08.22.05
gas prices photo
Chica Chic has a really funny photo on her site about gas prices. Today’s must see.
08.20.05
a chronology of pain, a moment out of time
This is a post in my chronology of pain series (I’ve gotten to part 4), but I’m going to jump back a little…
Rest of any kind is not something I do well. I am convinced that, had I been a child in today’s educational system, they would have put me on Ritalin without a second thought. When it comes to work, I’m usually in overdrive.
Mandatory bedrest is not something I was going to do well.
The laptop helped, but it took too much effort to maneuver the wires, the lack of a proper bed-tray, typing. So what did I do? I read all those books I kept trying to get to. The Fall of Advertising and the Rise of PR, Never Eat Alone, The Money Book for the Young, Fabulous & Broke, Catholicism for Dummies, and Marketing for Dummies.
I confess that some of these I just scanned and some I read. The books I didn’t get to include a re-read of the 7 Habits for Highly Effective People, Who Moved My Cheese?, and Getting Things Done (which I’m currently trying to read).
From these books I made lists upon lists upon lists of things I wanted to do when I got back to work. Sure, I knew that they wouldn’t get done immediately, but I do expect them to get done at some point.
At least I did, before I got back to work.
Reality bites.
cravings
In my family, having cravings isn’t confined to pregnancy. I come from a long line of women who suffer from cravings all the time.
Some would say that we’re spoiled that way.
It’s not unusual to say that we drove 45 minutes to get to that restaurant in Southwest Houston that serves the tres leches cake Arianna wanted. Or for us to say that we drove to San Antonio to have lunch (and drove back before dinner).
Mindnight jaunts to Kroger’s in search of Haagen Dazs ice cream bars and after-dinner stops to Starbucks for a latte and going four times in one week to Chuy’s to have the same order of nachos is normal for us. (Though it’s taken my brothers-in-law a while to adapt.)
We are, at heart, princesses. And that manifests itself in many many ways, but food is one of the main ones. I should point out that the biggest princess is Arianna (who always has final word on where we go to dinner, lunch or whatever when we’re together), who is 5′ 3″ and a size 3 or a 5, depending on whether she wants it to fit loose or not. Linda is 5′ 5″ and a size 8 or 10, depending on how tight they cut the hips. I, however, am a queen size in every way, coming in at 5′ 6″ and a size… well, that would be telling.
Welcome to my family.
Last week I lent my baby brother (20 years old) my car with the undertstanding that he was go to buy me my Diet Coke, since I was out. I was still at home sick and couldn’t drive myself. Four hours later, at 10 p.m., he hadn’t returned and I didn’t have my Diet Coke.
I called him, asked where my car was and he promised to come home right now. He did, bringing his friend with him. When he walked in my first question: “Where’s my Diet Coke?”
As I said, welcome to my life… I write as I indulge in my new favorite thing, Diet Vanilla Cherry Dr. Pepper (which they don’t sell at my regular grocery store, I have to buy from another place which is 15 minutes out of the way). But it does taste good.
Things I want… sort of a happiness post
If you’ve been following my “chronology of pain” series, then you have some idea on why my happiness posts tapered off.
Here’s a list of things I want to own, some of which I’m almost embarrassed to confess:
- Lauren Hutton’s makeup, in yellow
- the bareMinerals Beauty Collection, starter kit (a friend of mine uses it and swears by it)
- a new wardrobe of flat, fashionable, comfortable shoes for work (since my current wardrobe of three- and four-inch shoes are no longer an option for me)
- a good, small digitable camera I can pack in my tote bag to take pics on the fly — suggestions anyone?
- a Flybook (review)
- a decent HMO, caring doctors (I know that I can’t own them, but access would be nice)
Hmmm…. I think I’ll leave it at that for now, and complete the list later.
a chronology of pain, part 4
(See a chronology of pain, parts 1, 2 & 3 for the beginning of this.)
The day before my orthopedist appointment, I had sent my brother to my office, to turn in my doctor’s note for the extended leave of absence, to pick up paperwork so I could file for FMLA, and to pick up a laptop they were letting me use to get caught up on email while on mandatory bedrest. (Laptops work in bed.)
Once the pain was, mostly, under control, I was very very bored. Unfortunately, I was also on a Valium/Vicodin combination that made it very difficult to care about what was going on at work. Sure, I checked my email and responded, but I just couldn’t get worked up over the fact that I was going to be out for at least two weeks (maybe more).
So imagine me dozing off on a whim, just closing the laptop and sliding it to the other side of the bed, and sleeping at will. I lost track of morning and night, sometimes staying up until 4 a.m. and then sleeping until 3 p.m. That’s just the way things were.
