I know I left everyone hanging there with the C�s. Well, I had already done D�s so I was going to skip that one but last week turned into a nightmare and so no entries were completed.
Monday, I saw the orthopedist who advised me that in addition to the other known injuries, I also had a few other �issues�. The sacro-iliac joint (where the tailbone, or coccyx, joins the spine) was bent and that this can cause issues for years. He�s had cases where the pain never went away and he had to remove the tailbone. He says if I want to do that, he can keep it for me and I can make a necklace out of it! So yay for that. Maybe I can sell it on Ebay and make some dough� I�ll wait about 6 or so months to see how my tailbone pain is going before even considering surgery, but I know from other people that tailbone pain takes a long time to go away and sometimes never does.
In addition to that, I have tendonitis in my right knee. Then there were a few other words he used regarding my knees that I didn�t quite catch but basically both knees there is osteoarthritis as well as not enough fluid in the joints so they rub and click. In my left knee, the patella is too close to the joint and should have more tissue in between it and the joint. So, he sent me off to physical therapy and told me to follow up with him in 3 weeks to see how I was doing.
So, that was Monday. Now Monday, I felt pretty good when I woke up. After my appointment, I went to work. In just 4 hours of work, I was no longer feeling that great. It�s amazing to me. If I feel okay and go to work, I basically ruin it for myself and cause pain for the next day. I feel like I�m in a no win situation.
So Tuesday, I fought back pain and a migraine and stayed home, but went to my physical therapy appointment. Since it was the first appointment, they mostly just did evaluation and stretching. In the evaluation, he confirmed that he could tell that my tailbone joint was bent and that also my whole pelvic cage is twisted, which is why I get so much pain in my right hip, because those muscles are tense trying to hold it in place. What happens when you twist your back is that your body, despite the injury, has an instinct to remain upright, so the muscles compensate and that�s where the pain comes in.
So he did some work on the muscles, trying to loosen them up and then also taught me a few exercises (homework!) to keep loosening the muscles.
Despite the fact that all we did was stretching and evaluation, when I woke up on Wednesday, I could barely move. I had been cutting back on my pain meds and muscle relaxers because they had been causing �ataxia� (basically the body�s inability to control voluntary movement � which meant I was finding myself walking like a drunkard, wobbling, losing my balance, etc). Throughout the whole week, I was also feeling hellaciously nauseous, which I thought was probably from the small amount of medication that I took. So Thursday came and my back was still insanely painful and I had spent the whole night before up nauseous and in pain. A trip to the chiropractor and the pain felt better, but the nausea was horrible.
Brian called about 7 and asked me to meet him for dinner, he was on his way up from San Diego, had a case go badly (he runs a family law firm specializing in father�s rights) and wanted a little company. I met him for dinner and could barely eat two bites of salad and a bite of tortilla� After dinner, we came back to the house just to hang out, the nausea seemed to come and go, I would do my best to chase it away with ritz and coke, the only two things that seemed to help. Now on Thursday, I had actually started taking Pepto-Bismol and that seemed to be helping as well. But I still didn�t feel right.
As he was getting ready to leave, he could tell I was starting to feel worse. He made me promise I�d call the doctor the next day about the nausea. I half-heartedly promised. Then he made me promise on Alec�s head, and well, I had to keep that promise. But it never really came to that, as other events took place instead.
So after he left, I went to the bathroom and noticed that my face was very red, unusually red, swollen and felt hot. The last time that had happened, I was having an allergic reaction. This was about 10 or 11. So for the next few hours, I spent every half hour in the bathroom checking my skin. By the time the hives spread to my legs at 2 in the morning, I realized that the next step was breathing problems and maybe I�d better hightail it to the ER.
So my mom took me to the ER. I told them about my nausea, about my back injuries, about how I�d been cutting back on the medicine, about how I had just started taking Pepto-Bismol that day. I told them everything. They diagnosed me with allergic reaction (no surprise) and gave me steroids and antihistamines. They also told me to stop the Pepto, since that was the only thing I had done differently and also told me to stop the vicodin as it could be causing the allergy too. I was like, you�re crazy, do you really think Tylenol does a thing for me? But I agreed to stop it.
