Have A Nice Trip!

Howdy Y'all

HOLY CRAP IT'S COLD OUT! I hope all of my readers are staying nice and toasty in the comfort of their homes. It's freaking freezing by me but I've been doing my best to keep warm. God I love electric heat pads.

I'm just dropping by to let y'all know that I'm going on a quick trip down south this week. Great week to go on vacation... yeah, yeah I know -_-. Believe it or not this will not stop me from posting. I mean, yes, technically it will because the place I'm going to doesn't have WiFi and thus cannot post. But I'm queuing some posts up now, so it's all good. Writing posts for the future is so weird, cause it's for... ya know... the future.

To make up for a ridiculously short post, here's some pics of Helen being adorable and hating the cold.

In case you are wondering, the clothes are partly for her warmth, partly for our enjoyment ;)

Crippie's Tippie - I might not be able to blog this week, but I should be able to use Twitter & Instagram.  If you miss me THAT much follow me @icanhasdesign for twitter and @scarwars10 for Instagram. 

Damn Mother Nature, You Crazy

Yo! 

I hope everyone is staying WARM this week. It's insanely cold by me and I'm really not ok with it. I don't know if it's possible or not but it feels like the staples in my knee and ankle contract whenever it gets stupidly cold... like now. Right now my best friends are Glenn the heat pack at home and Daniel Radcliffe the heat pack at work. Currently I'd say that I have heat pack on for about 75% of the day. It sounds rather extreme, but it's keeping my joints from getting too painful. Also it keeps me toasty.

Today was a good day though. Mainly because I didn't leave my house. I had the day off from work so I stayed home, had hot chocolate, cuddled up with Glenn, and that's about it. 

Yup, TRIPLE MARSHMALLOWS... be jealous. Today was also awesome because something very special came in the mail, my disability check. FREAKING FINALLY! I should probably clarify that this was just for the three weeks I couldn't work because due to that whole "recovering from having a giant mass removed from my hip" thing. I'm not getting monthly check or anything like that. Just a one time deal... but still... MASSIVE VICTORY FOR THE CRIPPLE!

Alrighty, I've got to pass out and have dreams about being awesome and winning battles, I'll probably toss in a guinea pig or two here in there just to spice the dream up.

Crippie's Tippie - As far as being rejected for disability goes... third time was the charm for me. I guess you really should fight it until you get approved. (Thanks for telling me to stick it out Mary)

Crippie Fights Old Man Winter

Nihao!

Happy Chinese New Year everybody! 

I dunno about you guys, but whenever winter rolls around it seems to make my crippledness worse. Whether it's walking insanely slow with my crutch while holding on to one of my parent's arms just to walk outside or barely being able to move my fingers because they are so stiff... winter sucks.

That being said, Crippie has gotten pretty good at fighting old man winter. My first problem is walking outside when it is snowy/icy. I have said problems because my right leg drags when I walk and because I cannot always see the irregularities on the ground, thus I am more prone to slipping or tripping. The solution to this (for my situation anyway) is...

1- Walk reallllllyyyyyyyy slowly and make sure that your feet are firmly planted on the ground before taking a step. When I was in college and walking to classes it would take me twice as long to walk there when the weather was bad.

2- SPIKES! When it gets icy I wear extra grips on my shoes and I use a cane with an ice pick on it. I obtained my ice pick by ordering it from my local drug store, but they can be found on the internet as well.

My second issue is that the cold weather hurts my joints, the main areas where this effects me are my knees and my hands.

1- HEAT! I have a giant basket of single use hand warmers. When it gets really cold I keep one in my pocket so I can warm my hands when they get stiff. When my legs get stiff and sore I use thermacare knee wraps. Heated blankets and throws are also great for when I'm home. 

2- I try to keep a pretty strict pain medication?NSAID regime. 

There ya have it folks, these little tips and tricks don't make the problems go away, but they definitely help minimize them and make them bearable. 

Now, I have a question for my readers. Do any of you have any internal metal hardware and do you think it reacts to cold weather? The reason I'm asking this is because I have several staples in my right knee. Whenever it gets realllllyyyy cold (think single digits and under) it hurts my leg to bend. I wonder if it is the staples in my leg contracting. Is this possible? 

Crippie's Tippie- Be super careful when winter weather strikes, Crippie doesn't want any of her awesome readers to get hurt.