We've decided it's time to downsize. Our house is so very large and I have a huge upstairs studio that I cannot even get to because of my broken bones. Beautiful place and built just for me and furnished just the way I wanted it. Can't use it. I have all my jewelry makings in plastic towers behind my chair in the breakfast room. They block almost half the bay windows. But I use them constantly. We looked at one place this morning. I hated it. So I've spent the rest of the day looking on line at real estate offerings in our area. What a shock. We're getting a professional appraisal next week so we know how much we have to work with.

I've decided we will look at the housing I think is usable. I need to keep in mind a wheelchair is in my future and probably pretty soon. If I don't find one, I think I will build. I can then draw in everything I need. I don't need much in the way of beauty. Only doors that are big enough and the access to tub and shower, etc. But I found an online site that has house plans for handicapped people. So this is my next project.

For some time, I've experienced terrible nerve pain in the sacrum and down one leg to the knee with it only occassionally extending down the calf. It's not my neuropathy. The sacrum pain is of course a break, the knee is another story. That knee hasn't been right since it was replaced. It has an adhesion that is now causing blood vessels to break on a regular basis. I saw a vascular surgeon who agrees with me. The ortho who did the work says it's fine. But armed with the letter from the vascular surgeon, I'm going back to the ortho and ask him to fix it. It hurts terribly. This morning, I put 1/2 a Lidoderm patch over the knee area and we split a full Lidoderm patch and put it over my sacrum and down each side. I think this is helping me a lot. Usually I am in tears this time of the night. Instead, I'm planning houses. We will see the ortho again after I have a copy of the vascular surgeon's letter in hand. I think a lot of the pain I've thought was neuropathy on the side is actually other things. It's easy to blame it all on neuropathy.

Billye