Move Along, Nothing to See Here

Well, the withdrawal symptom have worked themselves out, I'm taking the sleepy time Tylenol at night only and feel alright nearly medication free!  

I have been trying to balance activity with common sense, which is a challenge.  I really don't know how much walking, the only acceptable exercise, I should be doing.  I read a lot of online information and have found a great website with others going through the exact same things.  Anyways, some people are walking waaaaayyyy more than me.  I shoot for a minimum of an hour a day in several sessions on the treadmill  but some people are walking like 45 miles a day.  My damned competitive nature then kicks in and I end up in these imaginary competitions that no one else knows they are a part of.  So, I walked too far and too fast (yes, I kicked that baby up to 2 mph! Land speed record beware!). My hip.  Sweet lord, too much!  

Pain creates moderation.  True story.  I learned from that so I have slowed back down to a thoughtful 1 to 1.5 mph and feel much, much better!  The treadmill is not real life however.  Walking out and about is still surprisingly challenging.  We went grocery shopping and the hour spent there was much harder. I finally just said "I'm done" and sat out in the car.  People don't seem to understand they need to stay the hell away from me.  I can't spend the whole time yelling "Hey, crazy lady with the cart!  Watch where you are going!". I can't dodge the careless grocery cart drivers with the finesse of normal people.  And could we have more pot holes for the drive home, that would be awesome too.  

My sense of taste is slowly returning to normal and so I'm enjoying cooking again.  I'm sure I'm still using significantly less seasoning than normal but it's improving.  Standing to cook and bake is pretty tiring too though.  We have a hard, irregular tile kitchen floor.  It's lovely, but not cushy at all.  I make it about 45 minutes before I really need to take a break.  Not bad though!  

I hope I'm doing enough but not too much to optimize healing.... I was just told to walk but don't do anything that hurts or do too much.  Man, that is not very specific.  

What Fresh Hell is This?

I'm nearly a month out from the second surgery, all in all I was feeling fairly optimistic about the whole ordeal.  The key word in the previous sentence being was.  

I'm not a big pill popper as a rule, I generally skip pain medication, even aspirin so being on Gabapentin and Tramadol for months for pain is weird for me.  The main warning on both medications was not to quit suddenly or without doctor's oversight. I read on the Internet that there could be some nasty withdrawals from Tramadol so I asked and was told that it is a non narcotic and so it is not an issue.  I know any idiot with an opinion can post them as fact on the Internet so I chalked the withdrawal warnings up to that.  Funny story, sometimes the Internet is right.   

I have felt the pain meds were mostly gratuitous and asked about weaning off of them.  "No problem, stop them at your own pace" was the response.  So cool.  I went from 3 times a day down to 2 then at night only.  Three days ago I decided enough was enough and I quit taking all of them.  OK, what happened next was not expected.  Itchy, crawly, yuckiness.  Not much more pain, yes a bit more achey ness, more stiffness in the morning, and when standing up but not intolerable.  Oh, but the itching, bitching, moody, malaise that showed up...what the hell!   Oh, and the runny nose and desperate desire to sneeze every 5 seconds, just the frosting on the cake.  Sneezing hurts like you would not believe still, so I have spent much of the last several days doing the breathing I learned in Lamaze class 22 years ago to keep from sneezing and to recover if I do.  Lamaze breathing was nearly useless for labor in my experience but has proved useful time and again for other weird life events.  People should take the class even if they aren't pregnant.  Of course, you would probably get weird looks and awkward questions...

So, three days later I'm not quite as itchy (still damned itchy, but less), I definitely feel tired, teary, dreary blue with a latent desire to just kill something.  Oh, if I felt better I might be dangerous!  Not really, in real life I'm mostly bark...some bite but not fatal, to date anyway.  No withdrawal symptoms my ass.  

