It's trademark late again, (12.22am) and whil I should be sleeping I am not. No class tomorrow, as it's Labor Day, otherwise I'd be up at 6.30 just in time to get to genetics at 9. I could do it faster and get more sleep, but I hate being in a hurry. So not being able to sleep now won't hurt me tomorrow, too bad.

Why can't I sleep? Oh how nice of you to ask. My back is bothering the be-jeasus out of me. Not really all that painful, vor once, but a whole different feeling. You know how you feel when you've had about 10 cups too many of espresso and you're all vibratey like a tweaker? Now imagine 50% that in your back, and 50% that finger-in-the-light-socket feeling. Not painful, but all electricly buzzy. I tried to lay down and read, but that wasn't happening.

I can't wait to try to sleep, as both of my shoulders are extremely painful when I try to lay on either side, probably because of trying to power up this thing a couple times a day:

I'm absolutely certain that's what's causing most of my problems. We've tried talking to the nice folks over at RSC, but they want nothing to do with bring that ramp up to code. It's 3 feet high with a run of 7 feet, giving it a 1 to 2.3 aspect, where the ADA says any "accessible" ramp needs to be 1 to 12. Essentially that means for every 1 foot of rise the ramp must have 12 feet of run, where mine has 1 foot of rise for every 2.3 feet of run. If I don't wheelie down it, I'll die for sure.

So enough of the ramp. Inside the "house" I've got carpet, which I'm sure isn't helping either. I think I've crossed the living room at home which is still carpeted less than 10 times, where I'm sure I've been up and down the hall thousands of times. It's all hardwood. I hate carpet. But it's what I've moved into, so I only have myself to blame. It's only $660 a month, which is what I can afford. With no reimbursment help from the feds (I've finally seen a check for $2,000, of the (by now) $10,000 or so they owe me. It's been 17 months.) it's what I can afford.
Which is fine. I'm sure it's more economicly feasible for them to NOT reimburse me, make me pay for my own stuff (which they claimed they'd buy) and a little while down the road pay for double-shoulder-surgery and a nice $5,000 dollar powerchair. It's all good. If we ignore him nong enough he'll go away and quit bothering us.

So school is nice- Classes are going well, although I've barely gotten my toes wet so far. Chico is the place to be if you're able bodied, male, and single- There's quite a bit of eye-candy on campus. ,br>As much as I enjoy watching that, it is nice to come home and find Nikki here.

My spasms are still getting worse- I've gone from 5 milligrams of 3 times a day all the way up to 30 or 40 milligrams (depending on the riverdance level) a day with no effect. A couple days ago my back spasmed so hard it violently flipped me over. Backwards. Smacked my head on the floor harder than I thought was possible. Usually I can throw myself forward and grab the footplate to keep the head-banger's ball away, but this time my body was against me. So...... I spent some time there on the floor waiting for the little birdies to go away, and then figured out how to get back in the chair. Took two days for that headache to go away.
Anyway. Spasms are (from what I know) caused by pressure sores, none of which I have, infection, of which there's (at the moment) 2 possibilities~ Way back 3 months ago or so I fell out of the chair outside at Mom and Dad's place. Nobody was home, so I had to drag myself accross the driveway to a stump to get back in the chair. Road-rashed a patch off my right ankle-bone, which I treated, and I thought had healed. WEll, last week in the shower I looked down and the old cut was healed, it appeared, but the ankle bone zone was swollen and purple / black. No blood poisoning streaks, but "What hte hell?" I thought. Reached down and ran a finger-nail accross it, and it popped open. Seems it had healed with infection inside, and had even formed a scar over the infected zone. So.... The infection was eating it's way inward instead of out. It's (um) deep. Not to the bone, but close.
Now that I know it's there, I've been treating it, and we shall see. I expect it to take at least 2 months to heal.
The other infection possibility is Nikki had been diagnosed with PID, and neither of us are hot for a STD, so we don't know what hte hell's causing it. Apparently (the Doc's tell me) boys aren't effected, but they can be carriers. Well and good, but I don't believe them. So..... It could be that as well.
Frankly, I don't know what the hell is going on, and why my spasms are so bad. It's getting to the point where I'm afraid to move because either my shoulders are going to catch on fire, or I'm going to have a spasm which is going to cause something exciting.

I began to wonder tonite though, if the rest of my life is going to be like this, what's the point? Having a mind like mine stuck in a body which may or may not betray me every time I try to move?
Now I know there are alot of people out there who are worse off than I, and I should be grateful for what I have, but just as you ahve little idea what it's like to be me, I have little idea what it's like to be them. I just have to deal with what I have, untill I degrade to a point where I amin their situation. I won't know what that's like untill I get there, but I will never forget what life was like before.

So when I eventually do get to sleep, I have to make sure I'm in just the right position as if I don't, I wake up with both outside forearms numb, and no tactile sensation at all in my pinkie and whatever finger it is next to that for a couple hours. Remember that burning nerve-damage feeling I had in the left arm when I was just out of the ICU? (prolly not) It's just like that. I think it's because of the shoulder damage I give myself getting into the house every day.
It lasts for a couple hours, but eventually goes away, except for the left pinkie-finger, which tingles all the time now.
Gosh this sucks. I honestly thought "Do I really need to continue with this? Is it worth it?" tonite. Wondering if death really wasn't the better answer than this constant pain and twitching all the time. It makes me sad for some reason, but I can't help but to wonder.

I think it's time to find out just exactly what the hell is going on with my lack of reimbursement. Tuesday I'm going to make some calls, and if I don't get an answer I'm going to get out the phone book and call all those people who have told me "If there's ever anything I can help you with just call me ok?"
You see here soon OWCP is switching from "in house" repayment to some other reindeer game and I'm afraid all my crap is going to get lost. "We don't do that anymore" on one end and "We know nothing about you" on the other. Here I'd sit in the middle, fucked out of my money. Not that I think that's really going to happen, but look at the history here.