Life has been crazy. Days are confusing. I had a good laugh when my Aunt wished me on what she thought was my birthday. My birthday is on the 28th of April. She wished me on the 28th day of lockdown which fell in April! I think that perfectly sums up how discombobulated alot of us are!
May is Lupus month. I’ve been battling with my health and a lot of pain over the past week. The pain in my neck has gotten progressively worse. The usual sign of a massive pain flare on its way. This would normally make me end up in ER to get a morphine or pethidine injection and fentanyl patch. There is no way in hell I am going to hospital. Firstly, because I am so immunocompromised and the thought that people with Covid 19 might have come through. Err, hard nope. Secondly, I don’t want to be a drain on hospital staff who are massively overworked.
My oxycodone was doubled because the cold weather has come in and that has brought about extreme pain and stiffness throughout my body. Now my neck which also means my head is acting up like crazy. I cannot explain to you how incredibly painful it is. I agreed to have injections in my neck because for now they cannot do any nerve / pain block procedures as they are done in theatre.
I assumed the position. Sat down and she went at it. I was like “okay lets do day 2 injections”. 10 injections in my neck later! That’s how bad it was. The upside of Covid 19 here is, that she gave me a massive discount. With consultation this would have been 9k. She gave me a 50% discount. Thank God! I love how halfway in she asks “I know this is really painful Tracey. Are you okay”. I replied “I’m okay” her response? “Yes, you are so used to so much pain already”. Professor, woman, I will NEVER get used to extreme levels of pain. Tracey the fighter sometimes does herself a disservice! The pic below is a great representation.
Anyway, just a bit of back story about me being a bit inactive.
I knew it was May but with this pain comes confusion. My uncle is a staunch supporter of mine. An uncle who posts about Lupus on Facebook, who when I was first diagnosed went seeking for answers. He came back with a company called ‘Seven-Point Five” who did herbal treatments. He drove me nuts pushing it on me. In hindsight I realised it was love that made him want me to give it a go. Anything to cure me. Anything. Not a good fit for my condition but it made me feel so incredibly loved. It’s May and he has his purple going on! Showed me his purple scatter cushions and curtains in the lounge!
This is the very same uncle who got me to eat doggy treats when we were little. Thankfully my gran caught him and beat his ass. This is also the uncle who teases me unrelentlessly! For goodness sake when I visited my fam in Cape Town in December he LICKED MY ARM! He knows how quickly I get grossed out but more than that he loves watching the aftermath of me freaking out and losing the plot completely. Yep, that’s my family. Love ’em anyway.
Purple is significant because in the Lupus community we use the colour purple. Our insignia is a purple butterfly and when someone in our group dies, we say they’ve gained their wings. Him adding these touches, in honour of my fight is so touching to me.
I will be doing one post a week about Lupus this month. You can use it to educate yourself or not. I will not be offended. What I do ask is that you spread the posts as far and wide as possible. My main reason for starting this blog was to create awareness about Lupus and Fibromyalgia. Just asking for a little favour. You never know who needs to read this. Let’s bring awareness to Lupus. Enlighten those who don’t know and educate those who have heard about it but don’t actually understand it.
I’ll be back! Better than ever. I just hope it happens really soon because pain is not cute! Please go back into my archives and read some Lupus related stories. Like the 9 day stint I had in hospital at the end of last year (amongst many other hospital stays). Please also read the post on ‘how I was diagnosed’ because that’s where the battle began and it started off pretty scarily!!
Like Mission Impossible. Except this is not impossible… I hope you will accept this mission if you wish to choose it!
If any of you can figure out how I can track how many posts people are sharing please give me some ideas. I really want to be able to gift a prize at the end of May! Fellow WordPressers please help!
Stay Safe everyone. Love and Light.💖💫
One Love 😷✌
Tracey's World , Discover 