And that's when it happened

OK, so I am usually not one to complain.  I mean I do go off on a rant now and again like everyone, but for the most part I am a glass half full person, a how can I help rather than what's in it for me type.  So just bear with me while I have a little pity party here.  Nothing terrible, nothing life altering, just a energy suck, a weariness that has gotten the better of me.  So I apologize for venting my trivialities here.  I know others have far worse health issues than my little annoyances.

So let's go back to the beginning, it's the end of September....I have had constant hip pain for about seven years.  It hurts, you learn to accept it, you do the exercises and after a while you don't notice it.   You do however feel like you look like 101 year old when you get up off the ground from weeding the flower beds.  Seems I am a candidate for a hip replacement one day.  So there's that but you suck it up buttercup and move on.   But put me in a plane for five hours where I don't move (fear of flying 101 - never leave your seat) and the hip is aggravated, add walking my buns off for four days and back in a plane for five hours and now you have totally seized hip.  OK a little more pain than usual as a result of an arthritic flare  for about the next six weeks.  This leads to an issue climbing stairs which leads to throwing my knee out because the act of climbing the steps or stairs is excruciating and I  end up limping up which messes up the knee.

Somewhere along this time I get a sinus infection.  The sinus infections takes at least four weeks to have the last remnants leave.  If you are counting, we are now into December with something somewhere in my body out of whack or hurting.   The annoying clearing the throat and the need to carry Fisherman's Friends cough drops everywhere finally goes away but not before I sneezed one day and I don't know how to explain other than it felt like a charlie  horse in my neck.   Quite painful and interferes with sleep and I am now moving like Frankenstein for about a week.  Just as this subsided,  I got tendinitis in my elbow.   Another ten days of something that I felt incapacitated me.  Really?   Is there a gremlin of malfeasance circulating through my system taking up residence here and there to cause these issues?   Bring on the ocular migraines.  Emergency visit to eye doctor because I am seeing flashing lights in my field of visit.   Who knew you could get migraines in your eyes and not have any pain. Where do they come from...  they are stress induced.   By now, the hip is it's normal pain, the Achilles issue has returned from last year, the knee still hurts and I have convinced myself that it is just going to hurt until the end of time.

Bring on a sciatica flare up.  Since I have the hip/knee issue I laid off doing my back stretches.   I finally am able to start the exercises again without  resembling a beetle stuck on its back when I try to get up.   Apparently somewhere in my pea brain I do not know I am 60 and I think I can do the exercises with such vigor I develop muscle spams in my back.   So, the sciatic is better, the hip is normal, the elbow is better, the neck is good, but the muscle spasms in my lower back have me in excruciating pain when I change positions.  I thought I felt like Frankenstein before, next to this, that was child's play.  I did discover that standing in the shower for a long time helped  and otherwise    left with tenderness.

So imagine my delight when I visit the doctor this week for a Rx renewal on my maintenance medication and the doctor says anything else we need to discuss while you are here.   Oh, yeah, I have an annoying rash on my side.  I think I got an infected spider bite.  It took her about a three second look and a quick retreat back to her laptop.....oh you have shingles!  Get the heck out of town.  So over the last five months I have taken more Advil, Tylenol, Aleve or whatever than in the last five years.  I have been to the doctors more times than in the three years prior.  And worse, I can't remember a day that something has not hurt, flashed or itched since Labor Day.

All the  twinges, flare-ups, pulls, infections, and spasms take a back seat to shingles.   Whatever this gremlin is that seems to want to be in residence, he is now erupting out of my body in the wonderful form of shingles.  Oh lord love a duck.......four to six weeks of this and I am locking the door and throwing away the key on ailments.  I will have a party as this bad juju monster decides to leave my body via the mini volcano like eruptions from my mid section.

This afternoon I return to the pharmacy to get my prescriptions and that's when it happened.  I came unhinged.   The doctor had said good thing we caught this early, another couple of days and it would have been a lot worse.   Her words resonate in my brain as I go for the second time to pick up my prescription which equates to another "couple of days".   The salesgirl (I could think of a better name for her) is sniffing and coughing and going in the back to blow her nose.   Her lips are chapped and her nose is sore from blowing it and she is moving at the speed of a snail that is when she is chit chatting with the other girl behind the counter.   I am the only customer but this is really taking forever.  I guess I was not masking my feelings for it didn't take her long to read the look on my face and she chortled, "don't you hate it when you have a little tickle? Guess I need a lifesaver." What the Sam Hill?   She is Typhoid Mary.  I am standing here waiting on a prescription that has  been delayed two days with my compromised immune system and she is coughing and sneezing and wiping her nose AND handling my prescriptions.   And what about other people that come in that are in far more serious shape them me and cannot afford to get sick?  I remained calm, had my little voice inside me saying "Lysol wipes on everything when you get home" but inside I want to scream.  Needless to say, I got in the car and had some very colorful language between me and the dashboard on the way home as I ranted about the salesgirl.   I think I may have even invented some new curse words.

Home now, first dose in, snuggled with a blankie, the remote and some stitching.  And Mr. W. told me I didn't have to worry about making dinner.   Wow, what more could a gal want?

Don't feel sorry, it is what is it.  I am not going to die or be forever impaired.  I am just venting from my weariness of wanting feel better and the total lack of patience I have for nincompoops!   I guess the salesgirl can't afford to take a sick day.  See my situation could be worse........When did I change my mantra from everyone brings something different to the table to if you can't keep up with me get out of my way!  .....this too shall pass.