Tag Archives: knee pain

Jan. 30.

Unexpected Infusion

By Liana Gardner | Posted in Musings |
Comments (0)

I am getting to this post a little late because things happened fairly quickly and I have been on the tired side of late — kind of like the kitten passed out in the picture. After my latest cold, which took a few weeks to get rid of, I went back on my chemo treatment and when I went to the oncologist, while my leukemia values had improved, my immune system values had not, so she decided to move forward with a treatment to boost my immune system. Remember how happy I was to be skipping the chemo chair this time around? Well, I will now be going for a monthly infusion to help my immune system rally so I am not so prone to getting ill. Eight hours and four bottles worth once a month.

But I will continue to do as I did before … Bring things to work on, bring movies to watch, and basically keep occupied during the process. Rather than be upset that I have another hurdle to go through, I am choosing to be happy because this will help me get well. And if I respond as well to this treatment as I am to the chemo, then I’ll be back to normal in no time at all. And I was absolutely delighted when they hooked up the port and it worked beautifully and didn’t even require flushing. I wasn’t sure whether the port would need to be cleared out or not because it has been nearly 3 years since its last use.

The biggest issue, per usual, was being allergic to Benadryl. My oncologist always gets nervous when starting a new treatment because part of the standard protocol she uses is to give allergy medication in advance of the treatment to minimize the potential for allergic reactions. And I am allergic to so many things … Then came the question as to whether we would use the steroid as we had with the treatment 2013/2014 instead of Benadryl. Slight problem, there were contraindications for the steroid with the chemo. Except because of what the contraindicators were, we decided to go ahead and use the steroids. I’m glad we did because I would have had an allergic reaction.

The biggest issues encountered with this infusion were increased fatigue levels and some joint pain. Fortunately, the joint pain has been manageable, and I have rested more this past week, hence my not posting this immediately. I finally caught up on rest yesterday and am not feeling as fatigued today. I will find out the results of the infusion and how the chemo is going tomorrow … so stay tuned. 🙂

Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Jan. 04.

Next Up … The Common Cold

By Liana Gardner | Posted in Meh |
Comments (2)

I am at the one week mark for taking the chemo and so far, I have been doing pretty well. Minimal side effects from the chemo … barring one possible exception. I have a head cold.

Last Thursday I saw my orthopedist because I had some fluid on the knee and my doctor wanted an X-ray. Unfortunately, the X-ray technician had an emergency which was far more important than my knee, so the orthopedist gave me a shot to help minimize the pain and sent me on my way with an appointment for tomorrow to have the X-ray. That night I started feeling a bit stuffy, but since our weather has been up and down like a yo-yo, I thought it might be that as well. But as I thought I might have picked up some sort of bug while in the waiting room, despite wearing two surgical masks for protection, I took preventive measures. Things started clearing and two days ago, I thought I had it licked.

Not the case. Yesterday, it fully bloomed and I have a head full of snot, a frog for a voice, and have sneezed more in the past two days that I usually do in six months. I called my oncologist to let her know the situation and have also talked with the pharmacist for my chemo meds. The oncologist told me to stop taking the medication today and tomorrow and to call her before taking on Friday. We’re trying to get me cleared up.

Why would she have me stop the chemo? Well, one of the side affects of this particular chemo is the potential for getting colds. So my already bad immune system is made a little worse by the medication I’m taking to help my bad immune system. Or it feels that way at any rate. I am sure this is just a little blip on my road to kicking cancer’s butt; however, we do have to take the right precautions and not allow the cold to get out of control.

I always feel a little silly calling a doctor because my head is stuffed up and I have a runny nose because colds happen and just have to run their course, right? Except in my case, now, we cannot allow the small things to get out of control. I don’t have any resources to fight off anything on my own. So what normally is something that makes me feel lousy, but I usually just power through, has me in bed and is keeping me there to give my body the best possible chance of fighting this thing off before any infection develops.

The picture at the top is how my head feels. All foggy and sluggish, and somewhat murky. Things will get better. But for now I must rest.

Tagged: , , , , , , , , ,

Dec. 30.

And So It Begins … Again

By Liana Gardner | Posted in Good Day |
Comments (16)

When I saw the oncologist last week we didn’t have the results from the CT Scan. I saw my regular physician this week and he had the results. And I’ll be candid … they aren’t good. The scan revealed what I already knew — that the nodule on my neck was not the only lymphoma mass that would be found. In fact, by the time I went to the doctor this week, a few more had made their presence known. I have a smattering in the neck area, one in the chest, and several in the abdomen. My doctor, who is a cautious physician, wants me to discuss prognosis with the oncologist. And being me, I asked what value it would have to know a number that is going to be inaccurate anyway?