The whole MRI experience was weird. I’m not claustrophobic, but I felt a bit disoriented when I was allowed out of the machine, after 45 minutes. It wasn’t bad, just weird.
After that I had at least one more week of mandatory bedrest (assuming I was managing the pain and my doctor allowed me to go back to work when he had initially estimated) and three more weeks before my next appointment with the orthopedist.
I have to say that the medication worked wonderfully. I was still in some pain and quite a bit of discomfort, but it was nothing compared to the previous week. A piece of cake, in fact. True, the painkillers were also killing my appetite, but I’ve never gotten that much rest before.
After a few days, as instructed by both doctors, I started to get up from bed to test my limits and build up some stamina (I guess). The idea was to see if I could walk around, sit, etc. without pain. The other goal was to see how long I could walk, move, etc., without having to resort to extra medication. I can honestly say that a 10-minute visit to the dining room wiped me out the first day, but I wasn’t in pain, just extremely tired. That got better.
The Thursday before I was supposed to go back to work, I dropped off all my FMLA papers, and the release to go back to work, with the people at my clinic and was told to come back the next day after two in the afternoon to pick them up. At that point I’d been out of the office for two weeks, on bedrest for most of it. Without these papers, I wouldn’t be allowed back by HR and the sick leave would count against me in my yearly evaluation.
I did my part and waited until the next day, calling the doctor’s office at 1:30 p.m. to make sure that the papers would be ready. And was told by a frantic nurse that I needed to come by the office right now, that the doctor wanted to see me immediately.
It seems, the report from my MRI was in. He didn’t have any good news for me.
08.19.05
a chronology of pain, part 3
(See a chronology of pain, parts 1 & 2 for the beginning of this.)
The next day, I woke up with a muscle spasm from hell. My right leg hurt… and hurt… and hurt. From my hip to my ankle, my muscles were rock hard. My ankle kept feeling more… tight… hurt… I would have sworn, under other circumstances, that it was broken. My foot started to cramp up. My toes hurt.
I was crying, babbling something about asking God to please make it stop. In three hours I took twice the muscle relaxers and five Vocodin pills. And still, I was in excruciating pain.
Nothing I did made it any better. No position, no trick, no prayer.
And, through it all, I was trying to make the phone calls necessary to get help. I spoke with my stupid primary care physician, who kept telling me, over the phone, that I needed to calm down. I spoke to the HMO reps who told me that it would be 72 hours, at least, before an approval was given for my appointment with the orthopedist.
My mother, who was freaked out, was trying to talk me into going to the emergency room. I didn’t want to do that. I kept thinking, “it’s going to get better.” But it never did.
I finally gave in.
Of this entire episode, of the entire chronology of pain series you will read, the trip to the emergency room is the only good part.
I had my xrays with me, because I had my brother and brother-in-law pick them up from the imaging center that morning, thinking that I was going to be able to get in with the orthopedist. Boy, was that a pipe dream.
Anyway, a nice doctor took a look at them and told me, as I expected, that the xrays showed nothing and I was going to need an MRI. Unfortunately, that hospital didn’t have MRI capabilities, or they would have done it on the spot. The best that he could do for me, until I saw my orthopedist, was help me get my pain under control.
They gave me a shot of something… I don’t remember the name… I just remember that they told me that it was 10 times stronger that morphine. Is there actually such a thing out there? I don’t care, at this point. Even if it was just a lie, whatever they gave me worked. Combined with the Valium tablet they gave me, the pain started to recede. And I was able to sleep.
The male nurse who came in after the doctor, the one who actually gave me the shot, also talked with me about pain management methods (i.e., what I could do if the Vicodin wasn’t working by itself) and about the fact that one of the things I would have to do is lose weight to reduce the pressure on my back.
I was allowed to rest for a while, given a prescription for Valium and a stronger dose of Vicodin, and sent home to wait for me to get the MRI.
That was the first night I slept through the night (pretty much) in five days. Blessed be whoever put that doctor and nurse there for me on that day.
Except for waking up when the pain medication started to wear off (which was about 30 minutes before it was supposed to) I slept for nearly 24 hours straight. I only got up from bed to go to the bathroom. And I was very grateful.
Once the HMO finally approved the referral to the orthopedist, I found out that he was going to be out on vacation for the next week or so. And then I had to maneuver a change order to get another doctor approved.
Have I mentioned that I hate HMOs?
