From OK to really bad to best day evah!

Hey my beautiful readers, welcome back!

Today was the best day evah!
Let me explain.

So Tuesday, it started out to be a pretty good morning. I was getting my morning routine underway, coffee, banana, daily text, post my blog. Then I was going to study for our Tuesday night meeting that we have at the Kingdom Hall. I want not distractions, so I wanted all the kids outside. It's hard to have 7 study buddies on your lap, so I charged everybody up to head for the back yard, where they could spend the day with the two retired hunting/rescued hounds.

Photo taken in 2014

Wow, what a beautiful day for so early in the morning, I think I'll weed my remaining garden box. (I get distracted easily.) The last time I worked on my garden boxes, it was snot hot, above 80 degrees. So I get at it. I had been doing two boxes a day on account of that is all my back would allow, and I thought it wouldn't take me near as long to get the last one finished. And I was right, whipped it out in no time.

Now, back to the studying for the meeting that night. Around noon though, that old familiar pain in my back started to change it's temperament. Next thing I know, sitting is no longer comfortable. As the day goes on, I feel the pain starting to work its way up into my head. When it gets to my head, I am now dizzy with a slight feeling of nausea. Then, when I was trying to putter in the kitchen, I knew, just new, that my day was done. Great! (It was that at point I decided that enough was enough and finally made that call to my doctor so we can try to get this pain under control.) So I text papa and let him know I am home bound for the evening and will not be making it to the meeting. He goes without me. I listen in on the phone.

Wednesday, I get up, coffee, banana, daily text, shower, dressed, feeling pretty OK, still painful some. My visit with the doctor was not what I had hoped for in helping me get rid of the pain in my back, after all, not his field of expertise. However, I was hoping that he would put my back on my anti-inflammatory pill, as it really helped me to function. But because of my anemia and my hemoglobin dropping down to below 5, doc took me off the anti-inflammatory as it can cause bleeding. The pain had been a constant companion from then on, not ebbed by Tylenol, so on a follow up visit I was prescribed a muscle relaxant and a pain narcotic... WHAT? NO! That is the last thing I want to do is get hooked on pain meds! NO NO NO. So, I wouldn't take them. OH THE PAIN. When the pain got really REALLY bad, I would pop both pills, and then, I was feeling like a druggie. Mostly, I just endured the pain, until Wednesday. So Tuesdays pain finally made me call my doctor.

I got distracted again. Anyway, the doctor visit was finishing up, and my friend came back, slowly at first, in my lower back. WORRIED. Then, while standing in line to make a follow up appointment so the doctor can review my recent blood work and the x-ray he wanted me to get before he would decided whether or not to prescribe the anti inflammatory to me, I couldn't bear the pain of standing there, so I had to go around the corner in the hallway and sit on a chair. Then the pain was like, POW, right up my spine and into my head. OMWord it hurt. I call papa cuz I already know I am not going to be able to finish up my day, of which my biggest concern was picking up my groceries from the Kroger ONLINE shopping feature. Pain more intense. Now I am starting to cry, while I have papa on the phone, (I think he is half the reason I cry, I feel I can let down my big girl panties and let him be strong for me) and doc walks by and sees me crying, holding my head, rocking back and forth. "Let me call you back" I says to papa. Doc takes one look at me and says "You need go hospital. You call ambulance. It will get x-ray done faster." So I call papa back to let him know that Doc wants me to call an ambulance. "What do you want me to do?" Papa asks. And really, what can he do, go to the hospital during the middle of his busy work day and sit while I wait, wait, wait? I told him to keep working because I already know how the 'Hospital' game works; wait, wait, wait.


So I have the receptionist call the ambulance for me, and I sit/stand/pace/sit/stand/pace in the waiting room, well, waiting. I even squeezed in a call to Kroger to let them know I would not be making my pick-up time. "That's OK, ma'am, we are open till 9 pm, and we can hold them for 24 hours." Ambulance comes, they load me up on the gurney, and out the door I go. More pain. They have me buckled down and all I want to do is curl up in a ball to relieve the pain in my back. I did manage to pull my legs up some. I feel every excruciating bump, and we haven't even left the parking lot yet. Corners killed me, hard to stay upright and stable. Every bump felt going into the ER. Thresholds were killers!

At triage, I hit the roof on the pain level! Got to get out of that wheelchair, it hurts to much to sit! They are yelling at me to sit back down, I am telling them it hurts to sit, back and forth went the verbal exchanges until I finally decided that if I could curl my legs up underneath me in the wheelchair that it would help. Well, Ms 'paid to be mean' says that it's inappropriate. DON'T CARE! Less pain supersedes appropriate! More verbal sparing until they finally decide they are done torturing me and wheel me to admitting, where I immediately stand up and lean up against the wall. Humph, admitting didn't tell me I had to stay in the chair!

