Here is a bitchy note: Work has been super crazy lately! I am the assistant manager of 2 stores (long story short, my company runs 2 different stores in the same building, but the 2 stores share the same management team). We currently have about 15 employees between the 2 stores. Out of those 15 people, 4 of us are having back problems at the same time! My back problems have been on and off for about 6 or 7 years now. This episode of back pain has been the worst by far. It has lasted for about 5 weeks now!
One of the other people from work with a back problem is my boss. I know many years ago, he broke his back, but until recently, he has never really had problems with his back. In the past 2 weeks, he has worked maybe 30 (that is being generous) hours. So I have been having to do a lot of his work. I don't normally have a problem with that, but I am in the same boat as him right now. I have yet to miss a day of work. I just keep popping those lovely pain killers all day long. Amazingly, my boss went to a chiropractor yesterday, and he was walking just fine after the chiropractor visit. And his amazing recovery yesterday was just in time for his weekend off. OH YES, even though he has missed so much work in the past 2 weeks, he still is going to take this weekend off! Something smells like a rat! UGH!!!
Here is a happier note: When my back pain was at the worst, about 4 to 6 times a day I was popping up to 7 pills at a time (4 ibuprofen, 1 muscle relaxer, 1 steroid and 1 vicodin). But within the last few days, I have been feeling a little bit better. I noticed that I am taking the pain killers a lot less. For the most part I take some in the morning and then I only take ibuprofen during the rest of the day if needed.
And now I am calm again: Since I have been in pain and/or drugged out for the past 5 weeks, the ol' homestead (apartment) needs a little sprucing up. I am off work tomorrow, so my plans include, cleaning up the apartment, taking the dog for a nice walk, cleaning out my car, update my blog, taking some pics (for future blog postings) and just having a nice relaxing day. I might head to the gym for a bit too.
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For the past 4 weeks or so, I have had considerable pain in my left leg. This is from my sciatic nerve being pinched (that is what I have always been told at least.) I have been to the doctors office 3 times now about this. Today I had an appointment with my new doctor (who is pretty new at doctoring himself.)
This pain starts in my left butt cheek and shoots straight down to my left foot. The pain will target certain areas based upon how I am sitting (or standing or laying down.) There have been many nights that I was unable to sleep for more than 2 hours at a time without waking up in extreme pain. Vicodin only goes so far. Right now I am taking 4 different medications (1 steroid and 3 pain killers). I also had x-rays taken today. They are going to schedule a MRI for me. This should tell them more about what the problem really is. After that, I will be off to see a back specialist who should be able to at least help me manage this pain better. One scenario I was given today was that he will be able to give me an injection at the exact spot of the nerve inflammation that will help alleviate this problem. All of that sounds great, and I really hope they can do all of that. But with this pain right now, it seems like it is so far away!
And sadly, I think what brought this on, was me falling down those steps at the beginning of May. I have had this problem with my sciatic nerve off and on for over 7 years, but it has never been this bad. Every other time this has happened, the pain only lasted for a few days. This time it has been going on for a month now!!!
I am off to take my meds....and probably back to sleepy time for me!
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Let me start this off by saying....I will be the first to admit, I was born with 2 left feet. And by that I mean, I am a complete klutz!
Last Sunday, I was woken up by the dog around 6am. That is the norm around here, she usually gets up between 3 and 6am. Me on the other hand, I am a night owl. The night before I went to bed around 2am. So I was woken up with only 4 hours of sleep. I took the dog out and she did her business outside. The problem is that I have to be at work at 9am. So instead of going back to sleep (and sleeping through my alarm, which I have done many times), I decide to do a load of laundry.
So still half-asleep, I grab a laundry basket full of clothes, the detergent and a handful of quarters. The washer/dryer are located in the basement of this old apartment building. To get to the basement, you have to go down very steep concrete steps located outside. Now, half way down the steps, my "2 left feet syndrome" kicks in, I somehow missed a step, and end up falling down. As I am trying to stop the fall, I throw the laundry basket (full of dirty jeans and detergent). After the embarrassing event ends, I realize that I didn't break anything. But my left knee and both elbows are missing some skin. The elbows were pretty minor, but my left knee is missing 2 chunks of skin (both about the size of a silver dollar). Luckily, at 6am, nobody else was awake to watch my stupidity. So for the rest of the day, I limp around, reminded of the event by the pain in my left knee.
Later that night, I went with D (the ex) to a dinner at a nice steakhouse. There is a local group of gay men that meet once a month for dinner. I have never been able to attend because they meet on the first Monday night of each month, and I work every Monday night. This month, they were meeting on Sunday because they were meeting a similar group from Lafayette, Indiana, that meets on Sundays. D and I have never been to one of these dinners, so we knew nobody there. While eating my steak, there was a little bit of pain in one of my front teeth. When I got home, I flossed my teeth and realized that one of my teeth was loose. I unknowingly must have hit my mouth on the laundry basket when I threw it. So on Monday, I made an appointment with my dentist for Tuesday. While the tooth hurt, the pain wasn't that bad. But by Monday night, the pain had become unbearable. Luckily, I still have some pain killers from my last visit to the doctor for my sciatic nerve. Only after taking those pain killers was I able to fall asleep.
While at the dentist, he says he needs a new set of x-rays of my teeth. After taking a look at the loose tooth, he informs me the tooth is infected and there is a good chance that I could lose the tooth. Great! He prescribed some antibiotics and pain killers for me. I am to meet him again next week so we can discuss the plan of what to do with my teeth. He says I will have to go see as specialist, and the specialist will know more about if they can save the tooth or not. But long story short, for the past few days I have been in some extreme pain all over my body (knee, elbows and teeth). And instead of seeing the dentist, maybe I should see a doctor about my 2 left feet.
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