Pain Free for 32 Hours (and Counting) in Still Listening to Spirit

Wednesday and every day before it was painful and caused me to feel so hopeless. It’s been 3 weeks and although I have some hours of freedom from pain they feel like they are very few and far between. This started out as rib pain at night and has escalated to day and night with little let up.

The Hydrocodone caused me such constipation and stomach pain, I just gave up on it last weekend and took ibuprofen only. That wasn’t a great idea painwise but I preferred pain in back to pain in back and stomach.

Eating nothing every day or just having an Instant Breakfast or bottle of Ensure. Not hungry, nothing sounds good. Why bother?

So I made an appointment at the Clinic for Thursday and was to see Carol at 11am. Lynne was there and greeted me. She had arrived by plane that morning but was there only to arrange things before she takes a 6 week medical leave to have surgery on her shoulder she injured while at a seminar.

Carol will embark on a 5 week pre-planned vacation on next Tuesday. This leaves the Clinic with 1 or possibly 2 caregivers. Sigh.

But I am off the track here…Carol suggested the pain might be from an unseen crack in a back disc so I should have an x-ray or two. Undressed and in a gown, Dana and a service tech took 4 x-rays of my spine. The Clnic has a new x-ray machine that is stationary in addition to the portable they used on my chest 2 weeks ago. Tech is helping train and refresh instructions to the personnel.

Turning on my side and holding there in a sort of twisted position was fairly easy to get into, but hard to hold for what seemed like forever, first one side then another. Nothing on those x-rays.

Carol suggested a sonogram of my gall bladder, as the pain was most intense in my lower back, near where the Gall Bladder is. Judy M came in right away to do this one. She is an independent contractor with LabCorp here. By the time she finished, I was sore in stomach, ribs, etc and she too had me lay one side then the other and I had to hang onto the edge of the bed/table to hold the position. Also taking deep breaths and holding it in so she could do parts started my rib cage over my ribs to throb.

Nothing there either. Carol was disappointed and suggested an MRI in Juneau. I chuckled at her disappointment–really finding NOTHING is what would make most people happy when undergoing medical tests. Carol ecplained that the MRI was so she could make sure she wasn’t missing cancer. I told her not to worry about that, if cancer was found, I would likely choose not to treat so missing it wouldn’t matter.

I lost another 9 pounds since my last visit. That makes a total of 67 pounds lost. She said that losing that much weight so fast can cause gallstones. Also diatetes and losing weight that fast can cause the stomach and bowels to slow down, gastroparesis (paralyzed gastronintestinal system). Not completely paralyzed but certainly compromised.

So she gave me more hydrocodone for pain, a med for my stomach to settle down, some stool softeners, and ordered Reglan to be sent from the pharmacist in Juneau. The Reglan will help my system speed up the processing of food.

So about 1,000 dollars later I was out in 2 hours and back home. I had been up since 4am, no pain upon awakening. I had no bad pain all day Thursday and have the same today. Pain controlled with ibuprofen and feeling VERY hopeful.

I called and left a message for Carol at 2pm today to say I was not having pain. I thought it would be good for her to have a lift on her Friday. She called back very happy and asked what in the world had caused this. I had thought about it last night and decided that possibly I have been being so still and unmoving for the past 3 weeks to avoid pain, I was doing my body a disservice and multiplying the pain by my immobility. All the slow stretching movements I made for x-rays and ultrasound might have just gently loosened things up.

The recliner I have been sleeping in finally broke Wednesday night too. It fell back and would have gone all the way to the floor had I not had a chair behind it to prevent this from happening. But I went back far enough that when I tried to sit up Wednesday morning, I couldn’t but heard a huge CRACK. Bill jumped out of the futon and righted me.

We had another ‘newer’ black leather recliner that Madame had given us last summer when she replaced Greg’s recliner for his birthday in April. Greg and Eric delivered it to the garage and I have been using it when I am down there since June.

So, how to get the old one down and the new one up? I was going to post on FB “Skagway Swap” for someone to volunteer when I remembered there was Ann and Steve M who started a business last summer doing things people want done. Especially in summer Ann did a lot of package trips to Whitehorse and Juneau in a truck to ferry things. Also just darn near anything.

So I talked to Ann and told her what I needed and she said “Sure.” I asked her how much and she said “Ten dollars.” I told her I would pay $20 since they were moving 2 things and there were stairs involved.

They got the old broken one down the stairs. Steve commented he was pretty sure that he had helped carry the old one up when we bought it from the Hardware Store and he worked there. Then they brought the good one up. I told Bill before they came what my deal was with them and he said not to worry, he would take care of paying them. He paid them $30. Well worth it!!!

Steve M and Bill were good friends, as were Steve and I, when we first came here and Steve played at Moe’s with Bill a couple of times. He is a gifted guitar playr, but drank too much. Up until 2 years ago, he wuld get a good job and then drink it away. Lost custody of his kids to his wife who moved to Juneau and divorced him. He could be seen driving his pickup in the middle of the night and very early mornings, drunk as a skunk.

Well, marrying Ann seems to have helpd him and he looked more healthy than I have seen him in a long time. he had gained weight, his face is fuller and he just looks good. I did not ask, but believe he has stopped drinking. Hurrah!

Okay, that’s all I have for now. Still no snow. Very odd winter weather. Not complaining. We are out of wood and pallets to burn from the hardware, Robert has promised us another load of wood this weekend. Thank goodness we have the money for it.

Blessed be!