July is rapidly coming to a close, and it's time for me to confirm, for the five remaining readers of this blog, that I'm still alive and kicking (so to speak). I was sitting here thinking about all the things I have to write about from the last month and feeling a bit overwhelmed, so instead of doing one long comprehensive post about everything I've done (besides sleep), I'm going to try to ration it out in a series of shorter posts. The way blogs are supposed to be. The question is whether the pain will allow me to do that. We'll see.
The last couple weeks, I've been spending a little more time up in my chair. Not much, but a little. I've been trying to tell myself that my butt has been feeling a little bit better. That may or may not actually be true. It's possible I'm just telling myself that to have an excuse to get out of bed. I can only take so much lying down.
So while I was sitting up a couple weeks ago, I started to notice a stabbing pain in my lower back, well below my line of injury. It felt like somebody was stabbing me directly in the spine with an ice pick, and it forced me back into bed. The pain went away after a couple days, but it came back a week later. Again, it lasted about 2 days, but this time it returned sooner. Now it's almost every day.
My butt has been bothering me a lot less since it started, but I think that's just because whatever hurts the most is the only thing I can feel at any given time, and the back problem hurts a LOT. It was suggested that it might be a herniated disk, and that sounds plausible to me.
Tobi took me to the doctor, and Gus took me for x-rays. This week, I'm going for some PT, and to get an MRI. Finding rides to doctor appointments is still one of my most difficult problems, but I'm very fortunate that Tobi is out of school the the next few weeks, and can drive me around to all of these. Hopefully one of them helps.
I'm still trying to spend time out of bed every day, but it's hard. I've been icing my back every day, and taking pain meds. They do help, once again, lying in bed is the only real relief I get, so I need to find a more permanent solution to this problem. A lot of times, like right now, the pain is relatively little as long as I don't move, but all the spine movement associated with pushing the wheelchair around is very problematic. It's challenging just to move around my apartment; going outside to check the mail seems unrealistic.
So that's what's wrong with me THIS month, and is probably the most important update, but it's not the only thing going on in my life. Now that we've gotten the negative stuff out of the way, hopefully I'll be able to write about the better stuff in the near future. Stay tuned.
