Pamper Day After Painful Night & Back To Work

Well as I posted yesterday I was having a hydro dilation into my right shoulder joint, while the procedure itself was not too painful, once the local anaesthetic wore off my shoulder, arm and back ached like never before, it was about 3 am before I could get into a position in bed that was okay and allowed me to sleep and I was awake and up again at 6.30 am as I had a busy day planned today.

As today was the last official day of my 3 weeks holiday and I had booked myself in for a pamper day - hair colour and cut, facial, manicure and pedicure and lunch with my Mum in the middle (hairdresser and her beautician before lunch and my other beautician for hands and feet after lunch).

All in all a wonderful and relaxing day albeit with a hefty price tag - still I'm worth it!!

My shoulder has settled down a lot today and have managed only on Panadol, I'm hoping that this last procedure is the one that has fixed my shoulder - it can take up to 3 week before you know if it has worked or not so fingers, legs and everything else crossed.  I am being really positive that it has worked.

It has been a great 3 weeks, we flew to Melbourne for our 31st wedding anniversary and then up to Heathcote to see my hubbies family and celebrated his uncles 70th birthday, then we flew up to Sydney for a few days with our eldest daughter, her husband and our adorable 9 month old grand-daughter.  Then I have had a week at home pottering around, catching up with my Mum for lunch on Tuesday and then one of my friends for lunch on Wednesday. 

My hubby had to go back to work this week and while initially I was very cross that his work had not allowed him to have all the time he originally asked for, my last week has been filled with so many other great things that I soon let go of that.

So on Monday it is back to my job and while I love what I do and the people I work with, I really wonder if it is not time to either work less days or change jobs altogether. The passion seems to be slipping and along with the passion goes the motivation, so I am much less motivated and have been for some time. I believe I will talk to my boss about how I am feeling and see if he would support me dropping down to 3 or 4 days per week on a trial basis over 3 months and see how it impacts on the job and if it gives me back some passion. 

I wonder if this is another symptom of the menopause - or is it just that when you have done the same job for over 14 years that eventually it becomes a drag.  Stay tuned, maybe soon I will have news that I have resigned or changed direction.

Pain & Getting On With Life

One of the bad things about growing old that runs in my family is that we have osteoarthritis which starts in our late 20s/early 30s and progressively gets worse. 

As an added extra - lucky me - I also have DISH (diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis) which is basically a build up of bone spurs along the tendons and ligaments that join the skeleton together. Most suffers are men (65%), most people get it when they are 65 or older - but just to buck the trend I was diagnosed in my late 40s and seem to have it in places that it doesn't normally occur, like my hips.  I also have it all down my spine (the most common place), as well as large spurs in my knees, ankles and feet.  

Most recently I have been diagnosed with a frozen right shoulder and today I am off to have injection number 3 - hydrodilation is its correct term, which I believe is pumping the shoulder joint full of saline fluid to try and break up the scar tissue which has for some reason formed and is severely limiting the movement of my shoulder and is causing me a lot of pain.

Pain has become a constant in my  life, especially in the last 2 years or so and given that I can't take strong pain killers as I am allergic to codeine, and anti-inflamatories don't agree with me either, massage and stretching exercises (which I admit I don't do as much of as I should) keep me going. I have also tried glucosamine and fish oil - but have found no relief from them either.

My masseuse commented on Tuesday that she is surprised that I am always smiling, but really what is the alternative - passing on how I really feel inside - sore, angry, sad, frustrated - to those around me.  It's not their fault that I am in pain besides I can still walk and work and play - albeit no adventure sports for me, but really curling up with a good book has always been my sort of sport - I am a 5 star girl after all, more on that in another post.

All of us have burdens to bear and this seems to be one of mine, what makes me saddest of all though is that I have passed this onto my children - 3 of which have bad knees already and the daughter who has good knees has my bad lower back - so I can only hope and pray that this is the extent of their problems and that by the time they get to my age there are new treatments and if not that I am still around to support them just as my mother has been for me.

And while pain is a constant, I also have been blessed to have meet and married a wonderful man who willingly takes on tasks around the house that I am unable to do and who loves me with all my faults (and not just the physical ones), so I truly do have a lot to smile about.

Menopausal Mauve

My best friend who I have known since I was 16 once told me that menopausal women are drawn to the colour mauve (and sometime purple).  She owned a boutique for larger women/mothers of the bride and through her years of observation had come to this conclusion. To a large extent women I know who are older than me have shown this to be true as well.  

So I wonder why I am different - green is the colour that has been most prominent in my life in the last year or two.  This is surprising to me, as green would have been the colour I would have said was my least favourite throughout my life.  But over the last 2 years or so, I have chosen green towels, green paint for my living area, numerous green clothes, green cushions and green rings.  Now it is not a dark green I am drawn to, well except for a couple of my rings, but a sage green and sometimes one with an soft apple/lime tone. I wonder why - my masseuse tells me that green is my colour and that it is soothing to my soul - I really must explore this more.  I have also realised that when I was scrolling through all the possible templates available for this blog, what colour did I choose, but the green one!

  

Life, The Universe & A Little About Me

I am sitting here wondering why I feel the need to blog and I don't really have an answer to that question yet. 

Maybe it is just I need someplace to pose the questions that rattle around my brain and to see if anyone responds. 

Maybe I need a place to move out of my normal persona - that of wife, mother, lover, grandma, graphic designer, employee, boss, daughter, sister, friend.  

Anyway whatever the reason, today I decided to start to blog.

Why call my blog Menopausal Mumma? - Well I am in my early 50s and while not officially menopausal yet - I am sure it is not far away, after all how many years can my doctor tell me I am perimenopausal?  

Do I worry about getting older? Not really.  

Does Menopause need to be a big boogey man - I think not.  I see it as just another big step in my life's journey. 

I believe that life is a series of steps that start with birth and end with death.  I believe that these steps are pre-determined, that we don't know how many we have been given, so we need to cherish each one of the big ones that pass in our lives as there are many other souls whose journeys are shorter than ours. 

I have been blessed to get this far and I have so much to be grateful for - I have a wonderful loving husband, 4 beautiful adult children, a wonderful son in law and a soon to be daughter in law plus 2 adorable grand-daughters that are the delight of my life.  We have a roof over our heads, food on our table, clothes to wear, money to pay our bills - all in all life is pretty good.  There have been struggles on the way and knowing how the universe works, there maybe more in the future but I have always tried to look at the glass that life deals me as half full - after all there are already too many people that see the glass as half empty.  Sometimes I find myself going down the maudlin path, after all I am human, but a swift self-administered kick in the butt, turns me around.

So we will see where this blog leads, I for one am interested to see just what happens once I push the "publish" button.  Fingers crossed.