Saturday, October 29, 2016

Synopsis of 2014-2016

I suppose it's fitting that some positive news come my way after my most recent post. I wasn't exactly hopeful when I arrived at the Sports Medicine complex. The doctor was extremely thorough, and he listened to every word I said about my pain, moving my legs and hips from position to position to be sure he understood exactly where it hurt and how it felt. When he pulled up my images, he noticed the disc herniation had actually occurred on my left side, which wouldn't be causing this kind of pain in my right SI joint, thereby confirming what I've been trying to tell doctors all this time--that this pain doesn't stem from the disc problem at all. 

The injection occurred the following morning at 7:45 AM. Since we had to travel from Cranberry to Wilkinsburg, I didn't sleep at all. Within minutes of receiving the anesthetic, the pain had dramatically improved, though some pain was still present, and I did begin to notice a less intense pain in my left SI joint as well, which does make sense. However, I did not feel the steroid injection like I did last time, which makes me believe that the last doctor did not, in fact, inject the medication into the proper area. The anesthetic has largely worn off by now, and I won't really know the extent of improvement from the steroid for another week or so. I'll also be seeing a chiropractor, which I've been told is extremely helpful for adjusting the SI, and starting an intense round of focused, physical therapy. Having pain in both SI joints and some narrowed spacing in my spine concerns me, as these can be signs that I'm developing a more serious condition called ankylosing spondylitis, which is a fancy way of saying that the bones of my axial skeleton may be fusing together. The condition is progressive and has no cure, but some treatments can delay the progression. However, I'm trying to avoid catastrophizing right now. 

I can't stop thinking about the stark difference between this orthopedic appointment and my appointment with the pain clinic a few weeks ago. At the pain clinic, I was treated as if there was no hope. I was told the best thing to do would be to stop searching for an answer and participate in their "pain group", which involved no medical treatment. Just OT, PT, and psychotherapy designed to get you to meet your basic daily needs like showering and bending over. They specifically refused to help me try to find the root cause of the pain. Either that, or they thought I was just seeking drugs. When I had asked what the point of this would be if I could still not do anything I wanted to do, the doctor left the room. It reminded me of a time in the emergency room when a doctor told me that being able to shower and get dressed on my own was "good enough". Or when I fell to floor getting out of bed upon discharge because of the pain, and they refused to help me or manage the pain. 


I'm reminded of the time I was sent home from the hospital with a walker because I couldn't even take one step without excruciating pain. I was convinced I would have to get a wheelchair because it was winter, and I wasn't going to make it a mile to work in the snow using that thing. I ended up quitting out of pride, among other reasons. But I never touched the damn walker. I started stretching and squatting with just my body weight, when I could. It was excruciating. This, in combination with TENS therapy twice a week seemed to help a great deal, but there was still so far to go. Then life happened, and we had to leave Morgantown pretty abruptly. 

Maybe I need to do this for myself, but let me see if I can go back to the very beginning. At the very least, this record will be in one place.

In September of 2014, I was in a pretty rough spot. Having just lost two jobs due to constant meltdowns and uncontrollable anxiety, I sank into a pretty deep depression from which I could not recover. I tried to kill myself, and I ended up in WPIC for more than two weeks. I remember the day I went. It was September 5th. By September 29th, I had been out for a few days, so I decided to take a friend with me to the gym for support. We were training legs, and I was showing him how to squat properly. During my second set, something went wrong. I felt myself give way, and I first collapsed to my knees with the bar on top of me. The safety rails were up, but they were too low for someone as short as I am. I knew immediately that I wasn't going to be able to stand up. I crawled a few feet and told him to call the ambulance. I attempted a few more times, but I could't move my legs. I somehow remained calm. 

When I arrived at the hospital, I remember getting three doses of dilaudid, two of valium, two of oxycodone, and some morphine and flexoril, all within the first few hours. I couldn't move my legs more than an inch or two off the bed...for four days. Since I had no bowel/bladder symptoms, the doctors refused to perform surgery, though I wanted them to. (More on why that may have been a good idea later.) I stayed in Montefiore for a full week. At that point, I still couldn't really move much. I could't even sit up on my own for more than a few minutes. I was sent to Mercy to undergo intensive inpatient physical and occupational therapy. I did from 2-3 hours of PT and 2-3 hours of OT each day, with "homework" exercises to practice otherwise. I spent a full week there, and by the end of it, I was able to walk a few laps around the hall, though most other activities that involved bending and twisting really sucked. The pain was in my lower back, just right of center. It was a pulling sensation accompanied by feelings of pressure, as if I could feel the disc itself bulging. But I pushed myself at home, practicing on the stairs and trying to do more each day until I was cleared for outpatient therapy. 

