So, thankfully today and yesterday have been "good" days. I'm up, able to do simple things around the house and the pain is at a reasonable level. Really happy, especially as Saturday and Sunday were horrible days - where the pain was so bad, I basically spent almost all of the day in bed. I'd get up, let the dogs out, feed them, have a bowl of cereal and take my meds (including pain pills) and then head back to bed. Only time I'd get up is if I had to pee or to let the dogs out. One of the sources of pain has been on the right side of my head, from the shoulder up the neck and around the right ear - so wearing glasses was painful. I put in contacts on Sunday and that helped a bit but in the overall scheme of things, going from a 7 to a 6 in pain levels isn't that big of a difference, but at least it was one change that I could easily make.

So yesterday, I woke up, took all the necessary pills around 6:30am and around 8am was feeling decent. I did a load of dishes (and they needed it - they'd been piling up for quite a few days). I also did some minor chores around the house and felt good about things.

Now the pain isn't just pain - most of it is neuropathy, which is nerve pain and numbness. So the gabapentin helps to minimize the nerve pain and I've been augmenting it with an occasional norco (part hydrocodone and part Tylenol). But the numbness, which is mainly on the right side of my body, is still there and has some odd unexpected consequences.

Over Thanksgiving at my brother's, we were geeking out about various things and at one point, I went to do the vulcan sign with both of my hands. Normally, I do it without thinking (cause ya, I'm a geek like that). My left hand had no problem, but my right hand was going through spasms and wouldn't stay in the right position. I even tried using my left hand to help it, mold the right hand in the correct form, and the ring and pinky fingers would just limply fall away. No big deal but just discouraging,

Then Saturday night, since I wasn't able to do much (like cook), a friend went out to my favorite chinese restaurant and got me two orders of Wor Won Ton soup, so I'd have dinner that night and a meal for the next day as well. The soup was fantastic as usual, but my hand kept shaking as I was trying to eat it. I'd try to switch to my left hand - lol, that was worse. I had no physical problems with my left hand, I just am not used to trying to use it to eat. I made it through the meal, but again, meh.

So again last night, I was feeling so much better, so I went myself to Panda Express to get dinner for myself. First time I drove in five days and it felt good. I got home, got out the food and I felt like an amateur trying to use chopsticks for the first time. The chopsticks kept slipping and it took a lot of concentration to eat. Realize, growing up with a Japanese mother, I don't even remember learning how to use chopsticks, they were always just something that my hand grabbed to eat certain foods.

I'm still learning to deal with the weakness in my right hand and sometimes forget - as evidenced by the two dishes that are now in the landfill after I dropped them and had to sweep them into the garbage.

But in the overall picture, it's not that bad of an adjustment and I am still able to do most things that I need to, both around the house and otherwise. Now if I could just reliably have a run of "good" days so I could get back to my job but that will happen one day (soon?).