What a drag it is getting old

balbert May 22, 2011 Health or what a messed up spring i’m having… So it all started the middle of April when I started to feel bad on a Saturday. Fever and a slight cough. Things got worse over the weekend but then they started to get better the beginning of the week. Still had the fever and was living on Tylenol but felling better each day. the one thing that kept worrying me was the gurgling in my chest. Never had that before, so off to the doctor on Wed to find out I had pneumonia. He gave me a course of some powerful antibiotics. After taking my first pill, Robin read that one of the side effects was hallucinations. Well i never hallucinated but that first night things were a little strange. I spent the rest of that week on the couch trying to avoid coughing which was slowly developing a sharp pain in the right side of my lower back. I dreaded the cough as it would shoot sharp pains down my butt and outside of my right leg down to the outside of my calf. The following week I started back to work feeling much better, but still week and i was starting to develop sciatic pain. Nothing that was too bad and over the course of the morning that involved some stretching and hot shower and heated seats in the Passat, i could walk okay with out pain by late morning. Slowly but surely I started to get better but the sciatica continued and kind of started to get worse. Robin went away for the weekend to visit her dad and step mom in LA and next to my kidney stones, the morning walk for the dog was one of the most painful things I’ve felt. Still it would always seem to work it’s self out and get better. Finally after a couple of weeks of things not getting better, Robin convinced me to see our acupuncturist. She had helped me with a similar thing a couple of years prior. So I went on a Wednesday night and the treatment felt pretty good while i was on the table, but when I got up to leave things actually seemed a little worse. That evening I iced a little but still it was not better but not too much worse. Then came Thursday morning and the pain. I could not stand… I could not walk… I was in bad shape. Luckily I was able to get an appointment with my Doctor later that morning. I rested for a couple of hours and then the time came were i had to get to the car to get to the appointment. This was the start of 50 feet of pain and agony that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy as they say, but actually i probably would cuz it hurt like a mother fucker! I crawled and part of the way out of the bedroom then used the table and chairs and walls to slowly limp out the back door and the stairs to the patio. Robin pulled up behind the house and I some how got to the car. When we pulled up to the medical building and she was going to drop me at the elevator so she could park, I knew there was no way I could walk to the office so I had to ask her to see if they had a wheelchair I could use. She parked and went off in search and I was praying that she could bring something back cuz there was NO way i was going to make it. Thank the gods, cuz she came back with a wheelchair and I struggled to get out of the car and in the chair and then she wheeled me to the checkin. Luckily i could just go straight in and when the nurse asked if i could stand for a weight I said i’d prefer not especially since i was just in a week ago for my pneumonia check up. i couldn’t have changed that much. Then the diagnoses, bulging and/or herniated disk. In fact it was a classic L5 disk based on the way the pain went and how I couldn’t keep my big toe up on my right side when he pushed on it. I was starting to get a little worried because Robin’s dad had just gotten surgery for the same basic thing and I didn’t want to have surgery. Options that i had were course of prednisone, direct injection of something into my spine at the disc or surgery. The doctor recommended we start with the pred and go from there and we agreed. So they called in a prescription for the pred and also some Hydrocodone. With the time on my back I started to search the internets for help ;-). I actually found this guy, a chiropractor, Dr. Ron who’s side http://www.healyourbulgingdisc.com made a lot of sense. First I started with his advice on ice and that actually started to give me some relief. I also think the pred started to kick in and the Hydrocodon didn’t hurt either. So now after a few icing sessions I can get around the house with my “walker” (chair with wheels that i lean on). At least I can sometimes put the ice pack back in the freezer and get it out for my next session. I’ve now been sick for like 5 weeks and it is a drag on everyone especially Robin who has been great taking care of me. Thanks!