Twitchy Like a Meth Addict

You know how you perceive yourself versus how others perceive you, or as I like to call it "real life"?  I had thought of myself as being fairly laid back, come what may and I think I was when I was 20. I'm a long ways from 20 anymore and somehow In real life I have become a type A crazy person.  I stress about everything and tend to have unreasonably high expectation for myself. Cheerful huh? This reality has made me sad and I don't know how to calm the hell down.  

So what has caused this mild case of melancholy?  I expect I will be released to go back to work in December.  I work long hours, usually weekends, holidays, and I'm just keeping up...sort of. I found that the only thing that keeps me from working on vacation is going overseas where my work intranet won't accept my location for whatever reason and my work cell phone doesn't work.  I'm not working now because, interestingly enough, when I was prompted to change my password and changed it from home I got locked out of the system.  You can only change it while on the network.  The computer help desk told me "tough, go in to work and change it" but I can't because I'm on short term disability and not allowed on property.  I mean, they don't want me to take a header while on property and then try to hold them liable.  I wouldn't of course, but it must have happened.  

I know I cannot keep up my previous work schedule in a months time.  I am feeling good but I am slow and I get tired pretty quickly.  I'm feeling anxious of what the unspoken expectations will be.  And I don't know that my crazy type A personality "no excuses, just results" won't kick in and cause me to over do everything.  I can't screw up my recovery because I'm being an idiot though, so this stresses me out.  Ironically, stress also impedes your ability to heal so, great. 

On to other topics.  I'm happily chugging along on my treadmill, I am walking about 1 mile per hour now (which is twice as fast I was walking just a week ago) and I'm walking at least an hour, usually longer.  I don't think speed matters as much as the action of walking so a mile an hour is fast enough!  I don't want to go flying off the back of the treadmill, it's against the stairs so I would fall 2 floors before I hit the ground.  Certainly not conductive to the healing process!  I also found I can't play video games and walk, I rest on the console to keep my balance and it throws my weight off which hurts my hip.  It was almost a good idea!  

I'm baking again, so that makes me happy. Hubby is the official put it into and take it out of the oven guy, a dream job for him no doubt. I wish there was someway to turn that into a buck because I have tons of homemade bread and baking products stuffed into the freezer.  What are we going to do with all of it?  

I'm feeling good but still pretty stiff in the mornings, rolling over at night can hurt so I have to be careful and the tendon in my weird numb leg shortens up quick so I always have to be cautious the first few steps when I get up because my heel doesn't want to touch the ground (bizarre right?).   I have some achy-ness during the day but nothing even Tylenol worthy.   I'm doing great and feel like I'm recovering.  

I'm contemplating getting a tattoo to cover up my back scar, although I probably won't I'm still looking at them.  Maybe a Skinny Puppy thing in honor of my old Goth past!  We'll see see how gnarly the scar turns out.  What a strange and unexpected journey this has been! 

Hamster wheels

I am planning on changing topics rapidly and without warning.  I'm in one of those moods.  Please proceed with caution as I will not be held liable for whiplash while reading.  

To begin, I have been waxing nostalgic.  Well, not quite as romantic as that, I've been trying to remember when my back issues that ultimately led to my current situation began this year.  It was one of those gradual things, I've had some intermittent back pain on and off just like every other human on the planet and gave it as much thought as that.  Things changed though this year in that it didn't go away.  I went to chiropractors, made a standing workstation, changed my office chair out for an excercise ball, became one of those people who stand along the wall during long meetings, did yoga (not well though, pain in my back and leg had made me so stiff I couldn't even touch my knees.  Really.) and perhaps the most difficult change from a vanity standpoint, I quit wearing my cute shoes with heels and exchanged them for flats, yuck. I would wander around saying "why does my back still hurt, oh my aching sciatica". I was having problems sleeping and (shhhh, this part is a secret) plied myself liberally with libations after work.  The constant pain also didn't help with my inherent bitchyness.  That is in no way an insult to myself, I fully embrace my sarcastic nature, I think I'm funny. I believe now that disc went bad way before it knocked me in the head.  When you don't listen to your body, sometimes it will up the ante "how do you like me now?" 

