Dave Nicholson

1. What is one of the biggest misconceptions people have about individuals living with chronic illness? If you can go out with friends, you're not chronically Ill. 2. Describe a significant way your daily life or routine has been impacted by a chronic illness. It gets in the way of chores. It can be months until I can vacuum for example. 3. What are some of the invisible challenges that people with chronic illnesses often face? Pain that is not expressed the same way normal people express it, we can be in a lot of pain and appear to be fine. But it can severely limit our ability to do normal tasks, or make the tasks dangerous. 4. How has living with a chronic illness changed your perspective on life or your priorities? I used to think I'd be able to do a lot of things in life, now my objective is to just keep functioning On my own. My goals have drastically changed. 5. What role has support (from family, friends, support groups, etc.) played in your journey with chronic il...

Write about five blessings in your life. 1. Friends. I have the best friends anyone could want in this world. They support me in many ways and keep me strong. I don't know if I'd even want to go on without my friends. They make me happy to be alive and give me the desire to keep moving forward. 2. Shelter. I have a nice enough place to live. The building I live in, is not the best in the world, but I can afford it, being it is keyed to the amount of income you get. The people in this building seem to all be very nice people. I have not run into anyone in the six or more years that I've lived here, that I would say is not friendly. 3. Internet. With the internet I can stay in my apartment away from strangers and still communicate with friends in so many ways. I have several chats going every day, and the one group chat is always going, and we talk about a lot of things and support each other as if we were family. I feel the love. 4. Moose Jaw. I love living in Moose Jaw, Sa...

Rhabdomyolysis (What happened to me): A breakdown of skeletal muscle tissue due to direct or indirect muscle injury. If not treated immediately, it can lead to kidney damage. Treated by pumping a great deal of water into you with an I.V. and making sure you also drink a great deal of fluids. 🅐May be dangerous or life threatening. 🅑Very rare (Fewer than 1,000 cases per year in Canada). 🅒Treatable by a medical professional. 🅓Often requires lab test or imaging. 🅔Can last several days or weeks. 🅕Family history may increase likelihood. I have been treated for heart failure for years now, and with it comes edema (fluid retention), and this can be life threatening - so the treatment I received has a very small chance of killing me. This was the worst case of edema I had ever had to date (caused by the treatment). If I was not admitted to the hospital and treated there would have been more damage to my muscles and possibly damage to my kidneys as well - maybe even kill me. ...

The inside of both my ankles have these veins going on. There is also a lump there that is not so small. Need to get at my toenails and remove all this dead skin. It's hard for me to do this as I'm disabled and it gives me a lot of back and neck pain to get at my feet. There is this lump at the side of my big toe on the left foot. It is a cyst of some kind I'm told. I've got another on my right wrist. For over a week now my feet have been kind of red. It does not show well here, but kind of does. The look much more red in real life. For some time they also had a very strong pain like a bunch of needles stabbing me, and a pulsating feeling. Should really see my family doctor about this. And yes I know - dead skin. Trust me it's been worse.  

Well this is post number 3000, and I decided to talk about something I know about all too well. Level 6 pain head to toe. Very stiff joints. Covered in hives. Full body itchy. I am sweating but the fan literally hurts my skin. Eyes sensitive to light. Bad headache. Bowel pain. Explosive diarrhea. Metallic taste in my mouth and my hands and feet feel freezing cold although the rest of me is feels extremely hot. Fucking love fibromyalgia. Sigh. It has been half my life dealing with this in some form or the other. This was by far not the most pain it is given me but the widest range of other symptoms that come along with it for sure. Most of the time it is just pain and maybe the itchiness. Not yesterday. It took 15 years to get a doctor to say to me “It’s fibromyalgia”. Until then no one knew what it was. Then the doctor I had retired suddenly due to health reasons. I was scrambling to find a new doctor and the only one taking people at the time was far across the city and not to g...

