Hai, y'all!
Before we get started tonight, I'm happy to tell you that our den mother, Noor B, came through her surgery on Thursday with flying colors and got discharged yesterday! I talked to DH this afternoon and was excited to hear that Noor's nerve pain is GONE. YAY!!
WYFP (What's Your Fucking Problem) is our community's Saturday evening gathering to talk about our problems, empathize with one another, and share advice, pootie pictures, favorite adult beverages, and anything else we think might help. Everyone, and all sorts of troubles, are welcome. May we find peace and healing here. Won't you please share the joy of WYFP by recommending?
My fucking problem is that my warranty seems to have expired at about the same time my healthcare providers have lost their usual genius for diagnosing and treating whatever goes wrong with me. Worse, there are no simple solutions any more. Every treatment, whether it be for cataracts or dental problems or headaches, seems to be only partially successful and/or it creates new problems that defy easy diagnosis or treatment.
This particular run of bad luck began over a year ago when my car was rear-ended by a young woman more interested in her smart phone than her driving. The resulting whiplash injury took months and months to heal and required untold hours of time with a chiropractor, a massage therapist, and a pain specialist. A round of trigger point injections finally ended that saga, but the scheduling was a nightmare. After each set of injections by the pain specialist I had to drive across town and be on the therapy table within an hour so the now-deadened trigger points could be massaged loose. After each massage I had to see the chiropractor for an assessment of progress and any necessary adjustments. He and I would then determine the timing of the next round. I don't know how I would have managed if the pain specialist hadn't been so accommodating. "I can squeeze you in any time. Call me when you get the other guys scheduled and I'll know to expect you right before the massage."
At about the same time I saw my dentist, complaining of occasional pain in the upper right quadrant of my jaw. I couldn't narrow it down any better than that and his exam and x-rays couldn't spot the trouble. Have you ever seen inside the main utility box for phone lines in an office building? It looks like an indecipherable mass of multicolored wires. That's a good description of dental nerves. When a nerve in the root of a tooth gets infected or loses its blood supply or suffers trauma, nearby nerves often get cramped or stressed and start sending pain signals of their own. Diagnosis based on location of pain is often impossible. If you happened to read this diary you know I eventually lost a right first molar in January after numerous trips to the dentist, several x-rays, a failed root canal, and a traumatic extraction.
Three days later I awakened with a profound hearing loss in my right ear, coupled with a hideously loud ringing. (Regulars of this series no doubt remember my whining about THAT.) The tooth was gone and along with it my jaw pain, but now I had to see an ear, nose, and throat specialist, undergo a hearing test, have an MRI, return to the ENT, and watch him shrug his shoulders. "It may be a virus. It may resolve. It may not."
The ringing gradually subsided and my hearing returned over a period of several weeks, but you'll understand my dismay when I began having dental pain on the left side this month. That molar had a very large, quite old filling which revealed decay underneath when my dentist removed it. He drilled out the decay and put in a new filling. "That's going to be sore," he said. No; that was the worst pain I've ever experienced, building day by day until I couldn't eat or drink or sleep over Labor Day weekend. The warranty had expired on that tooth. I had a root canal - not something I ever want to experience again - and was instructed to have the tooth crowned as soon as possible. After almost two weeks and a bite adjustment I still have occasional pain when chewing on that side, so the story will continue Monday when I have to decide: crown or extraction?
And then there was my cataract surgery. The vast majority of people have nothing but raves about the experience. I hit a pothole on my journey. From side effects of eye drops to incompetent post-op care to one lens that hasn't settled in the capsule to a nightmare getting new glasses, this is a story without an ending yet. It's been that kind of year.
My pain specialist - the other one, the lower back guy - insisted I get an MRI after I had so much pain at Netroots Nation. The results weren't unexpected but were depressing, nevertheless. In the four years since my last MRI my spinal stenosis has gotten worse. I told the doc I feel like we're playing defense, and he said, "Exactly, Kelley. There is no offense with this type of degeneration."
Feel the base of your skull where it sits on your neck. The two boney bumps are the occipital bones. There is a nerve that passes over each bump, the occipital nerve. Wake one of those puppies up, as I did recently, and you'll get the worst headaches of your life. This time diagnosis was fairly straightforward and getting my neck realigned immediately lowered the frequency and severity of the headaches, but like everything else I've been experiencing there is no "quick fix". While still considered an acute problem the headaches threaten to move into the dreaded chronic column, one more thing I never saw coming and may never see the end of.
My annual mammogram is next week. I hope I won't need the bumpersticker that says, "What fresh hell is THIS?"
And yet, today is a good day. This is the peak weekend for fall colors in Colorado and Mother Nature has added deep blue skies, a nice breeze, and plenty of leaf peepers for our mountain merchants. My family is healthy, my pooties are healthy, my bills are (mostly) paid, and today my pain level is easily treated with distraction and NSAID's. I get to spend the evening with my friends here!
Now it's your turn. What's your fucking problem?