I’ve been busy in the last few days. Did you miss me terribly? Ah, just as I thought, you didn’t even notice I was gone did you. Now I’m cryin’.

I did a guest post over at Matt’s site this week. If you’re interested in reading about one of the strangest classes that any high school has ever held, head on over to Matt’s place and read the story of my Ass Backwards Adventure.

Warning- it’s a long post, but I’ll bet that some of you come away from reading it wishing you’d had a class like that back when you were in high school too. This was the first time that I’ve done a guest post on someones site and it was fun to do.

I’ve been busy working on my other sites too. My photo site is now up and running. I decided to call it Breath of Life photography. I named it after one of my favorite roses that I have growing in my garden. I’m not sure if I’ll keep that name or not. It’s hard coming up with names for new sites and new domains isn’t it? Heck, I even have trouble naming new pets!

I haven’t had much time to work on my other new site which is tentatively named As the Garden Grows. It’s up and running now, but I have to work on the theme and of course start posting on it too. Now that the photography site is up and running I should have a bit more time to work on it. I’m actually very excited about the new gardening site as gardening has become on of my favorite hobbies. I think I’ll enjoy writing about it.

What else has kept me away in the last day or two?

Well, I finally had my follow up appointment with the sleep doctor. As I expected they didn’t find any terrible sleep disorders when I did the sleep study. I only slept for 90 minutes and I didn’t reach any deep sleep states. The doctor was concerned about that, but I told him that I was in a lot of pain the night that I did the sleep study and I was unable to sleep well as a result.

What is concerning though is that I had a number of PVC’s while I was sleeping or trying to sleep. PVC’s are basically skipped heart beats. Everyone gets these every now and then and in the absence of any other heart problems they can be considered normal or harmless. I do have a problem with one of my heart valves. It’s called Mitral Valve prolapse. This too can be considered a relatively minor problem in most cases but I guess it’s time I went and had my heart checked out in light of all the PVC’s that I had during my sleep study. Yep, I’ll just add yet another doctor to my every growing list of specialists that I’ve been seeing.

While I was seeing the sleep doctor he decided to walk me over to the research office where they are doing that study for pain related to insomnia. They are doing trials on a marijuana pill to see if it helps people with chronic pain get better sleep. I’ve been offered a spot in the trial but I might not do it. The study is 10 weeks long and during that time I’ll have to do 6 day and night sleep/awake studies which will be broken up into three visits to the sleep study clinic. This means that I’ll have to stay at the sleep study clinic for two days in a row each time. I just hated being there for my one and only sleep study so I can’t imagine enduring two days straight – three times in 10 weeks.

Oh, and I’ll have to stop the pain meds that I’m currently taking while I’m in the study. If I do choose to do the study I’m guaranteed to get the marijuana pill for either the first or last 5 weeks of the study. 1 pill at bedtime.

Since I’m trying to get better so I can get on with my life and get back to work I’m not sure that stopping my pain meds- which is the only thing that has made life somewhat tolerable and that has helped me actually be able to do somethings each day rather than lie around moaning in pain – for a full 10 weeks is going to be a good idea. Yes I would get the marijuana pill for 5 weeks of the study but only at bedtime and there is no telling how well it might work to control my pain. I do believe that it would help me sleep, and that getting better sleeps might help lessen my pain to some degree, but I think overall my pain level and other symptoms might increase during this study.

I’m going to spend the weekend trying to decide what to do. I’ll talk to some of my friends and see what they think. I’m also seeing my family doctor again next week and it might be interesting to see what she thinks of the whole situation.

What do you think I should do? Go on the study and try a new drug – one that if approved for use in pain patients might make their lives more tolerable; or not put myself through this study and possibly more pain?

I’ve had a few more interesting things going on in the last day or two but I’ll tell you about them over the weekend. I really want to hear what you think about this drug study that I’ve been invited to join.