The week of May 25 - 31, 2014
This is written starting on June 5, 2014. Almost caught up! Almost.
We start the week with a big adventure on Sunday with a trip to WalMart after Ron gets back from church. We are out of a lot of stuff now, and it's better for me to try to get out and about, and if I can't, then I can't. We shall see what happens.
I send him back for milk and butter as I go up and down the grocery aisles as needed - no true WalMart Walk today - and we get what we need. Then it's over to the HBA because we need deodorant and a couple other small things over there. Ron goes out to see if they have a lawn mower blade (he bent one while mowing the other day) so we don't have to drive all the way down there when we're done - just to find them closed on a Sunday, knowing our luck. He finds me in HBA, then it's time to find a checkout line (yeah, right) and get done. I am really feeling it - I should have taken a pain pill before we left the house, but I didn't, and I am so ready to be done! We tell the cashier that we have a case of water on the bottom of the cart, but she forgot and didn't get it, and as we were walking away, I remembered and asked her and she admitted that she didn't get it. Well, I didn't want to get stopped on the way out DING DING DING DING over a case of water, so we were standing there, but she had already started on the lady behind us, and what could we do? Finally, I asked that lady if we gave her 5 bucks could she add our water to her order because I just had to go, I had to go get in the car, I can't stand - literally I can not stand any longer to wait - and she said ok. Then she was asking how much was it after the cashier rang it up and telling Ron she didn't have change and didn't want to take our money, and I just walked away pushing the cart. It was worth the little extra to be able to GO!! I'm not sure how he resolved it, but I had to go - I was hurting bad by then. He caught up to me, loaded up the car and all and we came home. I took my last good muscle relaxer and a pain pill (I even thought about taking two, but didn't) and took a nap. Oh, what a bad decision that was. But - I did it! I paid for it big time, but I did it.
Even though we had plenty of groceries in the house again, I wasn't very hungry that night. I just had chicken noodle soup for my supper.
We get a phone call from a friend, wanting to know if we would like some 'leftovers' from their family get-together - some ribs, brats, and potato salad. She knows my weakness for potato salad, especially hers (she makes wonderful potato salad) and Ron is gonna stop at their house on his way home tomorrow for this yumminess, so even though we're not going to a cookout this holiday, we will have cookout food! Thank God for good friends!
The week goes on, the days running together as they do now because they are all the same. I had to call the doctor about the other problem, and I had to take/use/do a Fleet Enema - which I had, luckily, even though they were old - but Ron did his husbandly duty and helped with this, and it did help (hurray!!) and that little problem seems to be solved.
Tuesday night, I go to TOPS and weigh in and I have only lost 2.8 pounds this week. Someone else lost 4 pounds, so I wasn't Loser of the Week this week, but I was Loser of the Month - imagine that. I guess those better suppers have some sort of result, huh?
Wednesday when I get up, I get a tremendous wave of dizziness as I rise to go to the bathroom. Wonderful! Just what I need - positional labyrinthitis. This has happened before when I have had to lay in bed too long with an illness, usually bronchitis. Something to do with inside the ear. I guess as one part of me is healing, another part of me is protesting the laying in bed too much. Well, guess what? A LOT of me is protesting the laying in bed too much! Hahaha. There's nothing I can do about it, though, so I must just deal with it.
Thursday - my appointment day! I get to find out my MRI results! Yay!
This visit was so different - the doctor himself seemed different - than my last visit. I'm not sure if it was because I refused his help to sit up and move around, or if I was asking more questions than most patients do, but the doctor and I were soon at loggerheads with each other. As soon as I stood up off the exam table he told me that I wasn't wearing the brace high enough and I came back with the fact that I wasn't given instructions and I am wearing it where it hurts and where it helps me. (I'm sure that didn't help the situation much, either). Then, I'm asking him questions that he's not answering and he's telling me that I'm in PAIN and I'm telling him that I'm in discomfort and can move and ease the discomfort, thus it's not pain. Finally, he tells me that I'm not letting him get a word in edgewise - I was dumbstruck! I guess he's just used to people wanting pain pills to ease the pain and that's it, but Jiminy Freaking Christmas, I want to know WHY I can't sit, and WHAT is going to help me be able to sit again and WHEN. I am not stupid, and I am not a lemming. Talk to me, Mr. Educated Man. But he doesn't. He just keeps telling me that I'm in pain, that's why I can't do anything.
The gist of the visit comes down to: I have a fractured (broken) disc - the L1, and I have a degenerated disc - either the L4 or L5 (by this time, I don't remember). They both look nasty on the MRI picture. He says the degenerated one is like a pebble in a shoe, just rubbing and annoying until it heals. He wants to give me a steroid shot in it to help with inflammation, but because of the diabetes, we must get clearance from my other doctor. I also try to ask him about the other problem, but he says he only deals with the spine, so he doesn't know about anything like that. It's not caused from the fall (what??!!) and I need to ask my regular doctor about it.
I leave this appointment very frustrated and very upset. How can a doctor not know that one happening causes others, and what they are? I know he specializes in bones, more specifically spines, but he has to know that other things occur down there, too. I mean, come on...
And how can he not know the difference between pain and discomfort? I mean, do that many people really live off of pain pills? I can understand, especially at the beginning of the occurrence - right after the accident - YES, definitely, but I after a while if one can move to ease the 'pain' it's not pain, it's discomfort. To my way of thinking, anyway. Maybe I'm just a stronger person. I HOPE I'm a stronger person!! I do know I have a pretty high pain threshold, so maybe I'm just weird. (no comments, please)
As soon as I leave his office, I call my doctor about the steroid shot, and I text and call my family and friends to get their reactions and advice, and all I get back are smart-ass responses, so I'm on my own to do some research over the next couple of days.
My friend Bert, who had driven me, and I go to Bob Evans for a very late lunch or a very early supper, depending on how you look at it, and we get the booth in the back that has a long bench. I lay on the bench and enjoy the Chicken Salad Plate that they have now that it's summer. Bert says that I had my own little picnic on the bench. She brought me home, and Ron got here not too long after us. I went ahead and went back to bed, I was worn out! She visited with Ron for a bit (yeah, my ears were ringing!) then she came in and said bye.
Between the devastation of the news (I have a BROKEN back, ye gods!!) that I never in a million years expected and the rude treatment of the doctor, I just stayed in bed on Friday. The only bright - if you want to call it that - spot was when my doctor's office called and said that it was okay for the steroid shot, just keep an eye on the numbers and don't let them get terrifically high (in other words - watch what I eat (yeah, okay, even though I'm eating good suppers now, that's ALL I'm eating - suppers) and take my meds correctly - don't skip any! Yes, I am skipping at least one every day now because I am not eating very much. Yeah, yeah...)
One doctor down, one to go! Since I don't even want to think about this right now, I'm not even gonna call the cardiologist until Monday...sigh.
Saturday morning, I get up and do my weigh-in while the guys are outside, and I have lost over 4 more pounds.
Seriously.
Yikes.
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