When Things Keep Piling Up

This summer has been off to a rough start but I have been pretty calm (at least I think- ha ha) through all of this.

So if we back up, really since November things health wise things have been pretty rough for me. I haven’t really gotten better instead things just kept piling up essentially.

This past week was really rough. I was really sick hence the reason for no blog posts last week. On Sunday out of nowhere my jaw locked up and started hurting. I do what I normally do when my tmj acts up and got ice right away. I was on steroids at the time so I couldn’t take any Advil. I took Tylenol like normal because I am still dealing with the temperature. On Monday I was in horrible pain so much pain that I was crying a lot, which if you know me you know that I rarely cry because of pain unless its really bad. I slept horribly Sunday night totaling a whole 2 hours of sleep. My mom was up with me too! I had heating pads and ice but the pain was shooting through my ear and it hurt like nothing I ever had experienced before. I even stated that this was more painful then the gum graft that also got infected. It hurt so bad and nothing was relieving it. So Monday morning we called the dentist, at first we all thought my tmj was just really bad. My dentist spent a little over an hour with us trying to get to the bottom of this. He said something along the lines of- that he knew I was in pain because I rarely complain or cry and I was crying the whole time due to pain. My face was really warm and I was really pale and my eyes didn’t look good. He noticed something on one of the x-rays so they did another one and found this little cavity. It was on the inside of my tooth – they normally start on the outside. After he saw that and did some more testing/poking around my teeth he suspected I had an abscess on my tooth. He prescribed some antibiotics and would check back in Thursday. I had quite a bit of improvement and the warmth had left! I was sleeping a bit better also! So this Monday I went back for a check-up. Everything looked a lot better. My tmj is irritated a little bit but that wasn’t causing the horrible pain. I finish my antibiotics tomorrow. I may have to go on another round because this empty space in my tooth can fill right back up with bacteria. We aren’t sure if this was caused because I was on the steroids since it weakens your immune system. Either way it happened but we caught it fairly fast and treated it. Unfortunately this means I have to get a root canal done. This is my 1st root canal but with all the surgeries I have had this shouldn’t be too bad, they said the implant was much more involved. So that problem will all be taken care of shortly.

I finished my steroids last week and I can already feel the difference. They were for my allergies, but my joints and low grade temperature benefited greatly from them. My temp got all the way down to 99.5 which was HUGE! My joints weren’t getting warm and swollen as fast and I could get up a lot easier. My pains are coming back already and my joints are swelling right back up. My allergies are being a little bit annoying still. I still have to take allergy medication 3x a day and Benadryl. While on the steroids I went a few days without any Benadryl. I will probably have to call my doctor but it isn’t out of hand or anything but if it continues another week I probably will. I joke with my doctor that people with chronic illnesses should get a frequent flyers pass like every 10th visit is free.

Oh and I re-sprained my ankle again! I was making a lot of progress in physical therapy – we all weren’t sure if it was the therapy helping or the steroids. I feel like I have gone back 5 steps since being off the steroids but it will be ok.

So while my summer may have started off rough I continue to find the joy in each day. I thought so many times- at least this is summer and I don’t have to worry about missing work and I have the whole summer to rest. There is just one project I want to work on sometime this summer and that is going through my closet again. I should’ve done that project while I was on the steroids haha. Oh well! So even though things can be rough and at times overwhelming I take a deep breath and focus on something I can control, like what I was thankful for that day.