My Back

Alright folks, so here's the scoop:
I've been having pain in my back again for weeks now. I was trying to get back to being more active and started going for daily walks. It started with just 15 minutes a day for 6 days for the first week. Then I moved it up to 30 minutes a day for 5 to 6 days the next.

Then I moved up to walking by kilometer (figured it would be fun hatching eggs in my PokemonGo game while working up a sweat). I was going either 2-5km for 6 out of 7 days a week and feeling awesome.

Now, I've been having serious back trouble since I injured my lower lumbar area at work back in 2009. THAT injury required injections into the tissue around my spine, physical therapy and several months off from work.

Back in October of 2016, my back started acting up again. I didn't do anything specific to it this time. Unfortunately, every day wear on my back from working 3rd shift front end and stocking, then Cap 2 unloading and stocking at walmart for the last several years just wore down an already problematic lumbar region.

Treating it meant a weight lifting restriction at work of no more than 10lbs. Because I hadn't specifically done an injury to it at work, and despite it being all brought on by that original 2009 injury, Walmart decided it wasn't their fault anymore so they were not required to move me to at position where I didn't have to lift anymore. They told me I could come back when the restrictions were off and I would have to be on an LOA. (Leave of Absence).

Because I was taking an unapproved LOA until I could process it, my insurance was made inactive.

No insurance? No more treatment.

No more treatment? Can't get healed up to go back to work.

No work? No paycheck.

No paycheck? No more rent money, no more car... after everything I had already lost that year, I had to lose even more.

Oh and to boot, my general practitioner doctor moved out of state so no more Doctor? No more anxiety meds

Fast forward to this year. After that awful ear infection mess, the silver lining turned out to be that I was eligible for Medicaid.

Now that I had insurance, I was able to make an appointment with a new Doctor up here that my folks recommended, Dr. Isayenko.

I'm very comfortable talking to her, she has me back on my anxiety meds. She's helping me get my allergies under control, too.

Now,  those few weeks back when I was still walking every day, my back started aching again. I didn't worry too much to start with as I figured it was just my body getting used to being active again.

It kept getting worse though, and when I finally decided I wanted to get it before it got worse, I made an appointment with my new doctor too discuss it.

She put me on Naproxin and told me to take over the counter Extra strength Tylenol with it twice a day.

It helped for a little over a week. I started getting back to my afternoon walks again but the pain didn't disappear. Every morning whether I had been out the day before or taking it easy indoors, it would hurt and burn and throb. It was getting harder to even get out of bed.
Yesterday, while in the middle of my Alma week visit, I woke up at Richie's in a LOT of pain, at least a 7 on the pain scale.

I decided to forego any plans that day, stay in bed and do some reading. I figured taking my pain meds and relaxing the body was better than pushing it further.

By the time Richie got home around 11:30pm, I couldn't move right to get out of bed. Eventually I managed to get up and go to the bathroom and moving about seemed to help, so I sat up a while instead of laying back down.

I needed to sleep eventually though and when I got up, it was because it was time for my folks to get to Alma to grab me. The problem being is that my back was now throbbing, spasming and having shooting pains that wrapped around my lower lumbar to my hip and down my thigh.

I couldn't move. At all. Every slight movement was like someone was stabbing 40 knives into my back while someone else was prying my tailbone from the rest of my body with a crowbar while someone else was holding me over a roaring fire.

No one could get me up. The pain was so bad, I was screaming. This led to calling an ambulance.

Before I could even get to the ambulance, they had to get me down the winding staircase. This meant some drugs in an i.v. to try to ease the pain.

Fentanyl. This stuff is supposed to be more intense than morphine and for a few seconds, SERIOUSLY, SECONDS, I felt great. Then we tried to move me again.

I was screaming in pain the entire time. It was excruciating.

Once I reached the emergency room, I was given a second dose of Fentanyl via a pain patch, some valium, and a muscle relaxer; When all of those combined failed to knock out my pain even minutely, I was given morphine.

This helped just barely take the edge off.

All of these meds together are a really heavy duty cocktail of narcotics and it barely took off the slightest pressure to my level of pain. It took it from an easy 10 to a 9, almost 8.

Now, I guess the Emergency room will only treat symptoms and not the cause of the symptoms, so they did no xray, no MRI and while agreeing I need one, also made it clear that it wouldn't be from them.

Fed up and barely able to walk, I had them discharge me.

They sent me home with a script for Valium, the Fentanyl patches and to continue wth my Naproxin.

My parents took me to get food because by now, my stomach contained plenty of meds and absolutely no food.

Then we decided to drive back to Gaylord to the hospital my Doctor works within in hopes she was on call tonight.

Unfortunately, she is not and just like Alma, they can't do MRI scans either. My only option is to try to get through the weekend and call my Doctor then.

What really sucks is that she wants me to start my physical therapy on Monday morning.

I am convinced it will make it worse but I guess we will see what happens. Anyhow, they still added Norco to my scripts for meds so I am definitely covered to get through until I can talk to my doctor on Monday.

There's the update for you all.

Thanks for the thoughts, prayers, kind messages and check ins. I love you guys too.