Gone but Never Forgotten

For those of you that have been following this blog, it is with great sadness that I must inform you that Cleveland passed away suddenly on 3rd August 2012.
His death was not related to Costochondritis, but a heart attack.

Please feel free to add any comments you wish to his blog.

Regards
Julia (Cleveland's wife) xx

This Fragile Life

Well this is just great, here I am moaning about how Costochondritis has made my life so hard, and along comes a new problem to help me forget. This weekend I found out my father(dad) had a heart attack, and is now in need of a triple by-pass. 

See you think yours is the most important life, but it takes a serious problem to make you realise. Although i am in lots of pain, the fact that my Dad needs me, i fight through the pain. only to collapse in a heep for some well earned rest.

As i said life is very fragile i know my parents are getting older, i guess i should already be thinking they will soon pass away. But in my mind I am still just their kid and i still worry about loosing them. As im sure my kids worry about me when i get rushed to the hospital.

We are on this earth for a short while. I say we should enjoy every minute, with friends and family, because you never know when you will next see them.
I pray my Dad will be ok....!

Spread the word.

Hi a few fellow sufferers of Costchondritis, have come up with the idea of starting a charity, to enable us to spread the word, about this illness.

Reading through the goverment guidelines on starting a charity, it appear a little more complex, i dont think we have enough research to go ahead straight away, but with the support of everyone we can decide what is the best
medium to use to spread the word, website, leaflets,booklet, forums, and many others i can think of. So im hoping readers of my blog will have ideas of what is the best way to spread the word.

Please leave a comment on this post, we can then decide what would be the best way forward from here. Lets get our message out there, and see what we can do !
If you would like to read more about starting a charity, click here

Little lump

Ok so, taking my shower this evening, I manage to press a little hard on my chest, right on the spot where my injections were, and it hurt so much, I could hardly think what to do. Anyone while thinks this illness is not serious, should just feel that pain for just a minute, they would soon enough realise, the pain we go through on a daily basis.
Now once I got over the initial ouch, I felt the area and notice I had a little lump, I'm told I have had it before, but to be honest I don't remember. But it was a little worrying. It's about 2" in size and pretty hard, although I'm not gonna press it too hard, don't fancy the pain. I'm gonna just keep checking everyday, hopefully it will disappear.

Olympic Torch Relay

So this was a great day for me and family,although I was not so keen on the start of my day. With the kids standing over me waking me up. Alright so I had coffee brought to me in bed. But still my crap illness don't like such an early start.

Well they got me outta bed, dressed and out the house before mid-day, climbed up the massive hill up my road ( called Grange Hill btw). That was a seriously hard climb. In my condition it was like climbing a mountain. Anyway there we are, joined by a few hundred people lining the road. I got my camera out, and before we could blink, there was lots of cheering, and within seconds this young lad flew by carrying the torch, lucky my camera was in hand or we would of missed it. So now I can say. I was there I saw the torch go by, all 30seconds of it, and I even took a photo. Then back down the hill. And back to bed (I wish).

Costochonral nerve block

Well guys, I finally had my injections on Thursday. So hopfully the pain will be a little more controlled for a couple of months.
Only problem is at this moment it hurts like hell, every time I move, it's like someone is stabbing me in the chest. Today has been the first day I have had the guts to move a bit more. I pulled off the plaster which was covering the spot. It's purple under there and there is a little bump which is really sore. My son tried to give me a hug, and it hurt so much, he was worried he hurt me but I said it was ok ,just an accident as he put his shoulder into my chest. All I could say was Ooooouch, I hate this illness. But at least I will be ok for a while.

I must say to anyone whole has this illness, the injections do hurt at first but once the initial pain is over you can almost have a normal life, I will ,still be on my list of medication,
But least they will now feel like they are doing something. So if you get the chance go for it.

