My Everest…

How can you drive like that???   Very easily !   I hear that often from my husband as I don’t hold the steering wheel at 10 & 2 I hold it in a way that my arms are close to my body so it’s more like the opposite.  

I however do drive safely and make sure everyone gets home that way.   I have tried many times to put my hands in the proper position only to get bolts of pain as a result. Don’t get me wrong I still get painful moments when driving like I do, especially when I have a winding road or choose a path that has lots of turns involved. 

That’s when my elbows start to ache in pain filled pressure that comes from a source unknown.  It’s such an odd feeling,  and because I know that feeling is almost a constant sometimes I forget to mention it to physio.  Is it the flare bear gently “pressuring” me?

Ever since surgery I haven’t really been able to drive far.  So just around town is where I go to appointments, the store, my friend’s places.  If I drive too far we have my hands and my wrists start flaring.  So I have my freedom of movement which I am grateful for and will keep an eye on the flare bear from pressuring me ….all will be good if we take it easy with the driving.  I will always be the “DD” for our friend group, or anyone for that matter, as I don’t drink.  Why don’t you drink??   I used to have a drink or 2 when I was younger but through the years it never has been something that I’m drawn to, nor do I like the feeling it gives me so therefore I choose not to drink.  My friends often say perhaps the pain will go away if you had a drink.   I’m like ‘no I can’t because of my meds’ and then it was like why do I need to explain my choices not to imbibe.  They know all too well that my drink of choice is either coffee or what I tell them is ‘vodka’ a nice tall glass of clear cool 100% undiluted vodka (aka water).   It’s always good for a few comments.  There have been times that I have been tempted to just have a drink or 2 to see what would happen with the pain during really bad pain flares.  I never did go down that road and neither did I choose to go down the drugs path.   Closest I ever got to that was CBD oil without the THC component and that helped to calm me some but not enough to scream from the rooftops that it’s a cure all!   So we do what we do, to take care not to flare and we keep on trying things because that’s exactly who I am….push it forward and take a step!