I got a treadmill yesterday, I feel like a hamster on a wheel but I think it will be helpful.  I've been trying to walk between 30 and 60 minutes a day but it snowed on the 5th. I don't trust my balance, I can't catch myself with the outside of my left foot or toes.  Turns out you use your entire foot to not fall over, interesting right?  Anyway, that makes snow and ice really scary even with a cane.  So, I can set the speed and I'm actually slower than I thought.  I walk about .5 miles an hour.  So to walk a mile would take 2 hours.  What is that?  My daughter has always said I walk faster than anyone, my husband has said walking with me is like a death march.  I think they walk too slow, really I would like to get there before I die.  Well, no longer.  I am slow as molasses in January (ha, I thought throwing in a folksy colloquialism would be fun).  We got the treadmill new, we checked for used ones but the closest were a 4 hour drive away.  We looked online, WalMart had some that we're marked down 94% but when I tried to order it, it said NO!  Today, I saw on the news they weren't going to honor any of those great prices anyway because it was a mistake.  So, we went to the store and just bought one.  We have a pretty big house for 2 people but we stuffed it into the sitting room because that's where we hang out the most.  I think I can play video games and walk on it.  If I break an ankle, I guess I was wrong.  

I feel better every day and I think that is cool.  I am still stiff, the muscles in my lower back are still a bit fussy but not bad considering they were sliced apart, rolling over when I sleep is still a little dicey but a satin bottom sheet and a satin nightshirt is slick enough to help.  Sometimes I am afraid I'm just going to slip off the bed but that hasn't happened yet.  I feel better now than I did 6 months ago, long before surgery was even a thought.  You can talk about the good old days all you want, give me modern medicine and broad spectrum antibiotics any day.  I can't even imagine what people did 200 years ago, but the average lifespan was about 37 back then so I would have been dead already and it wouldn't have been a problem.  

Out of warranty

Well, tomorrow is my 44th birthday.  Last year this time I was recovering from a broken wrist.  This year I'm recovering from this back surgery drama.  I think my warranty ran out.

I've been out walking about, an hour yesterday!  I nearly made it a mile in that time frame which makes me slightly faster than a snail.  Good news, my back is feeling great!  My hip though, man oh man!  I feel like I'm 144, oh my aching hip... Those darn loose tendons, a passed on family trait that I didn't even know was a potential problem.  You're welcome current and future generations of me! 

I am still using a cane to walk but the walker has been unused, I'm about ready to give it back to its rightful owner.  Before you jump to conclusions, I did not mug a grandma and steal her walker.  Mainly because I think a grandma could still take me down.  It's my neighbor's on a legitimate loan...unless they notice it missing before I can get it back into their garage.  

Amazingly I am down to one prescription pain pill and two nerve pain pills a day already.  I was sure that the bone pain would be unbearable, but turns out not so much.  My back hurts so little that I can focus on my hip, my stiff wrist, and the fact that my whole head is still bruised from whatever they did to me during surgery.  I think they must have hit me in the head with bricks and staplers.  I need to ask what was happening during my surgery, maybe the nurse saw a spider and tried to kill it with my skull. Oh, the mystery!  

It's less than three weeks since surgery, and the improvement is amazing.  Let's compare pre-surgery with post surgery.

Pre: I was on enough pain medication to choke a water buffalo.  Post: almost off all medication

Pre: I was unable to walk correctly, stand upright or lay flat.  Post: walking and standing fine and able to sleep in bed with residual surgical pain only.

Pre: Leg and foot numbness from nerve damage.  Post: Same, but no worse.  

All in all, pretty happy with things so far.  Fingers crossed!  Only another 5 months 1 week, give or take until I should have a fusion!  I will be careful and follow doctors orders and hope for a good recovery!

Yes, it's sunny but cold!! I'm wearing 1000 layers and got too hot though!