My first acts to accomplish in 2017 is to get my affairs in order. Not because I believe I’m dying or that I won’t recover, but because it needs to be done and has been on my mind for some time and it is time to stop procrastinating. EVERYONE should have their affairs in order. You never know when that bus is going to run you over. Plain and simple. No one is guaranteed any specific time on this Earth. And now that I’ve said that, I have NO intention of going anywhere anytime soon. I have too much to accomplish with my life and I intend to do it.

My doctor was a little down with my results. My lab results are bad. My scan results are bad. But I was ready to dance a jig because the scan results had one result that made me very, very happy. I have been having near constant pain under my left rib cage for a few weeks, and eating certain foods made it extremely painful, which I have been finding out by trial and error. When with the oncologist, we discussed and we both felt it might be an enlargement of the spleen. Which is something you DON’T want. The scan results showed that my spleen was perfectly normal and the area where the pain is coming from is where there are some lymphoma lumps taking up space. We’re getting ready to blast those with chemo, so they will be going bye-bye, and I’ll just have small, soft meals in the meantime. But there was one little problem. I didn’t have the chemo meds yet and didn’t know when they would arrive. My doc got the oncologists office on the line and asked them to find out what was going on as he wanted me on the chemo immediately. There had been a slight mix-up and the meds had not been ordered, but they got it straightened out same day, and I received the shipment yesterday.

The chemo comes from a specialty pharmacy and so far I am incredibly impressed. They provide a mechanism to help you remember whether you have taken your medication or not as well as timer to put on the bottle cap that will alert you that it is time to take your next dose. And for me, this is fabulous. I don’t do pill dispensers well (it is such a hassle to fill them for me), so the little thing to flip it to show that you’ve taken it IS something I can do. Especially as it sticks directly on the bottle itself. And the timer??? Brilliant. Especially when I lose track of time so easily. Then after they arrived, the pharmacist called and went over how I am to take the medication, what to do, what not to do, and to let me know that they had trained staff available via phone 24/7 if I had any questions or couldn’t reach my doctor.

I will shortly be taking my second dose. So far, so good. A brief period of wooziness, but other than that feeling the same. The biggest thing for me to figure out was when to schedule the dose because I have to take on an empty stomach, so nothing 2 hours prior and 1 hour after (except water), and it has to be taken at the same time every day (hence the handy dandy timer). When I saw that it may cause dizziness, I decided to wait until after I had seen the knee doctor yesterday (yes, I managed to get some fluid on my knee that was giving me some trouble), so I felt after dinner would be good. That way, if I’m not feeling well, I can simply go to bed.

The picture at the top of the post fits the mood right now so perfectly. Yes, there is darkness, but the light is shining through. I am filled with hope and am so encouraged to be taking action to beat this cancer back down into submission. I am blessed in my friends and the number of people who care about me, I will never be able to say Thank You enough.

Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec. 11.

A Difference in Perspective

By Liana Gardner | Posted in Musings |
Comments (2)

My Status: Improving
Mood: Appeased

Yesterday I was a bit down. Discouraged because I wasn’t able to go through with the chemo treatment as planned. I had actually thought I might not be able to do so because my allergies had flared because we have had some winds and I had been coughing. I still am. Post-nasal-drip coughs, but I woke up this morning wheezing. It’s the reason I am trying to view the non-chemo this week as a blessing. I do believe it is probably best that I did not undergo the treatments.

So why am I rehashing what I said yesterday? Because I figured out why I took the lack of treatment so hard. If I hadn’t been able to have the treatments because of the condition of my lungs, that is a long-known issue, and one I have lived with my entire life. The potential for something to go wrong with my lungs this time of year is pretty great, and therefore somewhat anticipated. But to be told to go home because of my blood results was something different.

Here’s how I heard it: You’re too sick for chemo. It’s hard enough for me to grasp the fact that I’m sick. Most days. But now I’m too sick for the treatment??? It made me feel like the picture above … climbing a treacherous path, not able to see clearly ahead. Just looking at that picture I feel claustrophobic. Conditions icy and dark, meaning I will slip and fall. And I did fall … mood-wise. Yesterday and part of this morning were a little rough. Not to the point of despair, but trying to focus on the positive was out of reach.