So after a short stay in the ER waiting room with me rubbing the left side of my neck, the base of my skull, trying to support my head because holding it up is just to much effort, they come and get me for my x-ray, weird hu? The soon part? I am wheeled into the minor-treatment area, room 3, and I just sit in the chair, making no effort to get on the gurney. While rubbing my neck, I can actually feel the muscle, (it is hard and distinct enough I could have had a composite sketch drawing from the description) and compared it to the right side of my neck, I realize that the left side is the only side effected, AND THAT HAD NEVER HAPPENED TO ME BEFORE!

And then, all of the sudden, and I do mean sudden, the pain was gone. All of it. YES. Really? You better check. Yep, the tight muscle on the left was loose, no more pain in the neck, sore, but no pain. Back is feeling fine, sore, but no pain. Thank goodness. And WEIRD. Papa made it to me, about 5 minutes later, and stayed with me while I got the routine questions. I was happy to see him! It really meant a lot to me that he took time away from his extremely busy day to come and sit and wait, wait, wait, with me. Then they wanna shoot me up before the x-ray. Two shots for pain in the buttock and a Valium later, I am wheeled down the hall to get my picture taken. BTW, does anyone know how hard those x-ray tables are? Oh, that hurts. Lie on my left side!? OUCH! Endure! Endure! OOOPPPSSS!!! Gotta take that one again. REALLY?!?! Endure! Endure! Done, whew!

In the end, x-ray shows nothing bad. I need a more telling photograph, an MRI. That has to be recommended by a doctor for the insurance to pay for that lovely $1800.00 test. So back over to my doctors office I go, besides, that's where Scooter2 is. When I explain about needing a referral to a neurosurgeon for the MRI, doc looks at my x-ray, says that there isn't anything way out of the normal, spine straight, no arthritis, he recommends I go see my doctor at the Norton Letherman Spine center as he really can't help me. Not his area of expertise.

Wendy's is close, and my coffee and banana wore off a looong time ago. Papa orders me a double with no bun, and I make an appointment at the Letherman Spine center. They can see me tomorrow, 10:15 am. I'll take it! Wendy's is the bomb!

Then I send overly busy papa on his way and head home, why? I left my Kroger coupons and home. GREAT! Can I make it? Don't know. Gunna try.  I make it home, grab the coupons, head back into town. Gotta go to the car wash, Scooter2 is covered in county road dust. No free vac today, don't want to aggravate my considerably less painful back. Oh, and my Tarantulas need crickets. Can I make it? Don't know. Gunna try. Walk slow. I'm pretty sure a few people in the parking lot might have been concerned I was drinking or something. They must not have been to concerned, no police showed up to give me a field test or anything. Now, onto Kroger. Called papa, my day is done, in more ways then one, I am heading home.

Slowly, I unloaded the groceries. Left the heavy stuff for papa. Now, pop your muscle relaxant and narcotic, make a coffee, and let's watch Crimewatch Daily, I had it recorded. Papa says he'll be home in few minutes. I wait to watch the show, because they are doing a special addition of the Columbine High school shooting of 17 years ago. Tragic. 13 dead.

The morning of my appointment, today, I feel a hand rubbing me on my hip. Papa is there.
"What?" I ask.
"I'm getting you up, I don't know how much time you need to get ready?"
"For what?"
"Your doctors appointment."
"Oh, right."

I had forgotten all about it. Best nights sleep I had in a while! Coffee, banana, daily text. Dressed. Out the door we go. Papa took the day off of work to take me up there, because the last thing either of us needs is for me to get far away from home, get into pain and can't drive, and now he has to figure out how to retrieve Scooter2 and myself.

We stop for breakfast on the go, gas, bank, and hit the open road, clipping along at the speed limit on the Interstate to get there. Circle the block a few times on account of one missed turn and all the one way streets. Finally come to rest in a parking spot in the garage almost at the top, and take the elevator up to the 9th floor. Sign in, get halfway through the paperwork when called back. Finish up the paperwork and the questions in the exam room, wait not even 10 minutes for the doc, who, after looking at me, decides that with the NO PAIN I'm in, am not a candidate for surgery, however, he would like to take a look at yesterdays x-rays. Then he will determine a course of treatment from there. Out the door we go, heading back home. I find out from the Hospital that I can come by and pick up my x-rays to mail them up to my Spine doctor.

In the mean time, we stop in Shepherdsville for some Chinese food, buffet. NO PAIN. Like when I use to feel normal. It is hard to explain how free I felt, just walking like a normal person, normal pace, holding my own plate, not needing a shoulder to lean on, not needing a hand to pull on to get up out of my seat.

Then we head on down to E-town so I can get my x-rays. Walk inside the building next to the gift shop, and head to where I need to be. Wait a couple of minutes. Someone shows up. I tell them what I am there for. "Can we see your photo ID?... Sign here... Have a seat." I wait. NO PAIN. Five minutes later, out the door I go with x-ray disk in hand. Head home.

On the way home, papa concluded that I was feeling way to good, cuz I was way to ornery. Hey, better to be ornery cuz it's just me, than to be mean with pain. IJS. I even told him that if felt nice to be mean because that is my personality than to be mean because of the pain.

So here I sit, typing this up, feeling NO PAIN!     BEST DAY EVAH!

So how about cha all... what is your best day evah?