7 posts tagged “stress”

My Chiropractor saved the day again!

On Sunday morning, after getting out of the shower- my entire upper back tensed and seized. It hurt. it hurt like hell. I was standing at the time- and the pain forced me to sit down. I was physically unable to remain standing (at least in that posture). It subsided enough that I was able to get up and move around, but it still hurt. I popped a few Ibruprofen tablets- they did nothing. I put a heating pad on it (for 4-5 hours)- it did nothing. I began to fear the worst- being the hypochondriac that I am, and began looking at symptoms for Meningitis- but the symptoms didn't match: I didn't have a fever, no real severe headaches, and I was able to touch my chin to my chest... even though it hurt like hell.

I left it alone- thinking it would resolve itself. It didn't. The following morning things (initially) got a LOT worse. I couldn't turn my head at all! To look a certain direction I had to physically turn my entire body to that direction. Naturally this made driving VERY difficult. During the day it would relieve, slightly. Even still- I couldn't turn my head more than 45-degrees from looking straight ahead in any direction. The tension in my shoulders radiated to my arms- making them partially numb, and to my legs- resulting in aches and pains throughout.
I gave meds and heat another try- but to no avail.

Sleeping was extremely difficult- my already tense muscles were no longer moving at all, forcing me to change positions sleeping about every 20 minutes. Obviously I didn't sleep well last night as a result- and waking found me in the exact same situation as the morning before: unable to move very much at all.

I had an appointment with my Chiropractor scheduled for tomorrow- but after 2 full days of agony, I called to see if I could bump it up to today. I'm very happy I did.

When I got there, I explained what happened. I told him what I've tried to do to relieve the pain- and how both painkillers and heat failed. Immediately he says,
You've pinched a nerve. If painkillers don't do anything, then it isn't anything muscular- so painkillers won't do anything"

So he put me on the "bed" and began probing my back muscles to get an idea of the 'lay of the land' back there. All along I was terrified that if he tried to crack something that the pain would either send me through the roof- or kill me.
He hit three points along my spine- the last one being towards my lower back (and area almost completely unaffected my my symptoms). They all cracked pretty good- so obviously something was out of alignment.

he asked me,
"Are you stressed?"

I actually LOL'd, thinking to myself "oh if you only knew the half of it", but only responded with "yeah, something like that".

He explained that he could tell just by how a certain area of the spine was misaligned, that I was stressed because that is the area where the Adrenal glands are located, and as we become more stressed, the Adrenal glands work more, ultimately resulting in a shifting-around of things in that area- like the spine itself.

He continued working on me- cracking my neck a few times. Man was that LOUD. And then he worked my sinuses as well- as he usually does when I see him every few weeks. Working the Sinuses alone almost sent me through the roof- but it still wasn't as bad as it was the first time I saw him just over a year ago (it was like someone turned on a faucet in my face- it ALL drained, but only for one day).
This alone was a relief as my sinuses have been going nuts for the past week-and-a-bit because of the weather & climate changes that seem to fluxuate in Calgary. These changes in weather have left my facial sinuses full almost to the point of being numb, and I've been dealing with "popping" ears for several days now. After having my sinuses worked on during my appointment- it's all gone. I can breathe and my ears don't 'pop' every time I chew or 'flare' my ears.

it's been about an hour since leaving my appointment, and the difference- even just while driving back to my office- has been amazing. Driving back, I did a shoulder-check while changing lanes (something that had me in agony on my way to the Chiropractor's office), and realized after doing it that I didn't have to shift my entire body to see behind me- and I could see a lot more of what was behind me!

I'll be so bold as to say that my Chiropractor has done more noticably positive things for me in the past year than a handful of MD's have for me in the past 10 years. I'm positive that if Ihad gone to a walk-in clinic to see a Doctor about my neck & back- they would have prescribed a muscle-relaxant and sent me on my way (not without sitting in a waiting room for an hour, and the examination room for another 20 minutes). And ultimately it wouldn't have resolved the problem anyways!

The bottom line though, having discussed with my Chiro about the root cause of the pain, is that the problem likely stems from a simple source: Stress.
I suspected this might be the case, though I wasn't sure about the techicalities of it. But it does make sense ultimately.