When I finally did have my appointment with the orthopedist, who looked at the xrays and asked me some questions, he said I needed an MRI. Which was, of course, what everyone had been telling me. Could he order one? Of course not. I needed to go back to my primary care physician for that. (He did at least ask if my pain was under enough control that I could lay still, on the MRI table, for 45 minutes.)
The only thing I got out of the appointment with the orthopedist was a renewal on the prescription for Valium and Vicodin that the emergency room doctor had given me.
I literally went straight to my PCP’s office to get him to send me to get an MRI. And waited an hour. And talked to many nurses, repeating my story and my requirement over and over.
When my PCP saw me he commented that I looked much better than when he last spoke to me. Bastard. Like I could forget the patronizing way he told me that I needed to calm down (over the phone) as I writhed in pain. Like I could forget that he wouldn’t even given me pain medication to begin with.
And, of course, he told me that the muscle relaxer he had prescribed for me was actually stronger than Valium, but the Valium was working better because it was calming me down. Like this was something that was all in my head or something.
Have I mentioned that he’s a jerk?
He told his nurse to set up the appointment for the MRI. And, once again, I was sent home to mandatory bedrest.
This is the point at which I find out that bedrest sucks.
UPDATE: see a chronology of pain, part 4.
08.17.05
buying groceries, for the food-impaired
In case it’s escaped your notice, I’m on a diet.
It’s not a diet to fit into a dress, or to go to a party, or to meet a guy. It’s not a diet because my clothes are fitting too tight, or I’m getting tired too easily these days, or even because I just want to look better. It’s a diet my doctor is making me do.
Why? As he puts it, “hunger now equals less pain later.”
Basically, losing weight will help reduce the pressure on my back. It will also make recovery from back surgery easier. The more weight I lose, the less difficult the recovery will be later.
You’d be surprised at how easy it is to keep to my diet when I think that this is going to reduce pain in the long run. I never want to be in so much pain again that I have to go to the emergency room to be sedated. (Oh yeah… have I gotten to that part in the story yet?)
Anyway, here’s a “tip” article with some good advice. My personal favorite:
Don’t go food shopping on an empty stomach! You’ll be tempted to buy everything in sight.
Wish me luck.
Great deals and things to do
I want Heather Staible’s job. She gets to shop around Houston, write about it and get paid for it. Where do I sign up?
Recently she posted about the ultimate Girl’s Weekend, which is a Hotel Derek Shop ’til You Drop weekend package priced at $179. The package includes “a certificate for a 30-minute reflexology foot massage at Institute Clarins Salon & Day Spa at Saks Fifth Avenue.”
Looking for something to do Thursday (Aug. 18 — later today)? Try the Fashionably Loud Designer Showcase. Held from 7-9 p.m. at Advantage BMW Midtown Service Garage, 2101 San Jacinto. More info at 713-658-8938.
There’s more, but you need to read it yourself… or wait until I have time to point you to it. 
OK… wow! I want to write like this.
I don’t know where it went, this post that wowed me from the moment it popped up on my RSS feed, but there was, at some point, a post from Meme on girlspoke that really needs to be brought back.
I smile, sometimes. I am known for certain things. I am expected to react in certain ways. I am admired. I am disliked. I am often misunderstood.
[snip]
I am greater than the sum of all my parts.
Where, oh where, is this now?
08.15.05
a chronology of pain, the sequel
I haven’t quite finished my chronology of pain series (I’ve gotten to part 2), but I’m going to jump ahead a little…
The results of my MRI were not good. In fact, they were terrible.
I have a disc between L1 & L2 (I think) that desiccating. I have a disc between L3 & L4 that’s herniated & causing most of the radiating pain. In addition, I’m told, it has a tear. The disc between L5 & S1 is protruding and pushing against my spinal… whatever, and causing numbness in my leg.
Oh, yeah, and it looks like I have the beginnings of arthritis.
I’m 33 years old and I have a lifetime of back issues ahead of me.
The worst case scenario is that the disc that’s causing the numbness may actually be interfering with the impulses (or whatever) to the muscles in my leg. If that’s the case, I run the risk of atrophy and I have to go in for back surgery immediately. They will need to run some tests before that particular bit of news is ascertained.
The best case scenario is that I go under a pain management regimen, with the possibility of physical therapy.
In the meanwhile, I’m under some heavy duty medication, under light duty, have filed FMLA, and need to talk to my AFLAC rep to see what my possible coverage is going to be.
All of this while I talk my HMO into letting me change PCP networks into something that won’t take 72 hours for an approval for an orthopedist every time I need to see the specialist (which will require a visit to my primary care physician as well). Talk about lunacy!
Anyway. There you have it. The punchline. I will get back to the story later.