You have heard a little about Stella and Stanley (my two stimulators) in some of my earlier blogs, today I thought it would be a good time to tell you a little bit about what they do and what we do to get them to play well together.

July 2010 I had a peripheral stimulator placed in the calf of my left leg. After the placement my daughter and I decided that it needed a name, we threw some names about and came up with Stella. Now Stella's job is to stimulate the nerves the lower leg and foot to help ease the pain of CRPS/RSD. She has done her job pretty well on parts of the foot and ankle and has had a few adjustments along the way to get more coverage... you know how temperamental women can be! I'll try get some x-ray pictures of Stella to show you where she lives.

After continuing to have some issues my Dr.'s and I talked it over and decided that a spinal stimulator should be placed in the thoracic area off my back to provide greater coverage. In July the spinal stimulator was put in place. Needless to say, the name for the new stimulator was obvious – courtesy of Tennessee Williams.

He had been in for about a week when I met with the rep. from St. Jude's to have him turned on and programmed. We have worked hard to find a program or programs which would blend well with Stella.. However, as in Street Car, it was a challenge to find common ground in which they play well together. Stanley's job description is a little different than Stella's, he covers both legs and feet. And so like a good partner Stella helps Stanley to do a much better job of covering more area for a little more relief. Stanley is camera shy and so at this time I do not have a picture to post.

Getting use to Stella and Stanley has been an interesting journey that is not over yet. We are continuing to make adjustments to both in hopes of getting them to be in harmony with each other. As always, nobody promised a rose garden.

While writing this blog I am sitting in my chair recovering from having a lead wire of Stella's repositioned to get better coverage of the left foot. I will write at a later time about that process and the effect it has made on that relief. Living with pain is not easy but there are things out there that are worse... but this is no time to discuss politics!!!