I won't go into a big sob story about the stress in my life right now- but there's a lot. As if everything up until this point in the year (being "let go" from my previous job, nearly having my wife flatline on the operating table during a routine procedure, turning 30, and the misacarriage of our first child) wasn't enough, trying to start a business without ANY start-up capital- effectively working for free for the entire month of November (making rent was fun!), and deciding to move the week of Christmas (which has been an emotional rollercoaster unto itself- but I wouldn't expect certain people to understand that), has definitely taken it's toll on my already-strained stress levels.
The pain I've experienced for the past 3 days is merely a physical manifestation of that stress. So I'm extremely thankful that my Chiropractor is capable to do something that can help relieve the physical pain and pressure. The stress itself, though? That's all up to me to deal with- and maybe it's as simple as saying "No" a little (or a lot) more often- and simply not giving a fuck about anyone elses' opinions or suggestions.

Gee... even that is starting to feel better already.

I've discovered something worse than 'Soccer Moms' (I know- I'm shocked too- I didn't think it could get any worse): Taekwondo Moms. These bitches have ZERO consideration for anyone else besides themselves- and it seems to cascade across to other Taekwondo Moms and even their own Taekwondo-enrolled children!

Our office is next-door to a Taekwondo "studio", and as if our complexes parking lot wasn't terrible to begin with- these bitches seem to actually think that they own it. They park wherever- and however they please. And of course they all drive over-sized "F.U."V's, which makes maneuvering around the lot amongst these penile-deficiency compensation vehicles such a joy.

In the mornings- the "studio" opens for some sort of aerobic program (likely for these Taekwondo Moms), which automatically means they play some kind of high-energy/high-BPM dance music AS LOUD AS THEY POSSIBLY CAN- because apparently the rest of the complex needs to hear what they're doing... because they're just soooo much cooler than the rest of us.
So here I am, sitting in my office, attempting to focus on getting a project done- unable to because of the din of 'boom-boom-boom-boom' coming through the wall.

A part of me so badly wants to use a little social engineering with this place. Like waiting until all the Taekwondo Mom's show up to drop off their "precious little angels" in the evening- and sit in the parking lot in my car- blasting some of the nastiest, raunchiest, most offensive gangsta rap I can get ahold of.

Fuck I hate the 'burbs.

• Toilet plumbing causing a small 'flood' in our apartment last week.
• BlackFlame's power supply failed last weekend- using a 'backup' PSU for now.
• BlueHorizon having problems with network and server software- and virtually no time for me to address the problems.
  
• Car starting mechanism failing- already replaced, $500 later.
• Cold Weather all this week and weekend (-23'C right now- it was -20'C 30 minutes ago).
• Toilet causes a second small 'flood' on Wednesday night.
  
• I get a Stomach Flu on Wednesday.
  
• Ange gets my Stomach Flu yesterday.
  
• Flames continue to lose- miserably (yeah, I know it doesn't directly affect me, but it's just another disappointment in life these days)
  
• Find out the pipe in our apartment heater (which is water-based: heats the room by warming water inside the pipe) cracked and is now 'flooding' another area of the apartment.

It's been a rough couple of weeks- and after a consistent onslaught of it, one can't help but begin to feel a little defeated.

Tonight is the first night this week that I haven't been working until at least 10:00pm. In fact, this is one of the first times in almost a month that I've been able to sit outside on the balcony and enjoy what is beginning to become the downward spiral of the latter half of Summer- into Fall. Gone is the heatwave that kept us sweltering day and night for about a month- that's been largely replaced by 'intermittent' weather. Classic Calgary weather, really. Something completely different every few hours. With it, the weather has brought instability in the everyday mullings of life. Monday was particularly bad. I don't think anyone really spoke in our office Monday- the week clearly started out on the wrong foot... again. Follow that up in the evening for what was supposed to be an 'easy' evening at my brothers' place to upgrade a computer system for one of his/our clients- and turned into an all-night headache that had me finally come home from work at around midnight- with the upgrade still unfinished- and remains 'unfinished' even now. That's sad considering we went back to my brothers' place to do battle again on Tuesday night (got home around 11:00pm), and I was up until 2:00am Wednesday night trying desperately to get everything done and over with on that system (I brought the computer home to work on)- and still didn't get it done. Now we've at least scheduled to return the system to the client Monday evening, which gives me the weekend to hammer out any final details- thankfully. But the frustration of having unforseen (but really, not unexpected) obstacles keep us from clearing this project- which really should have been an easy fix- still unfinished, has left both me and my brother frazzled all week.

