Tag: ouch

Prayers of Gratitude

I have been thinking lately more and more about prayers of gratitude.

In my daily e-mails, one mentioned a short while back how we are always quick to flood the universe with our prayers in times of need – Oh, please help me with this – but that we often miss out on the opportunity to express prayers of gratitude – Thank you for the flowers, the air, the people around me…, for my life, my health, my home, my hearing…, for that act of kindness shown to me, for my ability to show love just now, for my ability to accept love from myself And others…

And so, I have been somewhat focusing on prayers of gratitude lately.

Tonight, as I drive myself the remainder of my journey home, I was delighted and relieved that my prayers were clear and of gratitude:

Thank you for showing me safely but clearly to trust myself.

Thank you for putting someone behind me who cares so much and is helping to take care of me.

Thank you for keeping me safe.

Thank you for putting someone behind me who stopped and was paying attention.

Thank you for helping me do what needed to be done.

Thank you for keeping us both – the bike and me – safe, despite our scratches.

Thank you that we received only scratches.

Thank you for the love that is following me right now.

Thank you for letting this terrifying event be in such safe, love-filled circumstances.

Thank you for keeping me alive and well, both for my sake, and for hers.

And for those in my life.

Thank you for my life.

There likely were others in there, too, but that was the main flow of my thoughts (along with the occasional, Man that was ….::hefty-shaky exhale…).

I am grateful for the angel who was driving behind me, and who, though she repeatedly expressed that she didn’t know what to do to help, did exactly what was needed to help – and, aside from all of the conscious efforts to help, her attentiveness quite definitely assured my safety.

Had she not been the one behind me, someone paying attention, I might not be here right now… it was a simple and small accident, but her attentiveness kept it so.

Thank you, God.

And thank you, R.

P.S. All my gear took perfect care of me – I rolled probably three times, without ever touching anything with my head, and lots of parts of me hurt right now, but my skin looks impeccable, because my clothes did exactly what they were worn to do… (minus one tiny spot that, through the jeans, still broke the skin and bled a little bit, but it is a tiny spot that looks more like I tripped and scraped my knee than that I fell around 30-35mph and went rolling across the road)…

P.P.S. Icing has been helping with pain and swelling, and the hot shower just now helped immensely with the pain everywhere.

P.P.P.S. And no, I was not on my phone – not at all… I am just glad that the girl behind me was not on her phone.

Post-a-day 2019

Invisapain

I started my first week of invisible slingers today (instead of braces on my teeth).

I always wanted braces, but my mom couldn’t afford them, so I never had them.

My teeth aren’t terrible, but the small details of crookedness and twists have bothered me for decades, and I want that beautiful, generic, white and glistening smile that all my braces friends have gotten.

I even looked into pricing as an adult, and I still couldn’t quite afford the braces scenario for myself…, but it has been on my someday guarantee list for some time now.

Now, thanks to a friend of mine, I have a super-duper affordable option for teeth straightening…, and today was my first day using my orthodontist-approved and -monitored plan…

It totally sucks.

I mean….. the pain totally sucks.

The aligners are probably already doing a very good job at what they’re designed to do.

However…,

My tongue, my teeth, and my gums have been in constant pain since about fifteen minutes into it all.

I actually put them in last night, because doing it just before bed is recommended so that the mouth adjusts to having something in it more easily… instead, however, I woke up after three hours, needing to urinate, and I had to take out the top one, because I was in so much pain, I couldn’t fall back asleep.

When I took out the bottom one this morning, planning to go down to eat breakfast, I passed back out and slept so well, I didn’t regret it at all.

Post-breakfast, however, I’ve been doing what I’m supposed to do, and it has totally sucked.

I went this afternoon and bought a solid nail file and filed all the edges that had rubbed my tongue totally raw, and that helped a bit (but the tongue is still raw and in pain).

Then I added a drop of clove and peppermint oils each into my litre and a half water bottle, and have been drinking that all evening, and that is helping dull some of the pain (at last!!).

However, everything still hurts, and I very much dislike it.

I am hoping things will improve drastically in the next 24 hours and greatly in the next 12 hours… otherwise, I might need to figure out a new plan of action for this whole thing… I never expected so much pain… they always just said that some people experience “some discomfort”, but no one mentioned anything about pain…

Ugh..

A friend of mine is halfway through her use of these, and she never had such pain – just the common discomfort…, but she said that even that improved, and that she hardly feels a difference when she puts a new set of aligners in her mouth now… boy, I hope I can get to that point, and quite soon, please(!).

Dear God, please heal my mouth, and please ease my pains such that I might continue to straighten my teeth, but that it be comfortably done… Amen.

Here’s to strong and good intentions for my mouth(!): cheers.

