Taking a Lil Break

As most of you know I was injured by a doctor back in 2008 when getting a cortisone shot for Scrapbooker's elbow (Golfer's Elbow) and the needle hit my Ulnar nerve (known as the funny bone). Since then it has felt like I hit my "funny bone" 24/7/365. I've had numerous surgeries and procedures to try to help or relieve the situation. Last year after loosing all my doctors somehow to Obamacare new policies. I had to search for new ones and having a "chronic" pain issue doctors do NOT take you on as a new patient. I found a Dr. who could be both my primary and apin mangt. doctor! Awesome doctor too! Then a new part of Obamacare went into effect as it does every 4-6 months new parts go into affect. The insurance company sent me a letter with the new "law" that states you can not have your primary care dr. be your pain mangt. doctor as well. You can't see a pain mangt. Dr. without having a primary care physcican. So I was in a hard place, as I needed my pain medicine to help relieve my pain. So I was kinda forced to make a decision to get the spinal stimulator implant. I went ahead with it and it went well for about a month and a a half and then it moved. I had to have surgery to have it ut back in place. 

Since then, my arm got worse because the anesthesiologist didn't care and wouldn't listen to me about not putting the blood pressure cuff on my bad arm, he ignored me and caused muscle damage to my already nerve and muscle damaged arm. Also, where the stimulator is, I've had back pain that has progressively getting worse. The Dr. who did the implant just kept saying give it time, give it time and didn't do anything to help. Now, on top of the dr. not doing anything, she only comes to Oregon once a month because she is located in WA so scheduling is hard. Her WA office is a 4-5hr. drive one way! Her OR office is a 1 hr. drive one way which is difficult because now my husband has to come with me because I can not sit for more than 20 min. w/out my back cramping and spasming. Her staff is the worst incompetent staff I have ever run into and the dr. admits all the faults I've complained to her about them. She as a dr. is one I love and would recommend but because of her staff, I won't. 

After missing my last appt. because I never got a reminder call  but they sure remembered to call me the day after to tell me I missed my appt. So I was done, that was the last straw. My husband had just started a new job with a new company so we had Cobra for 2 months so to find a new Dr. under that was hard, nevermind I still hadn't found a new primary. I new insurance kicked in and was looking for a new primary which as I stated is impossible if you have a "chronic pain" problem, they discriminate against you. I finally found a dr. and was able to go see a different Pain dr. He has already started treatment of the back pain. He also has put me on semi-bed rest. Because Bending and twisting makes the pain worse and is pulling on the stimulator and its leads and that is not good. He is trying to get the muscles and nerves around the stimulator to settle and relax in hopes the stimulator will go back to where its suppose to be. However he is 95% sure another surgery is going to be required and move the stimulator to a new location. 

So with all that going on, I've had to deal with a cyber-bully.  I've been quite stressed and need to just take sometime to take care of me. On top of that I had 3 High School graduations in June, one being my 2nd daughter and then I have 3 Weddings this summer, one is done which I made the invitations for. The other two I sadly can not go to and one is my nephew and the other is my niece. We just can't afford to fly to the east coast for my nephew's wedding and I can't sit for more than 20 min in the same position so I won't be able to drive down to So. CA for my niece's wedding and we can't afford to fly either. Believe it or not but there isn't much difference in cost to fly 900 miles south vs. 3000 miles east, i think it was something like $100 difference per ticket.

So I decided I'm going to take the month of Aug. off to get whatever I need done around the house before I go have surgery because I will be on strict bed rest for the first 6 weeks and then slowly taken off over the next 2 months to be sure the stimulator stays put. I can NOT go back to all the medicine to control the pain in my arm and want the back pain to go away. So my 25 days Series will be back on Sept. 1st. I will post an occasional blog post here and there. As I do have 2 wedding albums to finish and want to share as I used alot of my MTC Wedding Cuts. I also have a ton of unfinished projects lying around that I need and want to finish. I also got my broken Hard drive back, the guy was able to get some of my files off it but its a mess of how they got pulled off. I'm gld he was able to get what he could but very very sad because it was only MTC files and none of my pictures. I still have the option to send it out to try to recover everything but no guarantee and it will cost min. $1200! I do have a post about backing up your photos and files coming!

I will be keeping my Etsy Shop Open during the month of Aug. I do hope while I take the time to get my files sorted and organized to upload more to my Etsy Shop.  Below is a coupon for 15% off using the Coupon code at check out.  I also, currently have stuff listed on Ebay too. If the link for my Ebay doesn't work you can search for Seller under "advanced" by seller and type in TheScrapoholic no spaces.

Sorry for such a lengthy post and explanation.

Until Next Time...

Happy Crafting!

TTFN The Scrapoholic aka Jill