"This miracle God gave to me / Gives me strength when I'm weak..."

[Title from "In my Daughter's Eyes"; don't know the artist]

I love my rollator...it actually keeps me feeling good! I find the scale of one to ten inapplicable and useless, but if I used it I'd rank myself at a three or four right now...consistently. My dad took me shopping for a new coat today; I used a wheelchair around the store and managed to keep myself feeling good. Hey, "Dave", "John", and anyone else who carries me: I'm not falling down anymore! (At least until I get worse again, but we won't think about that.) You may never have to carry me again! HOORAY!

In other news, I am enjoying being home and relaxing. I miss all my school firends terribly, and want to be back with them. I will, however, be meeting up with one friend (haven't seen her for three months) on Wednesday, and another (haven't seen her for seventeen months) on Friday, so it's all good and I'm very excited.

I forgot what it was like to feel this good...thank God for rollators.

While I'm in this good mood, I am starting a project that will hopefully carry me through the hard times as well. I am starting a list of things that help my pain; by the end of the year (12/31/08) I hope to have 100 coping strategies listed here.

1. Lying Down: listening to music, reading, or sleeping, particularly if my feet are on top of the blankets, not under them.

2. Taking off my Shoes: This is the simplest one, and the one I forget most often. Wearing shoes actively hurts my feet; taking them off removes that particular trigger.

3. Theater: Since July, I have not felt better than I did while I was in the play.

4. Having Fun with Friends and Not Talking about Pain: Distraction always helps; fun distractions are even better.

5. Laughing Really Hard: Laughter releases endorphins, which always decrease pain. On occasion, I've managed to laugh myself out of pain.

6. Self-Hypnosis: This one is complicated. As I go deep into myself, my pain gets worse before it gets better; it has to be low enough to begin with that I can stand for it to get worse, then relax enough to make it better. So this one only helps up to a point. Since it definitely helps somewhat sometimes, however, I am including it here.