Post-a-day 2019

an Ouch of fitness

It all seems to hurt now… I’ve only taken a day off from the exercise, but all the muscles seem to hurt now.

My aunt adjusted one of my shoulders – deltoid was kind of up in the shoulder, thus some really odd feelings from time to time – today, and it feels loads better already.

However, it kind of just brought attention to how messy everything else is right now… no, they aren’t as bad as that shoulder was, but they all kind of suck right now, nonetheless.

I did an upper body chair yoga stretch class video just now, and I am acutely aware of what feels like a hundred plus tiny spots of tightness and soreness throughout my upper body… my neck feels absurdly tight on each side, all the muscles that connect along the sides of my spine seem to have knots in them, somewhere, and my left shoulder is just far too high (now that my right one is in its proper place)…

I feel like I need to be tossed like a rag doll into a trampoline, and then bounces around a while, so everything can be shaken up just enough to relax and, eventually, fall back into its proper place.

If only that were a viable option… as it is, it’s probably a good thing I have no trampoline access, because it wouldn’t work out as I’d like, anyway… 😛

Ugh!

God, please, heal my body tonight and tomorrow…. take full advantage of my two days off of exercise, and heal my body to a comfortable beauty, that I might better share your love in and with the world.

Amen

Post-a-day 2019

BruiseFit much?

It’s only been about a week and a half that we have been gym-ing…

I’ve attended eight classes in the past nine days, taking two days off over the weekend…

Today, throughout the day, I kept finding new marks and bruises on various parts of my body…

I have no idea when or how specifically I obtained these bruises – the cuts and scrapes I know – but I am guessing that they all have the same locational origin: the gym.

I wonder how many more I’ll find tomorrow, and how much worse the already found ones will be…

As for the most recent discovery just barely below my elbow, on my back arm, directly where I usually place my arm onto a desk or a table (That’s how I discovered it in the first place, putting pressure on it via a tabletop, and suddenly withdrawing in pain.) it has already gone 3-D since I first discovered it.

Yikes…

What a life this is… 😛

Post-a-day 2019

Another day, another something

The days come and go of their own accord, with emotions and thought patterns, actions and germs, along with plenty of others, all jumping on board from time to time, so that they, too, can do their work in and make their marks in the world… like the possible germs who hooked onto yesterday or today, to bring me what feels like the beginning of a painful fever… 😛

Post-a-day 2018

Cleaning out = unexpected exhaustion

I’m kind of exhausted.  And kind of feel like crying and curling up in a ball.
There have been a LOT of memories going through this stuff.  And, with that, has naturally come Loads of emotions.  Lots of them quite strong, too.
I guess that’s a big part of why I kept the stuff.

And as of this morning, I find myself not wanting to take on cleaning out and going through anything else right now.  Like I need a vacation from it.

Especially since so much of my stuff is disorganized amongst the various boxes, the task feels more exhausting.  Because, rather then opening up a box and re-living fifth grade, I open up a single box and am going through parts of fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and possibly even a memory or three from before and after those years.  And going through the memories of those years isn’t just ‘going through memories’.  It’s also re-experiencing the emotions and thoughts and thought patterns of it all.  So, in cleaning through one box, I am living several years – and from the very formative years – of my life in a matter of an hour or few.  Talk about exhausting… that is exhausting.

And I want a break from it for a little while, so my mind and my nerve endings can relax again and not be so constantly overwhelmed.

Post-a-day 2018

The stairs attacked me

I fell on the stairs tonight.  More specifically, I fell up the stairs.

You see, I was carrying up my laundry, for which I had no basket.  There were bunches of socks in the pile, and I had strategically hugged myself to the pile, in order to keep the many socks from falling to the ground.  Unfortunately, as I was stepping up to the top of the stairwell, I found myself suddenly stemmed to the ground with a loud s-smack!

I knew that I was on the ground and that I had somehow tripped, but had almost no brain capacity beyond knowing that.  I realized that I was about to cry terribly, and wanted my mom got help, in case I were injured.  I managed to call my mom with a very calm voice before I broke into an almost hysterical blurriness of tears.

For some reason, I was filled with a warm feeling of something truly special and loving at my mom’s response.  She was on the phone with family, and I heard her say, “Let me call you back in just a few minutes,” immediately after I called her.  There was little panic in my voice, but she had heard the splat.

When she arrived, I was crying on the cat-pee-infused floor, – she ripped up the carpet a while back, but still hasn’t gotten the particle board part replaced – on top of my laundry, half-sprawled on my forearms and knee, with my left leg lifted slightly in the air.  She asked me what had happened, but I couldn’t speak at first, and couldn’t move almost at all for the pain.  She said that she didn’t know how to help me until I could at least show her where I was hurt.  After a good set of seconds, I finally forced myself to sit in my right side, and pull my left leg around for her to see in the narrow landing of the top of the stairs.

