Perfecting the Addiction

Hi, my name is Kiva and I'm addicted to attention.  <whew>  I admitted it!!  I have 2 favorite places for obtaining this attention; the sofa (where I sit on Mommie and lean into Daddy) and the bed (my newest ploy involves lying across the top of Mommie's head so that it's easier for Daddy to reach my belly).  I didn't consider my need for attention to be an addiction until early this morning when I got my front right paw tangled in Mommie's hair while I was trying to kiss Daddy's bald head to wake him up so that he knew it was time for my middle-of-the-night belly rub.  Mommie said that it felt like I had gotten my paw stuck in gum or like I was tapping out a hoedown swing dance trying to dislodge my nails from her hair.  Daddy laughed but she was not amused ... and that's when I realized that I have a problem.

Mornings are already really tough on her ... well ... on all of us, actually.  And this morning, my addiction made it worse.  To Daddy and me it's like watching a train wreck.  We can't stop it from happening and we can't turn away from it.  Usually Mommie has to trebouchet herself out of bed.  If she doesn't, she runs the risk of falling out of the bed before she can assess the damage done from random bouts of motionless sleeping.  Before she can even think about her launch, she has to do a roll call for all of her nerves to find out which ones are truant and which ones are disturbing the class.  Only then can she gauge the amount of effort it will take to get to her feet.  After she does trebouchet herself out of bed, she then has to: remind her legs to stand firm, force her hips back into an 180 degree plank after being in the fetal position all night, do tippy-toe stretches to stop the tingling in her feetsies, flex and wiggle her bony fingers to get some circulation back into them, un-round her shoulders, and pop her neck and back 5-6 times.  That's when she can start thinking about taking those first baby steps towards the coffee pot.  Keep in mind that this is barring all flares.  It's a whole different kind of train wreck when she's flaring!!

I can tell when it's getting close to time for her to get another series of nerve blocks, because each morning takes a little more out of her than she has to offer.  I can see how outsiders might think that she's lazy, but I know that she's RSDer and I know that there's a whole heap more going on inside her body than she lets on.  It could be "spoon recovery" or "sleeping through the pain" or "flare-coping" or "down-time" or even "pain distraction" but it is not not not laziness.  She's been nauseous a lot lately too, which means that her body is no longer handling the pain as well as her mind is and that calls for more down-time as well.  Maybe Mommie should suck it up and call her doc to move up the date of her blocks ... just sayin', Mommie!!

I have faith that Mommie will make the right decision about the timing of her nerve block series.  I have faith that, since I am now aware of my addiction, I will do my best to perfect it, despite how it affects Mommie's daily Frankenstein Crawl.  I am Kiva, deserver of all attention.  Fear me!!