I am doing better mood-wise now. And part of that is due to seeing my regular doc for the Blepharitis recheck. The eye infection has cleared—YAY!!!—but that isn’t what caused my mood to lift. I mentioned the elevated liver enzymes to my doc and he agreed that the issue was the anti-inflammatories I took due to the knee pain. And having him confirm my gut instinct helped me. I can now focus on the fact that there is a cause which is no longer in effect. And he recommended Icy Hot for any future flare ups while I’m going through the chemo.

And he was a tad cranky because the oncologist did not advise him of the blood results. He had called her with the Blepharitis diagnosis and likes to be kept in the loop about what is going on with my treatments. I expect another phone call will be made. And I’m a little cranky that they didn’t call me on Monday to let me know the results. As they SHOULD have.

Tonight I have gained a little perspective about the road ahead. It’s still just as treacherous. It’s icy and dark, and the trek won’t be easy, but I can once again see the light. A beacon to guide me through my journey. Amazing how different the same road looks with different perspective, right?

Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec. 10.

False Start

By Liana Gardner | Posted in Meh |
Comments (0)
Christmas ball by fotoman228

Christmas ball by fotoman228

My Status: Tired and Congested
Mood: Disappointed

Yesterday was Chemo Eve, or so I thought. I went yesterday for my labs, the machine they use to assess the blood values was not working correctly, so they told me they’d call with the results. In the afternoon, I did receive a call from the doctor’s office—to confirm my chemo appointment. I mentioned that I had not yet heard my results and wanted to make sure everything was okay. The gal was on the phone and I was told someone would call. That call never came. And one presumes no news, is good news because they would have called if something wasn’t right … right?

I woke up early this morning, packed up all my stuff, and exited just as my driver pulled up. I was totally prepared. A bag of snacks and water, a thermos of tea, my blanket for if I get cold (and slippers because my feet do get cold), and my laptop along with some movies. A veritable pack-mule ready for her trek. We arrived timely and they took me back. I kicked back in my chair, changed into my slippers, had the first movie loaded and laptop all plugged in when the chemo nurse came back and told me they were sending me home.

Um, What??? Honestly, I thought she was joking because I had already set up all my stuff and was ready to roll. But apparently my liver enzymes were high. One of the chemo drugs I could have had, but the other—the one I have two days in a row—cannot be given when the liver levels are out of whack. So they sent me home to drink lots of fluids and we’ll try again next week.

Why are the liver enzymes high? My guess is the antiinflammatories I had to take to get the pain in my knee under control. And that I’ve had to take Tylenol for pain management. Not in doses which would normally elevate the liver functions, but since my body is definitely not handling things well these days, the liver decided it was going to whine along with the rest of the body.

By the time I got home, the day was half gone and I needed to rest. I’m not really sure how I’m supposed to drink more throughout the day… I already drink more than a gallon a day. Next thing you know my bladder will throw up picket lines and go on strike.

On one hand, I am disappointed we had to postpone the chemo until next week. I’m not a patient person, and I want to get on with things. But on the other hand, one thought that crossed my mind this morning as we were headed to my supposed chemo treatment—we’d had a lot of winds yesterday and I am congested and coughing, would that have made it more difficult to get through the chemo? Since the one drug is known for respiratory issues, my guess is yes. So maybe, just maybe, postponing things a week is a blessing in disguise.

Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec. 06.

Crankiness and Hope

By Liana Gardner | Posted in Musings |
Comments (0)
Christmas by Ironii

Christmas by Ironii

My Status: Feeling Better
Mood: Irritated

Warning—what follows may be a bit of a ramble
I ain’t gonna lie—this week has been a rough one. Starting off with the touch of depression which was ripped apart by knee pain, which then morphed into overall body pain, followed up with an eye infection… and that was just the physical part. Even worse was the work week where each day had another bomb to deliver. Fire-fighting all week leaves me feeling unaccomplished and wrung out. But today was Friday and I woke up with my pain levels well under control. I should be glad, right?

Wrong. I had one of those rare mornings where every little thing irritated me. Things that I normally take in my stride caused my inner Oscar-the-Grouch to start throwing slimy banana peels all over the place. Fortunately, being alone with the pups allowed me to vent without hurting anyone’s feelings. The girls are used to my talking to myself all the time anyway, so they just let me grumble without comment. And the most irritating thing?? Knowing I was being cranky about things—picky, itty-bitty, not really all that important things—things that weren’t worth the upset.

