My husband and I will be married on Valentine's Day for 11 years. We met through Match.com 12 years ago and never thought anything would come out of it and just became friends. Over that year, we learned a lot about each other and grew to love one another, so that is how we both came to be married despite a failed first marriage for each of us and my medical problems from a benign brain tumor found in September 1993 and a botched brain surgery & hospitalization in December 1993 resulting in chronic, level 8-10 head pain (or what the Doctors call Facial Pain, but it doesn't feel like my face, but feels like a super-nuclear migraine if you can even imagine that kind of pain). We are still doing well and when we got married, we made a vow to be married for 50 years (still possible as both our ascendants live into their 90's-100's) and then we'd renew our vows for another 50 (who knows, it might be possible in the future--LOL).
Despite all the pain, I keep doing my avocation which is fiber art. I knit, spin, crochet, felt, and other types of fiber arts and have given away so many gifts that everyone's got 1-2 afghans, hats galore, scarves, mittens, etc. You can only wear one hat, one pair of mittens, and one scarf at a time, and having 5-10 sets is over kill, don't you think? So, I started donating them to various charities throughout the United States (Sacramento, Seattle, San Francisco, for a few) for the homeless, to hospitals, to orphanages...or to anyone doing any event or auction to raise money for different charities. Then I figured as I am pretty productive in spite of the pain, to sell them at the farmers market where I live.
Granted, I don't make a lot, but I raise my own animals for their fiber (for right now I take care of animals because I am so afraid of the National Animal Identification System (infamously known as the NAIS) that I stopped breeding and raising them. So, I have 4 alpacas (1 Suri and 3 Huacayas), 2 ewes (pure-blooded Icelandic female sheep), and 5 Auracana chickens (also known as the Easter Egg chickens and each hen lays a different colored egg). I will be buying 25 more Auracana chicks this spring so I can sell my eggs also for the eggs themselves, for egg shell mosaics so you don't have to dye the egg shells (greens, blues, ivories/whites, pinks, or tans) or for blown egg shell ornaments or decorations (you decorate the eggs with paints and use wax to make sure the colors don't go everywhere--like batik for eggs).
I spin the fiber I get from the alpacas and the sheep, as well as my dog hair from my dwarf Great Pyrenees named Bud. I have some Persian cat fiber left from 10 years of brushing my Chocolate and Gold tortoiseshell Persian named Miss Lacey and will spin that up also to make a shawl for myself. Cat and Dog hair has 20% warmer fiber when you spin and knit or crochet it into a garment, so as I'm ALWAYS cold, I'll be warmer than I probably want to be.
I'm having my 7th brain surgery on February 9 with what we hope will be at least a 80-85% reduction in facial pain. When I had my 6th surgery, I had an 80-85% reduction in pain. However, I caught a late bout, and particular nasty case of the flu (got it from both ends), was coming down the stairs, got dizzy and fell, though I caught myself with the stair rail, but it did pull the line of electrodes out of place a fraction of an inch--just enough to get the pain back to the previous level and felt even worse than it was before. So, it took the Doctors to do a series of tests and consults to figure out that they needed to stimulate the infra orbital nerve which seems to relieve the facial pain more than when they stimulate the Trigeminal nerve. You see, when they did the last surgery, the electrode that was closest to the nose was the one that most relieved the pain. Thank goodness they got that figured out, and they'll implant the second line of eight electrodes under the old line which will continue to work, and put it closer to my nose right on top (I am only guessing on the actual placement) of the infra orbital nerve, which we all are hoping will get at least the same amount of pain relief as the first time around. However, it may or may not help at all, or it might even relieve more of the pain. None of us will really know until they finish the surgery and I'm awake in recovery. Last time, the relief was so apparent when I woke up, it was a miracle to not feel hardly any pain at all. Level 2-3 pain was so wonderful compared to what I was experiencing. I'm posting this here, so that if you read it, perhaps you'll think of me that day (surgery starts at 1:30 PM and last 3-4 hours) and send positive thoughts or prayers in my direction. Every little bit will help and I can use all the help I can get psychically/mentally/religiously. If you do, thank you very much in advance for giving me your wonderful thoughts and prayers.
So, once this is done, my recovery will take a while--maybe a year total between the surgery and anesthetic, plus I'm deconditioned after the last two years because I've been more or less bound to the house because I couldn't think well through the pain and didn't trust myself driving. So, I will be driving again, doing a lot fo the things I haven't been able to do over the least two years minus the 6 months I had the first decrease in pain.
Let me tell you something about pain. I went to a pain support group and there were 8 other men and women in the group. I was hoping I could get some help with the pain through verbal/emotional support through the group, but that was not what I found. It was actually a contest about who had the worst pain, those with head, back, arm or leg pain. ALL Pain hurts and there is no pain that is better or worse than the other. However, some pain can be more disabling than other pain. Back pain, I've come to believe, has to be the most disabling. If you can't use your back to do things, you are definitely SOL because you can't sleep, you can't lift, and many times, you cannot even walk. Head pain has got to be the next disabling because any of you who have had migraines or tension headaches, knows that you can barely think and you throw up a lot because you get so nauseous from the pain. Leg pain (regardless of ankle, knee or hip) is the next worse because you can't walk well and it hurts, and you baby it because it hurts and it causes back pain and head pain (not always but a good portion of the time). And lastly, I'd say shoulder pain, though that can also cause back and head pain. This is just my opinion and you may agree or disagree as the case may be, but it's based on experience as well as observation. However, the one thing I do know is that "Pain is Pain" and it "ALL" hurts like hell.
So, Happy Valentine's Day and I hope to be able to give you good news soon after I get home (I'll be home on Feb. 10 if there are no complications as it is a day surgery--yup, even for some brain surgeries you go home the same day--pretty amazing, huh). I don't know if I'll have the energy to post anything for a day or so, but I'll try to let you know ASAP.
Wish me Luck and remember me on February 9 at 1:30 PM.
