Sweaty Buddy

No stuffed animals were harmed for this post. It's cold outside, I'm having trouble sleeping and my procedure is in a few days. 

It's polar vortex time. That means the CRPS symptoms in my foot are acting up more than usual. My right foot runs about 10 degrees cooler than my left on average and only worsens during bouts of cold like we are enduring right now. Luckily, my kid gifted me Sweaty Buddy for my birthday a couple months ago. Buddy is filled with with flaxseed and smells like lavender. I enjoy the way Buddy smells. Who knew I'd ever be excited by something like that? My wife got me the fancy Sacred Sandalwood oil for Christmas and I was and still am thrilled to have received it. Sweaty is microwavable and I like to heat him up to the point his insides are about to melt and I place him on my cold foot. Eventually, the temperature in my foot will rise and match the left which makes the pain more bearable.

The weather has agitated my foot more which makes everything difficult including sleep, but I decided to make that worse, too, because why not? I was binge watching "Homecoming" the other night (no spoilers here...?) and I realized it had been 48 hours since my last dose of amitriptyline. I was prescribed a daily dose of the drug about a year ago because I was suffering from insomnia. The first day I took a dose it worked great. I fell asleep in minutes. I remember thinking that had The Narrator in "Fight Club" had only been prescribed amitriptyline when he told his doctor he was suffering from insomnia we'd never know the story of Tyler Durden... Where was I? That's right, I don't want to take drugs that mess with my chemistry if I can help it, so I decided right at that moment to attempt to quit another drug cold turkey. It's been crumby but I looked up the drug's half-life and it should be nearly out of my system.

I think my anxiety of knowing that my procedure is only days away is also keeping me up at night. I have hopes that it'll help, but I also thought that about other treatments. At a certain point I shouldn't build this up, but I want that magic bullet. A past doctor told me about a patient he had that so badly wanted that cure for pain too and in the end he sucked it up and put his "pain" in the passenger seat. He was a truck driver, I believe. I know where he was going, but God that was a buzzkill. I didn't see that doctor again. I just hope this works to some capacity of pain relief.