Posted 7:54 PM by RedSox
The Experiment continues...

This time through a Vicodin induced haze.

A warning: this entire post will be about me and my sore back. Not thrilling stuff but it is what’s on my mind these days.

So as I said in my last post and Boogieshoes talked about yesterday, I injured my back on Sunday. I can handle quite a bit of pain but this has been almost constant since then. It has started to really wear me down. It was so slight a wrong movement too. I was picking up a pair of skis and twisting to the right at the same time as my left foot slipped on a patch of ice. Not a big slip, just a tiny one but enough that it felt like something exploded in my back.

I tried resting it Sunday evening and Monday but it just wouldn’t get any better. I managed to go into work for a half day on Monday before I had to give up and come home. I tried again for work on Tuesday. My doctor doesn’t work on Mondays so first thing on Tuesday I called him and got an appointment for that afternoon. He looked me over and we decided on a course of action. He gave me Soma, a muscle relaxer, and Ibuprophen 800mgs, an anti-inflammatory. We decided to rest it for few days and if it wasn’t better by Friday, I’d call him back and we’d take some X-rays and try some other things.

As an aside, I had lost about 30 pounds since the last time I had been to him back in the summer. Go me!!!!

So I took Wednesday off from work to rest the damn thing. It never really felt any better. I stayed home again today and if anything it felt worse. The stuff he gave me wasn’t touching the pain. So I couldn’t wait for tomorrow and called the doctor back today. He gave me Vicodin and we had X-rays done.

X-rays. A most humiliating and uncomfortable 30 minutes. I get in there and they make you take your pants off and put on the open back hospital type robe. Right off the bat, a lousy start. I have a bad back. Taking off and putting on one’s pants requires bending said back. I wore my boxer briefs so I’m not too bad about having my ass hanging out of the back of one of these robes as I limp the few feet from the changing closet (I refuse to call it a room) to the x-ray room.

So I get in the room and the technician tells me to “hop up on the table”. Hop up on the table! Damn woman, I can hardly walk how did she expect me to get up on a 4 foot high table. They have this little stool to help you up so after much grunting, and swearing and pain, I am sitting on the edge of the table.

“Now lie flat on your back.” So some more swearing and grunting and pain.

“Um, could you center yourself on the table a bit.” So with one loud grunt and a quiet swear, I shift the whole load of me over 3 inches.

Now I’m getting felt up.

“I need to find where your hips are.”

I replied, “Hey, knock yourself out.”

So they took two shots and nicely irradiated my manhood. They might even glow tonight, who knows.

So the technician says, “Ok, I have to look at these shots before a take a couple of others. Stay there (like I was going anywhere) and try not to move.”

If you haven’t had the pleasure of lying flat on your back on an x-ray table for 5 minutes, let me tell you something: I don’t think man could devise a more uncomfortable flat smooth surface. First off, the bastard is cold. Really cold. Secondly, it is also really, really hard.
So after about 5 minutes and some more back pain, she returns.

“Ok, now roll over on your side. “

“Which side?” I ask, knowing what she will say.

“Face towards the wall.”

OK, so now more grunting, swearing, and pain ensues and here I am on my left side (the side that hurts) lying there with my ass sticking straight out towards everyone. You know the ass where the hospital gown doesn’t cover.

So two more x-rays later she says, “Stay like that for about 5 minutes.”

Ok the only thing more uncomfortable than lying flat on your back on the icy hardness of the x-ray table is lying on your injured side on the icy hardness of the x-ray table - with your ass hanging out.

She comes back and says, “Ok, you are all set, hop on down.” More grunting swear, and pain later I am finally headed towards the changing closet and my nice, covering, pants.

So that was fun.

Hopefully I’ll hear the results from my doctor tomorrow. I don’t know what they are thinking they are going got find on x-rays considering it is most likely a muscular problem but hey, I guess they have to look at everything.

So now I have Vicodin. I nice 10 day supply. I rarely, if ever, take narcotic pain relievers. I rarely need to. So I took one a few hours ago and it has blasted me like a ton of bricks. I was just sitting there thinking, “Hey, this seems to be helping my pain.” When I suddenly needed a nap. So I took a short one and am feeling ok now.

Finally something is helping the pain. Seriously, the pain was almost constantly there for the last 4 days. Whether I was standing, sitting, or lying down. I just couldn’t get away from it.

So we’ll see what happens tomorrow.

Until next time...

Posted 10:27 PM by RedSox
The Experiment Continues…

Well, I’ve been gone for a while. Lots going on, not much to say.

I’m writing this in extreme pain. I have been having back problems for over two weeks and today I slipped on some ice while moving some skis at a Special Olympic practice a screwed my back up good.

So what is going on that I want to talk about? Not too much really.

Work is the same. Still no promotion. The project I’ve been working on is merrily moving along at it’s own pace. I’ve lost control. Our IT department is putting up any obstacle that they can in front of this thing. It is maddening especially since it is fixing something that they neglected in the first place.

I broke my truck. I was pulling into a parking spot on the top floor of the parking garage and my truck just wouldn’t stop. I went right through the spot and into the restraining cables that keep you from ending up one floor below. I still can’t exactly figure out what happened. It felt like a I hit a patch of ice but I couldn’t any ice. He brakes worked and I heard the anti-lock brakes engage. Just weird. So the cables broke a nice 6 or 7 inch hole in the plastic over the grill and practically pulled my front license plate housing off. Lovely!

Like I say, not much to say tonight.

Until next time…