I started outpatient PT with a pretty amazing team at the Southside Sports Medicine complex, which has the most impressive PT facility I've ever seen. Unlike any other PT I've undergone, this was hard work. It was just like being in the gym, and I was constantly being pushed to progress even further. I also began working out on my own again, with permission from my team, making sure to ease back into things. By mid-December, I was pain free and maxing out on all my lifts. I was in the best shape of my life. (This was even after ending up in WPIC two more times in October-November because my dysphoria/dysmoprhia was unbearable. Meltdowns were happening all the time, for hours upon hours, and I had no way of managing my overstimulation/anxiety without the gym. Related, this is when the ridiculous onslaught of medications began. Also by December/January, I was taking all of the following medications at the same time: Effexor, with the dose eventually reaching almost 600 mg, which is way over the recommended limit; Klonopin; risperidone; Xanax; Ritalin; Lamyctal; Vistaril; and gabapentin. No matter how often I expressed that my psych symptoms were actually getting worse because of this medication and that I wanted it discontinued, my concerns were ignored. Anyway...)

I think February marked a major turning point for me, and that's when things start to get a little fuzzier. My brain was most certainly messed up from the aforementioned psych cocktail, but it is still hard to absolve myself of responsibility for all of the things that happened. In February, I drank way too much one night, and I ended up putting my hands on a friend of mine. It wasn't any sort of altercation, but I was trying to grab her hands to reach for the bottle she had taken from me. Once that incident had calmed down, I knew that I had done something horrible. I also know that I threw myself down the stairs on purpose, but I can't remember if I did that this time, or if that happened later on in the year. The entirety of 2015 feels like a blur. But I ended up back in WPIC, though for only a week this time. And it was not good.

I remember being unable to speak. I couldn't respond to the nurse's questions when I got to the floor, and she began to scream at me. She wanted me to take my clothes off, and because I couldn't comply, she called security. I know I mentioned something about it not being comfortable, but I don't know how. Security came. Four very large men. It was a matter of not even two minutes before I was grabbed by both arms and lifted from my chair. And I was in such a state of overstimulation that I lost it and tried to fall to my knees. I was screaming. Crying. Saying please. The other two men grabbed my legs in the hall, and I was hoisted and carried overhead, very clumsily yet aggressively, to a seclusion room in which I was pinned to the ground with an arm behind my back and one holding my head down while the other two stripped away my pants. At this point, I begged them to stop and told them I would do what they asked, though one remarked, "It's too late for that." After agreeing to comply again, I was injected with a tranquilizer anyway, and they continued to rip away my clothes. We eventually found out that not one person on the floor had read my chart. They had no idea that I was autistic or trans. I was told to sue at that point (and multiple times after), but I wasn't in a place to do that. I didn't stay long that time, maybe five or six days. But nothing was really the same after that.

The next few months are even harder to visualize. Sometime in March, I began to experience pain in my very low back, way to the right. It wasn't anything serious, and I simply avoided exercises that aggravated it for a while. But then I had to avoid even more. Then reduce the weight, at first a little, and then significantly. By May, not only was my brain incapable of functioning, but the pain had also become bad enough that I knew I needed to get help. I consulted a doctor and was prescribed oral steroids. I was absolutely fine by the time the course was over. But I couldn't stay functional for long. I ended up in WPIC again in May on a different floor than I had been used to. The patients were loud, aggressive, and often violent. There was absolutely nothing for me to do except read and eat. I slept almost the entire time. The staff were just as bad as the patients, and I had to fight to have a hearing to get out. As the doctors even stated that I am not a danger to myself, the judge very quickly ruled in my favor, even though they wanted to keep me there even longer to give me even more medication. 

By June, I required another course of oral steroids, but they were less effective this time. I still felt like I managed pretty well, physically, at this point, despite the pain, which was mostly limited to my time in the gym or being on my feet for too long. Pride happened, and it was definitely a disaster, as I spent most of it trying to avoid being arrested because I was crying under the steps at the GLCC, and none of the kids there believed me when I told them I used to volunteer there and needed a safe place to be until Lyndsey came back. I don't even remember the rest of the month. Then came July. I still think about that night. I still have horrible flashbacks from which it's hard to escape. Flashbacks of memories I couldn't remember at the time, flashbacks to being screamed at and thrown out, flashbacks to being in that hospital, to losing everything. The fear hits me, and I feel everything all over again and wonder if and when it will happen again. I want to make this part of the story short because I don't want to fall into that place.

