A Little Help From My Friends

Most seeing this already know me in some capacity, but for those that don't, I'm a mother, a (very) small business owner, a big soccer fan of my son, a community volunteer, an artist, and much more. These days I am feeling like a failure at all of them though. Try as I may, functioning as a contributing member to society was getting harder and harder for me to do and it hasn't been till recently that we have found some answers. I've been trying to push through the "quirks", as I call them, that come and go randomly but the exhaustion they cause can be overwhelming most days.

What started out last Oct as what was originally thought to be an inner ear problem from a nasty case of the flu, has turned into so much more. In pushing doctors over a massive right sided localized headache, I was referred to Neurology. just to find that the spine in my neck is breaking down in multiple ways. We are also looking into my back and hips. My condition is called thoracic outlet syndrome complicated by stenosis, degeneration of vertebrae, and osteoarthritis complications throughtout the rest of my body  and is extremely advanced for someone my age (37). Thoracic Outlet Syndrome is a condition where the holes that your nerves run out of from your spine are to small, or the nerves are too big, however you want to look at it. This has caused pinching and malfunction of my nerves, muscle spasms, and immense pain. Stenosis is the building up of bone spurs on the inside of your vertebrae affecting the functions of the spinal cord. The location of the extreme parts of my stenosis touches my spine cord, which causes all sorts of "fun" things to happen, and impede the flow of spinal fluid, the thought for the now chronic headache and sensitivity on the right side. The degeneration they have found so far is in my neck, almost like the bones are trying to fuse the vertebrae together. The discs haven't ruptured yet, but they are holding on for dear life.

See my biggest complication is the affect all of this has is on my hands and arms. I can't hold something for more than 10 mins without my hands going numb and even when I am in a position that works better my fine motor skills are rapidly declining.  My legs and feet aren't much better causing trips and falls, and tons of mystery bruises. I have been adjusting things to figure out my new "normal" but it's taking some time, and with it a lot of frustration and exhaustion. Lots of time but like the Tortoise 

I have gotten into an arthritis center and we have made some meds adjustments that have helped me not feel like a doped up lab rat. I've also found an Ortho spine doctor willing to try and at least fix the degeneration going on in my neck. Just waiting on a date and trying to get all our ducks in a row.

In the meantime all of this testing and surgery and waiting, with much more of it to come, has taken a serious toll on our finances (not that they were great to begin with), mainly because of my inability to work. Even my handmade jewelryline has taken a serious hit because let's face it when you have this much chronic pain it's extremely hard to be creative. Refusing to be doped up daily on narcotics (the only thing that seems to work these days on the pain) makes day to day life interesting to say the least.

I have gotten help and support from my family these past eight months but my son and I are becoming a serious financial burden, especially to my parents. I have done what I can, when I can but it's hard to do anything consistently and it hasn't been enough.  Hence the failure feeling and shame. I've "trimmed the fat" on our expenses where I could but let's face it, living isn't cheap these days and has left us barely scraping by most days. 

My son expressed to me the biggest things he would want would be to keep the house and his select soccer team, especially going into his senior year of high school (nice timing on my body crapping out huh). But while I work with doctors to get life manageable again, I'm going to need some help to do that and would sincerely like to alleviate some of the burden from my parents:

$1500 would go to paying off this year's soccer fees as well as make a deposit towards next year's season. I wasn't able to work UD and Dragons games like I normally have.
$2000 would go towards helping us catch up on bills and stay current through these next couple months of surgery waiting and recovery. My parents are very lovingly covering our rent.
$1500 would be for misc. things like gas (to get to all of these appts), household needs like cleaners and animal supplies, groceries or needed business supplies after a recent rainstorm.

I have no clue what is in store these next months with the surgery and the recovery but have to have faith that the doctors will find a way to help me be me again in some bigger capacity than I have been able to lately. 

Every dollar will make a difference because the little things really matter. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your support!