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      Sunday, June 04, 2017


otherstuff
10:09 AM - 06/04/2017

The topic: Random thoughts about my most recent adventure

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Friday, before he called the ambulance, Brian was working on getting packages labeled to ship out. He tried to print the UPS labels himself but his computer wouldn't do it. I need to fix this. Anyway, he ended up taking the packages to a UPS store and they "couldn't" use our account number for some reason. "It won't take!" I call B.S. We ended up paying forty dollars more than we would have if he'd been able to print them out here. This is the second time they did this to him. He wasn't happy.

How do you explain your Xanax usage? Well, uh, we have .5mg pills and we quarter them and take as we need them. Yeah, we don't take much or very often.

My blood oxygen was always pretty good. 98% on the way to the hospital. I kept looking for Brian out the back, but he was over at UPS.

How tall are you? How much do you weigh?  I'm 5'1", I weighed this much last year at my annual physical. Haven't weighed since. Oh, and I did weigh myself this past week, I've lost ten pounds since the start of this episode. I just wasn't hungry. And besides, it's hard to swallow when you're on your back. And then there's the trips to the bathroom. I swear, I considered never eating or drinking again.

The day of the E.R. trip, I actually told Brian that I couldn't live with this pain. I'd rather be dead. He didn't like that, it scared him a little. He told me "don't say that". Well, hey, if it feels like someone stuck an on-fire spear through your right butt cheek and it came out the other side and there was a searing white hot pain from one side to the other, you might reconsider. I think I'd pulled some front muscle trying to relieve pressure on the butt muscle. So, I had through and through pain.

At the E.R., they told me to take off my bra and shirt. No bra. Bra is for shopping. Bra is not for house. And they were being very considerate in changing out my shirt to a hospital gown. Trying to protect my modesty. Hey, I don't give a rat's ass at this point who sees what. You guys are all professionals, there's nothing under this shirt that's gonna change anyone's life by viewing it. There's nothing new and exciting, just another overweight, senior citizen. You can play tic-tac-toe on my naked bosom, just take this damned pain away. Screw modesty.

Speaking of pain, I asked the paramedic if the pain could cause the rise in blood pressure. He said it could. It did start to drop in the ambulance. (I kept thinking "somebody call a wahmbulance!")

When they pulled up and took me away, the neighbors were all outside, watching. Yeah, I have a pain in the ass, nothing to see here, you can go back inside. (Remember, I was afraid I was stroking out, both parents had high blood pressure, both died from heart disease.)

Brian was incredibly wonderful through this all. When I got up in the middle of the night to pee, even though I tried to be quiet, the "ow ow ow ow" would come spilling from my lips. He would get up to make sure I was okay.

He fed me and watered me and medicated me. One time the cats had a dead bird in the dining room and they were growling at each other. I called him on the intercom and he came in and took care of it right away.

He took care of the cats, making sure DaNiece got her meds in the morning and night and he fed them at night. And if they started bugging me, he'd take them off of me and cuddle with them until they got over it.

My garden grew a lot in the past couple of weeks. I mean, a lot. The sunflowers are starting to flower.

I watched little television. I couldn't follow a plotline.

The hospital had Brian fill out some forms so hopefully, this will only cost us less than three hundred bucks. If we qualify.  Brian said don't worry about it. But that's what I do.

Last night was the first time in weeks I've slept for more than two hours at a time!

I got a call last week from Kaiser and my primary care doctor was supposed to call on Thursday for a phone appointment. He never did.

Anyway, it's nice to be up.


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otherstuff
07:44 AM - 06/04/2017

The topic: I’m alive!

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It was pretty hairy there for a while, but I made it.

So, a month ago I was working on getting the store up and running after the new owner of the previous host of lvdesigns broke it. I worked with him for a week or so and he stopped responding to my emails, so I figured f*ck it and moved my site to another host.  The problem was he had so corrupted the database that the store did not work. At all. I contacted the developer, and $200 later, the store is up and running.

Then there was the credit card program. It had been so long since I'd made a sale, the account was no longer active. It took almost two weeks for the site to be reviewed and accepted.

But the store is once again up and running. Yay!

Then, I know I've mentioned this in the past, that Mystie has a loose stool problem. And she gets it all over her backside. Tail, inside of her legs, it's just a mess. I finally started taking her into my bathroom and washing her in the sink. I figured one of those hoses that attaches to the faucet should help with rinsing her off.

Well, the hose is a little long and there were contortions on my part to get her situated so that water didn't go all over the bathroom. And I felt the twinge in my back when I turned just right....

My sciatica. Damn it. The first time it went out was back in the 90s and I ended up crawling through the house to do things. I hope this wasn't as bad.

That was on a Wednesday. By Friday, I was down. The pain was horrible. I took it easy over the weekend and the pain started to subside. By the following Wednesday, I was back up and around. And I overdid. Thursday, I hurt. Friday, I hurt worse. Way worse. I got out the blood pressure monitor and started checking it. By late Friday afternoon, it was sky high. My vision started to get blurry. I was scared. Really scared. I was in excruchiating pain and there was no end in sight and I was afraid I was going to have a stroke. Brian called an ambulance.

I ended up in the emergency room at Kaiser. They monitored by blood pressure, took x-rays, and I had all sorts of sticky things holding wires down all up and down my body. (I was pulling them off days later.)  I got three kinds of medications, oxycodone, prednisone and ibuprofen. I slept on the sofa since the bed was too high for me. I slept less than an hour at a time because I had to pee at least once an hour. I had to walk down the hallway to the bathroom and to start with, Brian had to help me. It was hard to stand with the pain.

By Tuesday, the pain was subsiding so that walking wasn't so horrible. Thursday I felt good enough to take a shower. It had been eleven days. I put a stool in the tub and sat on that to wash. My feet were so dirty, the crud just melted off of them (Brian's work makes for dirty floors, lots and lots of black powder floats in the air and ends up in the house and the cats don't help, either, bringing in the dirt they roll around in). I started to feel human again. My hair was incredibly gross and that was one of the worst parts of this whole episode. I didn't have the strength to keep on top of it and it was matted and nasty. Before I took the shower, I combed it and was pulling out huge mats. Disgusting.

I took the last oxy Thursday morning at 3:30.  I took my last ibuprofen last night. I have more pills, but I'd like to not be taking them. They make me feel weird.

A couple of thoughts. You know that ad for opiod constipation meds?  That opiod constipation is awful! OMG! Using the muscles you need to empty the bowels is almost impossible to do without passing out. They'd warned Brian at the hospital, told him I should take a stool softener.  I'd taken two Dulcolax earlier in the day and it took a long time to finally get things emptied out. Not fun. At all.

Anyway, I'm on the road to recovery. I need to remember to take it easy and not to sit for long periods of time. Right now I'm feeling a little worn out and will probably go lay down for an hour or so. But at least I'm up!

 

sciatica    lvdesigns   


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lisaviolet is seventy something, married with no kids, takes care of lots of cats, likes taking photographs, loves Southern California weather and spends altogether too much time avoiding her responsibilities.

In her spare time, she makes pretty things to sell in her store.

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