There are no dramatic improvements to report, but there have been some reductions in the severity of the symptoms at times. Instead of taking the Total Amino Solutions (TAS) and painkillers every 3 hours, I am sometimes able to go quite a bit longer between doses. Sometimes the pain is less and I just take TAS without the painkillers. Right now the pain is pretty bad, but I think I am still recovering from a very busy day that I had two days ago.
I have been doing little things around the house here and there, making lists and gradually building momentum. Two days ago I sprang into action. I woke up and immediately got on the computer to print out a map to a store I wanted to visit out of town. I drove out there, feeling good to be out on the road again, bought my stuff, drove back still feeling good. Instead of opening a can or making a sandwich I made a pot of homemade soup, peeling and chopping all the vegetables. After dinner I made homemade cookies for the first time since I moved back to Canada over 6 years ago. I just kept puttering around. Normally any one of those activities would have wiped me out for the rest of the day.
I was still folding laundry at 3 am. Honestly though, it wasn't until 5 am rolled around and I still wasn't tired that the word "hypomania" crossed my mind. Remember, I don't normally fall asleep until 3 or 4 am anyway.
The next day I had a blistering headache, but I was still very motivated. That boundless energy I seemed to have the day before was gone, though. After just a little bit of cleaning and organizing I was pooped. I would lie down for a bit, and then I would get up and back to work. I just felt driven to clean out all the junk that had been bugging me for years. I have so much stuff that it is a real logistical challenge to know where to start with it all, but I was able to narrow it down to a few easy tasks. For me the key is to be ruthless in my decision making. There is no "maybe I'll be able to use it" or "but it's still good". I've realized that for me it is much nicer and better feeling to have new things than to reuse old things. My quilt stash is the one exception to that rule.
Last night I was up until almost 6 am writing my new frozen shoulder blog:
http://myfrozenshoulderstory.blogspot.com/
It is meant for people with frozen shoulder, and it felt really good to organize that whole story and get it out there. And I am still in a writing mood today. I have a couple more ideas but I think I will put them in separate posts.
There is a lot more cleaning and purging to do. I have a plan to start dealing with the books. I have been accumulating every book I ever bought since I was 9, and I moved that collection all the way across the continent to California and back again, but now I have plans to reduce that collection by about 1/3 to 1/2. Most of the fiction will go, although I read one Jane Austen book a few months ago I haven't regained any interest in fiction since then. All the books from grad school will go (literary criticism and theory), all the psychology books from my days in therapy, sundry self-help and diet books, all my non-vegan cookbooks, and a whole shelf of astrology and tarot books that I no longer consider to be relevant to my experience. Every box that comes in the house will leave again full of books, and I'll donate them all to my college book sale. The paperbacks will go to a local used bookshop where my mom can use the store credit they issue for the books.
Wow, it's tiring just thinking about it. But, it can happen gradually, it doesn't have to be done all at once. It will be good to free up all that energy. I now believe that your life should be a steady stream of new things coming into your life and old things going out. You keep what you need in the moment and trust that when you need something else it will come to you. That's been my experience lately, the things I need or want have been showing up very quickly. Now what I really want is a new car!