I had a psychotic break and destroyed everything after coming home from the bar (only had a drink and a half all night). I began to drink more when I got home, but I quickly stopped after half a drink or so because it tasted terrible. I remember being on Facebook at that point. The next thing I remembered was standing at the foot of the stairs being screamed at, surrounded by the carnage. He was furious and terrified of me at the same time, and I will never forget how that made me feel.The police came. I waited outside. When they came out, the taller of the two told me that I was a piece of shit and that he would have done to me what I did in there. I was taken to WPIC again to plead my case. I told them everything, and they let me go home. The only problem was that it was no longer my home. I went with a friend after grabbing a few things, but I knew I wasn't going to be okay. I changed my mind and went back to the hospital, but this time, I ended up spending 19 hours in the Mercy waiting room before being shipped out to McKeesport. I had never felt so much psychological pain. I decided then and there that these medications had to stop because I was no longer in control. I was completely detached from everything about myself. The staff did not seem happy about my decision and continued to attempt to force me to take them. At one point, my doctor told me that I wasn't really trans--that I was just gay. That's when things changed for me. I felt more motivated than ever to get out and get on with my life. I consulted Patient Rights booklet as well as the hospital mission statement. I used every piece of information that I could and wrote a letter explaining that my rights were being violated, listing all the relevant details with citations, and that I wanted to be released. I still had to wait 72 hours. When my parents came, we grabbed the dog. I received a hug that told me everything was going to be okay, but I still had to leave. 

The psychological pain followed me, and it was accompanied by the most physical anxiety I have ever experienced. But within a couple of weeks, I started to feel like myself again. I focused on my own well-being. I fell back into my gym routine with ease, got a job, and started spending time with my family. I went swimming almost every day. I looked forward to talking with him at night, and it crushed me whenever I couldn't. It was a rough two months. I went to visit for a long weekend. It was August 20th. I decided to stay a few extra days and go down to our drag family's house in Virginia with him. When it came time to leave, I remember being in the shower and looking at him. We both knew what I was about to say. I never went back to Larksville. 

The physical pain had begun to increase when I started working again. I worked in the warehouse at Dick's sporting goods, frequently lifting objects weighing several hundred pounds and hauling pallets weighing thousands. I spent eight hours a day doing this and working on shipping orders. It took me a day to recover when we had a truck, which I had to help unload from 4AM to 1PM two days per week. When I decided not to go back to Larksville, we stayed with Jackson's mom. We started looking for apartments in Morgantown right away, though it took us until nearly the end of October to find one that would allow all three dogs. (At this point, I had received two additional courses of oral steroids, which only helped while I was taking them. As soon as they stopped, the pain came back.)

Our house in Morgantown was the first one that was truly ours together. We did the best we could to make it our home. One night, my pain changed for the worse. I remember trying to lie down in bed next to him, but I felt a shot of pain followed by muscle spasms. It wouldn't go away. I couldn't walk on my own. So the ambulance came, and I was taken to the ER again. I know I made that kind of trip more than once, but the details get fuzzy again. November and December were rough. I got a job preparing taxes, though I wasn't making much. I was the best, even better than the manager, so I got the job of checking all the returns from all five offices for accuracy. Sounds great, except that I made none of the commission that I would have just preparing returns. Sitting up in a chair that long became impossible. The pain would cause me to tighten to the extent that every muscle in my back, up to my traps, would lock. It felt like I was being beaten repeatedly. I had to leave that job too. Shortly after the new year, I ended up in the hospital again, and again. I was admitted, at which time I saw no fewer than six spine doctors, two physical therapists, a few surgeons, etc. Some told me that the pain was definitely from my disc herniation. Others said it wasn't. Some said there may not be a cause. One said I would be in pain for the rest of my life. The physical therapist here was the first to hint that my pain could be coming from my SI joint, so I began doing my research. However, I still couldn't walk without agonizing pain, though I forced myself to try. Because I could move--no matter how painful it was or how nauseous that pain made me feel--I was given a walker and sent home. But, as I mentioned, I never used it. 

