part out. His toe looks good again.

He has been having pain control issues. I think I mentioned before they took him off the one morphine to put him on oxycondin so now he takes morphine twice a day and oxycondin 4 times a day. He was having problems urinating and thats why the change came about. The change in medication has helped his urination problems but the oxycondin does not control the pain like the morphine did. So his doctor upped the dosage of the oxycondin to twice the amount he was taking. That has helped him some but he still isnt sleeping well, he's keeping me awake because he is in pain and on more than one occasion I have woke up in the middle of the night to hear him crying in his sleep or due to his tossing and turning because he just can't get comfortable. The days seem to keep getting longer and longer for him. I feel so useless because I can't help him...

He has been having problems with his memory. It started back when he injured himself with all the medications but it has been getting progressively worse in the last few weeks. He told me the other night that it scares him because some of the things he can't remember are things that he has known his whole life and shouldn't be a problem for him to remember. I have been looking for some memory exercises online to maybe help that aspect but I haven't found anything fitting. If anyone knows of a site that is good for memory building please let us know.

Alright, on to other things. We made it through Thanksgiving. I really outdid myself this year on dinner and I have to say I think it was the best dinner I have ever made hands down. Everything was just perfect. We did go to his families house for about an hour but had to leave because his cousin was on his way and had sick children. We all know, sickness and RSD don't mix. So we came on home and spent a very nice evening together. The RSD was nice enough to ease up for the evening. I had recorded Macy's parade earlier that morning and we watched it while we ate. It was a good day for him. For both of us.

So Thanksgiving came and went, the snow started rolling in and the pain started getting more severe. He spends a little more time resting, dozing in and out, which tells me he isnt sleeping again. He told me the other day how sorry he was he has RSD. I told him it wasn't his fault or under his control, I married him for better or for worse and I am just fine taking the worse times too. We will get through everything together, just like we have for the past 14 years. Still, he was upset he couldn't shovel the snow off the walkway to the garage for me.

We put up our Christmas tree! Well, I put it up. He did go to pick it out with me. I got it off the top of the van and dragged it onto the porch where he helped knock the snow off of it. Then he helped me get it into the stand. Normally he helps me decorate the tree. Its sort of like "our thing". He loves Christmas as much as I do. We are both Christmas fanatics. But this year is so different from ones of the past. I can tell he is somewhat depressed. He didn't help with the decorating of the tree. He did help me put up some lights on the archway in the living room by holding the ladder so I could put in some nails. But he didn't help go through the ornaments this year at all. Didn't seem interested in telling me if I had the lights evenly arranged on the tree. I didn't even get all the ornaments on it because I didn't have the help I normally do. After I got it decorated I went in the other room and I cried. It is like I am alone sometimes. He is in a different world these days trying to fight a battle that I am unable to help with.

So right now we are on the couch, I'm blogging and he is desperately trying to stay awake and failing miserably. I tried to get him to go lay down on the bed and take a nap, but he refused, telling me that he wasn't tired. Right now he is doing what I call "the duck". His head bobbing when he dozes out like a duck dipping under the water. He just had a really big tremor just now. It startled me even.

I hate RSD. I hate the way it is changing our lives. I hate the way it is taking over. I hate that anyone has to live with having RSD. I know he has it rough but I also can't help thinking of others who have this and what they have to deal with day to day.

I finally talked him into laying down on the bed so I'm going to help him get settled now. My heart goes out to everyone, here's to having a pain free day!

Busy busy busy!

I have been pretty busy around here the last couple of days. Dennis is still having a pretty hard time. His toe is still very red, swollen and infected but I think it might be looking a little bit better now. I have to get him a soak here in a few minutes. I had to run all over today trying to get the plates on the car changed and my drivers license changed today. Then I ran to the store and picked up the last few things I need to make Thanksgiving dinner. I wasn't sure if I would make it this year seeing as the RSD takes such a toll on him and we aren't going to be with all the family this year.

Oh I mentioned the other day that he had kept me awake with jerking, twitching and tremors with moaning. That went on for 3 days and then I had 2 choices. I could either take something to make me sleep through it or I could sleep on the couch. I hate sleeping on the couch so I took something to help me sleep. I feel so bad for him. I know he hurts all the time and I cant do anything for him. My heart goes out to anyone who has this horrible condition.

Alright, I'm going to get into my pj's and settle onto the couch and spend some time with him since he is feeling up to it. Take care and have another pain free day!

Another sleepless night

I am so tired right now. Last night Dennis kept having tremors, jerks and twitches. Then he would moan, roll over, moan... When I know he is in pain I just can't sleep. It's like I keep myself awake in case he needs me so I never really drift off, if that makes sense. I feel so horrible for him. So helpless.

Last night he told me that he was really glad he and I are still together. I asked him what he meant and he told me that he thought I would have left him by now because he can't be the man I married. That made me want to cry that he feels disappointed in himself like that. I told him that I married him for better or worse, that I love him unconditionally. That in 2003 when I had cancer and lost the ability to have children, became extremely depressed and had no idea if I would even survive all of it and he stood right there by my side. But this makes me aware of how vulnerable he really is. That he has fears I would possibly leave him due to this disease. RSD has really changed our lives.

So here I am, in the living room, I have him in direct line of sight and can hear him if he needs me. I thought maybe he could sleep better if I got out of bed. The alarm will go off in a little over an hour now. If we didn't set the alarm and force him to wake up, he says he would sleep forever. I have seen him sleep 18 hours at a time. All the heavy medications he takes all of the time, he can't keep his eyes open sometimes. He is also starting to have depression. Although he is on Cymbalta now which has helped some I think, some days he is a bit grouchy, some days I can tell he is simply down in the dumps. I wish there was something... anything I could do to help him get out of pain.

I think it's time to watch some television and take my mind off all of this. Take care everyone, keep up the hope!