So what can I say. This is going to be a bit adult in nature, so be warned. So I get in an upswing mood wise and I become hyper-sexual. It's actually kind of a bother. My brain is always thinking about sex to some extent during this time frame. This can last a couple of months. It gets in the way of things at times. When you are trying to talk to someone for example and all you can think about is what they would look like on your bed. When I was in my 20's and early 30's - I gave into it a LOT, and well I was with a lot of people in that way.  To be honest I literally have no clue how many people. I just know it was every other day for some time. Some days it was more than 1. Now I got this thing with my testicles and they are hurting like hell. The go from a dull pain of about 5 to a sharp throbbing pain of about 9. I just want it to stop to say the least. My brain can't seem to get used to this pain like the pain in my body, so I am in hell from it. ...

So went to see Dr. B. Ogle at the Cast Clinic here in Moose Jaw the other day. It was in regards to having this massive pain in my left knee. I was referred by the nice Doctor I saw in the ER the night it happened. The pain was terrible and I just had to go. The ER Doctor got me x-rayed and looked me over. He said I had some tendon damage and a small tare in the cartilage that was being snagged now and then when I moved the wrong way. We are talking enough pain to make me cry out loud in pain and almost hit the floor. This should be enough to make anyone want it to be looked at by a specialist and I was referred to Doctor Ogle. I had no expectations other than to be looked at by this so called professional. So after finding the cast clinic in the world, I waited and waited then was put in a room and soon seen by the Doctor. Well first thing out of his mouth was "You are very overweight". Well I had the urge to say "Oh my GOD thank you for telling me, in the 25 or ...

Was at one time prescribed seroquel and it made my condition worse. The so called Doctor at the time kept raising the dosage and it kept getting worse. I ended up in Hospital for 3 weeks. This medication can cause permanent tremors in the body. Now my hands shake if I try to do any fine work or sometimes when I pick things up. Because of this I can no longer draw by hand. This has forever been taken from me. It 's also cause Heart attacks. Irregular heartbeat. It can even cause Heart failure to set in. I am told there is a chance I've had a heart attack and I'm in heart failure. The convergence of my physical problems and the side effects seems a bit more than random. It also can cause memory loss and I am very forgetful now. It seems the bad doctoring has literally destroyed my life. Risperidone is what I am on now. It works perfect for controlling my condition. It also causes rapid weight gain and I'm over 440lbs at this moment and was almost 500 at one point. T...

Ok this is a life preserving medication called Entresto. It's new and all. The idea of me taking it is to slow down the heart failure that is in process right now with me. Look at that price. There is a thing where I can get a free year of it and that is what I am doing now. At the end of this if it is not covered by the drug plan I will have to apply for exceptional status for it. This would have it covered so I don't have to pay literally more money that I have just to stay alive. I am literally praying that it is covered in by the end of this year free. The thing is when you apply for exceptional status you have to first pay for it then they will pay you back the first time, after that it is just covered. The ability for me to come up with $267.02 is about non existent. And to come up with more money that I have left over after rent, food and bills every month would be rather a problem to say the least. So here is hoping that Sask Health covers this in the future. Fact is...

Reason #14 why I am fat. 2am just done editing time for some pizza before I go to bed.

4 of these darn things set me back $90.11. They did not work at all. No better than an Advil. Dang if I only know. I would have used the extra $90.11... Oh well. A friend uses them though and she swears by them. They are for migraines BTW.

Seriously, it's parked across 2 handicap spots. What is the target market here? If your a selfish asshole who does not care about disabled people, then we want to be the ones to outfit your penis extension. How in the mind of anyone with the ability to empathise is this an acceptable advert?

So there was this fellow that was being friendly with some time ago on the internets. I asked him what he did and he said he worked for the government hunting down online paedophiles. Now the manner in witch he described this was screaming bull shit to me. So I called him out on it. Poof got blocked for about a year and a half. But then he was back. Wanting to be friends again. I asked him why he blocked me and he claimed he did not know why. Now his story was that he has been disabled for years and taking care of his mother. Hay that sounds familiar - I been disabled for years and at the time was taking care of my Mother. Well one thing leads to another and I see the pile of bull shit adding up. As soon as anyone says their is something wrong with him he describes the same thing happening to him as well. This culminated in a so called trip to the mental ward. You see, someone had just said they might have to go to the mental word for their depression. All the sudden he is going to t...