Soon after starting a mostly useless round of PT, we were leaving Morgantown after living in our home for only five months. It was hard to say goodbye. But life happened in a way that neither one of us expected. It was torturous to watch him go through that without being able to do anything about it. But it took a toll on both of us. A few weeks later, I decided to take some time off from the gym to see if that really could get my pain under control, and that was the worst health decision I've ever made. The pain got worse, and I ended up spending almost a month just lying in my bed, only getting up to go to the bathroom and sometimes having no more than a protein shake a day. I lost almost 25 pounds in that time. I had reached a breaking point. I came closer to killing myself than I ever have not too long after. But I survived, and I started over. I did a little more each day, and the weight came back after not too long. I had such high hopes that coming back to Pittsburgh would be the chance to start over and finally get proper treatment. The pain was still largely unbearable, and I'd often require help showering and getting dressed. It was all I could think about. I avoided and still largely avoid most interactions, even though I don't want to, because I get so much more easily overwhelmed, and it's hard to watch other people do things that you can no longer do. I miss my friends. Terribly. 

I had an appointment with the same doctor who had seen me for my shin splints in 2010. I should have known this was a mistake because I have had shin splints for the last 6.5 years, continuously. He of course told me that surgery was not an option at this time and that other options were available, though he didn't tell me what they were. He wanted me to get an MRI, and when I told him I had just had one not two months before, he didn't seem to care. He didn't even look at any of the images his techs had taken. He again wanted to focus on my spine and the disc. I was prepared for the appointment. I explained how I sometimes have trouble remembering to say everything, so I wrote a detailed explanation of the pain and my treatment/experienced up to that point. He told me, "Well, I'm not going to read that, so just give me the abridged version." I stumbled through, trying my best to make sure I got everything out, but he kept interrupting me. He told me to see a colleague of his, but not why. He also told me to see an anesthesiologist for another injection, but he didn't tell me where (spine, SI, hip). I did forget to mention that, when I went to the emergency room and explained that I also had pain in what felt like my lower/outside right hip, they finally took a x-ray of the area, though I had mentioned this several times before. It turns out that I have a slight cam deformity on my right femur. However, it may have been there all my life. Maybe it does cause me some pain, as I recall feeling a pinching sensation every time I spread my legs to the side or when I attempt a split. It now makes sense why I'm not capable of really doing that kind of split. Perhaps the SI issues and associated muscle spasms/tightness have made this more irritating. That's my best guess, given what I know now.

After that appointment, which left me more confused and hopeless, the depression hit hard. I tried my best to keep ahead, but the pain wasn't getting much better. I'd be able to suffer through a day or two, and I would feel less depressed when I could function, but dragging myself out of bed to face day after day of constant, agonizing pain brought back to a pretty dark place. When I had planned to kill myself--the time when I was closest to succeeding--I fully accepted that I would be in pain forever. I was reaching that point again, feeling like there was no hope. I didn't even want to try to get help anymore. It took a little over a month for me to make the next move, though part of that stemmed from the fact that it took forever to straighten things out regarding my insurance. In the meantime, I ended up at WPIC again for a week. And that experience was a complete disaster that left me feeling even worse.

The night before I decided to go back, I remember staring blankly at the ceiling, unable to move. I felt so disconnected, and it really scared Jackson. When I was able to finally get up after half an hour or so, I came downstairs to write. That started out okay, but I remember getting to a point when my brain wouldn't function anymore, and I ended up just writing the word "HELP" until there were no more pages left in the journal. Eventually, the words became violent scribbles and circles. I tore holes in the pages with each stroke. The next day, I ended up starting blankly again. This, on top of the pain, was too much. I knew I had to do something, so I decided to go to the hospital. I requested to be placed on the 13th floor, where I knew I could get treatment from a team that had worked with me previously. After watching a male doctor threaten to 302 a female patient for not submitting to a third strip search for him (she had been taken back and forth between WPIC and Presby), I already felt like I had made a mistake. It turns out that she became completely cooperative when asked by a female nurse. I was called into the triage room to speak with the nurse, and Jackson was about to follow me. She held her hand out against him and told him he could not come in. I panicked and wasn't able to speak immediately, and after a few seconds of silence, her tone became pretty aggressive. She screamed for me to "look her in the eye", and it was at that point that I told her I wanted to leave. She yelled at me to leave the room. I ended up shaking in the waiting room for a while before I was able to come back in, this time with Jackson. She proceeded to talk to him like I wasn't even in the room, telling him how uncooperative I was being, etc. At this point, my anger allowed me to voice an opinion about that. After long talks with this nurse, a tech, and a clinician, we decided it was best that I stay. They told me that I would be taken to 5A and transferred to 13 when a bed became available. This turned out to be a lie. 

