OUCHies

I know I've not been posting much -- and even less on my precious Quilting on a Budget blog. I believe it will be six weeks or more before I can get back to posting on a regular basis. One day Mr. B and I were in the car and he wanted a piece of gum. I fished around in my purse, got out the gum, and went to hand it to him -- he was sitting in his car seat in the middle of the back seat. I felt something "go" in my shoulder but didn't think much about it. Same scenario, same series of events two weeks later. Same "ouchie" in my shoulder. I started to notice I couldn't lay on my right side to sleep, because my shoulder hurt. Then it got worse and worse. I went to the doctor and, as is pretty standard with a primary physican these days, she did nothing, but sent me on to an orthoepedic specialist. It took me two weeks to get an appointment. Meanwhile, if I took my jacket off without thinking, or something fell and I went to grab it, more ouchies - only the ouchies were getting worse and more frequent. The Ortho specialist gave me a cortisone shot in my shoulder and a prescription for anti-inflammatory medicine. No results. I waited a week because someone told me to cortisone shot can take awhile to kick in. When I called in a week, it took me another two weeks to get an appointment. Meanwhile, every time I tried to wash windows or scrub tubs, the shoulder was hurting more. Got into the ortho specialist last week, and he sent me for an MRI. Took me two days to get in there, and finally back to my ortho specialist today. I have torn a tendon in my rotator cuff. I'm off to physical thereapy three times a week for six weeks. Hopefully, no surgery. At the moment, two things bother me the most. Sleeping and being on the computer. I'm lucky that sewing and quilting do not bother me, so I'm getting a lot of Christmas presents made! But I'm here, I'm fine, I'm on the mend, but I really need to stay off the computer for a few weeks until my shoulder heals. I guess it's something about the positioning of the keyboard or the way my arm rests on the computer desk that aggravates the shoulder - but I really need to get this healed so I can get on with my life! I don't do pain well, believe me. So Happy Thanksgiving to everyone, happy holidays, Merry Christmas --- and I hope to be back before the New Year. If you see me posting on here before that - swat me!!!

I Challenge You...

My last two posts have been about Reality entering our home without knocking and the realization how lucky we are that Jeff did not lose his job. This reality check made us both think of all the people who ARE out of a job, and the emotions and fears and hardships to families that come hand in hand with unemployment. It must be a horrendous feeling not to be able to provide for your family. Nevermind Christmas, weekly grocery shopping, medical bills, gas for the car -- all of these that many of us take for granted must be a trying time for folks who have lost their jobs. Unemployment is no longer about those who are too lazy to work. Unemployment is now about being gainfully employed and having the job pulled out from under you without notice. So I am putting out a challenge to all my Internet friends who are gainfully employed and able to put food on their table and gas in their cars. I challenge you to donate $25 to your closest food pantry. If you don't know where that is, simply google your town/city and the words "food pantry" and you'll find one. After our recent scare, Jeff and I talked about what it felt like to face financial hardship, and how many others are going through what we were threatened with. Our reality didn't change, but our thoughts on other folks going through all this did. So we have agreed to make a serious effort to help others. Think of the $4 cups of coffee you buy on a whim or the extra groceries you buy to simply stock your pantry, or the unnecessary trips in the car you take. $25.00 gets eaten up quickly by any of those. So I challenge you to write a check today, and help someone else who wakes up every morning ready to go to work but not having a job to go to, wondering how they are going to live on unemployment and still maintain a family life. $25.00 sifts through our fingers without our even noticing -- but it could mean several meals to a family that is suffering during these tough economic times.