OK not had a drink or taken pain meds, yet I feel quite drunk. This happens at least once a month. I told the doctor and he did not seem worried. Then again I could have a knife sticking out of my head and he would not be worried. I wish I know what this was about. Just one more thing that makes me think I am on the ignore until I die list or something. Went to the clinic one time and he said something about blood sugar, but then I tested normal. He then said... Wait for it... "It's the flue". Good God seems everyone has the flue all year round here... They just keep saying that.

 Leaking windows have caused the wall to be damaged.  Even with a towel on the window there is water running down the wall.  As you can see there is a plugin on the wall under the window. Water and power don't mix well. I am not sure but I don't think this is allowed in the first place.  Hard to see but there is a hell of a lot of water on the casing.  The seals are broken on the windows and they freeze up and then melt in the sun and there is water.  Obvious mold on the window.  Tub surround is not sealed up right and there are gaps for water to get in and damage the wall and attract mold. This very old toilet has had the caulking around it fail and there is mold and gunk around the toilet. In general this place is a health hazard in my mind, but I can't really afford to move to a place where I need to spend $60 or more a month on cabs to get to the store or the doctors office. I have emailed the government and wi...

More judgement from the demented hay? My morality questioned be someone who went to Thailand and kicked the shit out of a hooker and ended up in jail there for a while. Then stalked someone back home and ended up in jail here as well. Not to mention the violent pornography all over his hard drive when they picked him up. LOL yes you get to question my morality little boy. To you everything is about you and you alone. You think the rest of us are like that as well. Well some of us actually care about people. We feel pain when out friends feel pain or when they pass away. We don’t just sit at home and play W.O.W. surf porn and think how bad life is. We interact and we go out and spread the love. I know you don’t actually know the meaning of that word do you? Because you think that we are all cold and hate just like you. I don’t like to say this, but you’re a loss. There is NO hope for you and that makes me so very sad. I tried to help you I tried to reach you and all you did was...

OK I called them on June 17, 2014. I texted 4 days before that. They are aware of the situation. But so fare nothing has happened and I have not been called. So I added on about the stairs not being lit and the entry not being lit. This is also a hazard to us all in the building. The liability would be theirs if any of us fell. I am giving them to June 26, 2014 to do something, then I am sending this as a registered letter. If I do not hear back from them in a timely manner than I will be passing this on to the health inspector. There is so much wrong with this place that I overlook. The windows are toast. The floor is bouncy. The back stairs are not level. The smoke detectors have not been tested and the batteries have not been replaced since I got here several years ago. By law they should be tested every 6 months and a log signed by the tenant that it has been tested. Every 12 months the battery should be changed and the same thing with the log. But nothing is done. There is a...

The reaction to the scented stuff the people next door are using in the bath. It is coming out of every drain. The sink in the kitchen and bathroom and the bathtub. The plumbing here is obviously not up to code or this would not be happening. The manager is off come place for God knows how long... The kind of reaction I am having tends to get worse every time it happens. So eventually if this is not corrected, it will be fatal. So they need to fix this soon or I have to get the hell out of here. This reaction is about 30 min after the start of the scent leaking into my apartment. As you can see my entire body is red and swelling up. It is burning my eyes and my throat. I have a violent headache as well. But if I take pain pills the Benadryl will not work as well. I took the Benadryl as soon as I smelled the scent. It is still this violent a reaction. Thank you chemical companies for making everything scented.

Latest bit of art (cemetery).   Almost called 911 tonight. Had a spike of pain in my chest and almost went to the floor. But every time I go I get ignored. The have flagged all the people with a history of mental illness here. So we don’t get treated, instead they just think it’s in our heads and pass us over then send us home. It’s happened to me many times. The sad thing is this was on the news and the government admitted to doing it. No one cared at all. They call it “hot spotting”. So I just sit here waiting to die one of these days. I know I won’t get them to take me seriously so I don’t go any more. This is the 3rd time in 2 weeks this has happened. I see the heart doctor on the 14th. It’s to the point that I have given up eating right and instead I am just having what I like now. I stopped giving a shit. I am almost sure I won’t last 5 more years… I intend to enjoy ever last moment of it. Peace - Dave. P.S. Thank you Five Hills Health Regio n for making me ...