She instantly could tell that my knee was swelling already.  I finally could speak a little, and pointed out that my toe was bleeding.  It was slow to begin, but then blood just seemed to be pouring out of it.  By the time I was able to stand myself up, and attempt walking, – it hurt – my sandal was getting covered in bright red.

Half an hour later, I am lying here on my bed, occasionally shivering/shuddering in pain as another throb goes through my toe.  The ice is helpful, but the weight of it seems to make things hurt more (as is so often the case with an ice pack).  I’ve already felt around, and, though it was painful, it seemed like my toe is all in one piece.  But that is not so much the point of my sharing this – that I had a big fall, but I am okay.

You see, it reminded me of this other occasion, when I had a similarly odd experience, and it was here, too, at my mom’s house.

Several years ago, – I think it was in high school – my mom had made some soup for dinner.  The soup was ready in a pot on the stovetop, and she had told me to go serve myself.  I grabbed one of the black ceramic bowls we use, and ladled some soup into it.  The next instant, there was soup and shattered ceramic all over the place around me.  It covered the floor.  I was still holding the ladle, I think, even, but the bowl was gone, in pieces on the floor.
I was paralyzed with shock and fright.  I couldn’t immediately comprehend how things had happened, but I knew that the bowl I had been holding was now all over the floor, and that it was dangerous to move.  I likely was barefoot or in sandals, making it that much more dangerous to move.  I couldn’t comprehend the full situation, and that was an additional scary factor to the shattered ceramic around me.

I began to cry.  My mom was already walking over to me from the living room.  She told me that it was okay, and she held me while I cried and said that I didn’t know what had happened.

She cleaned up everything, and then brought me soup on the sofa, where I had settled physically to help me settle emotionally.  And she wasn’t even the slightest bit upset or annoyed at any of it.  She was just there for me, and she took care of me.  She loved and cared for me, with no contingencies.  I felt like a five-year-old in what I had done and how I had responded, and was initially almost ashamed that I was actually around 17.  But my mom didn’t seem even to consider that.  Age wasn’t on her mind, even.  I needed help, and she gave it.  I needed love and care, and she provided.  And without hesitation.

Tonight was the same.  Usually, her phone calls are not cut short, but she tells the person to ‘hang on just a second’ or just whispers a, ‘What?(!)’ to me as she holds the receiver away from her face a bit.  In tonight’s situation, even though it turned out to be my grandma on the phone, my mom instantly responded to my need, ending the phone call immediately – she didn’t even wait for my grandma to finish what she was in the middle of saying at the time -, and coming to help me.  Again, I had made what felt like a childish error, and again did she seem not to care less about that fact.  I was in need, and she took care of me, without hesitation.  

That experience of love is one of the most beautiful ones I have ever known.  Talk about being ashamed or at one’s worst, and being loved anyway…

Post-a-day 2017

an old fashioned telephone and a strawberry?

A strawberry and a telephone – what do they have in common?  They have both low-grade injured me in odd ways.

The strawberry – oh, that dear strawberry – actually drew blood instantly in its incident.  You see, I was simply pulling off the green tops of my strawberries, and then eating each strawberry.  On this particular one, when I grabbed the green leaves atop it, pushing the end of my thumb nail underneath the little green stem that sat in the middle of them for nowhere near the first time in my life, I suddenly felt an extreme, sharp pain in my thumb.  Somehow, the strawberry had launched itself into the depths that appeared at the underside of my thumbnail, ripping apart the nail and the skin.  I yanked away immediately from the strawberry, and watched the blood overflow from underneath my thumb nail.  Despite the pain, I found the occasion a happy and hilarious one. I mean, who gets injured by a strawberry?  Since when do strawberries draw blood?  I’m not even clumsy, but they apparently do it to me. 😛

The telephone was what reminded me of the strawberry incident today.  I was looking at the last bit of a splinter – or what looks like it might be the last bit of a splinter – in my hand just now, and thought of the insanity of what my splinter was: a piece of a telephone.  You know the old black, rotary dial telephones, with the receiver that rested across the top?  That kind of telephone.  Something had fallen on one Saturday night, sending out shards of black telephone onto the black floor.  I did not realize that the phone had even been injured until after I took my shot – this was in a photo area – on the floor, playing my ukulele.  Hours later, it took some consideration before I discovered what the source of my chunk of black plastic-type material splinter was.  When I removed the splinter, the spot bled a little, and then began to hurt.  I mean, really, what kind of injury is that?  Blood drawn by telephone, and no throwing of any kind was involved, nor were any other people.  Silly.

So, an old telephone and a strawberry have a big something in common, see?

Post-a-day 2017