5A is essentially small, L-shaped hallway that can only house nine patients at a time in six rooms, each of which is only large enough to fit a plastic bed, not even twin size. I could see on my wall where someone had tried to scratch the word "HELP" in 16-inch letters. The irony was a bit too much for me then. After sitting in the plastic chairs in the waiting room all night, the pain became excruciating. A few hours after arriving on 5A, the bed wasn't helping much either. I couldn't hold it back anymore. I began to scream in pain. I actually cried. It was 30 minutes before anyone came. They told me they would get a doctor to see me. It wasn't long before someone came to assess me. By that, I mean that, while I was screaming and could barely breathe or focus my eyes, I was being told to roll over, move this way or that way, and my limbs were being pulled, etc. Then she left, and I screamed for probably another hour and a half, until I passed out from exhaustion. When I woke up, the nurse told me that I could have Ibuprofen. Nothing else. I believe I mentioned several times that Ibuprofen did not work at all, and that, if it had, I probably wouldn't be there. I struggled to even sit up for the next two days, unable to really attend groups--when they weren't cancelled. At this point, the nurse finally called the medical team again. I was given oral steroids again. Nothing else for pain except Ibuprofen, even though I had mentioned that the combination of gabapentin and indomethacin, with an occasional percocet in bad circumstances, usually helped me at least manage. However, after the first day, the intensity had died down enough for me to at least move around a little more. Around this time, I found out that one of the staff members was repeatedly and intentionally misgendering me, even after being corrected. Most groups were cancelled because they didn't have enough staff, even though we only had four patients on the floor. I remember a social skills group during which the MT handed each of us a piece of paper, told us to ask each other the questions on the paper, and went to go watch TV. I spent most of my time coloring. For two days in a row, we had no groups at all, actually. Just markers that didn't work and a deck or two of cards. The groups made me fee like I was being mocked. In the first group I attended, the MT spent a lot of time talking about how to use physical activity to relieve anxiety and depression. What a kick in the nuts. 

The rest of the team--doctor, social worker, etc.--seemed okay. The staff were just terrible, and I didn't feel like I was getting any treatment at all. I was just sitting there starting to feel more hopeless and worse about myself. We agreed on a short stay so that I could attend my pain clinic appointment the day after discharge, and I feel like the team stopped caring once that decision was made. I had met with a clinician to tease apart a diagnosis. He told me bipolar unspecified. My discharge papers simply said "depression". Now, if you know anything about how psych treatment works, medications for depression can often worsen symptoms of bipolar disorder, so I found this particularly troubling. I was placed on carbamazepine in the hospital, and I would be attending IOP when a spot became available. 

I went to my pain clinic appointment after discharge, and when the doctor told me that I should give up, I felt like running right back to the hospital. The news immediately crushed me. Not only could I not get any even temporary relief, I was being told that there was no hope. Jackson snapped. He quoted the mission statement of the clinic, which clearly states that their goal is to both manage pain and identify potential causes. He accused her, quite fittingly I believe, of just trying to secure another long-term patient rather than actually helping me. No matter how we attempted to explain that I had not received any continuous care over this period, and that the pain does not fit the classic "chronic pain" model that everyone seemed to force on me, she refused to believe that an answer existed. She told me that every doctor I see will find something different and that it would just be more confusing. So, when I asked her what the point of her program would be if I could no longer engage in any meaningful activities, I expected some sort of discussion. I was still willing to have that conversation. But she got up, told me that we were done here, and left the room. We left, but I ended up walking back in to schedule the intake sessions for each portion of the pain group because I felt like I had nothing left to lose. I never attended any of them. 

Though I had begun to feel better with the carbamazepine, something wasn't right. I was now more anxious than ever. I had to leave the bedroom quite frequently to sleep downstairs because I didn't want to wake him with my screaming, shaking, and hyperventilating. They decided to increase the dose a little. This actually seemed to help a bit. I was a week into IOP, and while it seemed to simply offer me an excuse to get out of bed, I figured it wouldn't hurt. 