Luckily our 'weekend away' (yeah right, Ange worked all weekend as Duty Manager for the hotel- and it was a very busy weekend) and this upgrade project has kept my mind off of my dead second monitor. In fact, I had almost completely forgotten about it except for the rare time I've actually been in front of 'BlackFlame' this week. So I was kinda surprised when I heard that UPS tried to deliver a package to the apartment today! Obviously it's my replacement monitor!
I've had my old monitor packed up since Saturday so it's ready to go- and would have been gone by now if Samsung had given me the address of the depot I'm going to ship my defective monitor to last weekend. They say the address is in the box with the replacement. Go figure.
Unfortunately I won't be home tomorrow to receive the package when they retry to deliver it. So instead I thought I would call UPS to arrange for a pickup tomorrow. So I call the 800# they provide on the information slip. This is the American number, and I'm told I need the International number- which she provides for me, and patches me through to. There, I wait about 15-20 minutes to the same lame (but catchy) elevator song. The girl I talk to there thought I was trying to ship a package... no, I'm wanting to pick up a package someone is sending me. So she fiddles and asks for my phone number twice, puts me on hold for a few more minutes, only to come back and tell me that I need to call their Canadian office. Now who woulda thunk dat now eh?? Fuckin' lame.
So I call the number that she gives me (at least the first girl transferred me to the other number)... 'our offices are no closed'. What. The. Fuck!? UPS Canada apparently holds office hours! Fuck, there are local couriers that take calls 24hrs! Pathetic. So tomorrow I'll call and arrange for my pickup for Monday, since I'm sure even if I called at 6:00am (when the office apparently opens- ET, naturally) that it would still be too late and they'll try and deliver it again anyways.
'What can Brown do for me!?' How about fire your customer service managers and provide a real courier service.

And let's talk Big Brother for a while now shall we? Tonight's eviction of Dustin is clearly a sign of chaos in the BB house. Dick has become intolerable in his personal attacks on Jameka's Religion, and Amber's parenting skills- like Dick is one to talk to begin with. Did anyone else catch Daniele say that she hasn't spoken to her Dad in 6 years and not the 2 that Dick are claiming? I am just waiting for someone to tear into Dick with that point (Eric perhaps? why not make that an option to vote on for 'Americas Player'??) and see Dick try and defend himself- claiming it isn't the same or something equally pathetic. I condoned his behavior when it was directed at Jen- because she 'deserved' it, but now Dick is in an alliance with her!? Now who's the hypocrite!?
And what about 'Americas Player' - this is clearly a sham. Why? All the 'extra' stuff that Eric gets to do is dictated by the PRODUCERS of the show- not by America. That's manipulation of the game and just as bad as an unjustified penalty in any professional sport. What proof do we have that the numbers they claim to collect are actually derived from the results of their 'vote'? I can't believe America would truly select some of the results we've seen.

How frustrating!!!

Stress Relief Kit

This has not been a good week.
This past weekend some shit went down in my life that really shouldn't have become an issue- but it did, and brought my family to the brink of a kind-of 'civil cold war'. The fallout from this has been quite intense for me. I tend not to deal with stress very well, and so when shit goes down, it goes down hard and fast.
As a result, my already-strained stress level was pushed beyond it's brink- and it has begun to affect my physical health once again. Today I stayed home from work because my body has become so exhausted from the continuous onslaught of stress from virtually every faucet of life- that it has slowly begun to shut down once again. This happened before Christmas too. I have no real 'proof' that my recent string of health ailments are stress-related, but I've pretty well ruled out every other possibility over the past year-or-so.

This morning I woke up so fatigued I barely had the energy to walk let alone go in to a high-stress job. And that isn't an exaggeration either. I've been stumbling around since Sunday feeling like my head is in a fog and like I could collapse at any moment (including at the steering wheel) from exhaustion. This morning took everything I had to actually get out of bed. In the end, I ended up calling in sick today and sleeping until 1:00 this afternoon- and even then I still felt extremely groggy and sluggish for the remainder of the afternoon.

The heat in the city lately hasn't helped matters either. While I am already physically fatigued- the added stress of trying to keep cool (our apartment is on the top floor- facing south towards the sun) only further exhausts the body.

So this weekend we are leaving town to once again 'retreat' into the mountains for some much-needed R&R. Ange has been under a lot of pressure too- both from work as well as the same 'cold war' issue from the weekend. We pretty well will have the place to ourselves and have already vowed to a weekend of excessive sleeping and maybe hanging out at the hot springs pool to cool off one evening. Albie will be happy too as he will now have a cool basement to chill out in.

So it appears the stress levels are beginning to go down, and hopefully will melt away the further we get from the city limits tomorrow. The mountains have always been a place of rejuvenation for me, so I'm hoping for a repeat performance again this weekend.

Audio: Share a song that fits the moment you're living right now.
Inspired by cherè.

