by skullgrl on 15/03/2010
I got home from my first day of therapy at The Children’s Institute. The morning consisted mostly of assessments. I had a grilled chicken sandwich, fries plus a Klondike bar for lunch, which I burned through. It was kind of disturbing. I haven’t eaten that big a meal for lunch in a long time. (I find I get a lot of stomach trouble from the RND.) Some of the therapy was gruelling, I didn’t like the 6 min. jog/run and the inchworm animal walk was hard. Really, freaking hard. I did all of it though. The inchworm is where your bending over, hands flat on the floor and your feet touching the ground behind you, with your legs almost straight. Once you get in that position you move one hand forward and the next then one foot and the other. It was hard to cover any amount of ground because it was slow going. I like that my day (8am-4pm) ends with some hydrotherapy. They have 2 pools but the larger one’s pump is broken. It was a really lovely, albeit small therapy pool, nice and warm as well. While I was in pain doing the animal walks the only other thing that was a problem is the tightness in my back and shoulders. It is annoyingly achy.
After I got back from the hospital my brother, Mom and I went to Target. I scored a Star Trek (the original) and Wolverine t-shirt. Did you know that those pretty black and speckled white composition that I lust after in Canada and can’t find anywhere are only a 1.50$ here (Pittsburgh)? I love notebooks. Anyways, I also picked up a Flip UltraHD. OK, I’ll post more tomorrow, I can’t keep my eyes open.
by skullgrl on 15/03/2010
I will be leaving very soon to go to the Children’s Institute for my first day of therapy. Its been so nerve racking (literally – RND is a whole heap of nerve pain!) waiting the past few weeks, but now I am finally here. While I am ready for this, I’m also nervous.
by skullgrl on 14/03/2010
by skullgrl on 14/01/2010
Lately, I’ve been a bit blue because all my spam is in Russian. At first I dismissed it, thinking, who cares what language the spam on my blog is in. Then I realized I do! I missed having something to go to for a laugh when I logged in. All the stupid keywords and the ridiculous emails. Like 1jk2hsfnk@hotmail.com. I could translate the Russian ones I suppose but I want my spam in my language. Is that too much to ask? Although today I did get one that was in English but it wasn’t a good one. Also there’s another one in English that I’ve gotten two copies of from the same source and its for Sonic the Hedgehog DVDs. Its quite amusing. I assume that’s from my talking about my lovely Henry (the hedgehog) on here.
by skullgrl on 14/12/2009
I was diagnosed last month with a condition called RND. It has a lot of other names and many different forms. One of the other names I am familiar with is Pain Amplification Syndrome. When I’m talking to people I usually use both. Mostly because when I say Pain Amplification Syndrome, I feel like I just made up a name for my condition! PAS doesn’t sound very . . . real. I’ll be taking something of a break from blogging while I’m getting better. Although I may update here and there.
What is RND?
Pain is usually a response to tissue damage. This damage uses the pain nerve to send a signal to ones spinal cord, which in turn sends a signal to your brain which recognizes the signal of pain.
With my condition there is a short circuit in my spinal cord. The pain signal is not only sent to my brain, it’s also sent to some other nerves, the neurovascular ones to be exact. Those bad boys control blood flow but they’re a bit wimpy when it comes to these signals. They get all scared and decide to make the blood vessels to constrict. Think of it as a chain of bullying. Now, constricted blood vessels equals decreased blood flow. This means less oxygen everywhere and it leads to a build up of acids, both of these things cause more pain. At which point the whole process starts all over again.
I got the information I used to write this little blurb from this very helpful handout. It has a nice diagram too!
http://www.rsds.org/4/youth/pdf/AMP_RNDparentHandout.pdf