So you’d think the work week would want to lighten up on Friday … not a chance. Things kept going along the same tail-spin they’d been in all week. Which means I didn’t get to something I need to have done before Tuesday. Hopefully Monday will be a kinder day. The deadline is because I start my next chemo cycle on Tuesday and I need to put together instructions for someone who is not familiar with the things I’ve built on what to do if they don’t function properly because my colleague who would normally be holding down the fort has been summoned for jury duty. I’m actually hoping everything decided to blow a gasket this week, so next week will be smooth—but I know better.

Then early afternoon, I received a message from a friend sending good thoughts and virtual hugs and it helped turn my sour day right-side up again. Work finally finished for the week, I still felt wiped out, but no longer cranky. Putting in my headphones, I listened to some music to help me unwind, and finally feel a bit more centered. Music is my creative fuel.

So while listening, unwinding, and trying to decide whether it is more reading or whether words on the page were finally going to happen, I saw a link to the below video on Facebook. I am so glad I took out my headphones long enough to listen to what this 13-year-old boy has to say. Kids like this give me so much hope for the future. What he has to say applies not only to kids and education, but to life and we can all learn from it.

Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec. 03.

Heeeey, Blepharitis

By Liana Gardner | Posted in Musings |
Comments (2)

My Status: Are you kidding me???
Mood: Cheerful 😀

I couldn’t help but title the post this way… and if you don’t hear the Macarena playing in the background, then I don’t know what’s wrong. So let’s recap—knee is miraculously better, scudding along at 0 on the pain scale (may it stay there forever), back and arms are improving and will probably be pretty much back to normal tomorrow. So what else could go wrong?

I’m really going to have to stop asking that question.

Blepharitis—that’s what else could go wrong. When I awoke this morning, my left eye was bloodshot, rims were red, and it felt like I had little rocks in the corner near the tear-duct. My eyelids were both puffy as well, which they have been because my allergies have been elevated, but this felt different than allergies for the eyes. *sigh* A phone call to my regular doc later and I had a lunch time appointment for him to look at my infected eye.

Any other time, I’d have been tempted to use my allergy eye drops, warm compresses and wait a few days to see whether it cleared. But both my regular doc and my oncologist have made it perfectly clear, even to a stubborn-headed mule like me, that ANY infection was to be treated immediately. That I cannot afford to have any infection take hold in my system. Especially now since I had to have steroids for the knee issue, which further weakens my immune system. So the call to the doc was made.

Bleh!

Here’s what the informational sheet my doc provided has to say about it:

Blepharitis is a common and persistent inflammation of the eyelids. … Bacteria reside on the surface of everyone’s skin, but in certain individuals they thrive in the skin at the base of the eyelashes. The resulting irritation causes dandruff-like scales and particles to form along the lashes and eyelid margins.

So now I will need to use antibiotic eye drops 4 times daily, warm compresses to help descale my eyes, and wash them ever so gently with a solution of baby shampoo (Baby Magic is the best—no petroleum products in it). Or, potentially, I could lose my eyelashes. I know I’ve talked a bit about hair loss and how it’s not likely to happen from chemo, but now I have something that could potentially rob my eyes of their lashes? Good grief. I wonder whether I could have permanent eyelashes grafted on that are hot pink????

HolidayHairWhat do you do when life keeps raining on your physical well-being? *shrugs* I bought a purple holiday hat with bling on the brim and took a goofy picture of myself and posted it to Facebook. Why??? Because I can and it helps me to focus on things OTHER than my ridiculous health. Don’t get me wrong, I am taking the health thing seriously, and unless I tell them otherwise, I do follow doctor’s orders, but I also have to laugh because we have reached the point of if it’s not one thing, it’s another. By posting my pic on Facebook, I got to take a couple trips down memory lane with the folks who have known me for donkey’s years. I was able to reminisce about writing an epic ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas revision with my friend Nancy when we both worked at K-Mart. And I think there is a unanimous opinion that my curls peeping out from the cap bear a striking resemblance to Herbie, the Dentist elf in the Christmas Classic, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. So for the season, I shall be LK, the writer elf.

Oh and if you haven’t twigged it yet, I do love the holiday season, and will probably be decorating the posts with Christmassy stuff through the month.

Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec. 02.