All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me)

Bullet For My Valentine

There are a few songs that would describe the 'moment' I'm living right now- they vary from happy to frustrated to melon-collie to encouraging. But for 'right now' I would have to say that "All These Things I Hate (Revolve Around Me)" by Bullet For My Valentine is probably most appropriate- and has been for some time now. It certainly isn't the only song in my playlist these days that I feel a 'connection' to- but it certainly is one of the main ones.

This cloud of dark/negative energy seems to not want to let me go anytime soon. In the last several weeks, my stress and anxiety levels have come to a head after almost a year of build-up. As a result, I've been getting sick more times than not, I'm unable to focus on very much of anything- including work, other projects, even blogging and gaming seems to have lost their appeal. And it would appear I'm not the only one suffering from the effects of the lingering dark energy these days. Almost everyone I know has recently been, or is currently, struggling with a recent influx of stress and pressure. For myself, it's gotten to the point where my stress has begun to 'collapse into itself' resulting in a depression- albeit a temporary one, but one that sucks regardless of how long it lasts or how down it drags me.

Lloydminster Trip 2006: iPod Charger

The latest thing to add fuel to the proverbial fire of negative energy is losing my wife's iPod. I remember leaving it in my car, hidden away, a week ago today when I parked underground in my brother's apartment complex. I also left my DSLite in the car with it so that I wasn't hauling these devices with me to the Saddledome for the Flames Game- where if they slipped out of my jacket pocket, would make it significantly more difficult to track down. At least if they're in my car, in the warm underground parkade, I wouldn't worry. I swore I left them both in there- and I certainly still have my DSLite- I take it everywhere I go. It almost doubles as a second wallet for me. I thought I had picked up the iPod at the same time- and logically it makes sense considering how brutally cold it was a week ago (-32'C with a windchill making it feel like -40'C)- I distinctly remember telling myself to bring it in to prevent it from freezing in the cold outside in the car overnight. But after that, it disappeared- I didn't think of it for a few days afterwards when Ange asked where it was. After practically tearing the apartment apart to find it, we came up empty-handed. I have since searched through every possible nook and cranny in my car to see whether it perhaps ended up somewhere in there- but again, I've been able to find nothing.

I've even dug through the snow around my car in the parking lot at home to see whether it perhaps fell out while I got out of the car into the snow. This tends to happen with me. I don't have a lot of places in my car that I can put something small like my cell phone or an iPod without it moving around and sometimes flying across the car itself during a sharp turn- so I sometimes opt to leave such items in my lap while I drive so that I supposedly know where they are and can collect them prior to getting out of the car. But this isn't always a foolproof strategy. In fact, just last night I nearly lost my cell phone that very way- it was only after I had begun looking for the iPod that I realized that my phone had indeed fell into the snow. So if I had left the iPod in my lap last week with the intention of bring it in, using the same idea of collecting it from my lap before going inside- it's possible this could have happened and I simply ignored it. That night, I was a little intoxicated (still fine to drive though), very tired (I arrived home around 1:00am), and was focussed solely on getting inside to the warmth of the apartment from the bitter mid-night cold. Had anything fallen out of my lap, I likely never would have noticed until it was too late.
As a result, I feel absolutely awful about this- which doesn't help my already dwindling mental stability. I know there's nothing I can really do besides continue to look for it just in-case it's ended up in a place I've simply overlooked. I guess I'm more disappointed in myself- I'm usually very cautious and extremely aware of those items in my immediate possession, especially ones as valuable and expensive as an iPod or a DSLite.
For me, it isn't even so much the fact of losing the device as much as it is this feeling like my mind is failing me more often than not these days. Perhaps that's simply the result of it being overworked for far too long- it's simply shutting down, unable to cope to the ongoing flow of information to process. It's times like this where I realize that my desire to spend a weekend out in the valley- away from the stresses and pressures of everyday life -isn't just because I want to, but more so because I NEED to in order to 'recharge the batteries' so that I don't fizzle out like I have in recent weeks.

Montreal

This upcoming weekend we are flying to Montreal for the weekend. This is my first real trip to Eastern Canada, and am certainly looking forward to spending some time in an unfamiliar place. It's not exactly the serenity of the mountains- but it just might be enough of a change to help me reset my mind for the coming dead of winter. Of course, it's a much bigger city than Calgary is- and considering I'm having problems coping with the stress and pressure in this city, I'm a little anxious about feeling the effects of the stress and pressure from that city. Still, I guess if anything, it's possible that I might come back to Calgary able to cope better with life here having experienced a taste of things there. Kinda like how you can turn your stereo to maximum and think it's loud, then go to a concert where it's really loud, then coming home to your stereo and finding it isn't as loud as you thought after all.
Here's hoping.