Pain, especially nerve pain, has a connection to activity. The amount of activity done that day, the day before or even before that. For me reducing pain may mean reducing activity; especially when I am fighting something. This is so hard to do.
As for the UTIs, there is nothing that I am doing "wrong". The problem is the catheters. Even though I use a sterile catheter each time, the human body does not like them. You see the urethra is a one way track from the bladder to the outside of the body. Urine flushes that passageway every time you pee. Everytime I use a catheter it is traveling in the wrong direction. Bringing along everything it grabs on to. That's just the way it is. There is nothing else to be done. There is no smoking gun, nothing else that I can do to prevent them from happening. Nothing that I can change.
Apparently it just takes time. My doctor said he has no patients that have chronic infections, not past two or three years post accident. I am not alone in this, it is very common amongst new SCI people. Once again it just takes time. They don't know what causes the change, but it will happen. The body adjusts, somehow.
In the meantime, I have to go this route. Imagine what these are doing to my gut? And getting the right one also takes time. Dropping a sample off at the lab and waiting for results takes minimum 48 hours, and while I wait I am given one that might be the right one....
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| My selection of antibiotics from the last month or so. |
On another (less depressing) note, I fell out of my shower chair this morning. I was leaning down to pick up my nightgown without my brakes on. I was close to the floor when it happened, and it was pretty slow motion, so I wasn't hurt. Bill, Mark and I have not been working on naked floor to chair transfers (nor will we be anytime soon) so good thing Theo was around to help me up! No harm done and lesson learned. Someone else can pick up my pajamas!
Yes time is the issue I know when my brother in law Vern ended up in a wheel chair due to a car accident many many years ago there were several hurdles for him to overcome One of his biggest ones was infection from sores on his buttocks from sitting so much But in time he took training and became a tool and dye maker as this acccident happened when he turned 19 and he drove back and forth to Clinton everyday from Seaforth, married and had a child Unfortunately he passed at the age of 29 But I remember him saying just have to hang in there and things will get better and they did. You have come so far Julie and I think you are doing amazingly well You have such a wonderful smile.
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