Summer Concert

So Monday was my little girls summer concert, which again I had to do all I could to go see. And boy was I in for a treat, at first it seemed like all other school productions, until they worked out there was some real talent at the school. There was a few young ladies we shall have to look out for. Beautiful voices, it was such a great show. My princess played her guitar this was the first proper performance she has done that I could see, she was great, looks like the lessons are paying off now. Then just to put the icing on the top, she sang in a group with 6 other kids. They surprised us all, great voices you would not of thought they were only 10 years old, they performed better than some artists I have seen, it was truly a great show. I went home so proud, and would you believe it my Costochondritis did not flare up. So I really did have a good night...!

International day

So yesterday was international day at my daughters school. This is where parent and child walk around the school, going into the different classrooms,and in each class is information about the various different countries. Its loads of fun for parent and child, I have tried to go every year.
But looks like this year, was a bad idea from the moment I woke up, I could feel my chest was heavy and sore, I should really of just stayed where I was, but I knew my girl would be disappointed if I did not go with her. This is the real part of this illness that I hate, I always try my best to do things with my family although this illness means I have to always fight.
I managed to go to the school, although I was walking a little slow. We did manage to walk around and saw things from 7 commonwealth countries. There was music, food, activities lots to keep us occupied, i could see she had fun.

The real problem came when we had to walk back home, I live on a hill, and it takes forever for me to climb, and this was goona be tough. When we got home I was soaked after the walk, if you had seen the state I was in you would of thought I ran a marathon. I climbed onto my bed, took my meds (which did not help), had to talk some of the hard stuff. Sometimes I forget that I have this illness only for a little while, normally just enough for me to think I can do as I please.

Costochondritis always reminds me whose really in charge,and it normally ain't me. Well at least this time, my girl and I had a good time for a while.

Sleep

Did not get much sleep last night, after my stomach turning over most of the night, my chest decided to hurt that little more. My pills just did not seem to have much help. I did fall asleep for a while, but woke up feeling like someone was sitting on my chest. So I been awake/asleep since then. I feel so tired but can't sleep.

Btw I have added some more information to my 'Who am I' and "history" page....! And give the site a new look. I also added some of my drawings, take a look Tell me what you think.?

Well it's 11:30 pm been struggling today with pain, and after last night, I decided to take a couple of sleeping pills, hopefully get some well needed rest. So I guess it's goodnight from me.

Shopping trip

Seems like i need to get the hang of this blogging, I know I need to try and post everyday. But this condition gives me quite a few uneventful days. So I guess I will just keep writing, and hoping it gets better.

So it's late Saturday night, sunday morning. I have had a few of those,must do days, you know when you don't feel like doing anything, but you know you have to. Although I managed to get out of bed, and even leave the house, I been very slow to move. It's like every step i take, my chest decides to hurt more. I remember when this all started and a doctor, asked me why I was walking so slow, kinda shuffling, I said I didn't know. But it just hurts. Now looking back I can say for sure when costo has flared up fully, it's almost impossible to move.

When Costo does flare its hard on everyone around you, walking home slowly, my son came to meet me and carry my shopping bags (what a star). The bags were not even that heavy, but after a day running around,they felt like I was carrying a bag full of bricks.so there Iam struggling, if you saw me you could almost feel the pain. Each step so difficult, tears in my eyes, it hurt tons. You coud see my son was really concerned, all he kept doing was saying dad just stop and rest, your over doing it. All I could do was laugh, and say its hurting loads today, because I was not wearing my superman shirt..lol even that laugh hurt.

It's really hard having this condition, with young children, they don't always understand why one day your full of beans and able to do just about anything. Then the next day, I'm so weak. Its hard to understand.

Now here's something of interest, I seem to have put on a bit of weight, it's so funny, because a lot of the time I look like im about to give birth, my stomach just bloats up.i been moaning for ages about it, and finally decided to investigate on google.at first glance I can softly say, I have a problem with my diet, so now we just need to find out what's causing it....I think perhaps wheat, pasta. So I have started a food diary, gonna do it for about a week, and see if there is some reasoning behind this.
So watch this space for more information.