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| My Shelton heritage, left to right: GGG-grandfather Jacob Shelton (1822-1874), GG-grandfather Levi Marion Shelton (1863-1941), and a four-generations photo of my mother Geraldine Guokas Pape, G-grandmother Addilee Tennessee Shelton Wolfe Odom Harris (1890-1977) holding me, and grandmother Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997). |
Well, if things had gone as planned, right now I would have been sitting down to a meal with my Shelton kin at the family reunion at the Verda Baptist Church near Montgomery, Louisiana.
What I didn't plan on was an emergency room visit about an hour before I planned to leave this morning on the 5.5 drive to get to the reunion by now.
I've had some problems off and on for the past few months with peripheral neuropathy. For a week or so, it's been concentrated in my left arm. In the past few days I've developed pain just below the left ribcage, and in my left shoulder blade. Last night I had some chest pain on the left and a few episodes of sweating. I was unable to sleep last night and was (still am) more comfortable upright.
Despite doing a 6-mile bike ride yesterday morning and unpacking 25-30 boxes and loading up my husband's un-air-conditioned SUV with a bunch of K-12 textbooks the morning before that, I feared a possible heart attack, so we went to the hospital at 5 AM.
The good news is that my heart is fine and the chest x-ray and blood work did not show anything else that was obviously wrong. I got to go home about two hours later, but by then it was too late to attempt to go to the reunion.
And unfortunately, I still feel lousy. Still got the left arm pain/numbness/tingling, still got the pains under the ribcage, in the shoulder blade, and in the chest. I have an appointment with my primary care doctor this coming Friday (I made that Thursday afternoon when some of these symptoms were manifesting themselves). I suspect this is something stress-related - maybe an ulcer. [ETA: The doctor diagnosed pulled muscles and recommended Aleve or Advil, which did help.]
Which brings me to the other part of this post. I HAVE been under a lot of stress lately. My husband underwent a carotid endarterectomy a month ago. He's doing well, but it was the fourth surgery in a year for him - three glaucoma surgeries prior to that, two on the same eye. My parents are both 86 now, and my mother in particular is facing some issues that might require some changes in her care. They live three hours away, so dealing with that is somewhat stressful. The offspring are job-hunting and recovering from surgeries of their own, further stress. And at work, I'm dealing with a reorganization of my work areas and the need to move my office into a different room before summer's end.
Something's gotta give. You may have noticed I haven't been writing in this blog very much lately. And I'm afraid that's how it's going to have to be for a while. I have enough stress in my life at the moment that I don't need the pressure of researching and writing for this blog (which no one reads anyway) to add to that.
I have a couple posts in draft form that I do hope to finish over the next few months. I also have lots of photos already scanned that I hope to post, there just won't be a lot of meaty information to go with them (lots of "Wordless Wednesdays" to come).
Someday, when I feel a little better and my life is more in order, I'll be back to the same level I've been at the past year or so.
© Amanda Pape - 2015 - click here to e-mail me.
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