A few weeks ago, I started feeling itchy all over. It happened a lot, and it was more intense than anything I had ever felt. Within a few days, I had a rash on my chest and arms. I took some benadryl and an oatmeal bath, convinced it must have been from cleaning chemicals in the hotel we had stayed at over the weekend. When that didn't help, I figured I would go to the doctor the next day after IOP. I ended up having to leave a little early because it was getting so intense that I couldn't handle it, and I was so physically exhausted that I felt like I would collapse. We went to urgent care, and I explained that I had started taking carbamazepine recently and that the dose had just been increased not a week before. She asked me about sore throat symptoms, looked at my tongue, if I had been around anyone sick, etc. She consulted with the lead physician. I was diagnosed with scarlet fever, even though I had no throat symptoms, no fever, no strawberry tongue, or any other signs. I took the antibiotics for two or three days, but I continued to worsen. This time, I started experiencing raging fevers. The rash had become raised, dark red, and scaly all over. It was spreading fast. I was having a lot of trouble breathing, and I couldn't stay awake for more than a few hours each day. When I woke up one morning, my lower abdomen was distended at least three to four inches. I knew it was time to go back, but I was terrified of that. I've been to the hospital so many times that I often feel like the won't take me seriously when I do go. We went to the emergency room shortly after finding out that the strep culture had come back negative. I was admitted and diagnosed with DRESS (drug reaction with eosinophilia and systemic symptoms) syndrome. My liver had sustained some damage, along with my lymphatic system and several components of my blood. I spent three days in the hospital, though I didn't move much from bed for a while after getting home. I couldn't even handle looking at myself. My face and body did not look like my own and still aren't fully back to normal, and that messed with my head much more than I expected. There's also like a 15 percent chance I will develop an autoimmune disorder in the next three to five years. Let's hope my luck takes a different turn.

After I got out of the hospital, I started being stubborn. I attempted to deadlift. It didn't go that well the first time; however, I was able to do more the next time. I was moving better. I ended up squatting for the first time in over a year. There was pain, of course. But it was easier to manage, though heavier weight was obviously more painful. I felt more flexible. I knew all along that this exercise is one of the best things for people with back problems, contrary to what most doctors trying to cover their asses will tell you. Given that I use proper form, it's likely that this exercise forces my joints to move appropriately. Squatting is even comparatively easier after deadlifting. In fact, when I listened and eliminated squats from my workout altogether, that's when things slowly started to worsen to this extent. I should have trusted myself and my knowledge of body mechanics, instead of allowing medical "professionals" to tell me that they know better. These past few years were yet another lesson for me, reminding me that not all doctors are actually smart. 

Anyway, my appointment with Dr. Vyas was amazing. Both he and his resident were extremely thorough, and once I explained my symptoms and that most doctors had focused solely on the disc, he immediately chimed quite casually that that didn't make any sense because the disc herniation was to the left, and all of my pain--except when changing positions or in cases of extreme muscle spasms--was on the right. It seemed perfectly clear to him, and he walked me through the x-ray of my SI joints, which showed a little bit of arthritis, though not a significant amount. He mentioned that it's pretty typical in people who put that much stress on the joint. He also made me aware that there were some bony spurs in the area, but that these just happen and don't really cause too much trouble. He seems to think that it may be more of a mechanical/alignment issue, which is wonderful news in a way. There are quite a few options for dealing with that, including injections, radiofrequency ablation, chiropractic adjustments, SI belt, targeted therapy, etc. Finally having a solid answer makes me so much more optimistic. 

I went in for the injection the next morning, as I mentioned, and the team was quite friendly. However, I will never forget this next scenario. As I was lying on the table with my pants halfway down, the tech started rubbing the ultrasound gel on that area in a circular motion. There was silence as the song had just ended on the radio station. Then, with perfect timing, "Let's Get it On" started playing. The silence only lasted for a second as one of the techs let out some sort of snort/giggle, and then everyone in the room lost it. 

Right now, the anesthetic has indeed worn off, and I'm just waiting. I start PT next week, but I'll be working on things until then on my own. I finally feel like I have some control back. I finally feel like I may be able to move forward with my life. (Before I forget, I mentioned earlier that disc surgery immediately following the accident may have been a good idea because it is very likely that this mechanical issue developed during the recovery period. The doctor seemed to agree with me on that last point.) It's hard to keep the mental aspects separate from the physical, which is why I detailed both stories here. 

I'm still nervous that this will be a hard road. I've wasted so much time like this, and I worry about the worst possible scenarios for pretty much every aspect of my life. But, I'm trying to keep that in check. I'm hopeful, finally. I'm trying not to question it. And I'm trying to be proud of myself for even making it this far, though I certainly had help along the way. I'm still working on me, but this has made it so much easier. I'm ready. 



2 comments:

  1. Be proud of yourself. I'm proud of you too. You stubborn, persistent human being. I'm glad you're alive. <3

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  2. What K said. Stubborn and persistent are two sides of the same coin, and survival is a radical act. <3

    ~B.

    ReplyDelete