What a Difference a Day Makes…

By Liana Gardner | Posted in Hallelujah |
Comments (6)

ChristmasBed

My Status: MUCH better
Mood: Ebullient

My title of the post today may be a bit cliché, but it is the truth. Or maybe more appropriately, what a difference a good night sleep makes. Yesterday, by the time I had posted about the whole knee incident, I was feeling a bit better. Today when I awoke, my knee was a bit stiff… that’s it. Right now it feels like nothing ever happened. Okay, so my arms and back are still telling me that my right knee refused to cooperate and they had to pick up the slack, but other than that??? Not a sign in my knee that it has been anything other than right as rain. And my arms are better. They no longer shake when trying to lift them more than three inches and I can actually raise them above my head without more than a minor protest. They feel like I went to the gym and was over aggressive about working out. Which is close to the truth.

Yesterday morning, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to make the commute to work … across the upstairs landing to my office. And the thought of getting up and sitting down in my chair, and making the trek back to the bedroom overwhelmed me. But I put in a full day’s work, made it up and down the stairs several times, and drove myself to the doctor’s office and had my labs done—all without one ounce of pain and I didn’t even wear the knee stabilizer.

The fateful meeting between Doogie and me took place today. Since I had called in and spoken to him, he had to see me when I was in to have my blood drawn. Yes, he still has all of his own teeth—I restrained myself from kicking them down his throat. Probably because I felt so good. Sunday might have been touch and go, especially before the drugs finally kicked in. I did manage to make the points that all I needed were some drugs that were stronger than Tylenol. He was thorough enough to pull up the records from my trip to the ER, and since they had forgotten to post the Doppler results, he had them sent right over as well. His conclusion was about the same as the ER doc—no one has a clue about why the knee responded in the way that it did. Doogie does agree that calling the oncologist vs. my regular doc was the best course of action. Now comes the big question … do I still have to go to my regular doc since I saw a doc today? Ask my doc and he’ll tell you yes, I do need to see him. But he’ll agree the strangeness surrounding the knee issue would be more indicative of a possible chemo reaction. Let’s hope it doesn’t happen again.

Anyway, if you can’t tell, I’m just so happy to be out of the pain that I was in … and that’s all that matters today. Well, that and as I posted on Facebook, I may have just had my first Christmas miracle of 2013. Denny decided to make himself dinner tonight, and it did not require reheating of something purchased from a fast food establishment, or simply heating up in the microwave. He was ambitious and actually made his very own salmon burger. He did ask me how, brought me the package and I told him only to make up one patty and to use olive oil in our cute little fry pan (and to use the lid from the pot so it didn’t splatter all over). He was quite proud of how he put everything together and told me it was quite delicious. And when I checked the kitchen later … it was STILL STANDING. No scorches, and the stove top was in decent shape. A TREMENDOUS milestone has been crossed.

The picture at the top of this post has special significance. Yesterday as we were both crashing—Denny from exhaustion, me from drugs and actively seeking oblivion—Denny said, I guess we won’t be changing the bed today. Sunday is the day I like to wash and change the bedding, a process he thinks is far too frequent, by the way. I think he said monthly is sufficient. I disagree—we do it my way. But to be honest, another day that comment might have irritated me, but the thought of having to move enough to even strip the bed wore me out, so as much as I love clean sheets, they’d be fine for another day (and at that point I was thinking or seven). By the time he made it home from work, I had stripped the bed, washed the blanket and the sheets were in the dryer, and the fitted sheets were in place. So he helped me with the blanket and Christmas comforter. I may not get much decorating done this year. I’ll live. But at least the bed has been decorated and was my triumph over the latest bump in the road.

PS Elsa couldn’t figure out why I was taking a picture of the bed … she was just happy the flash wasn’t going off in her eyes.

Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dec. 01.

Just Pain, Not Gain

By Liana Gardner | Posted in Bad Day |
Comments (8)

My Status: In pain
Mood: Coming out of the dark

This post is a completely different one that I had planned for yesterday—a post I didn’t get to because of pain. Yesterday’s post would have been about depression and the month of November … I may yet write that one, so won’t say any more now. Why didn’t I post it? Simple. Yesterday when I woke up, my right knee hurt.

Gryphon

Gryphon

Knee pain on waking used to be a lot more frequent when my dog Gryphon was still alive. Gryphon would get hot, and would move down to the end of the bed, and curl up next to me. She always had to be touching someone during sleep, so she’d roll against my lower legs and put enough pressure on them to throw my back out of whack. So I am very experienced on what knee pain feels like when the alignment of my spine is out. This wasn’t it. No dog had slept down by my feet, both Phoenix and Elsa prefer to be up by our heads. And I knew where both girls were night before last because Denny has been on the graveyard shift, so Phoenix curls up with her butt next to my pit, and Elsa tries to mold herself to my side right under that—with her butt next to Phoenix’s so she can kick her in the middle of the night.

