Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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My knees are sore

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My knee has been acting up lately.

Well, I say lately, but it’s been acting up on and off since the fall. I don’t know if I did something to it or if the weather has something to do with it. I’m fairly sure that I have some form of arthritis in both of my knees so that doesn’t help either. I’m sure the extra cold winter we just went through affected my knees.

I saw my family doctor last week and after telling her again and again that my knees are aching she’s finally sending me for an xray and setting up MRI’s for both of my knees. My legs aren’t formed properly – the tibias and fibulas are more to the outside of each of my legs so that puts my whole lower leg structure off – it’s called Tibia Extortia. I know in the past xrays have shown that there’s some wear on the bone and the MRI’s will show it to an even greater extent.

My family doctor of course also believes that some physical therapy will help. She thinks that using a muscle stimulator might help tighten up my quads and that might help my knees too. I don’t know … it might.

Hopefully nothing too serious is found with my knees .. but it’s obvious that something is going on as they’ve really been acting up over the last several months.





I quit smoking over 5 months ago!

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It’s hard to believe, but just a little over five months ago I didn’t think I’d ever be able to say I’d be a non-smoker. I had just quit, but the cravings I was going through, even though they were dulled with the help of Zyban .. were difficult. It was hard to imagine that I’d quit for good – forever.

Now days go by and I surprise myself when I catch myself thinking about a cigarette. I still get the occasional craving, but it only happens a few times a week instead of several times a day now. That’s what I’d call progress. Considering that I quit on October 12th I guess it’s about time that cigarettes stopped ruling my life.

It’s funny how when I first quit, I wrote several posts about it and I’d get encouraging comments or congratulation comments, but I”d also get people telling me that I should switch to e-cigarettes. When I was really craving a smoke I checked out the e-cigarette safety information just to see how safe they are since I don’t know much about them. Anyway since I was being so successful with quitting smoking right from the beginning I wasn’t going to fool around with an e-cigarette. I didn’t want to start another habit.

I’m just happy I quit. I feel a lot better. My husband quit too. We’re both healthier, our house smells better and we have a little bit of extra money. Yeah!

My dog isn’t acting her normal self

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My poor puppy, she hasn’t been acting quite like herself this week. I’m not sure what’s wrong with her either.

She’s in heat and perhaps that’s all that’s wrong, but she’s never acted quite the way she’s acting. She went into heat about two weeks ago, and about a week ago she started getting whinny and she’s not usually a whinny dog. She’d just start whining for no apparent reason.

She doesn’t seem to be in pain and she’s eating and acting fairly normal overall … she just whines a lot more than she usually does and sometimes when we get up to go out and it’s a situation where she’d usually be excited or begging to go out with us she just lies on the floor or couch looking at us … totally not normally. It just makes me think something’s a little off … I wish there were a Medicare plan for dogs as I’d simply just bring her into the vet for a check up … but without a clear sign or a really strong gut feeling that she’s ill I think I’ll hold off on the vet visit for now.

Have you ever cared for a female dog that’s in heat? Does any of this behavior sound familiar?

It’s “winning” not whining Midnight – get it right! LOL

Extreme wrist pain and a bad doctor

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I don’t know what I’ve done to myself over the last several months. I’m just a painful tired mess. Other than being extremely sleepy most of the time since November it’s my right wrist that probably ranks next on my list of complaints.

Oddly enough it was my left wrist that started hurting in October or November, but I got a mouse pad with a memory foam cushion (I’m left handed), and I applied heat to my wrist regularly and the pain went away within a week or two of regular care.

Then my right wrist started acting up and nothing I do seems to help. It just aches across the top of it. I take Advil, apply heat, give it a rest, stretch it when it hurts after too much rest (believe me my wrist wakes me up at night with the pain probably from not moving) and nothing works. I wish there was something like an aircast boot for my wrist. It wouldn’t work for me during the day – not with me working on the computer, but maybe at night.

My lousy family doctor won’t even do an X-ray or anything at all. She’s convinced it’s fibromyalgia even though when she’s tested me for it I don’t have any trigger points or any other symptoms … so no, I don’t think so. I see her again in a couple of weeks, if I talk to her about my wrist again and she refuses to do anything I think that will pretty much be the end of my relationship with my doctor. I can’t continue to see a doctor that’s not helping me can I? In the meantime I hope my wrist starts to feel better because it really hurts … I mean, I almost feel like screaming at night with the pain and I’m used to being in all kinds of pain what with my Crohn’s and all – so it’s bad.

Midnight barks too much when I video tape her

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I was videotaping my dog again earlier today and I’m trying to figure out how to stop her from barking when I’m trying to do close ups of her.

The real problem is that what I want to video tape is her playing with her dog bone because she jumps up and down like she’s on a trampoline and it’s hilarious, but as she’s waiting for us to shove the bone across the floor at her she starts barking in excitement … and it seems that the camera makes things worse.

I’d had for all of my videos to have to be to music just because my dog barked way too much. She really is hilarious!

Oh and while I’m talking about making videos … what do you use to edit your videos? There’s the Flipshare software that came with the camera but that doesn’t look quite as advanced as I’d like if I want to piece together several videos. Any suggestions? Nothing too expensive!

As I said yesterday when I posted my first video of our Lab Midnight being the crazy dog that she is I’ll be posting more videos to my YouTube account probably by tomorrow so check here if you want.

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