I Almost Forgot...

...to mention a few symptoms!  HORRENDOUS sleep habits, for one.  I started having insomnia right around age 12, not long after we first moved to Colorado, actually.  Now, I am tired ALL. THE. TIME.  But then, I go to bed and CANNOT sleep.  I will toss, turn, lay awake for hours.  It drives me crazy!  Usually, if I don't fall asleep watching TV on the couch and then stumble to bed sometime during the night, I will not fall asleep for at LEAST an hour, despite the constant exhaustion.  I also wake up feeling as if I have not slept at all, AND I often wake up several times during the night.  Many of these times, I will wake up and stay awake for hours on end.  Clearly SOMETHING is awry with my sleep. 

Also (as I'm sure most of you who know me have probably noticed), I can be a gigantic BITCH!  I guess the symptom would be best described as irritable.  I frequently have NO patience, am sarcastic, rude, always in a hurry, get annoyed with more than one noise occurring at any given time, and, at my very worst, am practically homicidal over minor setbacks and irritations.  This is unfair to all those around me, but, seriously, sometimes I really have NO control over this.  My brain will say, "Alex, chill out, stop acting this way," but I just CAN'T. 

I'm sure many of you know by my oh so lovely recent face book posts that this was a rather trying week.  Life is kinda finally getting back to normal (Ryan was away all last week for work, and we were away at my cousins graduation for 4 days before that), then my days off and work schedule got all jacked up.  First, previous to leaving, I had JUST gotten to having a set schedule (off Sunday and Monday), so this is what I expected upon my return.  WRONG.  My first week back I was scheduled Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, AND Sunday.  Monday and Tuesday off.  OK, no biggie, it really doesn't matter, I'd just like to have 2 days (preferably in a row) off.  Then late on Monday afternoon I got a call from... work!  (oh, boy).  So I went in to close, even though I was gross from cleaning and helping Ryan a bit with moving in a new hot water heater.  Plus, the boss had posted the new schedule a couple days before (which runs Thursday through Wednesday) and I discovered I have NO days off this week.  Then on Tuesday, Trent got sick and I had to get him from karate camp.  Later that day he began breaking out in hives, so I spent my one day in an almost 3 week period off scared to death and worried sick at the Children's Hospital after hours care.  It's been a VERY stressful (and exhausting) week, to say the least.  Tonight I worked shift 5 of 12 in a row.  Ugh!

My main focus of this blog is to talk about my daily symptoms so that I can began to make sense of any patterns.  So here goes.  Today my main issues were upper body joint pains.  My right pointer finger has been VERY painful, both of my hands, wrists, and upper arms (but especially the left upper arm) were painful- just gripping a small, light plate REALLY hurt.  My left ribs have still been troubling me but mainly feel full or annoying rather than painful.  My low back hurt a LOT.  Sometimes I can make it almost all the way to work before it bothers me too much but today I was barely out of the neighborhood before the right low back, hip, and knee began to hurt quite a bit.  My left shoulder blade is also ridiculously tight and sore (I try to work out the knots by leaning up against wall corners at work and it was almost too painful today to do this at all).  Both of my hamstrings are still sore to the touch (well, the left one ALWAYS is) from doing 3 karate classes on Thursday night.  Last night, after I blogged, I started getting really weird twitching on the side of my foot when I laid down.  I ate decently but not awesome today.  I did have some fish and veggies, so that's good.  I still drank too much coffee, but I was DRAGGING at work.  I did cheat and have a small piece of banana bread, then threw half away, then remembered my little good eating habits ticker on the blog and spit out the bite I had in my mouth, ha ha.  I guess it's the little things that will keep me grounded!

I also noticed over the course of the week that my chest pain seems to worsen when I have anxiety about or am in a situation or near people who cause me stress.  Maybe it seems like a "duh," but it's a newish observation, and it's the type of progress I need to make if I want to help figure out my health problems and plans for helping manage them.

GOALS FOR THE WEEK:  get up and do a couple minutes of stretches and cardio right away to get my blood moving each morning; take very good care of my teeth; spend 10 minutes (or more) each night stretching; spend some time outside each evening (walk around the block, garden or yard work, sit out with a good book); and try to unglue myself from my TV and phone a little more each day.  Wish me luck!!