So on waking, when I had no back pain, only knee pain, I wondered what the heck was going on. But since the pain was around level 3 of the 10-point pain scale, I figured that as I was up and moving around, it’d get better. It didn’t. I tried heat, I tried ice, I tried elevating it, I tried arnica, I tried the bed massaging vibrations, I tried using my spike matt, and when none of these tried-and-true methods helped to alleviate the pain, and the pain kept increasing, I took some Tylenol. And before anyone tells me I should have taken ibuprofen or Aleve, I can’t due to my propensity for gastritis—and that’s a sleeping monster I don’t want to wake at the moment.

The pain kept increasing to the point where it had risen from a 3 to an 8 on the 10-point scale. 10 being shoot me now, 9 being crying profusely, 8 is whimpering and moaning—I can’t take much more. Couple this with the fact that I normally have a high pain tolerance, and I was running a low-grade fever, I figured it was time to place a call to the doctor—I needed buffer pain meds… but which one should I call?

I chose to call the oncologist because I wanted to rule out any connection/reaction to the chemo, etc. As I was going through the number selections to appropriately direct my call, I found out the doctor on call that day was Doogie. Crap!! I hung up, but the answering service called me back. I gave Doogie the summary of what had been going on, that the leg did not seem overly swollen (maybe a smidge, but nothing more), that I was running a low-grade fever, and that Tylenol was doing nothing to resolve the issue, and the pain kept getting worse. His response? Give the Tylenol more time to work, keep taking it every 6-8 hours, and he’d be in the office on Monday when I had to go back for labs and he’d take a look at it then if it were still a problem.

I should have called my regular doc. He’d have understood that when I said my pain level was an 8 and it kept increasing, all I was looking for was for something to help reduce the pain level—then I would care what it was and why it hurt, but until the pain was under control, I didn’t really give a rip. By this point, I couldn’t walk without hanging on to something and walk is throwing roses at what I was doing. You couldn’t even call it a hobble. Getting in and out of bed was an excruciating process, and trips up and down the stairs were close to torture (and therefore kept to the absolute minimum). The stairs I managed by using the rail and my arms took the brunt of my weight. Mind you, I could stand still without pain, but any flexing of the knee, and later even the ankle caused pain to invade every part of me.

So this morning, as soon as Denny got home, entailed a trip to the emergency room. I had not slept due to the pain and there was no way I could contemplate it continuing to get worse until Monday, when Doogie said he’d look at it. We got there early and were back in the exam room within 10 minutes, perhaps an ER first for expediency. Then the speed broke down. More than 4 hours later, we finally left with a completely inconsequential diagnosis of maybe the pain stemming from an arthritic condition in the knee. When I first was taken back, they gave me some dilaudid and some anti-nausea meds because I always get sick with dilaudid. Then I saw the doc, they ran a bunch of tests—x-rays, blood tests, ultra sound, etc. During this phase, it was great, the pain meds had kicked in and I felt good. But because I had to stay in the horrid hospital bed for the amount of time I did, by the time I left, I was actually worse than when I had arrived. My neck and arm muscles were exceptionally sore, I had a knee stabilizer put on which meant I couldn’t bend the knee, which was not working with the wheelchair because there was no support for the fully extended leg.

Poor Denny was so tired by this point, he was reaching shut down mode, but I couldn’t drive… my pain level ALL OVER was now at about 8.5. We had a (very) slight fender bender exiting the freeway because people were rolling through the light to turn right, Denny looked away to check for oncoming traffic and the girl in front of him had abruptly stopped instead of rolling through. We weren’t even going 10 mph, but her take on the situation rivaled the end of the world. We finally got to the pharmacy, and Denny played the hero by taking my pain med prescription in and waiting for it to be ready—even with as tired as he was.

As soon as we reached home, we had a bite to eat and then crashed (me with pain meds, Denny from exhaustion). And as I suspected, the pain meds did their job. Pain levels back down to a 4 for the knee, and 5 for the arms and back strain. Tomorrow is now a doable day.

I loved the lightning picture because it truly suited my day yesterday. I had the darkness of depression, but pain ripped through it to give me something else to think about.

Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , ,

UA-19119025-1