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Post Tagged with: "chronic pain"

February Wrap-up

Ah, February. How I loathe thee. Winters are always dangerous for me because of all my health issues, but this year I found out my wind resistance is either zero or negative. It’s been a stormy month but not very cold. I always thought I was bad at handling the cold. Turns out I was wrong. It’s the cold wind that makes it painful to breathe, that sets my throat on fire, and makes my lungs feel like they’re made of metal.

So I spent most of the month in recovery mode which means my productivity tanked. I wrote two book reviews and four Friday posts for Narratess and only posted here once. I’m still on track for those goals, and I’m even a little ahead because I already have six (including this one) posts for my twenty post goal for Princess.

I finished four more books, two for book tours and two for Netgalley. Netgalley is a service that connects book reviewers, librarians and other professionals with publishers/authors. We get a free book in exchange for a review. This is usually to get reviews ahead of release and create hype. Goodreads says I’m four books ahead of schedule, but I know that once I start reading the real chonks (which is my goal this year) I’ll only finish one or maybe two books a month. Even when I’m actively working on my ‘reading once a day’ habit, a book with over 600 pages (and maybe even 800 pages) will take up significantly more time than a 230-page young adult romance.

Look, I’m an idiot. I said I wouldn’t do book tours a few years ago when I started adding more book-related posts to Narratess. Then I said I wouldn’t request more books from Netgalley because of the added pressure through reading deadlines. But I’ve done four book tours so far and I have a few more coming up. I also request four more titles on Netgalley last weekend. Sigh.

For games, there was only one: Wolcen. I already talked about it in a previous post and I’ll talk more about it in the future, but the bad weather also affected my hands. I wanted to play more Pokemon, more Stardew Valley, maybe even get back into Guild Wars, but none of that happened. And that’s okay.

Instead of gaming, I dived back into non-fiction. I started watching more videos on writing and personal development. Even on Netflix, I felt like I wanted to watch more documentaries or reality tv than sitcoms or fantasy series. It’s unusual for me to have this kind of clarity when my body is feeling like crap. Brain fog is real. So it’s a strange experience when my brain acts like a sponge and just wants to soak up everything. My headache isn’t gone (heck, it might be worse than other days) but I can think! I can process information! I draw conclusions based on the information I have! I can apply theory to practice! Seriously, it’s been years since I’ve experienced this.

It made me want to be more productive. So even though I didn’t post more or play more, I did write more. I finished a piece of flash fiction and submitted it (no word back yet), and my short story (granted, written in December) was selected as a finalist. The finalists were selected by industry professionals out of at least a hundred submissions. Knowing that these people loved my story enough to pick it as a finalist is huge and a great motivator to keep writing. I know some of you have voted, so thank you! 29th of March I know if I’ve won or not.

So I’m working hard on my writing career. I made a rough publishing outline for this year and a wishlist of books I want to write. For now, I’m still focusing on finishing the Infernal Contracts trilogy. Book 2 is getting a second draft with more words, better scenes and character growth. It hurt initially when I missed the December deadline, but I truly believe it’ll be a much better book now. I’m going to write the outline for book 3 when it’s with beta readers, so I can jump right in when the final draft is done.

March will be busy with nearly all of my weekends filled up with exhausting events. So I hope I can get my writing and editing done. I’ll do my best to post here more frequently (I still have so many drafts I want to finish), but Narratess comes first.

So I went bowling…

My aunt turned 50 and she invited us for an hour of bowling with dinner afterwards. She’s my favourite aunt, so I really didn’t want to skip on celebrating with her. But I also knew that bowling is high risk for me.

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve got hypermobility syndrome (HMS). My joints are more susceptible to dislocation or subluxation and certain movements, impact or weight will affect me in a bad way.

Holding a 3 KG bowling ball with three fingers, swinging it and then hoping my fingers won’t be stuck in it, isn’t a good way to spend my time. But I really, really wanted to take part. I haven’t done much fun activities outside of the house in a while, and this was a good opportunity to take up a different perspective.

After having dealt with chronic pain for nearly a decade, I’ve grown tired of having my pain dictate my life. In my 101 goals, I’ve actively decided to do things that I wouldn’t have done before. I could’ve added bowling, but didn’t since I didn’t see it as something I *had* to do.

Yesterday I decided I would bowl, no matter what. Well, except maybe a dislocated joint.

I was smart enough to bring my wrist brace and I wore it after my first round. Throwing those first two balls was already an attack on my wrist muscled and the brace gave me the support I needed.

My score wasn’t great, but I didn’t expect it to be. I thought I was going to be the loser, but I did fairly well and my score wasn’t that much off from my mom and sister. My score was much better than I thought it would be.

And that’s a personal victory for me. I bowled for an hour without serious injuries, just some muscle aches which will disappear in a few days. I had fun and I didn’t let my situation tell me how to live my life. It felt great and I hope this change in mindset will help me the coming years in taking back control.

Under new pain management

The past three years I’ve dealt with chronic pains from hypermobility and my doctor diagnosed that I have Tietze’s syndrome as well. I’m guessing I’ve had that for the past three years as well, but because I had so many different symptoms, they overlooked it. Add a permanent neck injury to that, an ankle bruised on three different places which might not go away and shoulders which really like to subluxate. I used pain killers, NSAIDs and analgesic gels. But none of them worked well enough. I recently started doing Tog Chöd, Tibetan sword fighting, and my teacher taught me an exercise to help me control the pain. Two days after doing it, the pain is gone.

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