So at 6 AM, I get home, couldn�t fall asleep as I needed to wait until 7 to speak with someone at work about some of my work that I would need help with. I was so frustrated because I felt like if I don�t take the medication, I�m in too much pain to work and if I DO take the medication, then I�m too drugged out to work. And if I do have a day when I feel good, then by the end of the day, I feel like crap so I�ve undone any good or healing that I�ve managed to do. I just wanted to go out on disability. Last week, I worked 4 hours. The week before, 2 days. Can you imagine how miniscule my paycheck is going to be for the last two weeks?!?
So I knew I needed to call my doctor�s office right when they opened because I still had no answer for the nausea. I brought this up in the ER and they said it was probably just the medication. Even though I mentioned I�d really cut down on the meds, they just had it in their head and weren�t listening. I asked again, are you sure you don�t want to run any tests or check anything else, no we know what we�re doing stupid little patient. Yes it�s your body but we�re the smart doctors, please let us do our jobs.
Anyway, so I sort of fell asleep about 7:30, set my alarm for 9 to call my doctor, had an appointment at 10:30. She confirmed the allergic reaction but said it could be anything, medication or food and that it could even be something I�ve been eating/taking for a while. She said I�d just have to use the process of elimination and didn�t recommend going of the medication cold turkey, but just eliminate them one by one until I found which one was causing the problem and if it didn�t seem related to the medication then I needed to start doing the same thing with foods. So I stopped the Pepto, kept on the lower doses of the other meds and relaxed until my PT appt that afternoon.
During my PT, it was actually good that I felt like crap because that way the therapist got to see me on a bad day. Again, we mostly just did stretches since I was in so much pain. He also did some heating blankets to loosen the muscles as well as some nerve stimulation to reduce the pain.
They had put me on prednisone for the reaction so that suppressed my immune system enough for a small cold that I�ve been successfully fighting to rally up a bit. Oh, and I forgot to mention, guess what was causing my nausea? Not the medication, it was a UTI. If the stupid ER doctors had listened to me instead of just jumping to assumptions, then I might have gotten treatment 12 hours earlier, but whatever. Personally, anytime I�ve gone to the ER or my PCP with nausea, they�ve always dipped a urine stick because it�s cheap and just clears up one possibility for the nausea. So I was kind of pissed that they didn�t do that in the ER, but whatever.
Friday, I came home from the PT and I just felt beat up, not necessarily from the PT, just from the fact that I was already in bad shape, had a full day running around getting treatment and such and had only had about an hour of sleep.
So from Friday to now, I�ve just been taking it as easy as possible. Taking my steroids, which I am going to stop today as they really aren�t that good for you and my PCP said with the other anti-histamines I should be okay now that the initial swelling is gone. So I have my regular medication regime, which I�m doing my best to take as little as possible, and my allergic reaction regime of zantac and Claritin. I�ve stayed away from the Pepto and kept taking all other meds. So guess what, the vicodin wasn�t the issue, as my rash has gotten significantly better and it wouldn�t have if I was still ingesting the allergen. So, apparently, I�m one of those rare people who are allergic to Pepto Bismol.
And thus concludes my week. I took today as an extra day to rest my back so that hopefully, I can work the rest of the week. I rescheduled an appointment with the ortho for Wednesday so I can talk about all of this, whether I should go on full disability until my body is a little stronger, or if he has some other methods of pain management that will allow me to keep working, like maybe some cortisone shots into my back and tailbone. We�ll see what he says.
Despite the rough week, I don�t feel too overwhelmed. I mean, I�m a little overwhelmed about not making any money. I�m worried what they are thinking at work, but my boss has been pretty cool and I have FMLA paperwork filed and a doctor�s note. I�ve been working with one of my co-workers on anything urgent and she is really nice and happy to help me, not resentful or anything, says it keeps her busy and right now is her slower time anyway. But I know that most people, when they start PT, have some initial pain as the body gets used to doing things the right way, so I know I�m still on the way to health and I�m not feeling discouraged about that. I just want to get to the place where I don�t hurt all the time and don�t have to be on medication to control the pain. When I get to THAT place, then I�ll be a happy girl.
But anyway, last week was just not a good week between the back injury, the UTI, the nausea and the allergic reaction. At least it�s over now.
